Should the religious world thank the secular world for improving older religious law to the level of excellence we now e

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Greatest I am
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Re: Should the religious world thank the secular world for improving older religious law to the level of excellence we n

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Red wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 8:31 pm @Porphyry Wikipedia is almost always reliable when it comes to important things, such as science, history, ideologies, etc., so here you can rely on what the article says. It's only the ones on celebrities or obscure things that often have biases and/or misinformation.
I agree as have yet to be led astray by Wiki.

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DL
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Re: Should the religious world thank the secular world for improving older religious law to the level of excellence we n

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esquizofrenico wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 3:28 am I agree with Porphyry somewhat but I think that his argument can be more convincing if you don't go to those extreme cases, but rather to some positions that used to be almost widespread in secular intellectuals of the past, like Eugenics and historical materialism, that were opposed by more conservative authors. There is a quote by G.K.Chesterton talking about his friend Bernard Shaw that I like a lot (this is not the actual quote, just the general idea): "He is like a nurse that seeing a baby does not like the milk in its feeding bottle, throws the baby out the window rather than the milk".
Good reply.

I said somewhat of the same on stats and terms with the use of my 80 20 rule.

Great minds and all that buddy.

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DL
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Re: Should the religious world thank the secular world for improving older religious law to the level of excellence we n

Post by esquizofrenico »

Porphyry wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:36 am
That's a good point. I would add, though, that I don't mean to throw the baby out the window. Looking back on my comments I can see that it might have seemed that way. I prefer living in a secular / liberal society to living in a religious state. Countries that have separation of church and state (either explicitly or culturally) are a great benefit. I can see I did not make that clear.

Your examples are good ones; thanks for the insight.

Porphyry
Yeah, absolutely, I'm also glad we live in a secular society. It's just that we should not judge our society and culture as one that has arrived to "the end of history", just as all the secular thinkers I'm talking about used to. I am the first one that hates the kind of people that say nonsense like "the only bad thing about the Middle Ages was their lack of technology, in every other aspect they were a more free, just and happy society than ours". But we need to be realist and recognize that history is not teleological and that what we have today is the product of a lot of people with incompatible ideas fighting each other to become the predominant culture. I agree completely with Albert Camus when he says that any ideology that believes that history has a meaning or a destination is absolutely pernicious for humans.
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Re: Should the religious world thank the secular world for improving older religious law to the level of excellence we n

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esquizofrenico wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 9:31 pm
Porphyry wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:36 am
That's a good point. I would add, though, that I don't mean to throw the baby out the window. Looking back on my comments I can see that it might have seemed that way. I prefer living in a secular / liberal society to living in a religious state. Countries that have separation of church and state (either explicitly or culturally) are a great benefit. I can see I did not make that clear.

Your examples are good ones; thanks for the insight.

Porphyry
Yeah, absolutely, I'm also glad we live in a secular society. It's just that we should not judge our society and culture as one that has arrived to "the end of history", just as all the secular thinkers I'm talking about used to. I am the first one that hates the kind of people that say nonsense like "the only bad thing about the Middle Ages was their lack of technology, in every other aspect they were a more free, just and happy society than ours". But we need to be realist and recognize that history is not teleological and that what we have today is the product of a lot of people with incompatible ideas fighting each other to become the predominant culture. I agree completely with Albert Camus when he says that any ideology that believes that history has a meaning or a destination is absolutely pernicious for humans.
A good reply, except for that last bit which I do not agree with.

The Gnostic Christian ideology, I hope, as that is what I follow, might be an exception to that thinking.

We are esoteric ecumenists and free thinkers who perpetually seek the best rules and laws to live life by and I think that that evolution will eventually, if not presently, give us the ideal way to live.

I see nothing pernicious in that. What do you see as pernicious in that?

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DL
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