Political compass for the21st century

[pbrower2a]

What I would call the sectors:

yellow -- plutocratic. People in this sector trust economic power more than any other power and see class interests of economic elites as the best guide to achieving human happiness. Results may be grossly unequal, but the world clearly divides between "winners" and "losers" even if the distinction has more cause in inheritance and connections than in any discernible virtues. "Winners" have the right to expect "losers" to toil for minimal rewards (bare survival), and the "losers" must earn survival, for which there is no inherent right, at the cost of their humanity. This sector is amoral except for recognizing that waste and inefficiency are vices and that toil is a necessity no matter who gets most of the fruit.

blue -- theocratic. It believes in moral authority as determined in some sacred text and that hierarchies rightly put some ancient teachings paramount to greed (yellow), nation (brown), equity (red) or human desire (purple). The fault is that the priests can themselves be woefully corrupt and unaccountable (the Roman Catholic Church of the late middle ages; such American evangelists as Jimmy Swaggart, and of course the mullahs in Iran).

(I have a hint for a yellow-purple character just on the side of the purple line: a wealth-cult evangelist such as Joel Osteen, who has a huge following in America). Swaggart, Hagee, and the like might fit somewhere more in the more-clearly purple part of the circle.

brown -- nationalists. The Iranian mullahs believe that their sort of Islamic Revolution will eventually prevail worldwide, much as the Inquisitors of the early-modern era believed that their militant form of Christianity would eventually prevail over all the heretics. Those who believe that their vision applies strictly to their own country and that other nations are to be smashed with the people of defeated countries enslaved or slaughtered are nationalists of the worst kind. The proof that the Nazi vision failed is not that the Nazis got defeated; it was that the German people would not be exterminated or enslaved. Maybe Nazi war criminals would themselves be rooted out and eventually killed through formal executions, but that treated Nazi war criminals as failed gangsters. The gentler sorts of nationalists have a great sentimentality for their culture, and they may capitalize upon that. The likes of a James Joyce, a Jelly Roll Morton, or an Antonin Dvorak might fit somewhere closer to the center in this category.

Nationalism is not all wickedness. Nationalism among the oppressed and marginalized within a society is an assertion of human dignity, but a narrow dignity. It doesn't hurt people.

I would call the "red" sector "socialist". It recognizes the amorality of plutocratic society and the emptiness of theocratic debates on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It promises more widespread prosperity than the narrow vision of tycoons and big landowners (whether of landed estates or great tracts of urban slums) can ever allow. The gentler sorts have room for small business because small-business owners are not inherent oppressors, In theory a democratically-elected parliament can better manage great wealth than can rapacious plutocrats for the general good.

The purple sector suggests the less clumsy "humanist" to me. It has rarely had extreme figures in charge of any society.

[Captain Genet]

(06-22-2021, 06:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Those who combine other sectors with nationalism, are primarily interested in those other sectors and should be placed there. So the French Jacobins are just reddish inclusivists, and the North Vietnamese in the 1960s were deeper-red socialists.

Agreed, with some exceptions like White Power types who extol Christianity only because this is "the white man's religion", but accept Norse Paganism and Satanism as long as they are suitably racist. The wife of American National Socialist Movement's founder is a high priestess in a cult called Joy of Satan.

Quote:By the way, Ocasio-Cortez, being a democratic socialist, is closer to red. Virtually identical to Bernie Sanders. No doubt that sector might get a little crowded.

The same psychology which makes people oppose cultural hierarchy often makes them oppose economic hierarchy as well. Still, some people oppose economic hierarchy without opposing cultural hierarchy (Lukashenko) or vice versa (Rajneesh).

Quote:You can't have religion without what you call the supernatural, because this transmits the moral codes into the personality and enables people to follow them. Just memorizing commandments, as I said, does not work. Real transformation of the individual must take place. In traditional monotheistic western and middle-eastern religion, this happens through revelation and by the adherent giving yourself over to the savior or prophet by faith. In the New Age, and usually in the Orient, this is done through the human potential techniques. To understand religion at all, anyone must understand that "the supernatural is natural." And vice-versa! And today, that means increasingly scientific as well.

Philosophy can transform people without including the supernatural. Many people believe in supernatural powers and are not transformed. What matters is the emotional experience.

Of course founders of traditional religions like Abraham, Zoroaster, Laozi and above all Jesus had immense emotional experience and were able to induce it in a group of disciples. Others like Mohammed or Confucius were more interested in political power.

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)PBrower2a Wrote: yellow -- plutocratic. People in this sector trust economic power more than any other power and see class interests of economic elites as the best guide to achieving human happiness. Results may be grossly unequal, but the world clearly divides between "winners" and "losers" even if the distinction has more cause in inheritance and connections than in any discernible virtues. "Winners" have the right to expect "losers" to toil for minimal rewards (bare survival), and the "losers" must earn survival, for which there is no inherent right, at the cost of their humanity. This sector is amoral except for recognizing that waste and inefficiency are vices and that toil is a necessity no matter who gets most of the fruit.

