Yes.
There is a quote supposedly said by Lenin: ‘Study, study and study.’
There is a proverb saying that the good priest studies till death.
(That is generally translated to “We live and learn”)
This shows that just like science; religion and religious leaders have to adopt to the world ever evolving. There is always a new question and in order to be able mentoring (morally) a community a pastor should keep his knowledge expanding.
From a christian perspective (as the proverb is mainly used by them):
Once all the possible knowledge is gained with having a physical body the soul is ready to merge into the infinite wisdom of God. (omniscience)
You might be right interpreting it as an approximation of God.
The necessity of constantly bettering the self is not exactly a modern invention.
Even the Epic of Gilgamesh is based on character development via an epical journey where the hero gains new knowledge by being constantly challenged.
In judaism “learning” starts from a very young age. It is embedded in the culture so deeply that one’s knowledge is the direct indicator of the position they occupy in their religious hierarchy. In fact wealth is just a secondary consequence of knowledge.
Therefore it is fair to say: Knowledge is power.
In judaism formulating a question is a very serious thing:
The questions one asks shows the current limits of one’s knowledge.
The function of enquiring is to pass the gap between the known and yet unknown.
You show what you don’t know by phrasing your questions.
You are not hars, just incorrect.
I barely (! if) ever have my own opinion. Also I am comfortable to acknowledge not knowing enough. Read back my comments. I did that a few times.
I would argue that religion has a property that science lacks: It is capable and fully entitled to show the ‘ideal’. Science can pave the path of learning but you need faith to mark the destination. You need to believe there is a better place to get you moving.
I’d also argue that a person needs an etalon, a p̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ sample to compare to.
I acknowledge that forcing towards perfection causes anxiety and achieves the opposite of the desired effect.
The characters in ancient Greek and Roman mythology let people to associate their selves with a more human-like figure. The Marvel universe created similar heroes. Real (I mean surely exaturated, but quasi-real) personalities spiced up with super skills.
Transhumanism plays on a very-very similar accord.
...I don't reflect on the other points as emotions are not to be argued.
Okay… think I’m too tired to really answer this stuff, but I’ll just pick some points here…
It’s one thing to say that a human being has to keep on learning and studying for a lifetime, that’s such a general saying that everyone on earth will agree to…
It’s a different thing to claim that one of my statements “lacks logical coherence” (though you still didn’t tell me why, and didn’t reference a bit to what I wrote) and tell me “study more!”. I’m sure you’ll see the difference.
Don’t care if it’s your personal opinion or not, but you are making absolute statements quite often - in the above example, things like “keeping our belief system to ourselves […] will lead to tribalism”. Not the least bit of explanation why this inevitably has to happen. Just your opinion (or whatever you call that), in an absolute statement. That’s why I pretty often start my statements with things like “I think…” or “maybe…” - simply because it’s hypothetical and not possible to absolutely know something like that.
If that’s what religion is for, it has failed quite a lot, don’t you think? War in the name of god, original sin, child abuse, and the list goes on and on. And even in (more) peaceful religions, there are often dogmas that go against the very nature of the human being. I think the “ideal” you speak of should be provided by philosophy, not religion. It’s equally able to provide such an ideal, but usually far less fanatic.
Funny enough, you mainly reflected on the two point where I was emotional - like, a bit pissed.
You did not reflect on why my original statement was “missing logical coherence”.
You did not reflect on why you think “privacy of religion” will inevitably lead to tribalism.
You did not reflect on why maybe the personal opinion about religion is more important than one of the tons of available definitions.
Okay, source for that statement was McLuhan , Marshall . Understanding Media : The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.
How does fighting fundamentalists without religion more effective then knowing their point and their faith… but let’s examine your other interpretation:
Great. I would argue, based on reading Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, that you don’t understand your enemy (what you fight against enough) if you never (even briefly) just come to the conclusion that they might be right.
So if you have never thought about the MOB you haven’t thought about it enough.
So we fight religion with another church??
