I can't believe this dude actually thinks "first mover" has to do with literal motion. How can you call yourself an "expert" and not know what that actually means. Self described humanists are so obnoxious.
I said the laws of motion would apply to the naturalized or rationalized First Mover as an example of how the God of the philosophers differs from the folk's God. Aquinas's First Way draws on Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover which is supposed to account for change in the world without itself being changed. The only way to make sense of how something could change or move other things, though, is to assume, on the contrary, that this first thing would also be changeable or moveable. So the notion of an "unmoved mover" is contradictory. It's like asking how an immaterial ghost could directly affect the material world. Only by becoming at least quasi-material could a ghost do so, in which case the ghost would have been naturalized.
ngl as of recently , in this incredibly pessimistic and godless world i’m surprised there are other people with genuine religious beliefs. I was reading those books that ec winsper guy recommended (sacred and profane, temple of the cosmos) and now i’m here wondering how it’s possible that there’s someone of the “modern consciousness” living in this consumerist society and is still somehow religious, like i’m religious myself but it’s sometimes weird knowing there are people out there who are also religious to a degree. ok i have 1% battery left
On the other end, I find it strange that there are so few truly religious people. I often encounter people who really want to have faith in Christianity or some other thing but can’t bring themselves to believe in anything (presumably their worldview is too deeply-rooted in secularism for them to easily overcome it).
Animism/Paganism is and always was fundamentally nature worship. Philosophy was just a deeper understanding of nature and reality. Pagan faiths accompanied philosophy because they accompanied the better understanding of nature, aka what they worshipped. Nature isn’t just physical, it can include whats metaphysical, long as its rationally believed to be true.
What even is “folk religion”? Its a retarded made up term. Its some modernist version of “mindless idolatry” that the idiotic jews and abrahamic religions of the past viewed paganism as.
“Myth” is a literal Greek word. The word “Tale” “Fable” etc. have always referred to Pagan stories. Even the Hindu word “Purana” essentially means “Tale”. Do these faux-historians really believe everyone took fables seriously in the past except for these enlightened philosophers? This is again like those retarded Jews or Muslims of the past who truly thought Pagans believed a statue was God and couldn’t separate an idol from what it represented.
Enlightened philosopher treated a myth as a mythology. Wow. They were able to separate the art of theatre and drama, or storytelling from reality. Amazing. They were able to separate a statue or work of art from what it represented. They were so unlike everybody else! Except no. What really is true is that Jews and their stupid offspring religions couldn’t separate the two and persecuted people over it. They couldn’t understand ART for ARTS SAKE.
Benjamin makes a mistake here: "According to Robert Bellah’s use of Merlin Donald’s theory of cognitive change, that period [the Axial Age" was impacted by the inventions of the Greek alphabet and writing..."
The Greeks, in their genealogies, placed the invention of their writing system around 1600 BC, with King Cecrops I. According to the archaeological evidence, this aligns with either Linear A or Linear B (1800 BC to 1400 BC timeframe). At the latest, 1100 BC. Definitely not "Axial Age."
What I think would be a better argument would be say that "during the Axial Age, Greeks stopped transmitting their myths orally, and committed them to writing." Hesiod was revolutionary in this sense. But "new use of writing" is not "invention of writing."
I appreciate the reply, but I think you’re mostly quibbling about historical details and missing the article’s main point.
Do you deny that philosophy impacted the traditional, naïve conception of gods? Or that philosophers and early scientists effectively changed the topic from the animist’s enchanted view of nature, or from the traditional view of God that’s based on prophetic or psychedelic ecstasy, to rational abstractions that are virtually atheistic?
What I’m arguing in that article is that philosophy isn’t religion’s friend because the medium is the message, as it were. Sure, there’s a philosophy of religion, but these arguments about God change the subject rather than address directly religious people’s existential concerns. Traditional religion is about reassuring ordinary folks, whereas intellectuals are interested in abstract ideas and in using knowledge for human empowerment, which is a secular humanistic enterprise.
As for accepting comments under the article, I’m just starting at Substack, and am still setting the stage by reposting some of my Medium articles (although eventually I’ll start posting exclusive content here). I’ve replied to some 8,000 comments on those Medium articles since I started posting on Medium in 2019. But Substack works differently than Medium, and I’m still figuring out how to incentivize readers to subscribe. Also, I’d rather not deal with snide commenters.
