Why I Live.

beliefnet

Why do you desire to accomplish well your endeavors? Are you pleased with your creations / your accomplishments?  - 
iamachildofhis

Since they are in fact the meaning of life or at least mine, I had better accomplish my endeavors well, as they are how I affect others in my community, and how I will be remembered by them.  Overall I am quite pleased with my creations and accomplishments.  I chose most of them carefully as being beneficial to my community, and molded and shaped them to the best of my ability to
continue in the paths I set them on. Sooner or later I will die, leaving to my community my creations, my accomplishments, and "This valuable and useful space which I have occupied temporarily"  John Dobbs, atheist, from Legacy.  

More on Historical Jesus

beliefnet
A rational analysis of the available data admittedly limited to the Gospels and some recently discovered Gnostic writings, shows that the Nazarene cults centered on Jesus were popular enough that a century after his death they were documented by literate followers of the major cults centered on the male disciples.  A year or so after his death the cults were important enough that Saul was sent out by the Romans (Jews?) to suppress them.  After his famous incident on the road to Damascus, Paul found it necessary to promote the leader of these cults to his Christ, either as a political move to co-opt the cults, or as a cynical move to debase the populist leader to a conventional God.  In either case it worked and Christ became conflated with Jesus as "Jesus Christ."    In any event it was necessary to canonize the Gospels when Christianity became the official religion of the Empire.  Permitting a clandestine few to retain the populist, humanist ideals of Jesus with the Holy Bible as their writ albeit a la Jefferson a whole bunch of the NT was ignored.  The Enlightenment may be the flowering of these clandestine cults.  The parallels between the populist, humanist teachings of Jesus and the Enlightenment are apparent to all who wish to look with an open mind.  

beliefnet

A few fictional stories about Jesus mainly Passion and birth related became incorporated in Paul's Christianity, but that says nothing about whether or not there was a real Jesus that preached in the early first century.  The Passion fiction was the reason the synoptic gospels were included in the canon, but the inclusion of the earlier stories in the Synoptics suggests that even in the 4th century the preacher was a significant historical figure.  While Christianity was the main Jesus cult in the 4th century there were others that for political reasons had to be wrapped into the package.

I find it reasonable that there are two completely different Jesus histories in the first century.  The fictional God man of Christianity, and the radical hippie who created the groupies that made the God man fiction necessary.

Social Reality

beliefnet

I think of morality as a socially generated reality.  It is not coexistent with physical or science reality as there is no way to measure it directly. It becomes real over time with a steep learning curve in childhood, and eventually becomes internalized as conscience. 

Like all realities it can change as new information is internalized, but by adulthood new information is strongly blocked by the belief system in the brain.   There are several other socially generated realities, religion and politics are the most prominent, and status of other humans seems to be another social reality, which is in my view independent of morality.  Morality deals only with "My people" whatever that means to the particular individual.

All socially generated realities are real only for the individual although within a small tight social group there may be many commonalities. 

Understanding social reality may be a key to dealing with others who may have a completely different reality.  Fundies as an example inhabit a reality that may even exclude physical science as real.  Pretending that they are deluded only complicates the issue of dealing with them rationally.  Presenting facts that conflict with social realities as fact is ineffective in dealing with the social reality of the fact denier.      

Socially Responsible Humanism

Thad Yep, J'Carlin. That's my sense of "prick", too. And I reiterate: unfortunately, any prick can be a father, too. "Father" is not some noble vocation, unfortunately, and neither is "parent". In the U.S. today, the terms seem to be increasingly confused with "unpaid juvie officer". ...
 
Thad J'Carlin, you're doing a lot of generalizing there and in my experience, that sort of thing doesn't work very well. "Humanism" is also a grand phrase that's devoid of any practical meaning. What does one do if one is a humanist? What does treat everyone as if they had inherent worth really mean, in practice?

As my virtual friend Stream Angel well knows, I believe that it's quite easy to make these great sweeping statements about justice and equality and human worth and what not. What I think is difficult is to actually boil those down into concrete practices.

It's all well and grand to talk about "good parenting", for example, but what does that really mean in terms of practices? Some people will tell you a good parent needs to swat their kid's rear end occasionally. Others are horrified by the very idea and feel no compulsion against dropping a dime on a parent who'd do that.

Is it "good parenting", for example, to take a child to a brothel? Be careful: the question is a hell of a lot more tricky than you might expect.

 I may be generalizing, admittedly a harder row to hoe, but cherry picking specific examples, what we call in Bible arguments prooftexting, is really worthless in any argument.  For any shit you sling on the wall I can find different shit to cover it up.  The only result is a shitty wall.  
 
