I would agree with this... I would say it is human nature to desire power, wealth, material gain, etc, etc. and to be willing to use any means necessary to reach this.. of course this is not all humans are like this, but as long as even the slimmest minority of people are like this it will always be human nature to seek strife and conflict for gain, religion is just one of the more oft-used excuses to justify atrocities...Originally Posted by MSDGreen
It's actually more the case that demand for war material has driven a lot of science.
Far more wars have started for territorial reasons than sectarian ones.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
this is true.. and not to minimize the negative effects religions have had on the world for there have been many.. wars begun with sectarian pretenses quite often have other motives... territorial, resource driven, etc. etc..
the demand for cutting edge in technology for war, whether it is just armaments, weaponry, etc, or things with more civilian applications, largely fueled the rapid pace of scientific progress in the 19th and 20th centuries... it's interesting to look at the post-cold war, and post-arms race world of science, it seems quite a bit less militarily driven, but I could be wrong here... and I'm getting way off topic now
I think we are in agreement.
MSDGreen is here
And every thing you say confirms exactly what you quote from me. I really couldn't care less what you believe or don't. You're exactly why I don't discuss religion. Rational calculation only knows a short segment of an infinite line. I leave you with a quote from T.S. Eliot:
from The WastelandWhat are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Wow, Eliot way out of context there! he was talking about the bankruptcy of the realm inhabited by the impotent Fisher King - the unreal city (London, and by extension taken to represent all of Western civilization, especially Europe).
Beyond that, given its context in the poem, I tend to associate that with the dominant sexual frustration (again, referencing the impotence as structural myth that pervades the poem) and the inability to experience the real emotions - the desire to cling to the memory of the Hofgarten, or the desperate longing for a return to the Irish girl - the inability to embrace the Hyacinth girl - to feel real emotion.
In a sense, the Eliot quote is on topic, if you are keeping with the early interpretation of the Waste Land as a world without God, but it does not deal with an Aporia, rather a spiritual, or perhaps sexual emptiness in culture, filled in by meaningless acts, and failed emotions.
The Broken images, in a sense, and the handful of dust are foreshadowing the Madame Sosostris bit, but also the Desert imagery which dominates section III - I can't see how that has to do with rationalizing, though it is a great quote.
Now, if we were to go to Four Quartets, we could probably find more fitting quotes, but none as beautifully written (I think we can thank Pound for that).
Though, I do thank you for the passages - it has been some time since I've visited the Waste Land, and it is still shocking how great that poem is.
Last edited by JBI; 07-18-2009 at 07:24 PM.
No, you're wrong. Absolutely wrong. The Wasteland is a world of spiritual dissolution. You cannot read Eliot without a religious context. Eliot is religious in almost everything he wrote. The sexual acts are empty because they have been stripped of religious significance. Look at all the Biblical language in just that passage I quote. But really I was after highlighting this: "for you know only/A heap of broken images," and the inability of man to see the entire universe of things.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I disagree - the religious reading has been out of fashion since Allen Tate passed away - the state of affairs that point in the poem has nothing to do with lack of Religious meaning and being unable to grasp the universe, but with being unable to feel real emotions, and the bankruptcy of culture and the loss of the poet's gift. The ruined Russian Aristocrat, for instance, or the Hyacinth girl, or the Sailor singing to his Girl left at home, all point to that. This is 1922 T. S. Eliot, keep in mind, he had not converted yet, or become religious - that happened a little later in his career. This is post-war Eliot we are talking about - though there are religious influences and motifs, the poem is not dominated by a religious conversation in the way that Four Quartets is - it isn't that the oracles of the Waste Land cannot see - that isn't the issue - it is that they see too much.
The actual language comes from Ecclesiastes, not any of the Prophetic books -
The language merely gestures the bankruptcy of the world of Eliot's Waste Land - the unreal city. The poem itself is dominated by traditionally biblical images, but not actually rooted in the same theological discussion as Four Quartets, or Ash Wednesday. The Desert vs Garden, Water vs. Fire function as significant symbols, but not as a religious allegory. Here we are in the desert, which is empty, with no path forward, and no grail searcher to restore the realm. The Fisher King is impotent, as is the land - a Waste Land - the lines that follow your quote, though they gesture to Isaiah, do not use it to imply the lack of clarity in man's search for understanding, but instead focus on the fallen state of the world - the desert the war has sent civilization into.12:5 Also when they shall be afraid of
that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree
shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire
shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go
about the streets:
12:6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the
golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or
the wheel broken at the cistern.
12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it.
12:8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
That is why Ezekiel is the dominant prophet in the book, replacing the classical models - this is civilization in exile - civilization in the desert, unable to get back to the garden - all the images point to it - Madame Sosostris, for instance, the fake seer who people seek for advice, who holds nothing but a pack of cards (another reference to the broken images), yet pretends to see the light, or the violated painting of Philomela, or the conversation between the angry woman and her husband? - or the discussion between the people in the bar, running out of time - it's a bankrupt world, an unreal city, surrounded by a dirtied Thames (which becomes Wagner's Rhine, missing its Rhinegold).