Unfold please
Read the bible, went to a catholic school - believe me, I know especially christianity well enough to say I “know” my “enemy”. And I learned a lot about other religions as well, be it through personal study or because I met people who were members of those religions.
Yeah, that was the whole point of this thread? Creating the “church of transhumanism”, to gain equal rights like other “bigger” religions. I boiled it down to that statement…
But still - it’s an opinion, isn’t it? Nobody ever really tried out the concept of just keep faith and religion in private, because nobody really does it - so you can’t make more than an educated guess on what might happen if we finally get to that point. And it might have been true in the past, when religion was much more important for shaping an identity, but maybe this no longer applies to human beings in more “modern” countries, where religion is becoming ever less important. I think it is no longer needed to unite people, so the loss of it will no longer lead to tribalisation or similar effects. That is my opinion, nothing more, just an educated guess from my point of view.
Yeah, but there are great alternatives to religion, and not so many working ones to democracy.
Sure it is one opinion. If we don’t believe in objective truth (that’s fair enough) perhaps this is the closest we can get to it. Maybe being translated to a few languages, still being often cited and thought about 60+ years is an opinion that matters at least.
I think it’s quite the opposite.
Taking the premises that:
as humans, we have a tendency to surround social constructs with normalization and rigid definitions/rulesets
religious dogma implies normalisation and rigid rules and definitions
tribe is a group of individuals sharing a common set of social constructs and by derivation also definitions and rules
when 2 groups of people who share the same set of social constructs disagree on a fundamental aspect of such derived norms and rules, they split into 2 or more smaller groups, or tribes. (that’s how urban tribes come to existence, for example)
Then I would say that any attempt at sharing religion with a larger audience than a tiny group (most likely comprised of 1 individual) will eventually lead to further division and the creation of many more smaller groups.
And when those groups split, our natural social defensive behaviour will tend to crystallize those rules even further.
Thus leading to proper tribalism.
Agreed.
Exactly why I say that a religious approach would not be helpful.
Given that the only thing that the vast majority of religious institutions actually agree on is that:
“if you question our commandments you will suffer somehow”
…then I honest don’t believe you can.
As a very religious person I can say that one individual, or maybe even a group of - formidable - people can in fact be religious and still be free to explore and study.
But a religious institution would never be able to truly grant you such freedom whilst still maintaining it’s own creed.
We can look back in history for this one, if you want.
Look at cultures where religious institution was closer to youe “library” concept. A very good example are the vkings.
Despite what many believe, the Viking culture was centuries ahead of it’s time in those aspecs, such as having divorce, woman’s rights, freedom to question religion, etc…
At the same time this behaviour made so that they were the hardest culture to be properly converted into christianity… to the point that more than half of christian traditions had to be adapted to fit their customs in order to subvert them (where do you think that Xmas, Easter, etc… as we know, come from?)
But it also made it so that with time passing their religion might still survive, but the religious institution was lost. Exactly for allowing such freedom.
Sorry, but I can’t take that one.
If we are to attempt to reduce consciousness to a single organ, we just can’t mash 2 organs into one just to fit our theories.
But this is an interesting point you 2 opened up…
The way I see it, and I believe most of modern science backs me up here, is that the brain can be compared pretty well to a big computer.
That said, let’s play a bit with that concept!
If the brain is a computer, what is conscience? the computer in itself? the OS? a software running inside it? a software running somewhere remote but kicking in all the right buttons of this computer?
Or… let’s keep it less theoretical.
If conscience has to do with how we feel/perceive/are aware of… ourselves… Then if conscience would be contained in a single part of us, then removing another part should not affect our conscience.
As in… if I remove your fridge from your house, would that affect your conscience? but what if I remove your left foot?
Arguably, even some individuals would feel their conscience affected if I took their wallet from them. (That was a non ficticious example. had a schizofrenic patient I dealt with while in uni which I’m thinking of for this example)
Honestly… if we achieve that here, I am sure you’ll get a nobel prize of peace!
If you get 10 people and ask them:
then you will have at least 11 different definitions.
The more you try to define religion the harder it will be for a group of free-thinking individuals to agree on it.
