Faith in People & their goodness

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 07:42 PM

Paul Bloom

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:51 AM

Doh!

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:55 AM

"Doh" a deer a female deer
Ray a drop of golden sun
Me a name I call myself
etc etc etc

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:18 AM

Bill:

You certainly put your finger on the key of it. In abroader sense, existence, and all the beliefs within it, are self-fulfilling hypotheses. So is, I might add, your "try to see it but see it not" approach to healing and spirituality. So is, for example, Two BEars' application of energy in healing.

BTW the Paul Bloom link above is intersting. An excerpt:

"The notion that our souls are flesh is profoundly troubling to many, as it clashes with religion. Dualism and religion are not the same: You can be dualist without holding any other religious beliefs, and you can hold religious beliefs without being dualist. But they almost always go together. And some very popular religious views rest on a dualist foundation, such as the belief that people survive the destruction of their bodies. If you give up on dualism, this is what you lose.

This is not small potatoes. "

Indeed, not small potatos at all.


A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 10:43 AM

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to perceive."
                                 Bill D- 2004
(it just came to me as I reached for the keyboard..)


Amos...it is possible to stretch language and definitions until almost anything can be posited about our conceptual framework. Yes, it could be that my ""try to see it but see it not" approach to healing and spirituality." is a form of self-fulfilling hypothesis, in the sense that, if I do not "open myself" and try to get it, I probably will not....but doesn't that dilute the very notion of what a "self-fulfilling hypothesis" was meant to convey?

I always understood it to refer to the process of unconciously distorting your analysis by the very way in which you frame the question.....'finding of bad reasons for what you already accept', to paraphrase an old definition of Theology....but you seem to wish to expand it to include any position of skepticism. There must be a way to carefully explore a concept, position, hypothesis...etc. that avoids subjectivity...or at least builds in ways to filter most subjectivity.
   This is getting hard to express quickly, but I guess what I'm saying is that I'd think that is what the "Scientific Method" is supposed to DO! Not every 'doubt', (nor every 'belief') is self-fulfilling, but if we have no way to point at those which are, without having the very pointing turned back on us, how can the discussion mean much?

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: harpmaker
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 11:07 AM

what a load of drivel

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 12:20 PM

Harpy,

What unusual vehemence!   Dost protest too much?


A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 12:26 PM

Some people enjoy thinking about intangible things, others find it annoying for some reason...

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 01:12 PM

well, at least now we have the succinct clarity of harpmaker's post to guide our thought.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 02:08 PM

Well, I don't agree it's a load of drivel, but I'm back to a thought I often think in meetings and discussion groups, and hold back because people would think it's ....gulp... solipsistic:

"Everyone has it wrong but me."

I believe that man is a critter, and born with a blank moral conscience. But man has lived long enough to develop - and survive by - socialization. So we like to 'club up' but we can gather around almost any set of rules, so long as they make for a strong community. Whether that community worships a god-ruler, sacrifices human beings, or elects its leaders and allows freedom of worship, if the society can perpetuate itself and defend itself, or conquer its neighbors, defines a lot of what we grow up thinking is good and bad. There are some constants. We're all programmed to support our babies being born and reared. We are not necessarily programmed to think that way about the other fella's babes.

Going back to a common point of reference is what allows us to even be able to talk about this concept. My reference is the early part of Genesis when it says human is made in God's image. To me that means that humans have a creative potential, that implies choice, and that implies omni-capability, we can do good, we can do evil, we can do both. And creative encompasses destructive potential as well, as God has shown great capability in that arena.

I wasn't taught to believe in Original Sin, I have learned to apply the concept as 'birth defect', the first example that comes to mind is the foundation of the American Republic, wonderful literature, wonderful intellectuals expounding on the rights of man, freedom to vote for representation, and BANG, slavery in there, too.

If you watch a bunch of kids playing, you'll see some pretty disgusting things. This is corrected by correction. But it ain't mother nature. Mother nature tells us to get to the table first and eat everything you find.

So I see good and bad as a measure of how we choose to use our god-granted abilities to do and be pretty much anything.

I don't know if this post made a whole lot of sense, but it allowed me to use 'solipsistic' so I'm happy.

(And I suppose I might be wrong after all)