That may be a fair characterization.AMP3083 wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2017 12:11 am Maybe Brian can confirm this with me, but basically we're promoting self-reliance (individuality/consciousness/wisdom) while you guys promote science and logic. We do not dismiss the latter entirely, however, without science, without philosophy, without religion, we would all have to rely on our own conscience, our own experiences for "Truth", whatever it may be.
The thing is, the very criticism you have been leveling at the idea of objective morality I believe applies much more so to your world view.
The more we rely on science and logic to the exclusion of individual intuition (I wouldn't call it wisdom, because true wisdom is to realize your intuition is flawed and seek better methods), the more people the world over can arrive at consensus through argument, instead of reach stalemates of faith which are resolved through violence instead.
And wouldn't the world be a more peaceful place if everybody saw it that way? Nobody would fight over religion, fueled by blind faith. Instead, we would all remain agnostic until presented with evidence, and then when presented with evidence we could unify to solve problems.
It's self imposed because anything else leads to chaos, and precludes both knowledge of truth and rational discourse. Faith or spiritual "gnosis" and intuition are not reliable means of knowing and they breed conflict: each person with personal conviction based on feeling that the other is wrong, but lacking the evidence to convince the opponent of it through dialogue.
Your solution seems to be to try to take away the conviction by questioning all reality as subjective, but that does not take away the potential for people to be convicted of their own whims or commit violence on behalf of those whims.
Your stance against fundamentalist Islamic terrorism would argue something like:
"If you want to promote fundamentalist Islam and kill unbelievers, go for it, that's your subjective ethics. You are not wrong or a bad person. I will try to convince you otherwise by sharing my opinion because I don't personally like what you're doing, particularly as you are trying to kill me and my family, and if you like my opinion more you can change, but that's just my personal opinion no better or worse than yours. Otherwise I have no argument. I can not call your actions objectively wrong or immoral, because that's only my opinion. You are doing right by your own ethics. I will only say you are wrong if you say what you're doing is objectively good, rather than good based on your moral framework."
Whereas my argument is much more robust. I do claim the person is doing wrong, and I can back it up with extensive logical debate, not just my opinion which can be easily discarded. I can deconstruct the religion, from scripture to metaphysics, and I can substitute an objective moral framework that shows how this behavior is unethical.
From a practical perspective, your method is simply unpersuasive.
Give me the ear of a fundamentalist, and I will change his or her mind. You'll exchange opinions, and then either kill or be killed because these people are too entrenched to be swayed from their very strong subjective experiences (even if they admit they're subjective) to yours.
Some of those people will end up peaceful, and others will end up religious zealots and kill people. Whereas with the method I'm promoting the outcome is much more reliable. You end up with altruists or hedonistic nihilists; not fundamentalists following their own truths.
That's not really true; we have neuropsychology.
If you want to explore random biases non-rigorously you can do that in your free time, but it's not something that benefits humanity; all that is, is digging up bias and psychosis which can have dire consequences.
I'm not saying that meditation is useless, but people need to remain grounded by reality to avoid committing atrocities.
Try quantum physics out for size.but one of the things i've learned for sure, through my own experience, is that reality is far more complicated, and far more beautifully strange, than any science or religion has ever managed to fully comprehend or articulate."
The author of that quote is clearly not a scientist, nor does McKenna understand science.
I'm getting the impression that this McKenna is something of a new-age cult leader, and you two have been indoctrinated. If this is a big deal, I may have to spend some time debunking him. What's his following like?