Libertarians closer to the Blue sector recognize morality and often understand poverty as a divine punishment for vice. Purer libertarians often treat morality as a matter of personal taste (like Mises) or declare the only morality is self-interest (Rand).

Quote:The purple sector suggests the less clumsy "humanist" to me. It has rarely had extreme figures in charge of any society.

Humanist is too narrow since many Inclusivists support animal rights and even ascribe some sort of personhood to ecosystems.

https://www.definitions.net/definition/inclusivism

"The practice of incorporating disparate or unreconciled elements in a single, inclusive system or theory" - in this case the system is a society
"The view that all religions have a partial truth." - maybe not only religions, but cultures and lifestyles

Quote:I would call the "red" sector "socialist".

Surely this is most recognizable term for this kind of views, but there are some Purples and Browns who call themselves socialists as well, from Maslow to Saddam.

[Eric the Green]

(06-24-2021, 02:54 AM)Captain Genet Wrote:

(06-22-2021, 06:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Those who combine other sectors with nationalism, are primarily interested in those other sectors and should be placed there. So the French Jacobins are just reddish inclusivists, and the North Vietnamese in the 1960s were deeper-red socialists.

Agreed, with some exceptions like White Power types who extol Christianity only because this is "the white man's religion", but accept Norse Paganism and Satanism as long as they are suitably racist. The wife of American National Socialist Movement's founder is a high priestess in a cult called Joy of Satan.

Good. But I thought I demonstrated for you that Norse Paganists are not racist. At least not the Odinists you referred me to. They are just American and British neo-liberals. So I still don't know how you can say Norse Paganists are racists.

Quote:Philosophy can transform people without including the supernatural. Many people believe in supernatural powers and are not transformed. What matters is the emotional experience.

Of course founders of traditional religions like Abraham, Zoroaster, Laozi and above all Jesus had immense emotional experience and were able to induce it in a group of disciples. Others like Mohammed or Confucius were more interested in political power.

These leaders were not especially emotional. Jesus very calmly stilled the waters and spoke his beatitudes on the hill. Reading the gospels, I don't hear any great emotion in his words or in the stories about his miracles. Just profound thoughts and interesting parables that make a point. The founders of religions all had revelatory, supermatural experiences, if we call "supernatural" at least what goes beyond a narrow mechanical cause explanation. But this revelation can be a vision (like Ezekiel's or St. Paul's) or a visitation by an angel (like Mohammed or Joseph Smith). Moses saw a burning bush and went up to the mountain. Buddha saw visions during his enlightenment experience. Abraham contacted whom he called his God and made a covenant. To become their follower doesn't usually take that degree of revelation, but many Christians meet Jesus and some see the Virgin Mary. They experience God's presence. The experience can be emotional, but also not emotional. Today many take psychedelics or get a contact high. Monks and seekers have used meditation, yoga, prayer, or have followed gurus and master teachers for centuries and millennia. Often these methods still emotions rather than bring them about. The change in consciousness is the thing. Expanding awareness of ourselves and our connection with all.

So-called modernist rationalists can deny peoples' experience, but can prove nothing. It's just ideology. Philosophy is putting into words what we are aware of, in this case. But otherwise it is about the truth, not behavior. Knowing principles is not enough to change behavior, is my point. If you add emotion to it, what stirs the emotions?

Of course, modernists and rationalists such as yourself, Captain Genet, lump into the "supernatural" category our own experiences and abilities that aren't all that miraculous; just beyond the power of mechanics to explain entirely; like our own free will or our psychic intuitions. Even chakras are denounced by modernists just because they aren't familiar with them and aren't entirely modern. They can just be seen as the way we experience our nerve ganglia and endocrine system.

"Many people believe in supernatural powers and are not transformed" Of course. For many, religion is nothing more than following orders and being preached at. Belief alone may not transform very much. Lots of religious people are not very moral, really. A preacher's emotional sermons might convince people to believe, but is this transformative? Does it instill moral behavior? Not necessarily. It just might add a member to the church rolls. But such churches don't create religions.

Quote:

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)PBrower2a Wrote: yellow -- plutocratic. People in this sector trust economic power more than any other power and see class interests of economic elites as the best guide to achieving human happiness. Results may be grossly unequal, but the world clearly divides between "winners" and "losers" even if the distinction has more cause in inheritance and connections than in any discernible virtues. "Winners" have the right to expect "losers" to toil for minimal rewards (bare survival), and the "losers" must earn survival, for which there is no inherent right, at the cost of their humanity. This sector is amoral except for recognizing that waste and inefficiency are vices and that toil is a necessity no matter who gets most of the fruit.

Libertarians closer to the Blue sector recognize morality and often understand poverty as a divine punishment for vice. Purer libertarians often treat morality as a matter of personal taste (like Mises) or declare the only morality is self-interest (Rand).

Libertarian is fine, but can be deliberately confusing; people who don't know the ideology may not know that libertarians are in-fact plutocrats. Or to put it another way, even the Libertarians themselves are often deceived and don't realize that their philosophy enables plutocracy. Or don't want to admit this.

