Australian Politics Forum

Amadd Gold Member Offline Mo Posts: 6217	Re: Paradigms Reply #30 - Feb 14^th, 2011 at 1:13pm Quote: Isn't that the genesis of all neuroses (Obsessive pain avoidance)? Without the threat of a smack on the wrist from God (ie: burning in hell for all eternity), how many Christians do you suppose would bother doing the right thing? It's lucky for them that the bible seems to have left open dozens of exploitable loopholes.
Back to top	IP Logged

Axle

Full Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 107

Re: Paradigms
Reply #31 - Feb 14^th, 2011 at 1:17pm

Quote:

Yeah, I don't agree with the postmodern deconstructionist's view. Generally, their view is that everything is a social construction. But this paradigm wipes out possible biological, genetic, or hereditary influences. The postmodernists try to sever thousands of years of evolutionary biology through cunning semantics. It's easy to expose the fallacy in their paradigm. A very simple example is babies crying as soon as they are born. The baby obviously wasn't taught to cry by "society", rather, it's obvious that we are born with certain instincts even before any socialisation occurs. This goes for other instincts as well, like sex, happiness, anger, and hunger.
There was an interesting fiasco a little while back called the Sokal affiar. Sokal exposed the lack of intellectual rigor in the postmodernist's view by writing a hoax article and then submitting it to one of their journals. Sokal, a physicist, wrote a parody claiming science is all a social construction. The postmodernists lapped it up. It showed that the postmodernists never actually engage in the scientific methodologies themselves, they believe they can just stand back and label it accordingly to their prejudiced beliefs

.

Q.What do you get when you cross a postmodernist with the mafia?

A. An offer you can't understand.

I don't think a postmodernist would ignore the biological side of humanity. What they do take exception to is biological reductivism. And I would agree with them there. We've had plenty of stories in the press identifying genes for this and that behaviour only to have them retracted later. The scientists involved recognise the complex interplay between genes and their environment. We also have a new field emerging in epigenetics which concerns the transmission of environmental effects in the genome via genetic switches.

I'm not sure that instinct should be used with respect to humans. When we look at instinctual behaviour I have in mind things like beavers' dam building, nesting and migratory behaviours of birds. Humans, on the contrary, have a great deal of flexibility in their behaviour. You might have in mind innate predispositions but these are very much shaped by parents, peers and society.

So, ok, postmodernist magazine fell over themselves with Sokal's hoax but such hoaxes aren't absent in the natural sciences either.

http://listverse.com/2008/04/09/top-10-scientific-frauds-and-hoaxes/

Back to top

« Last Edit: Feb 14^th, 2011 at 1:40pm by Axle »

IP Logged

Axle

Full Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 107

Re: Paradigms
Reply #32 - Feb 14^th, 2011 at 1:37pm

Quote:

So basically, the figure of "Jesus Christ" is just a raping of conceptually factual stories in an attempt to make him out to be a "real" person, when in fact he was never intended to be seen as "real". He is just an allegorical character placed in a story in order to explain factual events .. whatever name he is given

You're running with an opinion expressed in a movie. However, there are other opinions which confirm the existence of Jesus but state that he was mythologised after his death. And , then of course, there are most theologians who subscribe to his existence and diety.

Here from Wiki:

"The majority of scholars who study Early Christianity believe that the Gospels do contain some reliable information about Jesus,[7][8][9] agreeing that Jesus was a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Back to top

IP Logged

Amadd

Gold Member

Offline

Mo

Posts: 6217

Re: Paradigms
Reply #33 - Feb 14^th, 2011 at 5:13pm

Quote:

You're running with an opinion expressed in a movie. However, there are other opinions which confirm the existence of Jesus but state that he was mythologised after his death. And , then of course, there are most theologians who subscribe to his existence and diety.

Opinion without factual backing doesn't "confirm" anything.

I've seen it all, read it all. There is no reliable evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed.

The interesting thing is that the "belief" in Jesus Christ did seem to bring a about an entirely different paradigm to that which previously existed. For better or worse, who knows?

