Purpose

[Renee]

Obviously there must be a purpose for creation otherwise the perfect Source would not have enabled it. If there is an objective purpose for creation it stands to reason that life within it must serve this purpose.

You are saying, there is a purpose, there has got to be a purpose, because the perfect being that put the world into motion can't have created something without a puprose.

I don't see a necessary connection there. A perfect being COULD and CAN have created a universe with no purpose.

The reason you feel a purposeless universe is not perfect, is because you are frightfully human. All humans need a purpose, badly, both theists and atheists. But a creator might think otherwise.

It just seems inhuman to me that certain students enduring education intuitively feel reality but at the same time are subjected to all this negativity from emotionally inspired denial. No wonder they turn to drugs.

Biassed reasosing. One might say "students turn to drugs because despite being religious, they still have no sense of purpose", and be just as likely to be right or wrong as your biassed claim.

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Aside from all this, you admit that you don't know what the purpose is, despite being sure that there is one.

Well. If you don't know what it is, how different is it from not having one? Maybe this gives you hope that one day you'll learn what the purpose is? Well, good luck, I don't mean this sarcastically, but sincerely. You'll need it.

[Eduk]

When considering the "problems" of secular education, let's first consider religious mind control through history. A personal example: my mother was unusually bright but when she displayed it at her convent school the nuns, in her words, "beat me black and blue". These were not secularists, but nuns. Religions have controlled educational systems throughout history and they still have a strong influence on both syllabus and culture of educational institutions, with most major decisions on education still made by devoutly religious politicians.

I am not sure this is fair. As an example does football create hooligans? I assume you would say no? Likewise I am not convinced that religion makes people unreasonable or violent or controlling or power hungry or conformist or anything else. It may reinforce certain biases but then so does Facebook. I don't think wanting to be part of a group and ignoring negative aspects is unique to religion. There are non religious groups in history as bad as any religious group in history. I, for example, am not against religion I am pro scientific method and critical thinking. In many cases this feels like exactly the same thing but I think it's an important distinction. For example I don't blame religion for bad decisions I blame people.

[LuckyR]

When considering the "problems" of secular education, let's first consider religious mind control through history. A personal example: my mother was unusually bright but when she displayed it at her convent school the nuns, in her words, "beat me black and blue". These were not secularists, but nuns. Religions have controlled educational systems throughout history and they still have a strong influence on both syllabus and culture of educational institutions, with most major decisions on education still made by devoutly religious politicians.

I am not sure this is fair. As an example does football create hooligans? I assume you would say no? Likewise I am not convinced that religion makes people unreasonable or violent or controlling or power hungry or conformist or anything else. It may reinforce certain biases but then so does Facebook. I don't think wanting to be part of a group and ignoring negative aspects is unique to religion. There are non religious groups in history as bad as any religious group in history. I, for example, am not against religion I am pro scientific method and critical thinking. In many cases this feels like exactly the same thing but I think it's an important distinction. For example I don't blame religion for bad decisions I blame people.

Unfortunately for your argument, pointing out examples of secular blunders does not negate the problems with organized religion. It distracts from them, sure, but does not promote your goal.

[Eduk]

Unfortunately for your argument, pointing out examples of secular blunders does not negate the problems with organized religion. It distracts from them, sure, but does not promote your goal.

I don't remember saying it does negate problems? Also what is my goal?

[LuckyR]

Unfortunately for your argument, pointing out examples of secular blunders does not negate the problems with organized religion. It distracts from them, sure, but does not promote your goal.

I don't remember saying it does negate problems? Also what is my goal?

Explicitly? No.

If not, then explain a different inference from your red high-lit sentence.

[Nick_A]

Greta wrote:

You ask how one should respond to a distressed teen asking about God. I suggest giving her an honest and sincere answer.

In other words, pass the buck. Admit that you don’t know. Now the student is stuck with finding people who can respond intelligently including if there is a Source for creation, why isn’t it widely known?

When considering the "problems" of secular education, let's first consider religious mind control through history. A personal example: my mother was unusually bright but when she displayed it at her convent school the nuns, in her words, "beat me black and blue". These were not secularists, but nuns.

