Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
|
|
for educated roman catholics, evolution and belief have never been at odds, thanks to the thinking of pierre teilhard de chardin, whom i reference rather habitually here, but who seems to stay off the mental radar for anyone raised protestant. i don't think ken is catholic, else he'd be referencing teilhard as well, rather than that charlatan JP2, the "w" of the catholic church.
um, getting back to the important aspects of egyptology, the case for, shall we call it, deeply ancient civilization was bolstered a few years ago when a geologist named robert schoch proved rather conclusively--at least to fellow geologists--that the sphinx at giza has been water-eroded bigtime. like back to the last ice age. needless to say, it was very upsetting to the egyptological community, such as it is, and its archaeo-anthropo-historio brethren.
something called the motorboat phenomenon occurs in such circumstances. at annual society confabs, the disturbing paper always gets on the agenda, you can count on that. it'll be the only interesting thing there. then, as from so many old evinrudes badly in need of overhaul, a great "but, but, but, but ..." arises. afterwards, back at their universities, they knuckle down to damning the upstart heresy and building puffy alliances with their fellow orthodox. if you think this resembles the evolution of religion, you're becoming less ignorant.
how many people think werner is a sourpuss himself? i can't decide.
|
|
Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
|
|
whatsamatter, riley, don't like war? generates lots of business for nurses.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
re: "faith", different species of "faith"
Overheard last night:
"Life rewards faith, hard work and honesty."
This particular use of "faith" wasn't said in any religious context, it certainly wasn't meant as any blind faith, any blind religious faith. It was meant in regard to trust or in regard to confidence.
But this is not to say that faith or trust itself can't be a tricky concept or thing. My niece was way too trusting at one point last year; she suffered the consequences. Today I think her trust (or faith) is not so easily given and of much higher quality.
The blind trust (or blind faith) that Christianity or Islam specializes in, and foists on its adherents, is of the worst case sort.
|
|
rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
|
|
Evolution vs. creationism doesn't bother me that much...it's the lunatics that interpret the bible literally and reproduce like rabbits while feeling smug and chummy about stripping the planet of it's natural resources...then to make matters worse , these folks vote against anything with common sense such as higher gas mileage , solar energy , avoiding global conflicts....The lunatics have a hand on the steering wheel and are driving the bus off the cliff ...This is a close description of ignorance i think...?
|
|
MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
|
|
MikeL, I think you may have misread the Boroughs & Rindfleisch paper? I just flew through it... might have missed it... but it appears to be about material possessions and I don't think it mentions intelligence at all.
Exactly right, mechanist. My thought was invisible and implicit in the reference. My screw-up. Here is my thought: It seems to me that modern materialism is driven by higher levels of education, technology, and science. People have more access to materials (products, services, ego building "things") through modern materialism--all of which come about through what / how people think what intelligence is or how it is talked about. Verstehen Sie? Materialism seems very highly correlated to "intelligence" as it is typically talked about.
NO slander intended (really, guys!), but people like Ed, HFCS, MH2, Base, Survival, Norton, Dr. F., Bruce Kay, and most others here on ST seem to think that content (stuff, scientific facts, concepts) are the signs or artifacts of intelligence. That is how I read their posts. Intelligence generates "things that we know." Intelligence is, here in this form, discursive thinking (with a bow to Largo wherever he is), analytical thought, concepts, models, and abstractions.
But that's not how people have always thought about intelligence. There are also notions of wisdom, reason (not analytical thinking), and the importance of values. The contemplative sciences (including branches of mysticism), socratic greek thought (reason unencumbered by instinct or the passions), and even early postmodernists (Nietzsche) pointed to problems created by rationalism. For example, Nietzsche's idea of "the last man" (a man incapable of frustration) is a negative result of the Enlightenment's elevation of rationalism and egalitarianism (see also de Toqueville) over culture, aesthetics, and the passions. Nietzsche was most concerned with the poetic imagination of humanity: relying upon only science, man is groundless because science cannot provide the capacity to value. The use of God, Nature, and history have been exhausted in the modern state. As a result, Man is disenchanted, uprooted, and nihilistic. What's now needed, claimed Nietzsche, is the Ubermench, a being of moral superiority who creates values, cultures--not truths. What matters most to humanity is ever-increasing self-fulfillment into totally new levels of existence that Man can't readily see . . . least of all with science alone.
All decisions rely upon sets of values ordered into hierarchies: what's good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate? Science, analyses, models, and abstractions (tools) cannot establish those. Values come from cultures, communities, aesthetics, and imaginations--none of which are amenable, in the slightest, to analyses.
I deal with this kind of thing with organizations. The very determination of industry, mission, and corporate values only come from the heart or creative imagination. I have yet to see a single decision that anyone makes that does NOT rely upon values.
Does, would intelligence include values? It must. Indeed, science and democracy themselves are value systems; they are visions of worlds. What is rational is entombed or wrapped up in non-rational determinations. (People seem to overlook the arrangement.)