Back to top

IP Logged

Axle

Full Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 107

Re: Paradigms
Reply #34 - Feb 14^th, 2011 at 7:43pm

Amadd wrote on Feb 14^th, 2011 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

You're running with an opinion expressed in a movie. However, there are other opinions which confirm the existence of Jesus but state that he was mythologised after his death. And , then of course, there are most theologians who subscribe to his existence and diety.

Opinion without factual backing doesn't "confirm" anything.

I've seen it all, read it all. There is no reliable evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed.

The interesting thing is that the "belief" in Jesus Christ did seem to bring a about an entirely different paradigm to that which previously existed. For better or worse, who knows?

Opinion doesn't that's true but I assume the majority of Gospel scholars are agreeing on the basis of evidence.

However, that's a side issue for the purposes of this thread. This thread was born of another thread in which it was suggested that religion was a paradigm. The whole argument of paradigm was born in the debates in the history and philosophy of science. It referred to use of solved practical problems together with the theories, practices and instrumentation, as the authoritative basis for future research. Religion falls outside of this debate and if the term is applied to it or competing religions then it's only done so analogously.

I suppose you could say that for people religion solves the problem of how to conduct oneself through life and how to relate to your fellow man. Each relgion has its own practices- rituals and observances, and I suppose they have their own instrumentation- the crosses, idols, incense burners etc. And as to theories, I suppose they tell us what divinities there are and what roles they play. They also explain our fate in terms of rewards and punishments in relation to the things we do and think. All dovetailing into the overarching problem of our conduct.

Whether religions are successful with that problem, I suppose is the grist for debate. Maybe I've missed the mark or I'm partially correct and religions are out to solve other problems as well like social cohesion or maintaining the status quo.

Back to top

« Last Edit: Feb 14^th, 2011 at 8:08pm by Axle »

IP Logged

Postmodern Trendoid III

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 10259
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #35 - Feb 16^th, 2011 at 6:54pm

Axle wrote on Feb 14^th, 2011 at 1:17pm:

Quote:

Yeah, I don't agree with the postmodern deconstructionist's view. Generally, their view is that everything is a social construction. But this paradigm wipes out possible biological, genetic, or hereditary influences. The postmodernists try to sever thousands of years of evolutionary biology through cunning semantics. It's easy to expose the fallacy in their paradigm. A very simple example is babies crying as soon as they are born. The baby obviously wasn't taught to cry by "society", rather, it's obvious that we are born with certain instincts even before any socialisation occurs. This goes for other instincts as well, like sex, happiness, anger, and hunger.
There was an interesting fiasco a little while back called the Sokal affiar. Sokal exposed the lack of intellectual rigor in the postmodernist's view by writing a hoax article and then submitting it to one of their journals. Sokal, a physicist, wrote a parody claiming science is all a social construction. The postmodernists lapped it up. It showed that the postmodernists never actually engage in the scientific methodologies themselves, they believe they can just stand back and label it accordingly to their prejudiced beliefs

.

Q.What do you get when you cross a postmodernist with the mafia?

A. An offer you can't understand.

I don't think a postmodernist would ignore the biological side of humanity. What they do take exception to is biological reductivism. And I would agree with them there. We've had plenty of stories in the press identifying genes for this and that behaviour only to have them retracted later. The scientists involved recognise the complex interplay between genes and their environment. We also have a new field emerging in epigenetics which concerns the transmission of environmental effects in the genome via genetic switches.

I'm not sure that instinct should be used with respect to humans. When we look at instinctual behaviour I have in mind things like beavers' dam building, nesting and migratory behaviours of birds. Humans, on the contrary, have a great deal of flexibility in their behaviour. You might have in mind innate predispositions but these are very much shaped by parents, peers and society.

So, ok, postmodernist magazine fell over themselves with Sokal's hoax but such hoaxes aren't absent in the natural sciences either.

http://listverse.com/2008/04/09/top-10-scientific-frauds-and-hoaxes/

I am unaware of any of the poststructralists (postmodernists) who take into account any biological influence. I could be wrong. If you can name any I'll stand corrected.
Foucault and Derrida, two of the biggest names, steer clear of biology. For Foucault everything is discourses based on power, for Derrida everything is "style".
I just believe a better paradigm would take into account both social consctruction and biological influences.