Last edited by JBI; 07-18-2009 at 11:55 PM.
Sorry I disagree. The cultural disintegration is a result of spiritual dissolution. Look at the last section of the poem. There is no way you can say this isn't linked to a spiritual theme:
Chapel, bones, c**k crowing, dry bones, and the Hindu spirituality. Sorry but you are way off base.A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a **** stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico 392
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given? 401
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider 407
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only 411
We think of the key, each in his prison
thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me 424
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina 427
Quando fiam uti chelidon - O swallow swallow 428
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie 429
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. 431
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. 401
Shantih shantih shantih 433
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Um, no I'm not - the setting is in the chapel, where the knight (Percival) undergoes his trials to retrieve the grail, and restore the realm - the girl herself stands in as Blaunchfleur, the maiden to rescue from the destroyed besieged castle. That's what the myth behind that passage is, woven with the Hindu scriptures, to signify the trials of the self in the progression forward - the trials then are transformed, to perhaps be society's, but also the poet's. In the end though, things sort of just die off, don't they - we are left in mid-trial, as the fate of the world, the fate of the grail quest is not known - we only keep going, keep fighting the Waste Land, as the death and destruction within it absorb us.
Last edited by JBI; 07-19-2009 at 12:39 AM.
I don't want to hijack this thread, but you are looking at the trees and not the forest. And you seem to think that a single statement, like the central thesis of an essay, applies to a work of art, and that works of art don't echo and flesh out with multiple layers. Let's just say we disagree.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Oh, it seems I did. But, let's say I recognize the futility of it thenAnd yet you just did, and pretty vehemently, too!
Well, I suppose one can be philosophical about it. I would argue that love is a choice you make, you have the initial lust, which isn't a choice, and then you choose to go forward from there. But as far as rationalizing it, I just don't give a damn.
Life is simple dichotomy? No, I wouldn't think so, that's a pattern that I think you're trying to impose on it. If you're talking about science, I'm with you there, but as far as rationally explaining everything? Nah, I can sort of leave it to the unknown.
I'd say it probably has it's benefits, otherwise it wouldn't survive if you believe in the Darwinian view of the world, spiritually inclined people would die off from all the time they spend praying and ruminating pointless spritual minutia.
As I see it, people who accept the Bible, or the Qu'ran as either the inspired word of God or the actual word of God are essentially providing the loonies, who base all their decisions on religion, with ammo. Now I'm heading down ominous paths here, I don't want to come across as Hitchens-esque or Dawkins... esque, I think their notion of "the world would be better without spirituality" is retarded. Man I get a headache from this, I can't keep my train of thought from derailing. I'm not anti-theism, I'm just anti group-think, which is basically being anti-human :/
I enjoy reading this thread though some have expressed a disinterest in the same old arguments. I enjoy it because I'm glad some people are thinking big thoughts about big subjects.
Some have expressed an opinion that religion is a way of hoping for a favorable afterlife. I think that is a good part of the reason why religions have been an important part of almost all cultures. In this age of science and (for some) an abundance of life's necessities I think we tend to forget that for most of human history peoples have used religion as a way of ensuring the crops would grow and life could continue. They sought to please greater powers who could give assistance. Another reason for religions is a desire to explain origins; here again science offers a replacement in the theory of evolution.
For myself, science does not adequately explain the origin and difference between the living and the non-living. I still find a need for assistance in my life and the help of a higher power. I find it comforting to know that those whose lives have been filled with suffering and/or cut short, as well as the special people I have known and loved will live again in (as my religion teaches) a better world. The group I am a part of does not believe that atheists, agnostics, Buddists, Catholics or any other believers or non-believers are doomed to burn in hell. Instead we believe all will have the opportunity to know God and live forever in peace, joy, and happiness...in the future.
Have a little sympathy for those who do believe in hell and try to save you from it - they do it out of love though it can be annoying!
I think that this is a very well-balanced, thoughtful post that may well possess some elements of a way to clarify as well as cool down some aspects of the argument.
First, a few clarifications:
1) as was pointed out earlier, metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question of the nature of reality. As was also pointed out, metaphysics is not the exclusive domain of those who allow for a non-material aspect of reality (whether religious or not). Materialists have chosen a metaphysics as well.
2) It is an error to suppose that science can settle the metaphysical question of the nature of reality, even in principle. Science has as its domain the answering of questions relating to how commensurate physical objects interact with each other. Science has nothing to say about objects (if any) that can not be measured. The idea that materialism is somehow sanctioned by science is mistaken and based on a profound misunderstanding of what science does. To argue that materialism is proven because a system designed to create understanding of material objects does not use non-material objects to understand material objects is, by its nature, circular and invalid.
3) Therefore materialism is neither more nor less rational than a metaphysical position that allows for non-material existence. It is merely another position.
Those points being made, Aloe's remark that science does not adequately fill very human needs is extremely cogent.
