The Religion word
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Mike McDade wrote:I acknowledge that a better understanding of materialism will help. Coming across the idea of socialism has certainly helped! I guess I am just concerned that I am not well enough informed to be counted among the members..
Welcome to the forum, Mike. I agree that the more you find out about histirical materialism the less relevance religion will hage ve. You do not need vast knowledge to be counted among the members just – as gnome says – a understanding of and a desire for socialism.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:And if this "Ha'peth of tobacco" is 'not sarcasm', as you insist, could you explain why you find adding 'idealism' to the front of 'materialism' so time-consuming and irritating, and yet have time for a complex scientific term like "Ha'peth of tobacco", which, I admit, I've never heard used for scientific explanation?According to my stop watch it just took me 1.5 seconds to type idealism. By using the commonly understood term "Fishcakes" without typing idealism, I could save myself upwards of a minute of my life before I die. Likewise, i shall henceforth compound truth/knowling/believing/understanding into the single word "Flap". So, I flap the speed of light, and that'll do pig.
And this is 'science' is it, YMS?I think I prefer theology. At least critical thought is required, rather than merely 'throwing a tantrum' at being asked questions.I hope your 'flapping pigs' come home to roost.
LBird,if you applied more critical reason to my posts, you would find your answers contained within already.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird,if you applied more critical reason to my posts, you would find your answers contained within already.I'll take that as a "No, I don't want to discuss 'materialism'!", then, shall I?Fair enough, comrade!
Hi all. Just arrived back on earth from a few weeks on planet ancap. Glad to be home. (Smeetish whimsy preferable to praxeological gobbledegook anyday.)I'm perplexed, though. Why is theory idealist? Is that what is being claimed? In my neck of the woods theory can be either idealist or materialist depending on whether it makes idealist or materialist assumptions. Materialism is itself a theory (as well as a pragmatic assumption.) Isn't it?
My predicament is similar to the comment Northern Light made at the top of this thread 18 months ago. I simply have not been ablt to read the whole thread.I would agree that I am agnostic and that my view is a scientific position; did we evolve from matter (and from monkeys), or were we created? Perhaps I was not so clear in my application or subsequent explanations to the EC. I am also unlikely to suddenly have conviction either way in the near future.As to whether the SPGB accept agnostics? That is for the SPGB to decide. However, it would be unacceptable to me to simply state that I am atheist without conviction in order to 'tick a box'.
Time for an eggregious drive by Freddy Engels quote
Freddy wrote:I am perfectly aware that the contents of this work will meet with objection from a considerable portion of the British public. But, if we Continentals had taken the slightest notice of the prejudices of British "respectability", we should be even worse off than we are. This book defends what we call "historical materialism", and the word materialism grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers. "Agnosticism" might be tolerated, but materialism is utterly inadmissible.[…]As soon, however, as our agnostic has made these formal mental reservations, he talks and acts as the rank materialist he at bottom is. He may say that, as far as we know, matter and motion, or as it is now called, energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, but that we have no proof of their not having been created at some time or other. But if you try to use this admission against him in any particular case, he will quickly put you out of court. If he admits the possibility of spiritualism in abstracto, he will have none of it in concreto. As far as we know and can know, he will tell you there is no creator and no Ruler of the universe; as far as we are concerned, matter and energy can neither be created nor annihilated; for us, mind is a mode of energy, a function of the brain; all we know is that the material world is governed by immutable laws, and so forth. Thus, as far as he is a scientific man, as far as he knows anything, he is a materialist; outside his science, in spheres about which he knows nothing, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/int-mat.htmAnd of course, from there, we invoke Russell's teapot…
Mike Do you think that humankind has control over its own destiny or do you believe there is a creator that has the power to intervene?
That is most excellent, Master Smeet. Although I do not fully understnad the import of the words, they have certainly caught my attention! I need to read the publication quoted (again) to see if it will sink in this time.
Vin Maratty wrote:Mike Do you think that humankind has control over its own destiny or do you believe there is a creator that has the power to intervene?Vin, I do not know.
Mike,I couldn't find the other quote I half remember, which is that Agnostic is just a polite English word for Atheist. I can never see any distinction between agnosticism and atheism. The former is just louder about the "as far as I know" caveat than the latter.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Mike,I couldn't find the other quote I half remember, which is that Agnostic is just a polite English word for Atheist. I can never see any distinction between agnosticism and atheism. The former is just louder about the "as far as I know" caveat than the latter.YMS, I think the distinction is that a-gnostic means no-knowledge, whereas a-theist means no-god.This makes the latter a much more positive statement of belief, ironically.I should add, I'm an atheist myself!
I don't think we care whether someone calls themselves an atheist or an agnostic as long as they don't think that there is some supernatural entity that interferes in human affairs, do we? That's why it's best to say what we are for, e.g that we are materialists, realists or whatever who accept that the only world is the world we can experience.
Mike, I struggled with the wording. In fact I hardly left the starting block, in that I had to look up the meaning of the word,egregious (spelt with one g ) egregious (the free dictionary) :
(1) outstandingly bad; flagrant(2) [ antiquated] distinguished; eminent I never knew that Herr Engles was so anti-british. This is the same britain that harboured him and Marx, when they were houndedout of europe. It would seem that matter can be created out of "nothing," from "quantum vacuum fluctuations." So when we say there was nothing before the Big Bang, perhaps we use the wrong word. And just to confound it all, the closing line from an article in the New Scientist (physics & maths) is :
" So if the Large Hadron Collider confirms that the Higgs exists, it will mean all reality is virtual."
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