My own hypothesis on the absence of biology in the social sciences today is because of what the Nazis did. Any hint today of biological determinism seems to be equated with carting people off to gas chambers. I think we ought to be more grown up than this.

Back to top

IP Logged

Postmodern Trendoid III

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 10259
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #36 - Feb 16^th, 2011 at 7:06pm

muso wrote on Feb 14^th, 2011 at 8:17am:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 13^th, 2011 at 12:54pm:

Quote:

Muso wrote
Humans like to have their "comfort blanket".

With this one sentence you've illuminated an all too human tendency. It would be an interesting experiement, presuming it is at all possible, to see how many people's Weltanschauung are constructed mainly from trying to numb pain, whether that be from their past or in order to avoid possible future pain, mental or physical.

I would immediately hypothesizes right now that the Abrahamic religions have grown, and are currently sustained, from severe mental anguish.

You probably hit the nail on the head around 50% of the time, but there are a few things missing from that paradigm. I'd add stability in life - in other words a feeling of belonging to the social structure that is packaged with the more traditional religions, and a need to conform or self identify with a particular group in society. As I said before, culture and religion are irrevocably intertwined.

Mainstream religion is more comfortable about tackling the more human aspects of our existence such as social belonging/ cohesion etc. Science leaves us cold in that respect.

In some cases it comes from a genuine desire to question the nature of our existence. I think that that's the seed that Abrahamic religions initially came from. The hardships of life and the disruption that came about with the first phases of synoecism (early tendencies towards urbanisation), are probably what perpetuated it.

I am not sure what your position is, you state two things here, 1. that religion emerges from wanting to belong to a group, 2. that it emerges from questioning our existence.
Not that the two are incompatible.
I still think wanting to belong to a group does emerge from some kind of mental pain - isolation, anxiety, angst. This is probably developed very early in childhood from the dependency of the child upon its parents.
Questioning the nature of our existence can also be prompted by mental pain of some description.
Not that we can probably ever do away with developing our worldview based on pain avoidance. It's just fascinating to see how some people really try and cover it over with unbelievable fairy tales.

Back to top

IP Logged

perceptions_now

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 11694
Perth WA
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #37 - Feb 16^th, 2011 at 7:32pm

muso wrote on Feb 12^th, 2011 at 6:46am:

It's fashionable to beat up Christianity and Islam these days. I guess the two religions deserve it in a way by being so exclusive.

If you want people to have totally "rational" beliefs, I think you're collectively deluded. It's just a fundamental thing about being human. Humans like to have their "comfort blanket". Apart from that, we all think in what I'd term idiomatic thought patterns. Our highly idiomatic speech patterns reflect an underlying idiomatic mind pattern.

Even if we pushed these religions out the door, another mental idiom would spring up in their place.

Think of the most serious scientific researchers imaginable - those paragons of rational thought. I worked in a research lab many moons ago. A lay person might think that these people would be somehow very rational and logical. That's very far from the truth. We'll never lose our humanity. One research paper I was assisting with concerned certain long chain carboxylic acids and enzymes and their role in the breakdown of certain pharmaceutic grade products. We were using liquid chromatography to determine a way of separating them and working out the relative proportions of each. Instead of using the technical terms, within our group, the prof used the names Archie (arachidonic acid) Lucy (Linoleic acid) and Charlie Brown (stuffed if I can remember that one). Incidentally the related arachidic acid is found in peanut oil.

We all have a need to think illogically at times. We have a sense of humour. Many of us cling to religions too. It's all a part of being human.

Everything that has ever and will ever happen, is pre-determined, is part of the great plan and therefore choice and freedom of thought, are just an illusion.

There is no god, chaos is the only universal rule and our choices will determine the future of humanity.

Which is more difficult to believe?
Which is more unpalatable?
===============
What converts the illogogical, to the logical?

Information, which was not originally known.

Back to top

« Last Edit: Feb 18^th, 2011 at 11:18am by perceptions_now »

IP Logged

Amadd

Gold Member

Offline

Mo

Posts: 6217

Re: Paradigms
Reply #38 - Feb 18^th, 2011 at 3:21am

Quote:

Opinion doesn't that's true but I assume the majority of Gospel scholars are agreeing on the basis of evidence.