Quote:

Quote:The purple sector suggests the less clumsy "humanist" to me. It has rarely had extreme figures in charge of any society.

Humanist is too narrow since many Inclusivists support animal rights and even ascribe some sort of personhood to ecosystems.
https://www.definitions.net/definition/inclusivism

I agree with you on that, Captain.

Quote:

Quote:I would call the "red" sector "socialist".

Surely this is most recognizable term for these kind of views, but there are some Purples and Browns who call themselves socialists as well, from Maslow to Saddam.

I agree with brower on this. Socialism is a correct but less-awkward and more-recognized term than Proletarianist (although it is also correct). Some purples, browns and blues have elements of socialism in their views. But that's why you have a circle in which some people can be close to the next sector.

[Eric the Green]

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (I have a hint for a yellow-purple character just on the side of the purple line: a wealth-cult evangelist such as Joel Osteen, who has a huge following in America). Swaggart, Hagee, and the like might fit somewhere more in the more-clearly purple part of the circle.

These folks have no connection to the purple sector. Osteen might be a moderate blue whose prosperity gospel would put him near the yellow line. But just being religious doesn't put one in the blue sector. The blue sector is a political program of putting religion in charge of the state. I don't know Osteen's political views. He seems non-political. Hagee fits; he is a political evangelist. Not so sure about Swaggert.

[pbrower2a]

(06-24-2021, 02:54 AM)Captain Genet Wrote:

(06-22-2021, 06:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Those who combine other sectors with nationalism, are primarily interested in those other sectors and should be placed there. So the French Jacobins are just reddish inclusivists, and the North Vietnamese in the 1960s were deeper-red socialists.

Agreed, with some exceptions like White Power types who extol Christianity only because this is "the white man's religion", but accept Norse Paganism and Satanism as long as they are suitably racist. The wife of American National Socialist Movement's founder is a high priestess in a cult called Joy of Satan.

Ba'athism morphed into fascism. Fascists can say all that they want about being true democrats and true socialists... maybe the culture loves the word "socialist" or "democratic", and the fascists cannot resist using the term. Typically a "Socialist Workers' Party" is far left as is so of the extremist Socialist Workers' Party in the USA. Note well that there was an older Czech National Socialist Party that was neither dictatorial, expansionist, nor anti-Jewish. It was a liberal party with only a slight socialist streak. It was open to non-Czechs, including Germans and Czech Jews (Czech Jews were culturally German).

Party names mean little unless they are connected to some international cause such as Communism or Ba'athism. 

If you want a taste of Ba'ath ideology under Saddam Hussein, just listen to the national anthem of Iraq under the totalitarian fascist regime:





Holy Horst-Wessel-Lied! No, this is not some anthem from a popular revolution as is the Marseillaise. This is not a question of whether a nation survives a mortal peril, as the Star-Spangled Banner. This is not the longing for the restoration of a nation in national independence, as is so with the Greek, Czech, Polish, or Israeli national anthems. This is not the benign attachment of a nation to a monarch as one associates with God Save the King, the Wilhelmus (Netherlands)  or Kimigayo (Japan)...  or in the past Gott Erhalte Franz den Kaiser (Austria). If there was any problem with the Russian Imperial Anthem, it was with the Empire itself. Patriotism is fine so long as it extols national virtues or sentiment or vitality without a call to impose a way of life somewhere in which it is not welcome. 

A fatherland spreads its wings over the horizon... burns the sands of the Arab Nation with fire (not that the Saudis want that sort of revolution!)... speaks of the glory of conquest.  It's clear from the context and the timing that Saddam Hussein chose this anthem... and the Coalition authority had good cause to outlaw it.  As for tolerance... about the only good thing that I can say is that Saddam left the Christian minority alone... perhaps because most of the NATO powers are majority-Christian.

If Iraq under Saddam Hussein was 'socialist' , then the socialism was 'barracks socialism'.

Quote:

Quote:By the way, Ocasio-Cortez, being a democratic socialist, is closer to red. Virtually identical to Bernie Sanders. No doubt that sector might get a little crowded.

The same psychology which makes people oppose cultural hierarchy often makes them oppose economic hierarchy as well. Still, some people oppose economic hierarchy without opposing cultural hierarchy (Lukashenko) or vice versa (Rajneesh).

The only valid hierarchy is of talent or achievement. The top-quality cardiac surgeon isn't oppressing anyone. 

Quote:

Quote:You can't have religion without what you call the supernatural, because this transmits the moral codes into the personality and enables people to follow them. Just memorizing commandments, as I said, does not work. Real transformation of the individual must take place. In traditional monotheistic western and middle-eastern religion, this happens through revelation and by the adherent giving yourself over to the savior or prophet by faith. In the New Age, and usually in the Orient, this is done through the human potential techniques. To understand religion at all, anyone must understand that "the supernatural is natural." And vice-versa! And today, that means increasingly scientific as well.

Philosophy can transform people without including the supernatural. Many people believe in supernatural powers and are not transformed. What matters is the emotional experience.

Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? 