You don’t seem to appreciate the difference between secularism and the essence of religion. You are describing secularized religion which is expression of the Great Beast much like politics. You cannot expect any more from secularized religion than you can from politics. Both are governed by the same hypocrisy.

Secularized religion as with politics tells people what to think and do. The essence of religion and Christianity for example is concerned with what we ARE in relation to re-birth. I doubt you could find one person who could explain the difference between proselytizing and Christian love.

I’ve read that the first thing to be lost as societies become secularized is the inner sense of scale. Everything is put on the same level. As above, so below has no meaning in relation to religion. It is all considered the same and even insulting to raise the idea of objective quality. So who suffers: the students of course who have not yet lost their sense of scale and seek understanding from adults who have already lost it.

Some in the church, like Nick, seem to rue religion's slight loss of control over "secular" society. Today religion is only massively dominant rather than ubiquitous - as was the case in "the good old days". "Secular society" is largely a myth, at least as regards the west. Evidence? The percentage of theists running our governments and the consider all of the commonsense things that should be done. eg. dying with dignity, but cannot due to those religious "representatives".

All this means is that you are unaware even theoretically of the difference between secularism and the essence of religion. The sad thing is that many schools are governed by the same ignorance for some reason called intelligence which can only serve to prevent awakening to objective purpose..

-- Updated Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:26 pm to add the following --

Renee wrote:

You are saying, there is a purpose, there has got to be a purpose, because the perfect being that put the world into motion can't have created something without a puprose.

I don't see a necessary connection there. A perfect being COULD and CAN have created a universe with no purpose.

Give me a reason why perfect being would create imperfection.

Biassed reasosing. One might say "students turn to drugs because despite being religious, they still have no sense of purpose", and be just as likely to be right or wrong as your biassed claim.

Like Greta you are only aware of secularized religious expression. For the student drawn to awakening the Great Beast as well as other forms of religious idolatry are just as meaningless. Of course some become hooked on drugs through societal pressures but the point is that many truly gifted students attracted to what it means to be human give up and turn to drugs. Now that is tragic.

Aside from all this, you admit that you don't know what the purpose is, despite being sure that there is one.

Well. If you don't know what it is, how different is it from not having one? Maybe this gives you hope that one day you'll learn what the purpose is? Well, good luck, I don't mean this sarcastically, but sincerely. You'll need it.

Over the years and through the efforts of some exceptional people I have acquired an intellectual appreciation for what I believe universal purpose including human life within it is. It satisfies a need in me I would never impose on others. A person lacking objective purpose but needing to experience it is like a lost soul. It is a sad condition to be in. My advantage is knowing the importance and meaning of the Socratic axiom to “know thyself.” A person sees that they don’t and that is the beginning. Of course a student isn’t strong enough to battle both peer pressure and mixed up educators so they begin to become defined by the Great Beast. If that isn’t a good reason to start drinking, I don’t know what is.

[Renee]

You are saying, there is a purpose, there has got to be a purpose, because the perfect being that put the world into motion can't have created something without a purpose.
I don't see a necessary connection there. A perfect being COULD and CAN have created a universe with no purpose.

Give me a reason why perfect being would create imperfection.

Assuming that a perfect being created the universe, is preposterous. There are too many imperfections down here, Scott, so beam me up.

To answer your question, in a hypothetical form: who said the world is imperfect? I did. But you say it is perfect. Yet there is no purpose. So a perfect world has no purpose. That in and by itself is not an imperfection; it only seems to you that it is. To you it seems that purposelessness is imperfection. To your god it may not seem so. I actually explained it to you in no ambiguous terms, and I am only paraphrasing my pre-explained answer. Please read the text carefully, before you ask for secondary, paraphrased explanations. That can get tiresome, and it may give the wrong impression about your powers of comprehension. I really don't know why you wanted the same explanation again.

Of course some become hooked on drugs through societal pressures but the point is that many truly gifted students attracted to what it means to be human give up and turn to drugs. Now that is tragic.

I agree there. It is tragic when truly gifted students attracted to what it means to be human give up and turn to drugs. That is tragic. Including the times when giving up the search because the students see it completely futile, due to their insight and wisdom -- after all, they are truly gifted students. Not like some others, who learned only one lesson they can repeat back to the teacher and to the world, which is, "Defend your faith and your alleged god by any means, even if you have to utter completely false logic and deny that you are speaking biassed opinions; and learn to accept your self-suggestion that your bias is actually the truth."