You know what they say about the word "assume"?
It doesn't take too much research to realise that we have no facts pertaining to the existence of one "Jesus Christ".

Quote:

Q: What converts the illogical, to the logical?

A: Information which was previously unknown

Hope you don't mind me changing that quote a little perceptions, the meaning hasn't changed I hope.

"Economic growth cannot continue infinitely within a finite world" seems a logical statement to me, however, with the existence of God, physics can be transcended.
Let's all chant together "We can transcend physics". It may just work.......not!i

Back to top

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #39 - Feb 18^th, 2011 at 9:33am

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 16^th, 2011 at 7:06pm:

I am not sure what your position is, you state two things here, 1. that religion emerges from wanting to belong to a group, 2. that it emerges from questioning our existence.
Not that the two are incompatible.
I still think wanting to belong to a group does emerge from some kind of mental pain - isolation, anxiety, angst. This is probably developed very early in childhood from the dependency of the child upon its parents.
Questioning the nature of our existence can also be prompted by mental pain of some description.
Not that we can probably ever do away with developing our worldview based on pain avoidance. It's just fascinating to see how some people really try and cover it over with unbelievable fairy tales.

I just think that it's a gross simplification to throw all social and altruistic behaviour into the basket of pain avoidance.

OK, maybe it's some kind of philosophical paradigm, but as far as I'm concerned, pain avoidance is a kind of conditioned response to pain. I'd like to think that rational thought trumps pain avoidance in most cases. I used to avoid going to the dentist when I was younger because of pain avoidance. I now make the rational decision to go to the dentist because I know that it will avoid all kinds of complications in the future. (not just pain/ angst).

I tend to do things because they interest and amuse me - not because of pain avoidance. I don't find pain avoidance to be a useful paradigm. In fact it's a very negative paradigm. Er - what's the polite philosophical term for bullshit?

I think people explore religions for various reasons. In extreme cases it's certainly through a desire to survive with all limbs intact and produce a family. In other cases it's through a natural curiousity, or because the food is good (especially Hindu), or in some cases because a friend or potential sex partner belongs to that group.

We take actions on the basis of our life experiences. I'm not a religious person in the normal sense of the word. You could describe me as as a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist or an Atheist depending on the context, and I wouldn't object although I don't self identify with any of these. Religion is much more of a cultural interest for me. Freedom of religion is probably more important to me than religion itself.

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged

Amadd

Gold Member

Offline

Mo

Posts: 6217

Re: Paradigms
Reply #40 - Feb 19^th, 2011 at 10:36am

..and as if my previous post required quantifying, which it didn't, here's a statement taken from one of PN's article posts:

Quote:

The very same week, Minnesota Republican lawmaker Mike Beard insists that we should burn fossil fuels freely, because God will provide infinite natural resources, forever.

and more..

Quote:

But one man who’s not buying it is Republican Minnesota state rep Mike Beard. “We are not going to run out of anything,” Beard recently said, arguing to resume coal mining in Minnesota. “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable.”

...Rep. Mike Beard told MinnPost “It is the height of hubris to think we could [destroy the earth].”

It's all well and good to have a personal belief in some magical entity, but not if they become a danger to anybody else.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1276908003/230#230

Back to top

IP Logged

Lisa Jones Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 39047 Sydney Gender:	Re: Paradigms Reply #41 - Feb 19^th, 2011 at 10:45am What I find amazing is that nothing this person has stated is Biblical based/supported.
Back to top	If I let myself be bought then I am no longer free. HYPATIA - Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer (370 - 415) IP Logged

Postmodern Trendoid III

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 10259
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #42 - Feb 19^th, 2011 at 4:58pm

muso wrote on Feb 18^th, 2011 at 9:33am:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 16^th, 2011 at 7:06pm:

I am not sure what your position is, you state two things here, 1. that religion emerges from wanting to belong to a group, 2. that it emerges from questioning our existence.
Not that the two are incompatible.
I still think wanting to belong to a group does emerge from some kind of mental pain - isolation, anxiety, angst. This is probably developed very early in childhood from the dependency of the child upon its parents.
Questioning the nature of our existence can also be prompted by mental pain of some description.
Not that we can probably ever do away with developing our worldview based on pain avoidance. It's just fascinating to see how some people really try and cover it over with unbelievable fairy tales.

