I don't know if you realize it, but you moved into a bit of materialist philosophy there. I actually agree that those are all very important issues to discuss with considering the question "what is love?" (baby don't hurt me....don't hurt me...no more... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwK3vFGJp0 Sorry.) I'll address that in another post, because it deserves a bit longer of an answer than I have time for just this second. Come to think, answer isn't really the right word, philosophy isn't as interested in answers as finding the right question to ask, so I'll see what I can do as far as questioning your questions.
Now as for your last paragraph, those I can answer.
Faith cannot make calls on ethical demands because ethics are a human consideration. They don't stand on faith, they stand on human understanding and a common belief in what is good. Ethics are not a question of believing in the unbelieved, they are a study of the 'why?' of morality, so basing them in faith is like basing them on ocean currents...it has nothing to do with the ideas being discussed.
As to your second question, no I wouldn't say that personal happiness is the goal of ethical consideration, I would say human happiness is. I'm not a 100% utilitarian in these matters, but I think we should approach ethics and morality in as utilitarian a mode as possible. This means asking tough questions and looking at why the answers are right, not just accepting handed down ethos as holding some sort of divine warrant. This means looking at things you hold dear and trying to figure out why you should, or why you shouldn't. Ethics and morality are not easy questions, they are painful fields to move into, but rewarding none the less.
Know why your answers are your answers, and make sure they are YOUR answers, not simply parrotings of the ancient world. If something is ethical it shouldn't need to be cited in a bible verse or a shifting of the burden of proof heavenward to explain why. The answers are out there, and to use a phrase we were raised on, seek and ye shall find.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Happiness?
By personal happiness i was referring to my own happiness over Anna's happiness. Is that what you were thinking about in personal happiness?
I don't think Christians have a hold on the love definition, but I do think that we have something to say about love. I think true love is especially seen when someone sacrifices their own happiness for someone else. Love is very sacrificial in nature. The act of committing to someone for the rest of your life requires sacrifice. There are a lot of things you are not going to be able to do and a lot of dreams that you are going to have to give up because of the love you have for someone else. And that is in an ideal relationship. What if the person you love goes crazy or becomes suicidal or depressive and makes your life miserable? Is that no longer love, because your personal happiness is no longer present? I think you can not have love between two people without some sort of loss of personal/individual happiness.
Why can't a faith system speak to ethics? Would you say personal happiness is the goal of ethics?
I don't think Christians have a hold on the love definition, but I do think that we have something to say about love. I think true love is especially seen when someone sacrifices their own happiness for someone else. Love is very sacrificial in nature. The act of committing to someone for the rest of your life requires sacrifice. There are a lot of things you are not going to be able to do and a lot of dreams that you are going to have to give up because of the love you have for someone else. And that is in an ideal relationship. What if the person you love goes crazy or becomes suicidal or depressive and makes your life miserable? Is that no longer love, because your personal happiness is no longer present? I think you can not have love between two people without some sort of loss of personal/individual happiness.
Why can't a faith system speak to ethics? Would you say personal happiness is the goal of ethics?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Love and Happiness
I'm admittedly no student of the history of love, but I will venture this guess: It'd didn't come from Paul. A lot of things that christianity claims as it's own inventions are evident in the religions that preceded it. Scratch the "a lot," I have yet to find one thing that it didn't crib from something else, but back to the question at hand.
This transposition of love and self sacrifice has always struck me as somewhat odd. Christianity seems to be wanting to broaden the meaning of love until it is synonymous with any positive emotion, which is...kind of dumb. Love, when the word is used in a conversation, means the amount you would care about a family member or romantic attraction. To seek to spread it to friendship or the civic mindedness or any of the other points that a lot of Paul's theology did was pretty pointless.
From the stance of self sacrifice, look up Jainism sometime, it's an ancient Indian religion revolving around the ideas of wisdom, non-violence and self control. It has all the aspects of the best parts of christian teaching without trying to redefine our relationships as love.
When we were talking the other day I stated flat out that humans are incapable of loving others, especially strangers, as they love themselves, and I meant it. That isn't some sort of nihilistic idea, it's a simple statement of fact. When was the last time you decided that you could use a day off to just relax? When was the last time you stopped by a random office building and informed someone inside that they needed a day off so they could relax and then worked for them? No one behaves this way, and the pretense that you do is simply a lie.