Of course founders of traditional religions like Abraham, Zoroaster, Laozi and above all Jesus had immense emotional experience and were able to induce it in a group of disciples. Others like Mohammed or Confucius were more interested in political power.

Quote:

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)PBrower2a -- my material in dark blue Wrote: yellow -- plutocratic. People in this sector trust economic power more than any other power and see class interests of economic elites as the best guide to achieving human happiness. Results may be grossly unequal, but the world clearly divides between "winners" and "losers" even if the distinction has more cause in inheritance and connections than in any discernible virtues. "Winners" have the right to expect "losers" to toil for minimal rewards (bare survival), and the "losers" must earn survival, for which there is no inherent right, at the cost of their humanity. This sector is amoral except for recognizing that waste and inefficiency are vices and that toil is a necessity no matter who gets most of the fruit.

Libertarians closer to the Blue sector recognize morality and often understand poverty as a divine punishment for vice. Purer libertarians often treat morality as a matter of personal taste (like Mises) or declare the only morality is self-interest (Rand).

Vice, depravity, improvidence (including laziness and waste of talent) -- I will go along with that as having poverty as a consequence. Of course much poverty is sheer ill-fortune or a consequence of attachment to something that can hurt one without helping one -- or rejection of  something good through callow rebellion. That does not need Divine connection. Poverty can also result from the choice of economic elites to impose poverty. The rationale  I suppose is that those who do not own the assets must be sweated to create wealth that allows them the privilege of working at terms that an employer sets. 

None of the sectors is perfect. 
 

Quote:

Quote:The purple sector suggests the less clumsy "humanist" to me. It has rarely had extreme figures in charge of any society.

Humanist is too narrow since many Inclusivists support animal rights and even ascribe some sort of personhood to ecosystems.

https://www.definitions.net/definition/inclusivism

"The practice of incorporating disparate or unreconciled elements in a single, inclusive system or theory" - in this case the system is a society
"The view that all religions have a partial truth." - maybe not only religions, but cultures and lifestyles.

I didn't contemplate where environmentalist or animal-rights groups go. I can see all ideologies having some legitimate concern for the environment. It is possible to be a racist nationalist and be an environmentalist, to be both a religious fundamentalist and an environmentalist, or a socialist and an environmentalist. It is also possible to place economic gain, military power, and the elite indulgence above constraints on environmental ruin. Most of the American political scene is clearly in the plutocratic sector, and extreme positions supporting economic gain and indulgence above all else for economic elites are more widely accepted than extreme positions in any other sector. 

Quote:

Quote:I would call the "red" sector "socialist".

Surely this is most recognizable term for this kind of views, but there are some Purples and Browns who call themselves socialists as well, from Maslow to Saddam.

Some fascist organizations co-opted much from the Left, including rhetoric. Example: the NSDAP was a merger between the German Workers' Party and the German Socialist Party, both claiming to be "national" alternatives to "socialist" parties under the corrupt influence of Jews. Many fascists had drifted from the Far Left (Mussolini, Quisling, Goebbels, Laval, Doriot). Doriot's collaborationist Party had a Commie-style structure and even a Politburo modeled after that of the Communist Party of the USSR.

[Eric the Green]

(06-24-2021, 08:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I didn't contemplate where environmentalist or animal-rights groups go. I can see all ideologies having some legitimate concern for the environment. It is possible to be a racist nationalist and be an environmentalist, to be both a religious fundamentalist and an environmentalist, or a socialist and an environmentalist. It is also possible to place economic gain, military power, and the elite indulgence above constraints on environmental ruin.

Well, I can't go with you there. Environmentalism did not exist until the 1960s, and was invented in the process of saving San Francisco Bay. Racist nationalists like Hitler, Trump or Bolsonaro just think of the environment as something to bulldoze and burn. Socialists are not always so keen on the environment; certainly not the totalitarian kind, which emitted horrible pollution in Eastern European coal and industrial plants. Industry is the mainstay of socialism, which aims to take it over, not transform it. And industry pollutes with alacrity until environmentalism restrains it. Religious fundamentalism seeks the rapture and views the Earth as something to escape or to conquer. Once environmentalism in the 1960s, and to a much lesser extent the preceding conservation movement in the 1890s-1900s, came along, some of the people in the other ideologies had to adopt it or face ruin.

[Eric the Green]

The fanatical ideas of some evangelicals and fundamentalists are not fruitful ones, because they damage the mind and good thinking. Some followers of those religions may be inspired to be ethical and support others charitably and help their community. But the main purpose of the most foolish preachers is to scare people into supporting them financially and culturally.

But where do they fit on the political spectrum? These are not necessarily political views, unless they are used for politics. Many are conservatives and thus blue or blue/yellow on Captain's diagram, but some evangelicals are actually liberals.

I don't find that evolution as science still usually teaches it is an adequate explanation of life at all. That is beside the point on the political circle, I think. But holding on to rigid and life-denying theories like Darwinian Evolution can also distort and lower thinking and culture, if not supplemented by other ideas.