As to your last paragraph; go to any AA meeting, and you'll see that 100 percent of all participants there believe that a higher being can help them.

This does not smack of brilliant atheist who have been led ashtray by their mixed-up teachers.

Your theory to me seems completely fabricated, without any lack of statistical evidence. It is theory, which is fine, but you have to test it before you say it is a valid theory. I suggest you research the reasons in terms of actual numbers per group, why people go into drugs and what percent of brilliant students go into drugs. You are assuming that these numbers exist, and that they support your theory. Well, they don't.

The only support of your theory is anecdotal evidence. But that can be countered by opposing anecdotal evidence. The two balance each other out, to the point that neither can be used as evidence. So please don't use it if you subscribe to using logic in your arguments. All philosophers on philosophy forums do, or must, or ought to use logic to present their arguments.

[Nick_A]

Renee wrote:

Assuming that a perfect being created the universe, is preposterous. There are too many imperfections down here, Scott, so beam me up.

It is perfectly logical. Many people deny the possibility emotionally. Yet, when we get past that hurdle it can become perfectly reasonable why perfect eternal unchanging “Isness” can include the imperfect eternally changing process of existence within it.

I agree there. It is tragic when truly gifted students attracted to what it means to be human give up and turn to drugs. That is tragic. Including the times when giving up the search because the students see it completely futile, due to their insight and wisdom --

"To believe in God is not a decision we can make. All we can do is decide not to give our love to false gods. In the first place, we can decide not to believe that the future contains for us an all-sufficient good. The future is made of the same stuff as the present....

"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©

The “educated” secularist including some working in schools find it better to advise the young to give up seeking to understand when society no longer satisfies the deeper needs of the heart. Their natural inclination though is to hit bottom and ask through pure contemplation. The secularist will deny this option as best they can by insisting they know by experience there is nothing there so just play with your remote, go out and get laid, and ignore this need. Get involved. It will go away. Then there are the Simones of the world who defy the experts with their intellectual and emotional quality. And to make matters worse, may even provide an option for those the secularists seek to inwardly destroy.

[Fooloso4]

On the problem of self-knowledge a couple quotes from Montaigne are instructive:

Thus in this manner of knowing oneself, the fact that everyone is seen to be so cocksure and self-satisfied, that everyone thinks he understands enough about himself, signifies that everyone understands nothing about it,as Socrates teaches Euthydemos in Xenophon.

Euthydemos prided himself on having received the best education and being wise. In order to instruct him Socrates resorts to ridiculing him in order to get him to begin to understand that he is not wise, that he did not know himself. It was not until Euthydemos lost his self confidence that he was able to begin his education.

Now it really should not take a Socrates to rid someone of his self-satisfied cocksuredness, but even Socrates could not convince everyone. Euthyphro comes to mind. This leads to the next quote:

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

And so, we are left to wonder whether those who proffer such thoughts are pious frauds or simply ignorant of their own ignorance despite their protestations to the contrary.

[Nick_A]

Fooloso4 quoted:

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

A perfect description of a progressive. They are superior to others in this regard from the complete lack of humility necessary to get the slightest glimpse of the fallen human condition as it exists in them.

[Ace9]

First of all I would suggest that purpose is a subjective term used by our conscious awareness to interpret our experience. Purpose like everything else is a contrivance of full theory of mind. Lest we descend into the hell pit of nihilism and despair we have denial to the rescue. That innate ability of our awareness to believe that which would serve to deflect the downside of our existence. For example the knowledge of our mortality, including the risk of an earlier demise by accident or disease etc. This reality does not prevent us from living the good life, as long as we have denial by our side. Our purpose is to survive which is the prime directive if you will, coupled with the opportunity to reproduce. If this wasn't the case, we would not be here having this conversation

[Sy Borg]

Greta wrote:

You ask how one should respond to a distressed teen asking about God. I suggest giving her an honest and sincere answer.

In other words, pass the buck. Admit that you don’t know. Now the student is stuck with finding people who can respond intelligently including if there is a Source for creation, why isn’t it widely known?