“Folk religions” (im assuming you mean Paganism) are inherently “secular” unlike Abrahamic faiths. They’re not dogmatic and never were. They’re not based on commandments or “truths” THEY ARE BASED ON REVERENCE OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY WAS AN EXPANSION OF IT.
In what way is animism any more or less atheistic than say philosophical panentheism such as Platonism or Vedanta? If anything the latter is more religious because it carried a higher metaphysical message.
How is philosophy not religions friend? Ritualistic cults evolved with the growth of these philosophies, and they were generally accepted and esteemed by Pagan societies. Look at Agamic rituals in Hinduism that evolved with Vedantic philosophy and concepts of Brahman. Certain gods became heavily associated with philosophical aspects (Vishnu, Shiva) ,and they just became more popular.
Those philosophies continued to reassure ordinary folks and satiate those philosophers (who studied and formulated them) quest for meaning and truth. How is it not transmissible to ordinary folks? Ordinary folks don’t require content? Only philosophers require it? If anything they gave more weightage to Pagan religion.
The contrast is between religions that naively personify things, to appeal to our social instinct, and philosophies and theologies that are more abstract and that appeal to intellectuals who want to understand the world rather than pretend that ultimate matters are humanoid and social so they can be forgotten or delegated to let us get on with our life.
In that sense, folk religion is for hard-working, uneducated people. They don't sit around and philosophize. Sure, philosophy incorporates commonplace awe in the face of natural mysteries, but philosophy is an elite activity for educated intellectuals with the luxury of time on their hands. Philosophies doubt away the most naïve, literalist interpretations of myths. Consequently, philosophical theologies end up missing the point of the common people's religions, which is that religions ought to provide comfort rather than satiating the imperial aspirations of intellectuals. Still, philosophers are only the messengers bearing bad news, which is that naïve, literalistic theism is probably false.
Abrahamism is for “hardworking” uneducated people. Just a set of stupid commandments for a naive slaves. “Benjamin Cain”. I wonder what religion you belong to.
>Do you deny that philosophy impacted the traditional, naïve conception of gods? [...]
It certainly depends on which culture you are talking about, obviously, but as far as West Eurasia during antiquity, it does seem like the religious elite had already recognized myth as (to some extent) poeticized philosophical truths since well before the rise of secular philosophers. People really had an enchanted view of nature up until, like, the 1700s in all honesty. Early scientists believed in things that I think today we would all agree is "enchanted" like Astrology.
>What I’m arguing in that article is that philosophy isn’t religion’s friend because the medium is the message, as it were. [...]
I wouldn't say the intelligentsia is interested in knowledge "for human empowerment", they're hopefully interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I think you're imagining this philosopher's God as more abstract than necessary -- the philosophers spend a lot of time demonstrating that this God is, in fact, God, in the ways we may traditionally think of him, or at least within him is contained a creative intellect. However, even in trad'l religion you see very abstract creator deities or even monads. Examples include the Turco-Mongolic Tengri and the Chinese concept of "Heaven". I think another issue here is that you're assuming that religion -- an institution which historically was funded out-of-pocket by the aristocracy, is for the common folk. It has always been just as much an elite fixation as it has been a commoners interest. If anything, it is newer religions very focused on mass salvation and proselytizing like Christianity or even Pure Land Buddhism which are "for the masses". Meanwhile the old religion really focused more on affirming the values and biases ("biases") of the elite through the reification of the social order.
>As for accepting comments under the article, I’m just starting at Substack, [...]
That's fair, I come from a place more rough-and-tumble so I'm used to negative comments, although I don't usually get any. But, you will probably get a lot of hate being a secular humanist on substack (or really anywhere)
The so-called God of the philosophers is a proto-scientific, objectified, depersonalized abstraction, like Aristotle’s self-absorbed First Mover. By contrast, the gods that entertained and reassured the illiterate masses of the ancient world were persons like them. Proto-science (philosophical theology) was an elite venture, whereas religious stories and practices were neo-animistic in presuming the universal validity of human social instincts. Arguments about God that end up objectifying the ultimate cause miss the social function of mass, state religions since those countercultural arguments alienate us rather than reassure our evolved intuitions.