That very recognition, however, opens the door to discussions about what is good, bad, etc. Again, the content and approach of science and rationalism cannot help to guide us. What are we left with? We are left with creative imagination, which includes religion, mysticism, culturalisms, nationalism, nihilism, sophism, egoism, and means of direct apprehension.
|
|
yedi
Trad climber
Stanwood,wa
|
|
"Live and let live" one of the simplest yet most difficult concepts to apply to living.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
Did you mean comprehension?
(although apprehension works)
|
|
mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
|
|
Here is my thought: It seems to me that modern materialism is driven by higher levels of education, technology, and science.
That's interesting because my consumption of material goods, especially petroleum based goods, has decreased dramatically as my level of education has increased.
People have more access to materials (products, services, ego building "things") through modern materialism--all of which come about through what / how people think what intelligence is or how it is talked about. Verstehen Sie? Materialism seems very highly correlated to "intelligence" as it is typically talked about.
I believe it to be more correlated with democracy and capitalism than intelligence. Easy access to more material goods by more people equals more consumption... which of course means more resource utilization, degradation, and destruction. Personally, I think education is the only way to turn that around.
Values come from cultures, communities, aesthetics, and imaginations--none of which are amenable, in the slightest, to analyses.
I'm not sure I agree. In Ecology there is much value placed on biodiversity and species richness within an ecosystem. There are different measures of biodiversity which require analysis to determine. The value has been determined by observations of ecosystem resilience, ecosystem services, and species interactions. There is nothing cultural about that, other than our lives/culture depends on functioning ecosystems. Without analysis those observations could not have been made. Without analysis, Ron's assertion that warm water invasive fish are not spreading through Lake Tahoe and out competing native fishes would have just as much validity as any other assertion. But with analysis we can see the impacts before the native fish populations are decimated and aim to reduce the impacts.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
It seems to me that modern materialism is driven by higher levels of education, technology, and science.
No
Modern materialism is driven purely by the false assumption that we are the material body which covers the real spiritual body of which the individual soul is the real person.
Everything in materialism is aimed to satisfy that material body.
Human material consciousness spends it's entire time only trying to mitigate pain.
The gross physical material body is the source of all misery .......
|
|
mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
|
|
Modern Braunyism is driven purely by the false assumption that the material body and the spiritual body are separate entities.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Thus you believe you are the coat you are wearing.
There's no separate entities.
Just coat (gross physical body) and the individual within the body ......
|
|
Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
|
|
The evolution-creationism debate has no relevance.
Below... is the dispute germane to the future of civilization.
(... hope the video is posted on Summitmushroom.com)
:-)
(Praise to Peter Haan's genius.)
|
|
survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
|
|
You should become childlike too instead of an old worn out sourpuss that you've become ......
That's the bomb!
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
Tony B, I was raised Catholic (one of 11 children) and my dad was a big admirer of Teilhard de Chardin. I read a book or two, although it's been awhile. As I recall, in his attempt to reconcile the notion of the soul with evolution, he postulated that at some point the soul came about (I recall something along the lines of a tranformation like from water to steam) in humans. I've remembered the gist of that argument after all of these years. Now the current understanding of early hominids is there were up to severl different species living at around the same time, and all but homo sapiens have gone extinct. My question to Mr. de Chardin would be did souls exist in those hominids that died out? Maybe something just a little less than a soul? Seems pretty arbitrary that God would at some point pick a winner and imbue it with a soul.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
Ed's graphic says pretty clearly that Homo Sapiens was very different from the former specie.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
There's evidence from mitocondrial DNA that Homo Sapiens went thru a near extinction event 50-100k years ago that reduced the total population / gene pool to probably down around 10,000 individuals.
We came really close to not making it as well.
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
Still awaiting a response from the esteemed Mr. Bird.
|
|
Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
|
|
if teilhard fretted about souls, he didn't let it detract from a much bigger picture. he took scientific concepts and worked them into an analysis of creation, biological evolution and human history, introducing a number of terms which we still use and which have garnered respect from atheists who take the trouble to get familiar with him.
teilhard's vision involved a number of geneses: cosmogenesis, biogenesis, noogenesis, christogenesis. evolution, he noted, thrives on tension. he envisioned a finale to it, which he named point omega.
teilhard died in the mid 50s, but a lot of people still subscribe to his vision. i don't, but the world i've gotten to know still involves inexorable tensions, and the development of electronic technology in our lifetimes reflects his own prediction about a future in which ideas and politics play out in extraordinary and unexpected ways. you have to remember that teilhard was a jesuit priest, and the catholic church did not allow publication of most of his books until after he died. he was quite controversial, but he seemed to toe a fine line.
ed's graphic clearly states a lot of fuddled and controversial data.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
The lowest population at Homo Sapiens' near extinction I have seen quoted is in the 600's. It is thought we survived that climatically induced extinction caused by warming and desertification by taking up residence on Africa's western seashore and adding sea food to our diet.
Perhaps there is a real reason we oldsters are told to add cod liver oil to our diet if we wish to delay mental deterioration.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!