I just think that it's a gross simplification to throw all social and altruistic behaviour into the basket of pain avoidance.

OK, maybe it's some kind of philosophical paradigm, but as far as I'm concerned, pain avoidance is a kind of conditioned response to pain. I'd like to think that rational thought trumps pain avoidance in most cases. I used to avoid going to the dentist when I was younger because of pain avoidance. I now make the rational decision to go to the dentist because I know that it will avoid all kinds of complications in the future. (not just pain/ angst).

My original experiement wanted to look at how far people construct their worldviews from pain avoidance, not that they were totally constructed out of them.
There is a reasonable point there in regards to the dentist where pain is unavoidable.

Quote:

Muso wrote
I tend to do things because they interest and amuse me - not because of pain avoidance. I don't find pain avoidance to be a useful paradigm. In fact it's a very negative paradigm. Er - what's the polite philosophical term for bullshit?

One could construe "interest" and "amuse" as something to ward off boredom or some kind of angst. There's always a moving away from something when moving toward something.

Much of the populace, especially the younger generation, live a hedonistic lifestlye. Hedonism is the maximization of pleasure and the limiting of pain. There's some interesting food for thought there.

Quote:

Muso wrote
I think people explore religions for various reasons. In extreme cases it's certainly through a desire to survive with all limbs intact and produce a family. In other cases it's through a natural curiousity, or because the food is good (especially Hindu), or in some cases because a friend or potential sex partner belongs to that group.

They aren't the proper reasons for joining a religion. If people join it for food or sex then the message of the religion itself is unimportant to them.
Buddhism has pain cessation at its root. I have a lot of respect for Buddhism because of the pragmatic view it takes on dealing with pain, whereas Christianity and Islam seem to think if we just accept God or one of their prophets all will be good. That's silly.

Back to top

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: Paradigms
Reply #43 - Feb 19^th, 2011 at 8:25pm

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 19^th, 2011 at 4:58pm:

They aren't the proper reasons for joining a religion. If people join it for food or sex then the message of the religion itself is unimportant to them.

What are the proper reasons for joining a religion? Please tell me so that I can avoid them. While you're at it, tell me the proper reasons for living. I think I'd like to avoid those too.

Quote:

Buddhism has pain cessation at its root. I have a lot of respect for Buddhism because of the pragmatic view it takes on dealing with pain, whereas Christianity and Islam seem to think if we just accept God or one of their prophets all will be good. That's silly.

I have a great deal of respect for Buddhism for the same reasons - except that suffering within society and individual pain are very different things. Buddhism has its own unique way of coming to terms with minimising suffering.

In fact that brings us to the question of society versus the individual. Traditional Chinese religions such as Taoism and Confucianism provide a balance for this particular paradigm. They are in no way similar to Buddhism, except through Western eyes. They fit together really well. They are often described as the Ying Yang or FengShui of Chinese religion, and many older generation Chinese people subscribe to both for that reason.

Confucianism comes from the tradition of harmony within society, whereas Daoism is more about the individual way within the universe that encourages going with the natural flow of things.

It's a kind of maximum efficiency approach to life. To illustrate this:

What is the best way to get a container of muddy water to become clear?

- Do nothing. Let the container sit and the dirt and mud will eventually settle to the bottom and the water will be clear.”

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged

Axle

Full Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 107

Re: Paradigms
Reply #44 - Feb 19^th, 2011 at 8:30pm

Quote:

My own hypothesis on the absence of biology in the social sciences today is because of what the Nazis did. Any hint today of biological determinism seems to be equated with carting people off to gas chambers. I think we ought to be more grown up than this.

There are the ethologisits, sociobiologists, and evolutionary psychologists. It's really a question of where the emphasis lies, seeing that human beings are also open to the influence of experience through learning. Some scientists place the emphasis on biology others place the emphasis on learning from experience.

Postmodernism is a philosophy of relativism and critique. By its very nature it can't reject anything nor accept anything Grin

Back to top

IP Logged