I’m not exactly a secular humanist, by the way. I incorporate that humanism into my philosophical worldview, combining it with existentialism, cosmicism, pantheism, pragmatic neo-Kantian epistemology, and transhumanism. I critique secular humanism.
But I don’t see why a secular humanist should expect to be hated on Substack and everywhere else. The highly educated segments of developed societies tend to be secular humanistic as opposed to zealously theistic.
Secular humanists are hated on substack because A) there are a lot of right wingers on substack, and B) they are not edgy enough to get the sensationalist crowd happy
Religion was bankrolled by the elite and adopted an elite caste to manage itself. The elites seem generally to have cared even more about religion than the commoners, and the religious elite seem to have cared more about philosophy than anyone else. Gods are personified only semiotically, it is known that their true nature is not human although perhaps “personal” insofar as they are intellectual agents. The reason we associate the gods with human form and to a lesser extent with nature, is because those things hold a deep instinctual place in our heads. It’s not just a metaphor, it’s that portraying cosmology mythically in some sense allows for a more accurate depiction of it than dry topical speech would
Locking comments behind paid subs only is so pozzed. It kills almost any chance of discussion, which seems to be part of the point of substack, and it results in the few comments you do get simply being praise/worthless fluff.
Something i've noticed in the pagan sphere on telegram is a tendency to attack Plato, modern science, etc. purely from the grounds of appearing subversive to the old ways by critical thinking about them.
A lot are very staunch on saying the myths (specifically of Germanic mythology) are entirely literal & any claim to the contrary from either a scientific or philosophical perspective is wrong. I'm not wholly sure why this started, but it feels the same as the odd young earth creationist type evangelicals.
Regardless of whether a belief is based on observation or revelation, if reason comes into conflict with it to the point of being "subversive" then that belief is probably just wrong.
Also, the trend of calling people trying to rationalize religious beliefs crypto-atheists is extremely annoying & imo sad to see it spread to substack
I can't believe this dude actually thinks "first mover" has to do with literal motion. How can you call yourself an "expert" and not know what that actually means. Self described humanists are so obnoxious.
I'm a real humanist
I said the laws of motion would apply to the naturalized or rationalized First Mover as an example of how the God of the philosophers differs from the folk's God. Aquinas's First Way draws on Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover which is supposed to account for change in the world without itself being changed. The only way to make sense of how something could change or move other things, though, is to assume, on the contrary, that this first thing would also be changeable or moveable. So the notion of an "unmoved mover" is contradictory. It's like asking how an immaterial ghost could directly affect the material world. Only by becoming at least quasi-material could a ghost do so, in which case the ghost would have been naturalized.
What a long winded way to say “the phrase unmoved mover makes my brain hurt”
"I think I write good material in responses anyways" that you do, it's always very insightful
ngl as of recently , in this incredibly pessimistic and godless world i’m surprised there are other people with genuine religious beliefs. I was reading those books that ec winsper guy recommended (sacred and profane, temple of the cosmos) and now i’m here wondering how it’s possible that there’s someone of the “modern consciousness” living in this consumerist society and is still somehow religious, like i’m religious myself but it’s sometimes weird knowing there are people out there who are also religious to a degree. ok i have 1% battery left
On the other end, I find it strange that there are so few truly religious people. I often encounter people who really want to have faith in Christianity or some other thing but can’t bring themselves to believe in anything (presumably their worldview is too deeply-rooted in secularism for them to easily overcome it).
Animism/Paganism is and always was fundamentally nature worship. Philosophy was just a deeper understanding of nature and reality. Pagan faiths accompanied philosophy because they accompanied the better understanding of nature, aka what they worshipped. Nature isn’t just physical, it can include whats metaphysical, long as its rationally believed to be true.
What even is “folk religion”? Its a retarded made up term. Its some modernist version of “mindless idolatry” that the idiotic jews and abrahamic religions of the past viewed paganism as.
“Myth” is a literal Greek word. The word “Tale” “Fable” etc. have always referred to Pagan stories. Even the Hindu word “Purana” essentially means “Tale”. Do these faux-historians really believe everyone took fables seriously in the past except for these enlightened philosophers? This is again like those retarded Jews or Muslims of the past who truly thought Pagans believed a statue was God and couldn’t separate an idol from what it represented.