It's not totally wrong either, by any means, and evolution itself seems a virtually-certain fact. To deny it is like denying that the Earth is round. But it's the explanations that can be a problem, and they can also have evil political consequences, as when Darwinism is applied to justify racist ideas or economic competitive ideas. That comes under the heading of Social Darwinism, a very insidious and destructive ideology.

Biology itself has updated its view of evolution through such findings as epigenetics, which makes it a lot more palatable to the moral imagination, and other theories exist which are also more in harmony with life as it actually is, and does not reduce our idea of what life is in the same harmful way that plain Darwinism does.

Life is a miracle, and to reduce it is to deny it. It can't be explained mechanically. Nor can arbitrary myths about a superhuman creator from 4004 BC explain it. But whether one's view of life should influence where we put them on the political circles, is another question. Unless their ideas lead to political views, probably not. And the same metaphysical and physical philosophies can lead to contrary politics, and vice versa.

[Captain Genet]

(06-24-2021, 08:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Captain Genet Wrote:

Quote:I would call the "red" sector "socialist".

Surely this is most recognizable term for this kind of views, but there are some Purples and Browns who call themselves socialists as well, from Maslow to Saddam.

Some fascist organizations co-opted much from the Left, including rhetoric. Example: the NSDAP was a merger between the German Workers' Party and the German Socialist Party, both claiming to be "national" alternatives to "socialist" parties under the corrupt influence of Jews. Many fascists had drifted from the Far Left (Mussolini, Quisling, Goebbels, Laval, Doriot). Doriot's collaborationist Party had a Commie-style structure and even a Politburo modeled after that of the Communist Party of the USSR.

I concur. Some people outside the Nationalist sector (like Trump) are interested in Nationalism as a means to an end. In this way Stapledon, Maslow or Saddam were interested in socialism as a means to an end, without being red-sector Socialists.

(07-05-2021, 04:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The fanatical ideas of some evangelicals and fundamentalists are not fruitful ones, because they damage the mind and good thinking. Some followers of those religions may be inspired to be ethical and support others charitably and help their community. But the main purpose of the most foolish preachers is to scare people into supporting them financially and culturally.

But where do they fit on the political spectrum? These are not necessarily political views, unless they are used for politics. Many are conservatives and thus blue or blue/yellow on Captain's diagram, but some evangelicals are actually liberals.

I completely agree. Many serious Christians are completely apolitical, mentally living in an otherworldly "kingdom of God"

[pbrower2a]

(07-03-2021, 09:28 PM)(really a rewrite) Wrote:

(06-24-2021, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (I have a hint for a yellow-purple character just on the side of the purple line: a wealth-cult evangelist such as Joel Osteen, who has a huge following in America). Swaggart, Hagee, and the like might fit somewhere more in the more-clearly purple part of the circle.

These folks have no connection to the purple sector. Osteen might be a moderate blue whose prosperity gospel would put him near the yellow line. But just being religious doesn't put one in the blue sector. The blue sector is a political program of putting religion in charge of the state. I don't know Osteen's political views. He seems non-political. Hagee fits; he is a political evangelist. Not so sure about Swaggert.

At the time I misconstrued the "blue" zone as purple.  Hagee is very much on the political Right, which is where one would expect the theocrats. Swaggart is the sort of person who called evolution "EVIL-ootion"... grossly anti-Enlightenment for being so anti-science.  The late Jack Chick, who supplied so many crude tracts in which people who violated his idea of Christian standards (evolution, Dungeons & Dragons, benign entertainment such as Bewitched, and anything either non-Christian or the "wrong" sort of Christianity such as Roman Catholicism) as damned to Hell. 


 

  ....



First of all, why must a college-level teacher teach evolution to people who already believe it? Singling out for ridicule someone who holds a minority view that poses no obvious harm is horrible educational practice at any level. It is not tolerated in K-12 education at all, and it is unlikely to be tolerated at all at the liberal arts school depicted here.  

Obvious scientific falsehoods appear here. First, there are no Six Basic Concepts of Evolution; the quack Kent Hovind created those as a strawman.  The Big Bang is a violent event, and nucleosynthesis in stars either in normal fusion (hydrogen to helium up to nickel-56) are violent processes for the elements themselves -- and that is before one even discusses the formation of elements heavier than nickel in stellar collisions. Just as one does not call the consequences of a collision of vehicles 'evolution' of a valuable automobile into a totaled wreck, scientists are careful about the application of words so that they are not used in confusing ways. Scientists would never call violent processes, whether nuclear fission or fusion, supernova explosions, fire, gunshots, or even vehicle collisions "evolution". Evolution separated the biological lines between cats and dogs about 55 million years ago even if cats and dogs are similar enough that one would be compelled to think them related. Cats and dogs have many similarities of build and behavior, which cannot be coincidence. Valid science never uses words in ways that confuse their meaning.   



More significant is that physical processes operate today as they did in the past. That's the uniformity principle without which science becomes nonsense.  That is basic to biological evolution and to the processes that shape the Earth to this day. 



"Doctor" Kent Hovind is a fraud, having gotten his PhD in a field unrelated to biology or paleontology, and even that suspect degree from a diploma mill "Nebraska Man" and "Piltdown Man" are both frauds detected by biologists within the scientific mainstream. The fellow couldn't conform with the usual expectations of tax law, and has been incarcerated in "Club Fed" for that. 

