Phylum of Alexandria

It's hard to answer given how distorted right wing media can be. Still, as I've said before, the best propaganda usually has some nuggets of truth to them. I think it's worth it to look for and address real concerns that are embedded in the nonsense and the inflammatory rhetoric. The border is a great example. I don't mean work with people who are literally trying to turn it into a war zone, and Republicans in Congress are currently showing that working with Dems on the issue would be against their own political interests. Still, there are good faith concerns about enforcing immigration, for instance the asylum system that's being abused beyond its original design. I think there are sometimes root causes that, if addressed, can sap the power of GOP propaganda narratives. At least for people not completely in the cult. As for the latter group, their main principles at this point are party loyalty and fealty to the leader.

It seems to sit well with William James' notion of Pragmatism, and James himself was trying to extend Darwin's general insights from biology to a science of the human mind. Thinking is for doing, and the truth value of any belief is secondary or tertiary to its value in shaping individual or collective actions. Also, I really enjoyed Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind. He's more into social psychology than religious studies, but his chapters concerning religion brought together different bodies of research for a useful summary and compelling argument. To his credit, Dawkins praised it as worth reading and thinking about, despite Haidt critiquing his ideas rather stridently.

My God My God, why have you forsaken me? Okay, you're just jumping to a whole bunch of broad points. I'll try to address some of them. But first, ask yourself, was the argument I have been making in this thread in any way relevant to the questions you're asking here? Answer: no. Let me go back to an earlier comment you made, about controlling people. Is this always a bad thing? What are cultural norms, if not ways to control people? Don't we want to get anti-vaxxers to vaccinate? Maybe you actually meant "coerce" people. But are religious communities necessarily coercive? Was Martin Luther King coercive, or persuasive? He certainly wasn't coercive within his church community. Given that atheistic societies can also be coercive, maybe the problem is more related to authoritarianism and related mindsets than it is related to religion... Why are there several different versions of the Bible? Because the history and evolution of scripture across communities is complex and interesting. I'd be happy to recommend some books on the topic if you'd like to learn more. On Moses and ancient Egypt: that's a fascinating topic within biblical scholarship. I think if you read Richard Eliot Friedman's book Exodus, you'd probably come away with much more respect toward ancient Judaism than you'd ever imagine. Yet Friedman's findings are only possible by his taking the Bible seriously as a cultural and historical artifact. That doesn't mean reading everything at face value, mind you. It means being informed, intelligent, and truly curious about understanding how the scriptures were written and what the real history behind them might be. I mean, do you really think I care about these claims? You're basically listing off the simplest fundamentalist claims and then using that as damning evidence. Even Richard Dawkins qualified his attack on religions in The God Delusion to acknowledge that there are more sophisticated interpretations of religious tradition out there--he acknowledges them, and then sets them aside for the rest of the book. I at least appreciate his qualification, but in all honesty, his focus of choice made for a rather uninteresting book, save for people freshly escaped from a fundamentalist community. Yeah, Moses didn't write the Torah. Congrats on finishing Atheism 101. There are a lot more interesting discussions to be had on religion when one wants to learn a little more than those basics...

Lol, you reinforce my point with every comment you make! Keep it up, and I'm gonna start my own sports "commentary" thread...

To be clear, my comment wasn't written in response to anything you had posted. I don't have any real problems with anything you've written here. I either mostly agree, or can understand where you're coming from. My comment was in response to various comments that I've seen peppered throughout the thread. If I had to quote one of the worst examples, it would be @Mr. Chatywin et al.'s comment that "religion is just folklore." Sorry Ty. You're a smart guy, but you don't give this particular topic any real time or effort. I'm the same way with sports. Any pontification I might offer would really just reflect how little I respect it all, and would be similarly boneheaded. @maarsen's comment "what major questions have any religion ever given a definitive answer to? Science has given too many to count" was another one. This is more reasonable than Ty's dismissal, but I wanted to make clear the obvious point that it takes a hell of a lot more than knowledge and technology to make a satisfying and meaningful life. Yes, that's true. My point is that science does nothing to circumvent those problems, and in fact typically goes hand in hand with them. And yet the problems do need to be dealt with. That's why I said: "People need meaning and a sense of purpose, community, a connection with some sort of tradition. One doesn't need to delve into the supernatural for these things, but science sure as hell isn't going to provide them." And "at very least, we need some sort of humanistic philosophy, some governing moral narrative and supporting norms." If communities don't try to work on those aspects of human life, well, then, people will simply turn to other options, including fundie churches providing feel-good narratives and easy answers. First, my use of mystical there wasn't technical. I simply used it to indicate some sort of spiritual or religious feeling. Second, my focus was explicitly on people who don't oppose scientific progress. Even if it is true that these folks tend to oppose science (and I don't think that's necessarily true), it's still important not to lump everyone in the same category. If someone is religious and is okay with scientific consensus and new developments, then we should respect them and treat them as allies. That was my main point. Now, as for the new age spirituality types, sure, I can accept that they veer into weird pseudoscience. Some of it may actually beneficial, at least for social and emotional health. I certainly feel like medical care has gotten colder and more impersonal, and so if someone wants to supplement that with some woo treatment that gives them a sense of dignity and human connection, that's fine by me. Anti-vax attitudes can certainly be a huge problem. But the core problem there isn't supernatural belief per se--it's a lack of trust in institutions. It's possible for atheists to veer into weird conspiracy theories too, not to mention outright cultish behavior, like the worst of the communist regimes. If we can find better ways to cultivate respect for knowledge, skepticism, and various cultural institutions, I think the spiritual or religious dimensions would not seem nearly as problematic. Authoritarianism and sectarian distrust are far more important problems in my opinion.