Enlightened philosopher treated a myth as a mythology. Wow. They were able to separate the art of theatre and drama, or storytelling from reality. Amazing. They were able to separate a statue or work of art from what it represented. They were so unlike everybody else! Except no. What really is true is that Jews and their stupid offspring religions couldn’t separate the two and persecuted people over it. They couldn’t understand ART for ARTS SAKE.
Benjamin makes a mistake here: "According to Robert Bellah’s use of Merlin Donald’s theory of cognitive change, that period [the Axial Age" was impacted by the inventions of the Greek alphabet and writing..."
The Greeks, in their genealogies, placed the invention of their writing system around 1600 BC, with King Cecrops I. According to the archaeological evidence, this aligns with either Linear A or Linear B (1800 BC to 1400 BC timeframe). At the latest, 1100 BC. Definitely not "Axial Age."
What I think would be a better argument would be say that "during the Axial Age, Greeks stopped transmitting their myths orally, and committed them to writing." Hesiod was revolutionary in this sense. But "new use of writing" is not "invention of writing."
I appreciate the reply, but I think you’re mostly quibbling about historical details and missing the article’s main point.
Do you deny that philosophy impacted the traditional, naïve conception of gods? Or that philosophers and early scientists effectively changed the topic from the animist’s enchanted view of nature, or from the traditional view of God that’s based on prophetic or psychedelic ecstasy, to rational abstractions that are virtually atheistic?
What I’m arguing in that article is that philosophy isn’t religion’s friend because the medium is the message, as it were. Sure, there’s a philosophy of religion, but these arguments about God change the subject rather than address directly religious people’s existential concerns. Traditional religion is about reassuring ordinary folks, whereas intellectuals are interested in abstract ideas and in using knowledge for human empowerment, which is a secular humanistic enterprise.
As for accepting comments under the article, I’m just starting at Substack, and am still setting the stage by reposting some of my Medium articles (although eventually I’ll start posting exclusive content here). I’ve replied to some 8,000 comments on those Medium articles since I started posting on Medium in 2019. But Substack works differently than Medium, and I’m still figuring out how to incentivize readers to subscribe. Also, I’d rather not deal with snide commenters.
Hey monkey what's 1+1 *throws peanut at u*
“Folk religions” (im assuming you mean Paganism) are inherently “secular” unlike Abrahamic faiths. They’re not dogmatic and never were. They’re not based on commandments or “truths” THEY ARE BASED ON REVERENCE OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY WAS AN EXPANSION OF IT.
In what way is animism any more or less atheistic than say philosophical panentheism such as Platonism or Vedanta? If anything the latter is more religious because it carried a higher metaphysical message.
How is philosophy not religions friend? Ritualistic cults evolved with the growth of these philosophies, and they were generally accepted and esteemed by Pagan societies. Look at Agamic rituals in Hinduism that evolved with Vedantic philosophy and concepts of Brahman. Certain gods became heavily associated with philosophical aspects (Vishnu, Shiva) ,and they just became more popular.
Those philosophies continued to reassure ordinary folks and satiate those philosophers (who studied and formulated them) quest for meaning and truth. How is it not transmissible to ordinary folks? Ordinary folks don’t require content? Only philosophers require it? If anything they gave more weightage to Pagan religion.
The contrast is between religions that naively personify things, to appeal to our social instinct, and philosophies and theologies that are more abstract and that appeal to intellectuals who want to understand the world rather than pretend that ultimate matters are humanoid and social so they can be forgotten or delegated to let us get on with our life.
In that sense, folk religion is for hard-working, uneducated people. They don't sit around and philosophize. Sure, philosophy incorporates commonplace awe in the face of natural mysteries, but philosophy is an elite activity for educated intellectuals with the luxury of time on their hands. Philosophies doubt away the most naïve, literalist interpretations of myths. Consequently, philosophical theologies end up missing the point of the common people's religions, which is that religions ought to provide comfort rather than satiating the imperial aspirations of intellectuals. Still, philosophers are only the messengers bearing bad news, which is that naïve, literalistic theism is probably false.
