baker

It's in reply to:

It's not clear that this is the case; or that "making shit up is easier than study"; "or that "people want to be told what to think," and such are the...

I do. The spread of democracy and the rule of law (which amounts to "power to the most powerful/rich") result in a decline of informal, silent underst...

See here for some criticism of the EI concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence#Criticisms Reading Goleman's original book, my own...

Then it's too early for praise.

I'm sure there are psychologists/psychiatrists who believe just that. I also once read something peculiar in an essay about the meaning of life by a p...

Sure, just not for long.

I'm too nice, and I don't understand why you see things the way you do. I guess I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. A female default, a...

I think emotions are heuristics, condensed attitudes, condensed views. Because for every emotion that one feels, one can offer up an explanation of wh...

Of course. Religion and science are NOMAs. Sure, there are some generalities that many of the scientific disciplines have in common (there used to be ...

Then that's the crux. What makes you think I "think otherwise"?? Because I'm not feistily enough against it, don't show enough contempt for it?? I don...

I have no such wish. You misread my tone: I'm actually agreeing with and . People typically do it with a reference to "gut feeling" and by stigmatizin...

For one, I doubt that many who profess to believe in such an external powerful entity actually believe in it. I know many monotheists, but there isn't...

Monotheists resolve their differences by declaring the supremacy of one monotheism over others; or that only one monotheism is the right one. So that ...

But for many people, this is exactly what happens: For a person born and raised into a religion, religion comes first. Unless you can somehow show tha...

Not unless God is playing favorites. Pretty much every major monotheistic religion has a tenet to that effect: namely, that while God created everyone...

As long as you consider yourself the arbiter of this evidence, your game is certainty.

Absolutely. (Why didn't anyone else pick this up?) This just goes to show that taboos are still essential to thinking about morality. Yes, and yesterd...

On time?

*sigh* /note to self: Must grow a dick & balls. Otherwise participating in discussion very difficult./

Says he, assured of his certainty. Don't play coy. Certainty rocks!

The Hare Krishnas would call this an example of the predicament inherent in demigod worship (a demigod is not omnimax, hence a number of problems emer...

Pffft. We're in this because we pursue certainty.

*sigh* John, our ontogenesis example, is born and raised into a religious society. His notions of morality are entirely defined by said religion. He b...

I said enviable. You don't envy them their certainty?

That's wrong. People don't go nuts from reading philosophy. A normal person reading Kierkegaard or Sartre will say "Pfft!" and move on. Why is the gen...

Explain why. The two are two different perspectives on the matter. The religious group can ostracize a particular member, but it cannot ostracize itse...

How do you know that? - - - Still, the monotheists characteristically operate with the idea that they are "right about God", that they know the truth ...

Sure. Do you have some idea on how to both acknowledge the relativity and derivativity of moral systems, and yet have a sense of certainty about moral...

So what's your solution to "Which God is the right one?" ?

Within the context of a particular monotheistic religion, this is a valid, non-fallacious argument from authority.

Indeed, and some religions criticize believers who obey religious laws out of fear of punishment or out of hope for a reward.

Contrast phylogenesis vs. ontogenesis. Phylogenetically, what you're saying above would be applicable for the human species as a whole. But as far as ...

Global socio-economic crisis. People's energy and attention are more focused on making ends meet and making it through the day. Taking ad homs and sni...

Only if all explanations, definitions, and theories are isms.

Then there's the Social Hierarchy Argument: People need to learn that human society functions as a matter of hierarchy and that it is of vital importa...

And operated on several assumptions of your own. It is of relevance when you talk to me as if I was religious. Standard question, standard reply. What...

Well, we can only speculate on such things. Holding a position of power and feeling powerless are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, it can ...

Such as might makes right? Morality is written by winners? Truth is written by winners? Moral propositions are to be found true or false in accordance...

This seems to indicate that issues of morality can, to begin with, be meaningfully discussed only in the context of such a moral regulatory system as ...

It's possibly due to some early and powerful experience of powerlessness that the person internalized and generalized. Consider how they tame elephant...

When I was little, we would bring the milk directly from a small dairy farm, in a container like this. I couldn't find the English word for it. That s...

One's perception of one's own power or self-efficacy. People who feel powerless seem to be more prone toward conspiracy theories. This is just a casua...

Are you serious about this, or not ... That's the cool style I'm talking about above.

I haven't been here long enough to notice this trend. At first, I was quite apprehensive about posting here, because it seemed that being cool and rea...

There is a lot of knowledge that is completely useless, depending on one's time and circumstance. Does knowing what the halflife of plutonium is in an...

The problem with science is that it is done with the purpose of solving the problem of suffering -- and then it doesn't deliver, it just makes people ...

This doesn't explain anything!

If you have to ask, you're not part of it.

In some cases, there's also the overjustification effect: When working as a team, collaboration, networking, solidarity, education get beaten into peo...