Yes, I was going to say as much, but I decided to keep it simple. What started as discovery and colonial "enlightenment" is now in the neoliberal age.

Well, I think from a psychological standpoint, "truth" has essentially been split in two with the advent of science. Science governs factual, informational truth. As I mentioned, the information that is crucial for predicting and controlling the world around us. Because it's subject to being supported or disproven, it's the closest we have to a face value, everyday notion of "truth." But a good story is a lie that speaks a deep truth. A powerful myth goes even deeper. Humans are storytelling creatures more than we are scientific creatures. And just because science produces better facts doesn't mean we can just shake off our need for something deeper, for ultimate, and also personal truths. The easy thing would be to say that the latter is not really "truth" but emotional resonance, etc. But when a person feels it, it feels like truth to them. There are countless examples of scientific knowledge being used for crass exploitation and commercial gain. For instance, 'it's common for geology experts to work for oil companies to help to them determine where to drill. In my own previous field, neuroscience, pharmacology is almost always the goal. Sometimes that's good, obviously. But if you build it, they will come. And they will find a way to exploit it, and they will profit. "Religion" in what sense? I already dismissed fundamentalism.

I'm someone who can speak as a fundamentalist escapee, and also as someone who works in science but has grown rather disenchanted with the enterprise. Yes, obviously, in terms of describing the workings of the world to the extent that we can predict and control? Science is the only game in town. During the Enlightenment and earlier, the processes of discovery and religious mysticism were not so easily teased apart, but the two traditions have since split rather decisively, and religion just cannot deliver on this front. But let's not go overboard in our worship of the scientific enterprise either. Its utility really is limited to knowledge for the sake of prediction and control. And almost inevitably, for exploitation. It's obviously very helpful, but human life needs a lot more than good physical health and comforts in order to thrive. People need meaning and a sense of purpose, community, a connection with some sort of tradition. One doesn't need to delve into the supernatural for these things, but science sure as hell isn't going to provide them. More often than not, science just allows neoliberal exploitation of the rest of us for the profit of a few. So, at very least, we need some sort of humanistic philosophy, some governing moral narrative and supporting norms. And it helps not to have some smug sense of superiority over people who do happen to have more of a mystical mindset, especially if those people aren't opposing scientific progress. I have no qualms about making fundamentalism the enemy. But in such a battle it's pretty foolish, and downright irrational--to the point of being rather orthodox--to burn bridges with perfectly reasonable potential allies because they don't adhere to every point of belief that you'd like them to.

To the extent that a religion has a scripture or other traditional belief about the world that is falsifiable, then it can be tested and potentially disproven. But even in such an instance, it depends on how the passage in question is interpreted. The use of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, parable, etc, don't make someone less religious. It simply makes them less of a provincial fundie asshole.

This all makes sense. And I'd take it even further. It's also the case that human understanding of the supernatural and religious ideas are often necessarily beyond reason and evidence. And sometimes beyond description. A simple way of thinking about it is that our religious impulses are more about certain emotional states, and the practices that evoke them (and at the social level about how they contribute to a collective identity) than they are necessarily about descriptions of the world for logical or utilitarian purposes. As Karen Armstrong has put it, God is a verb. There is some utility in disproving the simplest and silliest religious ideas, but I don't think we'll ever prove or disprove all spiritual or religious hypotheses, as many of them exist beyond the bound of testing, and also exist as part of our mental architecture that's only superficially tied to language and explanation. I'm not so optimistic. We have learned a lot, and we continue to learn more. But I'm afraid the overly quantitative, disconfirmatory nature of most neuroscientific work remains a real barrier to understanding the richness of subjective experiences. For all our advances, Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" from the 70s remains a challenge for all biobehavioral approaches to understanding the mind. I'd be fine with being proven wrong, but I just see the task as insurmountable without some radical new approach to account for those deficiencies.