Abrahamism is for “hardworking” uneducated people. Just a set of stupid commandments for a naive slaves. “Benjamin Cain”. I wonder what religion you belong to.
I don’t belong to any religion since I philosophize.
>Do you deny that philosophy impacted the traditional, naïve conception of gods? [...]
It certainly depends on which culture you are talking about, obviously, but as far as West Eurasia during antiquity, it does seem like the religious elite had already recognized myth as (to some extent) poeticized philosophical truths since well before the rise of secular philosophers. People really had an enchanted view of nature up until, like, the 1700s in all honesty. Early scientists believed in things that I think today we would all agree is "enchanted" like Astrology.
>What I’m arguing in that article is that philosophy isn’t religion’s friend because the medium is the message, as it were. [...]
I wouldn't say the intelligentsia is interested in knowledge "for human empowerment", they're hopefully interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I think you're imagining this philosopher's God as more abstract than necessary -- the philosophers spend a lot of time demonstrating that this God is, in fact, God, in the ways we may traditionally think of him, or at least within him is contained a creative intellect. However, even in trad'l religion you see very abstract creator deities or even monads. Examples include the Turco-Mongolic Tengri and the Chinese concept of "Heaven". I think another issue here is that you're assuming that religion -- an institution which historically was funded out-of-pocket by the aristocracy, is for the common folk. It has always been just as much an elite fixation as it has been a commoners interest. If anything, it is newer religions very focused on mass salvation and proselytizing like Christianity or even Pure Land Buddhism which are "for the masses". Meanwhile the old religion really focused more on affirming the values and biases ("biases") of the elite through the reification of the social order.
>As for accepting comments under the article, I’m just starting at Substack, [...]
That's fair, I come from a place more rough-and-tumble so I'm used to negative comments, although I don't usually get any. But, you will probably get a lot of hate being a secular humanist on substack (or really anywhere)
The so-called God of the philosophers is a proto-scientific, objectified, depersonalized abstraction, like Aristotle’s self-absorbed First Mover. By contrast, the gods that entertained and reassured the illiterate masses of the ancient world were persons like them. Proto-science (philosophical theology) was an elite venture, whereas religious stories and practices were neo-animistic in presuming the universal validity of human social instincts. Arguments about God that end up objectifying the ultimate cause miss the social function of mass, state religions since those countercultural arguments alienate us rather than reassure our evolved intuitions.
I’m not exactly a secular humanist, by the way. I incorporate that humanism into my philosophical worldview, combining it with existentialism, cosmicism, pantheism, pragmatic neo-Kantian epistemology, and transhumanism. I critique secular humanism.
But I don’t see why a secular humanist should expect to be hated on Substack and everywhere else. The highly educated segments of developed societies tend to be secular humanistic as opposed to zealously theistic.
Secular humanists are hated on substack because A) there are a lot of right wingers on substack, and B) they are not edgy enough to get the sensationalist crowd happy
Religion was bankrolled by the elite and adopted an elite caste to manage itself. The elites seem generally to have cared even more about religion than the commoners, and the religious elite seem to have cared more about philosophy than anyone else. Gods are personified only semiotically, it is known that their true nature is not human although perhaps “personal” insofar as they are intellectual agents. The reason we associate the gods with human form and to a lesser extent with nature, is because those things hold a deep instinctual place in our heads. It’s not just a metaphor, it’s that portraying cosmology mythically in some sense allows for a more accurate depiction of it than dry topical speech would
Locking comments behind paid subs only is so pozzed. It kills almost any chance of discussion, which seems to be part of the point of substack, and it results in the few comments you do get simply being praise/worthless fluff.
Something i've noticed in the pagan sphere on telegram is a tendency to attack Plato, modern science, etc. purely from the grounds of appearing subversive to the old ways by critical thinking about them.
A lot are very staunch on saying the myths (specifically of Germanic mythology) are entirely literal & any claim to the contrary from either a scientific or philosophical perspective is wrong. I'm not wholly sure why this started, but it feels the same as the odd young earth creationist type evangelicals.
Regardless of whether a belief is based on observation or revelation, if reason comes into conflict with it to the point of being "subversive" then that belief is probably just wrong.
Also, the trend of calling people trying to rationalize religious beliefs crypto-atheists is extremely annoying & imo sad to see it spread to substack