Ironically, depend on which god… yes, you do have to. because failing to convert others is a failure in the eyes of said god, which leads to the eternal damnation of your immortal soul.
(not joking, that thought is present in a shitload of religions.)
Pretty much!
That is only true from the point of view of a scientifically oriented individual.
I do agree with you there, and I do agree with that statement.
But if you ask someone else, they might tell you exactly the opposite.
I had a Rabbi friend who used to say something like: “Scientists and political leaders should respect more the traditions instead of keep trying to ‘evolve’ the world”.
Another priest I used to chat at my uni time would not only also repeat that, but add that “attempting to make the world evolve through our science and actions is a futile exercise of our own pride. World should only be made to evolve by acts of god”.
I disagree with them, personally, but I cannot take your statement (which I agree with) as an universal truth.
I could even say that religious leaders who act like you are saying are far wiser! but someone else might think it’s the exact opposite: they are just corrupted or deluded.
I think I do agree with the overarching theme of this point… but I must also note that for far too many religious people it has the exact opposite effect.
In places like where I grew up most people don’t do things aiming to reach heaven. They do things to avoid going to hell.
This posture makes most people reactive instead of proactive. which reaches the opposite of what you are arguing in favour.
Here I disagree completely.
It is perfectly possible for an individual to achieve enlightenment without having anyone he compares himself to.
Not only you have perfectly good examples of functional egotistical sociopaths who honestly believe there is no one better than themselves to compare to. And yet they grow and evolve so much that they make it possible to be functional and productive in our society despite being sociopaths!
My views on Transhumanism are way more focused on looking inside myself and pushing my own buttons to see what I can improve!
It is a journey much closer to my body-mod views than to my religious views.
I’d mainly throw philosophy into the field again. Using your brain to search for solutions, but without the need of any “higher being” or fanatics. Mostly, at least.
It is. But it’s still fair to question if the facts are still up to date - and even if a book is well-spread and often cited, I don’t have to agree to it. I don’t agree to the bible, and I can show you some big-ass standard books about dog behaviour and training, well-spread, often-cited and - because science has evolved - just plain wrong from today’s point of view.
And though I didn’t read the book you cite, maybe you can explain to me what kind of scientific experiments the writer made to come to his conclusion? Because I still just don’t get what gap in modern societies religion can fill, that philosophy can’t fill in the same way. Like I said, minus the fanatics.
And @Eyeux (just because I am simply on my way to bed and can’t properly reply…) - Thanks a lot for explaining what I meant, especially considering the tribalism-topic, in much better words.
I’ll go even further… I had to take out some of my piercings recently, especially one I am wearing for 20 years now, and I felt… “less me”. I think consciousness extends to all of your body, and maybe even beyond, and taking something away is leaving a “wound” or a feeling of loss. It might heal, of course (some things faster, some slower), but it is a loss.
“something matters” is an incomplete statement, devoid of meaning.
“something matters to someone” is a complete statement.
I won’t quote names (not only to avoid offending people, but also because there are far too many which would fit the bill perfectly), but there is a certain book which was translated into a metric cuntload of languages, and is still being quoted, thought of and even taught about, over 1000 years after the author died(?)…
Yet, for me, the opinions contained there matter as much as a bag of . (see? offend with emojis and everyone gets happy!)
Maybe the fact that so many people still follow that, matters to me
Maybe the fact that so many wars come out of that, in my opinion, matters to me.
But whatever is being said there… just doesn’t matter at all.
On the other hand, there was a sentence I heard for the first time this morning, spoken by someone who only speaks english… and holy fuck, that sentence was brilliant and matters worlds to me!!
Well… I was just explaining what I meant…
Yet, as usual, we end up on the exact same wavelength!!
so… “you’re welcome!”?
Very good point!!
I also do feel way “less me” when I have short hair. Or when I can’t find one specific bracelet I have.
And way too many people do have a genuine crisis if they realise they are outside without their phones!!
Conscience is a tricky bugger to define!!
ps: Istill got to learn that black unicorn gif magic!!
