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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 09:19   #51
Nodrog
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Nod are there any specific works on philosophy of maths that Wittgenstein or anyone else did that you'd recommend?
Ive found the little I've read of Wittgenstein's math-related work to be unconvincing so I cant really recommend anything, however this is his major work on the topic so you may want to check it out (but only if youve got a decent familiarity with his general framework). For non Wittgenstien stuff, I'd recommend this if you can find a copy. Its a collection of semi-related essays which try to reject the tradtional conceptions of mathematics and instead approach it from a standpoint which stresses its emipirical aspects and the methodological similaries it shares with the rest of the sciences. Other than that, I'd recommend getting a good familiarity with constructivist/intuitionist arguments concerning things like what it means to say that mathematical objects 'exist' (especially in the context of non-constructive existence proofs) because I think that a lot of what they say is extremely important even if problematic.

It depends on your mathematical background though - if you dont already know the basics of set theory up to the point where you can appreciate the significance of Cantor's proofs relating to the cardinality of infinite sets, and the axiom of choice controversies, then I'd recommend reading about that instead, because I think that many people who approach philosophy of mathematics without at least a rudimentary knowledge of this sort of thing can easily miss the point. This level of maths isnt very far beyond highschool stuff and you could probably get a basic understanding of it in a few weeks (if you dont already have it). It's also extremely interesting and worth studying for its own sake. This is a decent book, although it doesnt go into the philosophical aspects at all. There may well be better ones, but that happens to be the one I used in a first year class.

The first few chapters of Roger Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind" are also staggeringly good for presenting extremely interesting maths stuff (Cantors theory on infinite sets, Turing machines and the halting problem, the Mandelbrot set, formalism in mathematics philosophy and the Hilbert program, Godel's incompleteness theorem, etc) in a way that doesnt presuppose any maths background. It can be a difficult read at times, but if I had to recommend one math-related book to anyone then it would be that (it was pretty much the book which made me decide to switch to a maths degree).

edit: ignore the negative reviews that the Penrose book gets on amazon, they are generally coming from people who are reviewing it based on its contribution to philosophy of mind (which admittedly isnt much) rather than on how well it explains maths and physics. The book was horribly misadvertised - it's "meant" to be a book about the mind, but only the first 20 pages and the last 2 chapters actually talk about this, the rest of it is dedicated to telling the reader about lots of cool things which have almost nothing to do with PoM.

Last edited by Nodrog; 5 Feb 2007 at 10:08.
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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 09:53   #52
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
I don't feel brainwashed.
Nobody that's brainwashed feels like he's brainwashed, that's the whole point of brainwashing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
I believe because of my personal experiences. Brainwashed mean that you are forced to accept something you normally would not. If you are at a fundraiser for a politician and he asks you for money and you give him money because you want to see him elected are you brainwashed? No you accepted the situation and it was not forced upon you.
There's a difference between believing a real person of flesh and blood can do good and thus supporting them, and an imaginative entity.
Kind of funny comparing your god to a politician though.

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Originally Posted by Travler
Same for me. I accepted the situation and nothing was forced upon me other that what I held myself to. I had some criteria that had to be met before I would become a believer. Only myself and God knew these requirements. When God proved himself to me I believed. The only brainwashing was by me to me to accept what I had litterly asked for.

It's like the expression "You've made your bed now sleep in it."
I made a deal and God came through. So to be right in my head I had to honor my part of the deal. Nobody else knew the deal so they could not influence me. When people ask for proof of God they always ask other people. If you really want proof of God's existance ask for something specific and if you make a deal be prepared to live up to your end of the bargain.

Here is an example:

I will believe that there really is a God if ...................

It should be something only you know about.
There you have it, you made that criteria that had to be met and you knew those requirements. With your god being totally in your mind together with your requirements, it doesn't take a phd in psychology to put the dots together.
To make it even more clear, you - consciously or subconciously (sp?) - had a requirement that would be fulfilled because you wanted to believe. You tried to implement some logic into it to persuade yourself since your religion has no logics by its own.

It's possible that this wasn't influenced by others, there's always exceptions, but there's a big chance that you were raised so at some point when you felt the need you'd turn to religion. Be it with an imaginitive requirement or without.
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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 17:05   #53
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by horn
a sense of duty towards those in worse circumstances doesn't fit with my patchy/uninformed christian history schema. i'm not aware of much resistance from the church in relation to feudalism for instance.
Teachings of Christ <> Practices of Christian Churches
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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 20:07   #54
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by horn
does it matter? surely it's what's being taught as opposed to what "should" be taught that is going to be the more prevalent doctrine/meme amongst the masses.
I think there's two issues here. One is that practices and theory can diverge widely and so even when not resisting (either ideologically or practically) something like feudalism the Church may have still preached certain ideas (albeit at a slant) which were more in line with certain Christian ideals about charity, wealth, etc. So even when the church did nothing to oppose great inequalities they probably still offered the idea that the poor would be rewarded in the next life or something like that. I remember most of the Christian stories I was told at school were against certain kinds of greed, but of course there was no link drawn with the then current practices of the Thatcher government et al.