We care for those who we have a relationship with, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's what lets us build up society into something worth being a part of. Personal sacrifice is part of every relationship, but that doesn't mean it's separate from personal happiness.
We find happiness in many things...actually on this, scroll down and watch the video from my last post back before we restarted the conversation, that is exactly the sort of thing that I'm talking about when I say we do not need to base our idea of love on a concept of God. If you start out assuming you have the answer at the outset, for instance "God is where love comes from," you will be wrong more often than not and unhappy because of it more often than that.
Now to answer the two questions you brought up:
Yes, personal happiness is the goal in love, just as it is in life. Or as it should be. That isn't selfish that is realistic, and that is where ethics come from. Not from the idea of pleasing a judgmental parent figure in the sky, but from HUMAN happiness.
___________________________________________
Side note: I hate the fact that the formatting here doesn't let me tab in paragraphs. It annoys my sense of style.
This transposition of love and self sacrifice has always struck me as somewhat odd. Christianity seems to be wanting to broaden the meaning of love until it is synonymous with any positive emotion, which is...kind of dumb. Love, when the word is used in a conversation, means the amount you would care about a family member or romantic attraction. To seek to spread it to friendship or the civic mindedness or any of the other points that a lot of Paul's theology did was pretty pointless.
From the stance of self sacrifice, look up Jainism sometime, it's an ancient Indian religion revolving around the ideas of wisdom, non-violence and self control. It has all the aspects of the best parts of christian teaching without trying to redefine our relationships as love.
When we were talking the other day I stated flat out that humans are incapable of loving others, especially strangers, as they love themselves, and I meant it. That isn't some sort of nihilistic idea, it's a simple statement of fact. When was the last time you decided that you could use a day off to just relax? When was the last time you stopped by a random office building and informed someone inside that they needed a day off so they could relax and then worked for them? No one behaves this way, and the pretense that you do is simply a lie.
We care for those who we have a relationship with, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's what lets us build up society into something worth being a part of. Personal sacrifice is part of every relationship, but that doesn't mean it's separate from personal happiness.
We find happiness in many things...actually on this, scroll down and watch the video from my last post back before we restarted the conversation, that is exactly the sort of thing that I'm talking about when I say we do not need to base our idea of love on a concept of God. If you start out assuming you have the answer at the outset, for instance "God is where love comes from," you will be wrong more often than not and unhappy because of it more often than that.
Now to answer the two questions you brought up:
Yes, personal happiness is the goal in love, just as it is in life. Or as it should be. That isn't selfish that is realistic, and that is where ethics come from. Not from the idea of pleasing a judgmental parent figure in the sky, but from HUMAN happiness.
___________________________________________
Side note: I hate the fact that the formatting here doesn't let me tab in paragraphs. It annoys my sense of style.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Love & Happiness
So it seems that you can't learn to love from God? It seems the idea of Agape/Unconditional Love from Christian Teaching was revolutionary when Paul first talked about it in the Bible. This love was not a love that most people tried to live up to until the example of Christ. So basically this type of Love is based on God (in Christian thought). Is this Love possible? What is your ultimate goal by loving someone? Personal Happiness? I'll tell you from my own experience personal sacrifice is more conducive to a loving relationship being successful with someone than personal happiness. What do you think?
Love
Well first off I'm going to have to make a clarification, since that question is a little misleading as it is stated. Love is a real emotion, in our discussion yesterday I was explaining how a lot of people base their idea that love is somehow a gift from God and then cite it as evidence that God exists.
Love, as in the initial attraction between two people that drives them to mate...and consequentially put up with each others crap, is chemical. So is every other emotion we experience. I don't say that from a point of random speculation, we can watch the signaling pathways firing, we can see the parts of our brain lighting up in an MRI that show these things.
What I was discussing yesterday is that people using love as a proof of God or using some sort of idealized love as their goal is wrongheaded in the extreme. If you are basing an idea on something that you can't even prove exists, especially something as important as love, and then you speculate on how this unknown creature wants you to...you hobble yourself and you cripple your chances for happiness.
Love, as in the initial attraction between two people that drives them to mate...and consequentially put up with each others crap, is chemical. So is every other emotion we experience. I don't say that from a point of random speculation, we can watch the signaling pathways firing, we can see the parts of our brain lighting up in an MRI that show these things.