The message:

  

At this point I must delve into theology, an area in which nobody really knows anything. First of all, God damning people for interpreting the natural world as the result of evolution suggests that God forged a fossil record to deceive people so that they could be damned. In view of all the murderers, rapists, thieves, arsonists, child molesters, drug dealers, and financial cheats who do such out of their cruelty, greed, selfishness, or fanaticism, evolution looks tame as a theological offense even if it were wrong. God is powerful enough to treat people who made tiny  mistakes as a contrast to such a grave sin as perpetrating the Holocaust.  As far as that goes, isn't an All-Powerful God able to choose the theology that He finds useful at the time of Judgment. Damning someone who recited the Shema while expiring of Zyklon-B sounds more like a gangster or despot than any Deity I would want anything to do with. 

...So how would I handle that class were I a college-level teacher?

Obviously not as Jack Chick that that a college-level teacher would put it. I might ask the class whether they consider evolution settled as an explanation. If there were a student convinced in young-earth creationism who volunteered that evolution, even if mainstream science, is false I would tell him that I hope to convince him why the scientific mainstream is the norm. Basically, science works, and nonsense disintegrates upon close scrutiny.

I would never threaten to tear to pieces someone who believes in young-earth creationism, which is not going to send anyone to torture chambers or sites of mass murder. Maybe I would tear Nazi ideology or Stalinism to pieces, but such is a very different story. "Hey, kid: you mean well, but you are still wrong." Maybe some preacher has convinced him that even worse than being contrary to a literal reading of the Bible, evolution leads to all sorts of moral horrors such as Nazism and Stalinism. Obviously Nazism and Stalinism are horrible for reasons other than their views on science.

As a teacher I would not allow a student to hijack the educational process by redefining the terms.  But if he did get to the "six core principles of evolution", I would ask him who he has as an authority. "Doctor" Kent Hovind? I'd rip Kent Hovind for calling "evolution" four things that are in no way evolution what mainstream explanations of evolution are, or misrepresenting the origins of anything. 

The uniqueness of Homo sapiens does not rely upon any special creation. From the nasal cavities downward we are undeniably apes, and even rather typical animals. The anatomy of humans is very similar to that of rabbits, animals that look little like us but are among the most closely-related animals not in the primate line.  Medical research can use other creatures in research due to their similarities of internal organs. Yes, animals that look so dissimilar as pigs and whales (really, pigs and whales are surprisingly-close relatives) can have similar internal organs that distinguish them from reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish -- let alone octopuses.    

If it is an issue of protecting faith in Christian religion, then I would explain that many Christian denominations have made their peace with evolution. Evolution cannot refute moral laws which make life tolerable and prosperity possible. Anyone whose faith can be cut down by a scientific discovery has a terribly-flawed faith. If anything, the Roman Catholic Church has accepted that evolution is to be taught in Catholic schools because young-earth creationism is more likely to tear at Catholic faith than to serve it.

[Eric the Green]

(07-05-2021, 04:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't find that evolution as science still usually teaches it is an adequate explanation of life at all. That is beside the point on the political circle, I think. But holding on to rigid and life-denying theories like Darwinian Evolution can also distort and lower thinking and culture, if not supplemented by other ideas.

It's not totally wrong either, by any means, and evolution itself seems a virtually-certain fact. To deny it is like denying that the Earth is round. But it's the explanations that can be a problem, and they can also have evil political consequences, as when Darwinism is applied to justify racist ideas or economic competitive ideas. That comes under the heading of Social Darwinism, a very insidious and destructive ideology.

Biology itself has updated its view of evolution through such findings as epigenetics, which makes it a lot more palatable to the moral imagination, and other theories exist which are also more in harmony with life as it actually is, and does not reduce our idea of what life is in the same harmful way that plain Darwinism does.

Life is a miracle, and to reduce it is to deny it. It can't be explained mechanically. Nor can arbitrary myths about a superhuman creator from 4004 BC explain it. But whether one's view of life should influence where we put them on the political circles, is another question. Unless their ideas lead to political views, probably not. And the same metaphysical and physical philosophies can lead to contrary politics, and vice versa.

Lewontin, who was mentioned by brower on the obit thread because he just passed away, helped to modify and expand Darwinian evolution, by emphasizing that organisms shape their environment as well as vice versa, and by opposing Social Darwinism. He was still an atheist, even though his approach implies, or should imply, a non-mechanical aspect to life. Unless the organism's abilities are in turn explained mechanically, thus reducing it to having no abilities again, it means life is, in part, inherently causative and non-mechanical, bringing back vitalism and life-force into the picture. It leads toward Bergson's idea of creative evolution.

In regard to Trump, it has been pointed out that his nationalism has been his most consistent core belief throughout his career. So it seems, in his case at least, to be more than a means to an end. However, his policies as president as well as his TV show are predominantly competitive yellow/plutocratic economic conservatism/neo-liberalism. He can't be seen any other way than as a yellow/brown cusper.