I have to use the Kathy Newman method, because there is a lot to unfold.
•You reflected on religion as power structure.
Not good approach we agree on it.
•Converting people - sharing the “truth”
Depends how true it is. You publish scientific papers as well. Dogmas are fishy, we agree on that point.
•Rabbi friend… loved the example!
Expending knowledge linearry vs horizontally. I kind of meant the many aspect theory, reflecting on that truth is like a singularity, we can approach it from many directions, but can not reach it. Yet again, we agree on that point as well.
I’d view philosophy as an element of religion, rather then substitute for it.
Thus I suggested defining religion.
There are shit books out there
You didn’t read the book I cited
Just because there are shit books out there that doesn’t make my book shit.
I would accept your disagreement if I knew you knew what you were disagreeing with.
Stay tuned I'll write my 200 words to complete my challenge. :nerd_face:
Good point!
Although… We do not publish scientific papers as “truth”. We publish them as “findings”.
I can’t compare “sharing the word of the lord” (or “sharing my opinion with everyone because I know the true truth”) with publishing a scientific paper.
but yeah. you reduced it very well to the essence of that point:
I do like that point!!
Although that just strengthens my views that attempting to share a common phylosofical interest (Transhumanism) as a belief system through a social construct (i.e. seriously attempting to create a Transhumanist Church) will either:
be a moot attempt (i.e. not getting even close to being a church… so what’s the point?)
be dependent on establishing “truths” to base itself upon. Hence becoming vulnerable to all the aforementioned issues.
I do agree that Philosophy is not a substitute for religion.
I disagree that they are directly connected either.
The way I see…
Philosophy is a dessert.
Religion is an Entree.
You can have a meal (life) with one. or the other. or both!
Some would say that you need both to have a complete meal.
Some could say that deserts are a bad thing, unhealthy, etc…
Some could say that an Entree would spoil a good meal…
you can extend this metaphor in so many ways…
Definitely agree with you.
Was about to do another shout out to Pilgri’s magical thread transmogrifying powers…
But still not sure where to slice the scalpel…
I mean… there is a huge debate here which is quite interesting, complete on itself, and still somewhat connected to Transhumanism. so ti should have it’s own space in the forum, imho.
But a chunk of it is still very connected to the original purpose of this thread…
So in the spirit of this thread, I’ll leave this one “to higher powers” <insert drumroll here, please>
I posted in the thread about how the Church and Transhumanism is designed to abuse religious tolerance laws. I quietly stepped out when it turned into a giant tl;dr theological and philosophical derail.
Was that about religion as infrastructure or preaching as advertising the faith?
I meant that not including religion as institution into a society will preserve or induce tribalism. We mainly hear about news that are soaked in blood, but here are examples about religion bringing peace.
See Europe around 1000AC with the spread of christianity and Africa about the same time, where Islam brings unity. I analyse it from a consequential perspective this time.
A belief system should be (and often is) a great umbrella to stand under.
The religion rapidly spread in both regions.
And not necessarily because they loved the books…
People simply wanted to belong to the winners.
That’s why often fundamentalists abusing power in the name of the Prophet and God.
Shit can get corrupted: when every vote matters, cater-for-all attitude.
According to Lama Ole Nydahl: Multi-culty only works if there is a common goal.
People need something common to feel connection, whatever it is, to be in peace:
Jan-Erik Olasson said, after attempting a bank robbery and keeping 4 people as hostage:
“They made us go on living together day after day, like goats, in that filth. There was nothing to do but get to know each other”
I draw parallel between Islam and Christianity (Faith: you can give it up!) and the precedent that sourced to the term later been referred to as Stockholm Syndrom, because they describe a situation with little chance to escape.
Preaching?
Atilla feels second hand shame when seeing people on the street with mic and leaflets.
Also he prefers the jewish method: Treat your faith as treasure, and remember the 4th Commandment.
Also, from now on I will do the “con” side for a while. I want to know why is a church a silly idea.
. (see? offend with emojis and everyone gets happy!) 