What I was discussing yesterday is that people using love as a proof of God or using some sort of idealized love as their goal is wrongheaded in the extreme. If you are basing an idea on something that you can't even prove exists, especially something as important as love, and then you speculate on how this unknown creature wants you to...you hobble yourself and you cripple your chances for happiness.
Question for Joe- Love
Hey could you go into more about what you meant by Love is not a real emotion?
Do Atheist Pray
Great Response Joe! I enjoyed reading your view, because I was just joking. But thanks for your comments on prayer. Your view of prayer was very limiting though. I do not pray simply to get things. I actually pray to form a relationship with my creator. I think that praying just to get things and solve problems is okay, but that is what you do early in a faith. A relationship is really the goal. I have had prayer answered in my life with out any effort on my own or others. I've seen situations that should not have worked themselves out actually work out. I've also had prayer answered in my life that I had to work at. Just cause I had to work at something does not mean a prayer was not answered. I don't believe in praying and sitting and waiting. Prayer does not limit my actions but actually gives me courage to take on the action. If the church is God community then maybe prayer is answered sometimes by means of the community in action. We in the church pray yes! But we also act! It is the Hands and feet idea that you have prob heard about from your upbringing in Church.
My prayer is not simply a childhood act toward a parent. I would never have shared the things that I share with God with my parents. My deep inner sins, my personal conflicts, my desire to know them intimately. None of these would I have talked about with Dad or Mom. I would have been afraid they would ground me! :-)
Prayer is essential to the life of a believer, but misunderstood by those outside of the faith. It is a discipline that takes time to develop and you don't get instant response always but sometimes you do get a response and when it comes you have no doubt that it was the hand of God.
My prayer is not simply a childhood act toward a parent. I would never have shared the things that I share with God with my parents. My deep inner sins, my personal conflicts, my desire to know them intimately. None of these would I have talked about with Dad or Mom. I would have been afraid they would ground me! :-)
Prayer is essential to the life of a believer, but misunderstood by those outside of the faith. It is a discipline that takes time to develop and you don't get instant response always but sometimes you do get a response and when it comes you have no doubt that it was the hand of God.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Do atheists pray...
Well that's an interesting question. If you define atheist how I do, meaning someone that doesn't believe in the supernatural, I'd have to say no. No we do not.
I remember the first time I was in a bit of a crisis after I really started to not believe and felt that old reflex to whisper quietly to myself and hope that things would get better. I also remember the amusement and regret I instantly felt once that urge came up as I realized that speaking to something that doesn't exist wouldn't really help my problem, and instead did the same thing that I'd always done before: I started working to correct the situation and resolved it.
Prayer is a bit of a crutch, and a little...for lack of a better word, immature. It is the remnant in adulthood of that feeling we had as children that a parent would make everything ok.
When we pray we feel a sense of consolation because we think someone is working to fix the issue, but stop and think about your answered prayers. Think about when they were resolved and how. Was it something that would have worked itself out with some hard work from you anyway? Was it solved by the intervention of another person? Was it solved at all? If you apply these questions, and if you're really diligent about it and keep a log of them, you'll quickly realize that your "answered" prayers were resolved by something that could be explained within the laws of nature.
So no, atheists don't pray. We may hope for a resolution of our problems, but we do not foist them off on an imaginary friend and believe they have somehow been resolved.
I remember the first time I was in a bit of a crisis after I really started to not believe and felt that old reflex to whisper quietly to myself and hope that things would get better. I also remember the amusement and regret I instantly felt once that urge came up as I realized that speaking to something that doesn't exist wouldn't really help my problem, and instead did the same thing that I'd always done before: I started working to correct the situation and resolved it.
Prayer is a bit of a crutch, and a little...for lack of a better word, immature. It is the remnant in adulthood of that feeling we had as children that a parent would make everything ok.
When we pray we feel a sense of consolation because we think someone is working to fix the issue, but stop and think about your answered prayers. Think about when they were resolved and how. Was it something that would have worked itself out with some hard work from you anyway? Was it solved by the intervention of another person? Was it solved at all? If you apply these questions, and if you're really diligent about it and keep a log of them, you'll quickly realize that your "answered" prayers were resolved by something that could be explained within the laws of nature.
So no, atheists don't pray. We may hope for a resolution of our problems, but we do not foist them off on an imaginary friend and believe they have somehow been resolved.
Restart baby
Here we go again Joe likes to blog so I am going to ask a questions and he is going to answer: first question... Do atheist pray when they get kidney stones?
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