 The takeaway is that it is all solved by the principles of humanism (lc h) that is all people are humans.  Not men, not women, not children, not Christians, not Jews, not [whatever.]  Simply humans. Not all the same humans certainly, humans are all different, but if you put "human" before the [whatever] it really does change the way you think about and look at people.

 If it is a human body builder does it really make a difference which costume the human is wearing?

If it is a human dancer does it really make a difference which costume the human is wearing?

If it is a human CEO does it really make a difference which costume the human is wearing?

If it is a human street person does it really make a difference which costume the human is wearing?

or for more difficult cases 

If it is a human bigot does it really make a difference which -ism the human is wearing?

If it is a human criminal does it really make a difference which suit the human is wearing?

 Humanism does not mean noble or even not a prick.  But the assumption of inherent worth and dignity does change the way you think even of a prick.  Maybe a victim of bad parenting, or the wrong associations while an adolescent, or any of a host of factors.  Hesh is still a prick, a crippled human, but a human nonetheless.  

 Please note.  I am saying nothing about what a humanist society will do to protect itself from crippled humans.  It must do so.  Even humanist societies remove threats, but even threat removal must recognize the dignity and humanness of the threat. The current US paradigm of throwing the threat in a for-profit prison benefits no one as "prisoners" are by definition not human.  The Norwegian model of assuming the person temporarily removed from society is not only human but is a potentially good citizen if properly educated in the mores of the society.   

 Parenting is a different issue.  But the same principles apply.  A parent, that is a person or persons who chooses to accept a child into their family, also accepts the societal obligation to nurture and socialize the child to become a responsible human adult in the society.  The society will provide resources to help, but ultimately it is the responsibility of those who choose to parent to choose the most useful resources to supplement their nurturing guidance.  This is a joint effort of the parents and the society but parents have some choice in the society they wish to associate with, and even within the society they choose may make choices to emphasize certain mores vs others. 



 

 

TRUTH™ Means that Others are Wrong.

Beliefnet
The theist concern for the TRUTH^TM is a critical difference that causes many problems.  If you have the TRUTH^TM then by definition anything that does not comply with that TRUTH^TM is necessarily inferior and/or wrong.  You are still under the delusion that an atheist or even a rational theist that thinks differently from you has a wrong belief, and that therefore considers their belief to be the TRUTH^TM and all other beliefs inferior and/or wrong.
 
For most atheists and some rational theists this is simply not the case.  A rational approach to living merely says this paradigm works for me, and I will therefore follow this path.  Others are not necessarily wrong or inferior, they are just on a different path to a common goal, that is getting along with all people and things in a responsible way. 
 
As long as belief in God is subservient to getting along with others in a responsible way, I have no issue with that belief.  But if that belief is that God takes precedence over others and that those others are wrong and/or inferior, then we have a major problem.  It is those and only those theists that don't give the benefit of the doubt that are a problem for their fellows, theist or not.  Unfortunately, those theists are all too common and pose a real threat to atheists, and rational theists, and non-theistic believers in other truths.  

Is is sex or sexism that sells?

Jonathan Korman

“Everyone says sex sells, but actually sexism sells. There’s a difference.” -@femfreq (via @mmjordahl)

Not so. If the attractive and provocative model pitching the oversize SUV convinces the buyer of either gender that the SUV will compensate for lack of the necessaries for attractiveness where is the sexism. Pure sex sell. Also, is Yuja Wang being sexist by selling her music by dressing appropriately for a star of her age? It sure makes the reviewers drool all over their copy, who is sexist here?

Jonathan Korman  The process is sexist. It doesn't need to be located in any individual.

A process cannot be sexist. It is the individual reaction only. Dressing appropriately for the job is not sexist. Consider a CEO in a power tie or scarf and shoulder pads, at the head of the table. Is hesh being sexist? Using sex to sell, or what?

This is the same argument that a runner in a sports bra/top and tight shorts is asking to be raped. It doesn't fly.

More later... 11/? 

Homophobia

Courtesy The Other 98% facebook. 10/14/13
I hate the word
Homophobia.
It isn't a phobia.
You're not afraid.
You're an Asshole.

Yesterday is up. No, it is East.

http://edge.org/conversation/how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-we-think

What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.

Where yesterday is depends on your native language in the title Mandarin and Kuuk Thaayorre (aboriginal Australian) respectively.  I don't know about you but as an English speaker it is behind me.

If you describe a key or a bridge in English, the words you choose have the characteristics of the gender of the word in your native language if that native language is gendered.

A sentence in Japanese where many things seem to me to be personalized I remember from my capital budgeting days is "The air conditioner for our office wants to leak, we are not permitted to repair it, but the building will close its eyes if we do so."

A fascinating article. Linked to study.  Well worth the time.