Secondly, one difference between a scientific theory and a religion is the scientific theory is subjected to numerous ammendments which are, to an extent, permanent. I presume very few physics degrees would require you to read Newton's original 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' in much detail because it's known that it's been surpassed by modern explanations. Therefore, if part of what Newton said had become unfashionable then new students wouldn't necessarily learn it and the idea (again, to an extent) would be lost.

Religion requires (by definition) more of a reverance to original texts and so every single person studying Christian theology would be expected (again, I presume) to read the Bible. So even if ideas can fall out of fashion with certain churches they can be resurrected (lol) with relative ease later. The revival of "radical" Christianity in the form of liberation theology in Latin America is a good example of this.
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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 20:23   #55
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
I think that Christianity still plays a very significant role in constituting our general worldview (even among atheists) but I'd disagree that the 10 commandments is one of the ways it manifests itself. Many of the commandments are ignored ('dont worship false gods'/'dont covet neighbours wife' etc), and the ones that still form a central part of the legal system ('dont murder/steal') are generally just those that are necessary for a stable society and would be expected to be present in most cultures. There's nothing intrinsically Judeo-Christian about not murdering people, and youll find similar doctrines in most places regardless of their religious context.
Certainly but the extent to which they exist in our current society has been largely determined by the presence of christian teachings over an extended timespan. Also while everyone does "cover their neighbour's wife" many people feel they are doing something wrong when they do it.



Edit: In this thread travler decides that correlation actually does imply causation.
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Unread 5 Feb 2007, 21:37   #56
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

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Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
Certainly but the extent to which they exist in our current society has been largely determined by the presence of christian teachings over an extended timespan. Also while everyone does "cover their neighbour's wife" many people feel they are doing something wrong when they do it.



Edit: In this thread travler decides that correlation actually does imply causation.

well yeah... if we look at it from the angle of "who am I to say that banging neighbor's wife is bad" without taking into consideration the social standpoint on the act, its afir enough to say that our own positional predisposition is heavely affected by teaching of religion (9 deadly sins n all). ANd somewhat by the fact that usually, back in days, if fact such as this comes up you were usually killed. (In most traditions that is). So self-preservation instincts are playing a role here aswell, imo... And i guess genetic memory. It sstill a scientific mystery as to if genetic memory does indeed exist, yet i am strong believer of it, relying on non-factual and, rather, purely intuitional theories.
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Unread 6 Feb 2007, 05:19   #57
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharur
Nobody that's brainwashed feels like he's brainwashed, that's the whole point of brainwashing.

It's possible that this wasn't influenced by others, there's always exceptions, but there's a big chance that you were raised so at some point when you felt the need you'd turn to religion. Be it with an imaginitive requirement or without.
I never said I was not influenced by others. But influence is not the same as brainwashing. People influence and get influenced all the time. It's the natural result of interaction of others. To not be influenced is to be in total isolation. Even if you staunchly refuse to accept what another has said you are influenced in that you take an even firmer position in your own beliefs when challenged.

This is different from brainwashing. The following can be found on Wikipedia:

Brainwashing, the application of coercive techniques to change the beliefs or behavior of one or more people, usually for political or religious purposes

Brainwashing, also known as thought reform or re-education, is defined by Dorland's Medical Dictionary as "any systematic effort aimed at instilling certain attitudes and beliefs in a person against his will, usually beliefs in conflict with his prior beliefs and knowledge."[1] The concept has not been officially accepted by the American Psychological Association, neither has it been officially rejected,[2] but has received more attention from the APA in recent years.[2]

I guess it depends how you define coercive persuasion.
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Unread 6 Feb 2007, 06:41   #58
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
I guess it depends how you define coercive persuasion.
"ALL UNBELIEVERS WILL SPEND ETERNITY SUFFERING IN A PIT OF HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION" just doesn't quite cut it in your book?
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Unread 6 Feb 2007, 10:58   #59
Sharur
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Re: influence on religion (past and present) on today's non-religious society

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Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
"ALL UNBELIEVERS WILL SPEND ETERNITY SUFFERING IN A PIT OF HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION" just doesn't quite cut it in your book?
Yeah exactly, but we don't even need to use such a clear example, the coercion christianity has used for centuries and is still using is in my opinion far more subtle. If everywhere you look you are influenced by something you cannot run from, so you cannot choose not to be influenced, then in my books that also counts as coercion.

Compare it to the brainwashing method where they hold your eyes open with a machine to look at a screen with propaganda etc. on it.
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