It is interesting Captain that you chose the same colors for your theocratic and nationalist sectors as I did for the Jupiter/blue and Saturn/brown planetary dynamics phases or memes. They are the most primitive and backward sectors on your diagram, as is the social or cultural conservative sector on the Nolan diagram or the "authoritarian" direction on the political compass. You chose purple instead of green for your inclusivist sector, but there's no green on your diagram, and this inclusivist sector is also essentially the same as green in spiral dynamics. But spiral dynamics, as opposed to planetary dynamics, has no brown nationalist phase-- instead it is lumped in with blue just like on the Nolan diagram. Purple in spiral dynamics and Mercury/purple in planetary dynamics represent the tribal meme and magical thinking, which is not a sector in western politics but is a factor in more primitive cultures like those in the Middle East and Africa. Politically it is also a kind (the earliest kind) of social conservatism (or exclusivism), the most primitive kind of politics; except that the group one holds as superior or is loyal to is the tribe instead of the religion or the nation. Of course, in our time in the USA the red and blue political parties are now often referred to as tribes.

In planetary dynamics, the brown Saturn meme represents nationalism in its early-modern form as the dynastic state. It is nationalism as it was forming around the king, but before the people realized in the French Revolution at the start of modernism that they were citizens of this nation, and that the nation was them and not their king. At that point the Orange meme takes over in spiral dynamics as a political system, which I call the Uranus/Orange meme (interesting that these two words are so similar). The Orange meme in spiral dynamics is called Achievement or competitive, so it is essentially the same as the similar yellow color on your diagram, except that the yellow sector as libertarian economics is mostly stripped of the democratic values of Orange (classical liberalism), which is in the cultural-liberal quadrant on the Nolan diagram, and thus part of Inclusivist in yours.

[Eric the Green]

I am not of the persuasion that science should remain pure, objectivist, positivist, mechanical and determinist. Science essentially seeks the truth, and so as it evolves further in human society, it will converge with religion, while religion is undergoing the same process and is converging with science.

The issue then is to keep the integrity of both intact, while still realizing that the one truth and the one reality involves both. It can be a delicate balancing act. Both modern advanced science and mystical religion involves some achievement of skill and practice or initiation that is no casual or superficial matter. Teaching young earth creationism represents religion before modern evolution in society, and so can't converge with science and should not be taught as science. Purely determinist science also remains incompatible with religion or mysticism, and can't or shouldn't be allowed in church. But more-evolved kinds of religion or mysticism may indeed be combined with science in some modern, post-modern and new-age theories, and vice-versa.

[David Horn]

(07-09-2021, 04:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I am not of the persuasion that science should remain pure, objectivist, positivist, mechanical and determinist. Science essentially seeks the truth, and so as it evolves further in human society, it will converge with religion, while religion is undergoing the same process and is converging with science.

The issue then is to keep the integrity of both intact, while still realizing that the one truth and the one reality involves both. It can be a delicate balancing act. Both modern advanced science and mystical religion involves some achievement of skill and practice or initiation that is no casual or superficial matter. Teaching young earth creationism represents religion before modern evolution in society, and so can't converge with science and should not be taught as science. Purely determinist science also remains incompatible with religion or mysticism, and can't or shouldn't be allowed in church. But more-evolved kinds of religion or mysticism may indeed be combined with science in some modern, post-modern and new-age theories, and vice-versa.

I think you misunderstand the concept of science.  Science has a theoretical and experimental dichotomy that tends to confuse people not part of the enterprise.  If practiced as intended, the theoreticians propose ideas that need to be supported or debunked, and the experimentalists take on the task of do just that.  Rarely do individuals operate in both arenas.  Ideally, the two disparate branches opperatein tension, making the validation process less suspectible to manipulation.  It's not a perfect model of inquiry, but no other has been shown to be better.

[Eric the Green]

(07-10-2021, 07:04 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-09-2021, 04:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I am not of the persuasion that science should remain pure, objectivist, positivist, mechanical and determinist. Science essentially seeks the truth, and so as it evolves further in human society, it will converge with religion, while religion is undergoing the same process and is converging with science.

The issue then is to keep the integrity of both intact, while still realizing that the one truth and the one reality involves both. It can be a delicate balancing act. Both modern advanced science and mystical religion involves some achievement of skill and practice or initiation that is no casual or superficial matter. Teaching young earth creationism represents religion before modern evolution in society, and so can't converge with science and should not be taught as science. Purely determinist science also remains incompatible with religion or mysticism, and can't or shouldn't be allowed in church. But more-evolved kinds of religion or mysticism may indeed be combined with science in some modern, post-modern and new-age theories, and vice-versa.

I think you misunderstand the concept of science.  Science has a theoretical and experimental dichotomy that tends to confuse people not part of the enterprise.  If practiced as intended, the theoreticians propose ideas that need to be supported or debunked, and the experimentalists take on the task of do just that.  Rarely do individuals operate in both arenas.  Ideally, the two disparate branches operate in tension, making the validation process less suspectible to manipulation.  It's not a perfect model of inquiry, but no other has been shown to be better.