Science addresses how things act -- not whether these actions should be initiated. To use a graphic example: science can tell us how to create a sword that can cut through a helmet, but not whether humans should go to war.
Aloe points to what I think is an indisputable fact of human nature -- we are not reducible to a deterministic machine, or, at the very minimum, we are not made happy when treated as though we were deterministic machines.
Or, expressed another way, the materialist position that all that matters for human society is the satisfaction of material needs that can be determined by scientific means, is clearly untenable.
aude sapere
Opinions would be a far better description. Clarifications is the term when dealing with empirical matters, and as you note yourself, it's not a subject suited to empiricism.
I completely disagree, because the logic of the position - in my kind of logic - says the two options are reality or solipsism, but I've said that to you before, so we can just continue to disagree on it.
Calling materialism a form of metaphysics is like calling Mt Everest a hill.
Sure, they both have their merits, but one side's merits fill a supertanker while the other side can barely fill a Vespa.
You know we disagree on this as well.
That's a sweeping statement and no more. Again, agnosticism may have some points, but given science being able to ask most questions we've asked of it, I think demanding that it can not happen is just naive.
That is a truly faith-based position.
Objects that cannot be measured. Physical objects...
What, exactly, are pbjects which can't be measured? What is a non-physical object?
If these things exist, they must have some properties. An invisible, immeasurable object/entity/force which has no properties could not, in all honesty, be said to exist at all.
It's the agnostic equivalent of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Crikey, even my seven year old can see through that.
Once those non-physical objects have some properties, they will be identifiable. 2000 years ago, there were lots of things which were invisible to man but still existed, and over the years, we've learnt a bit about most of them, from gamma-rays to gravity, so if such things as the non-material exists, I again feel it's naive and misleading to suggest that science cannot and will not ever be able to deal with it.
Now, here, I can categoricall note that you're just wrong in your description and stance of materialism. This is something that a materialist ought to be able to articulate, so I'll have a go.
Firstly, it is completely incorrect to suggest that materialism claims any sanction by any branch of science. Materialism simply uses the results and tools of science to conclude that the idea of non-physical forces is absurd and not worth pursuing, thereby developing an alternative and materialistic view to "life, the universe and everything" [Thanks DNA, for that phrase]
Secondly, you've made a statement about how materialists see science. I'd like you to expand on the "profound misunderstanding", because I am a materialist from way back and I talk to plenty, yet not a single person I've ever met who is able to understand materialism sufficiently to describe himself as one has any misunderstandings about science.
I'd vouch for materialists' understanding and usage of science to be misunderstood by non-materialists, so I'm very interested to see you back that up.
Again, a dismissal of a position based on incorrect information. Who argues that materialism is proven? Again, I know of no materialists who would make that claim. "Proven sufficiently to completely disregard non-material forces/entities/objects until one is found." might be fair, but proven? Never.
I'm sorry to say that you seem to be dissecting a parody of a materialist than the real thing.
I find this interesting.
Does the fact that I consider love to be a purely material thing, with no basis outside of evolution make the love I have for my wife, children and friends different to yours of anyone else's?
I find that I have precisely the same hopes, dreams, emotions and fears as any theist or Buddhist. The idea that materialism somehow negates or lessens human experience is plain wrong.
Which human needs are not met by science?
Which science has explored the question?
We've had several thousand years of theocratic-based society and wars haven't exactly gone away.
Coberst raises the very point in his thread on morality in Philosophy right now - go and check it out.
If you could point me to where a scientific enquiry & study has been initiated whether humans should go to war, I'd be grateful, because I don't think it's ever been attempted. Making up a team would be fun - geneticists, biologists, physicists, statisticians and a couple of anthropologists to sort it all out.
It's all very well to demand that science can't do this, but has anyone ever tried to approach it from a scientific view?
What if the answer is "War is good, because it improves the gene pool and will help the survival of the species"?
Maybe you wouldn't really want science to answer those questions, but again, I feel it's wrong to assume it cannot.
How many examples do you need to disprove this theory?
In general, I think you're right. I always say that people believe in god/s because they want to, and your statement is a good way of saying that. I don't believe I have a lower happiness or enjoyment of life quotient than anyone else alive. I certainly wouldn't swap with many people. I have a beautiful wife with whom I am emphatically and ecstatically in love with, four amazing kids...... well, three amazing kids and a teenager..... I own and run a couple of businesses and have a lifestyle which is full ans satsfying.
Some people do need to see the fairies at the bottom of the garden, and that's fine.
Not needing to does not require any reduction in quality of life. I'm prety sure my pragmatic, materialistic view of life is an immense benefit to me because I wouldn't be happy deluding myself.
Your "indisputable fact of nature" is again, plain wrong.
Damn, I wish you'd explain that to all the humanists I know. Every one of them is empathic, generous to a fault, happy, contented, family-oriented, anti-war, anti-violence, altrusitic and hardworking. They are people who choose to add value to the planet without needing to either impress a deity or in fear of one.
How untenable is that?
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
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