Straw person. More might be said in the situation than "I don't know"; it depends on the individual. Sincerity and authenticity is what matters in that situation. Religious comforters often have an agenda of conversion, and I consider such help far less valuable than simple honesty and care.

When considering the "problems" of secular education, let's first consider religious mind control through history. A personal example: my mother was unusually bright but when she displayed it at her convent school the nuns, in her words, "beat me black and blue". These were not secularists, but nuns.

You don’t seem to appreciate the difference between secularism and the essence of religion. You are describing secularized religion which is expression of the Great Beast much like politics. You cannot expect any more from secularized religion than you can from politics. Both are governed by the same hypocrisy.

So that discounts all religious institutions. What and where are the non secularised religions, as you'd define it? Do any exist?

Some in the church, like Nick, seem to rue religion's slight loss of control over "secular" society. Today religion is only massively dominant rather than ubiquitous - as was the case in "the good old days". "Secular society" is largely a myth, at least as regards the west. Evidence? The percentage of theists running our governments and the consider all of the commonsense things that should be done. eg. dying with dignity, but cannot due to those religious "representatives".

All this means is that you are unaware even theoretically of the difference between secularism and the essence of religion. The sad thing is that many schools are governed by the same ignorance for some reason called intelligence which can only serve to prevent awakening to objective purpose.

I'm thoroughly in favour of the essence of religion (ie. mystical and peak experiences) but once humans form structures and hierarchies around those experiences and the stories told by experiencers, and you have paid positions or positions with perks, then nature will follow its usual course to cronyism and corruption.

[Fooloso4]

Nick_A:

A perfect description of a progressive. They are superior to others in this regard from the complete lack of humility necessary to get the slightest glimpse of the fallen human condition as it exists in them.

You posit a fiction above and fiction below human existence and thus refuse to look at human life as it is. Instead you go on and on about a fallen condition that makes of man less than he is and a transcendent condition that makes of him more than he can be. It is an abdication of human responsibility. Man is in a wretched condition and can do nothing to improve himself except believe in your God who will lift him up and make of him a new man.

Weil makes the point explicit:

He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God … A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him.

Reject everything that is human in the hope and expectation that some day something that is not human will come to guide you. Until then one cannot know what is and is not God and as a result all that is best in human life is despised and disregarded while one waits.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A:

A perfect description of a progressive. They are superior to others in this regard from the complete lack of humility necessary to get the slightest glimpse of the fallen human condition as it exists in them.

You posit a fiction above and fiction below human existence and thus refuse to look at human life as it is. Instead you go on and on about a fallen condition that makes of man less than he is and a transcendent condition that makes of him more than he can be. It is an abdication of human responsibility. Man is in a wretched condition and can do nothing to improve himself except believe in your God who will lift him up and make of him a new man.

Weil makes the point explicit:

He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God … A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him.

Reject everything that is human in the hope and expectation that some day something that is not human will come to guide you. Until then one cannot know what is and is not God and as a result all that is best in human life is despised and disregarded while one waits.

Fooloso4 quoted:

On the problem of self-knowledge a couple quotes from Montaigne are instructive:

Thus in this manner of knowing oneself, the fact that everyone is seen to be so cocksure and self-satisfied, that everyone thinks he understands enough about himself, signifies that everyone understands nothing about it,as Socrates teaches Euthydemos in Xenophon.

The trouble is that if you don't know yourself what does it mean to be human? Suppose Simone Weil was right in writing:

“Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life”

"Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it."

If she is right How could a person grow to experience objective purpose? You believe this idea to be nonsense. How can a person verify one way or another? A person would require the need, courage, and will to "know thyself." Only a few are capable so society remains the great beast supported by slaves of conditioned imagination. A person believes they are losing their humanity. All they are losing is reliance on imagination which is gradually replaced by the reality of a conscious human perspective.

[Fooloso4]

Nick_A:

If she is right How could a person grow to experience objective purpose?

This points to the problem. Self-knowledge begins with one’s self, not with what you or Weil imagine to be “objective purpose”. Rather than looking at oneself you point away from the self. You look to Weil as your expert in these matters and put the notion that “only a few are capable” as an obstacle in the way of living an examined life. You are saying in effect, don’t look at yourself, look to Simone Weil to tell you who you are.