It's better, but depending on the object (or subject) of study. I don't think I misunderstand science. But I am aware of fields where science is not the best method of study, although it can still be applied. Are you identifying my discussion of mysticism and religion above with "theory" in science? I would not identify those two concepts.

A theory in science refers to specific well-defined questions asked of the phenomenal world, with the aim of being able to demonstrate it empirically and experimentally. What I referred to in my post above was more philosophical, a question of worldview. All scientists, mystics, artists as well as philosophers being a worldview to the table, either examined or not.

[pbrower2a]

I forgot to say that the creature depicted is the common ancestor of cats and dogs. Although the "cat" and "dog" lines separated about fifty million years ago, cats and dogs are closer relatives than alligators and crocodiles that are easier to confuse. This weasel-like creature is practically intermediate between dogs and cats.

[pbrower2a]

(07-09-2021, 04:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I am not of the persuasion that science should remain pure, objectivist, positivist, mechanical and determinist. Science essentially seeks the truth, and so as it evolves further in human society, it will converge with religion, while religion is undergoing the same process and is converging with science.

Because reality is 'messy', science can never purport to be 'pure'. Mechanical and determinist psychology are void due to the complexity of human nature. Science seeks to simplify but not at the expense of reality. 

Quote:The issue then is to keep the integrity of both intact, while still realizing that the one truth and the one reality involves both. It can be a delicate balancing act. Both modern advanced science and mystical religion involves some achievement of skill and practice or initiation that is no casual or superficial matter. Teaching young earth creationism represents religion before modern evolution in society, and so can't converge with science and should not be taught as science. Purely determinist science also remains incompatible with religion or mysticism, and can't or shouldn't be allowed in church. But more-evolved kinds of religion or mysticism may indeed be combined with science in some modern, post-modern and new-age theories, and vice-versa.

Science is not the entire proof, and it never claimed to be. Science has yet to figure why we act as if we need music, visual art, and literature in which to be fully human. Some parts of us, like our organs with specific functions such as our lungs and kidneys, can be understood as machines. But even as machines they are not comparable to the machines that we make for specific functions.  One can turn a crane on and off, and the crane that operates at a construction site until 5 pm or whatever can be restarted at ... whenever the next day. One cannot turn the body off and turn it back on because the machinery that is our body becomes a corpse. A body shut down cannot be brought back to life. 

Young-earth creationism is an exercise in fecal thinking. It denies far more than it even pretends to explain. In any event, most of us do not need the account that some people barely out of the hunter-gather stage of material development plagiarized from what had been a pagan civilization. The Hebrews in practice had their attention on more useful topics, such are refining the distinction between Right and Wrong. The Epic of Gilgamesh is not science; it is legend.

[Anthony '58]

Young-earth creationism is entirely a low-church Protestant fundamentalist (Southern Baptist, Pentecostal etc.) concept.

Catholics are not told that they must believe that the earth was created in 4004 BCE (or 3760 BCE, which is at least technically the Jewish belief).

[pbrower2a]

(08-31-2022, 01:41 PM)Anthony Wrote: Young-earth creationism is entirely a low-church Protestant fundamentalist (Southern Baptist, Pentecostal etc.) concept.

Catholics are not told that they must believe that the earth was created in 4004 BCE (or 3760 BCE, which is at least technically the Jewish belief).

Religious novelties are more often heresies than refinements  that improve the religious experience. Although one can accept as a Christian that capitalism that creates wealth to a far greater extent than it concentrates wealth and power and that the profit motive is one way to create prosperity in which people can have more to share so that charity becomes less necessary, the subservience of all else to personal power, indulgence, and gain (initials deliberately chosen to resemble the new Ruling Class in George Orwell's  Animal Farm) is a clear denial of Jesus' Ministry as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. 

The sole reasons for religious life are to improve oneself as a person or to connect to some eternal truth available in no other way. If the only way for one to give up booze, smokes, narcotics, and whoring is to become a Mormon, then one might as well become a Mormon. I could twist Rene Descartes' cogito ergo sum into an argument that because the Universe makes sense that there must be a God Who established the inescapable realities of mathematics, physics, and the logical dialectic as His Ultimate Law. God is thus a Great Lawgiver for such a reality as the rule of non-contradiction in core realities in mathematics, physics, and logic and a Guide to moral law.  

The Catholic Church rejects young-earth creationism for creating more of a hindrance to Faith than an aid. One can derive no ethical values from believing in young-earth creationism, but a religious tenet itself a hindrance to more critical beliefs is more likely to lead one away from more essential tenets of faith.  If I had a child who had to decide between attending Notre Dame University and Liberty Baptist University, I would push Notre Dame because one can be a devout Catholic and well educated and that one cannot be a fundamentalist Protestant without rejecting the rationalism necessary for a coherent view of the world. 

I took one of the on-line tests for what religious heritage (including atheism as having much of the same characteristics of religion in establishing moral values and an overall view of reality) and the three closest to me were in some order Unitarian Universalism, liberal Quakerism, and Reform Judaism.