Point taken, though I think it's better not to get too clever for our own good. I think of voting like neuronal activity. If you're thinking about tactical considerations for your one vote, well, then your one vote is only as meaningful as the action potential of a single, isolated neuron. As in: not very. But if you're really motivated to work toward an outcome, you'll not just vote but get your friends to go vote, to do phone banking or house visits and get out the vote. Donate, etc. etc. In that case, you're helping contribute to the larger synchronized waves of activity across brain regions that make up the electrical potentials that enable most behavior and cognition. And that can have real power.

That's the catch with predicting US's predicament: there aren't many close analogues. Maybe Berlusconi's Forza Italia? If so, that's not great news either. But I'd be okay with beating back the movement and disempowering them for some time. Not my first choice, but I'll take it.

So let it be Truth-ed, so let it be done. Not insane at all. Very stable genius. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111775654904742269

That was in Prince William County, where I used to work. Hits a little too close to home!

All true. One thing that might make this more like 2016 than 2020 is the presence of a third party candidate to siphon away votes from the Democrat. If Jill Stein had run in 2020 Trump may have won again. It's so close that any rogue element could fuck things up. (Which is why we need all the votes we can get, people!)

If you read my whole comment, I concede that it's possible someone else is part of the dream mix. So it sounds like a softer disagree than you are saying. I still don't quite buy it, but I can acknowledge that there's room for that interpretation, and at very least it was written ambiguously by GRRM.

I lean that way as well, but given the Republican advantage in the electoral college, we Murkans can't afford to be sanguine or complacent about any predicted prospect. If the election were decided by the popular vote, then there'd be room for protests and other finer points. But this will be decided by a small margin, and so we need every person we can get to vote, and to get other people around them to vote.

This is my take that I wrote upon a re-read (tldr: it's debatable!) Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness, but Bran did not know how to fly, so all he could do was fall.” Who is the Three Eyed Crow? What seemed so obvious in earlier books was complicated somewhat by Bran’s second chapter in ADWD: "Come now. It is warmer down deep, and no one will hurt you there. He is waiting for you." "The three-eyed crow?" asked Meera. "The greenseer." And with that she was off, and they had no choice but to follow. "Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." The clothes he wore were rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been black. "I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you … except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late.” Some people take the uncertainty about the crow in these scenes to suggest that someone other than Bloodraven will be revealed as the real three-eyed crow. Of course, this unorthodox interpretation raises the question of how Bloodraven would know of Bran and be awaiting his arrival if he didn’t communicate with him in his dreams. And it doesn’t jive with Bloodraven’s own statement above that he indeed visited Bran in dreams. My inclination is to believe the greenseer when he tells us that he was doing greenseer stuff. But it is nevertheless a perfectly appropriate question to ask, why did GRRM decide to add those complicating details with respect to the identity of the three-eyed crow? Why not simply have Leaf and Bloodraven answer with a “Yes, Bran!” and be done with it? One possibility is that GRRM wants to amplify feelings of uncertainty and unknowability when depicting magic and other weird phenomena. If you’ve read A Song for Lya, think back to the question of whether the Greeshka was unconscious, or whether its consciousness simply eluded the human telepaths. The question is left unresolved, even by the story’s end. There will likely be some aspects to ASOIAF’s magic that are similarly left ambiguous to keep readers scratching their heads. The consciousness and agency of weirwoods is one possible example, and exactly how green dreams work is another. Another possibility is that there is a known structure to psy magic that will eventually be revealed in the story, and the ambiguity here is setting up some sort of plot function. It was after all a dream in which Bran talked to the 3EC, rather than a direct observation or communication. It might be that any message a greenseer sends to a dreamer manifests in ways that the greenseer doesn’t know and cannot see. If this sort of “refraction” mechanic ends up playing a role in green dreams, then I can’t completely discount the possibility that another greenseer—including a time-tampering Bran—could also be interfering with these dreams, at least sometimes. I don’t lean strongly that way, but I can’t reject it out of hand either.

0 C may be the temperature where water freezes, but psychologically, 0 F is the temperature where my soul freezes...

Damn straight! #sorrynotsorry

I don't know who in Iowa stayed home and who went to caucus, so it might be a loose analogy. But in the general an unpopular candidate can benefit if reasonable people stay home. Just trying to highlight to certain people here that their action or inaction can have important effects...

Trump would likely benefit from low voter turnout in the general election, so it could serve as a warning...

Vote like all future votes depend on it. Because they will!

Sure, it'd be great to have another charismatic candidate to inspire and energize. But to not vote because that lack? To give power to the fascists, simply because Biden is old? I just cannot comprehend it.

I've had a few friends my age who died suddenly. One during childbirth, a few due to cancer. Nothing is guaranteed. At the same time, healthcare is improving, and life expectancy is better than it ever has been. Unlike Trump, Biden actually takes care of himself. Given the magnitude of the stakes of this election, I sincerely hope that you reconsider your evaluation for something a bit more generous.