Subject: Re: music as a process of religion
From: Robbie (shok@netcom.com)
Date: Sat Jan 08 2000 - 17:30:08 EST
you said:
<< But you still don't account for the existence of the social
construct. Since socities are made up of individuals, how is it that
every society comes up with some form of religion even though, according
to your account, no specific individual would ever think of it?
It seems impossible to me. >>
It seems pretty reasonable to me. Put a large group of people together
to form an isolated and primitive society, and they will eventually
develop some sort of religion/mythology. Put one person in isolation,
(s)he will not.
I'm sure I could go on for quite some paragraphs listing the reasons
why. The most blatant is that religions/mythology do not spring up in
individuals. They evolve over generations. The second most obvious (to
me, anyway) is that language must exist (which I guess you could argue,
but I won't go into it in this email) in order to develop
religion/mythology and, like religion/mythology, language doesn't spring
up in the mind of individuals, it evolves over generations.
<< Now, in a contradictory fashion, you do later account for the
existence of religion in the individual:
<<The fear of death, coupled
with our inability to understand where we and our Universe came from,
incited the formation of religion/mythology, the Big Watchful Daddy in
the Sky belief, and the I'll-Never-Die-'Cause-There's-Life-After-Death
belief.>>
I think you need to unmuddle your thinking a little bit :) >>
I first must thank you for that courtesy smiley. Had it not been for
that, I'd suspect you were getting a bit nasty. But I digress, and I
disagree.
That passage that you included in your message was not meant to account
for the existence of religion in the individual. It was meant to
account for the existence of religion in society. Note the use of the
words "we" and "our." I was referring to the minds of many individuals
forming a collective, as the minds of people in large groups tend to do.
Religion/mythology first reared its head countless ages before the
Scientific Method did. Were this not so, religion/mythology wouldn't
have so readily established itself.
<<
Since our minds are (within your construct) limited to nature and a
product of nature, then hadn't it occurred to you that religion -- the
development of a belief in the supernatural -- MUST then be natural,
since humanity has so consistently (across almost all, if not all, times
and cultures) developed some ideas of some kind about the supernatural?
>>
I'm not arguing that irrational belief is unnatural, certainly not
supernatural. I'm arguing that it is unnecessary and irrational.
Being, as you yourself called me, an antisupernaturalist, I would be
uncomfortable calling ANYTHING possible unnatural and certainly never
supernatural. Massive bodies repelling each other rather than
attracting each other would be unnatural; people drinking urine or
raping goats or murdering each other or believing silly superstitions
are not unnatural. I may call them unnecessary, or even damaging in one
way or another, but unnatural isn't a term I like to throw around
casually when speaking in huge generalizations.
I can say something is not natural to a specific circumstance, such as
"it is not natural for women to murder their newborn children" and in
such a case, I am speaking the truth; women naturally protect their
children. But in more general terms, I would be a bit more uneasy
saying that "murder is unnatural" or perhaps even that "infanticide is
unnatural" because both happen and both exist in nature.
Perhaps we're having trouble with the terms "unnatural" and
"supernatural." I suppose they could be inferred to mean roughly the
same thing, but the latter is far more severe.
<< I don't think you understand your own philosophy very well. But
don't worry, I've never met a thoroughly rational atheist in my life.
>>
You didn't include a smiley this time, pal. And now you're getting
nasty. I understand my philosophy perfectly, I'll have you know, and I
also understand religion. I'm simply bright enough to notice that
spirtual beliefs, as a rule, never have any sort of proof whatsoever.
If there is no evidence that something it exists, I will not be
convinced that it does. The divinity of Jesus Christ, the existence of
Zeus, the existence of Yojo, the existence of Rah, and the existence of
Zippy the Monkey Goddess (that I just made up) are all provable to the
exact same degree; that is, not at all. Believing in one or believing
in the next is entirely arbitrary, so I remove myself from the silliness
entirely.
How, please tell me, is that not thoroughly rational?
And if you claim to have no experience with rational atheists, you are
either a fool, a liar, or possesing a painfully limited world view.
As I alluded to earlier in this email, the development of the Scientific
Method has gradually taken the necessity of religion away from it.
Faith (which is imperative to EVERY religion and theological belief) is
antithetical to logic by its very definition. Logical Faith is an
oxymoron. Faith is HIGHLY discouraged in scientific circles and
religious belief, then, is all but ruled out.
Thoroughly rational Atheists? How about Albert Einstein? Stephen
Hawking? James Watson? Francis Crick? Hell, Isaac Asimov? Want me to
continue?
One needn't call themself an Atheist to be one. One may even refer to
or invoke the name of god (Einstein's oft-quoted "God is not malicious,"
"God does not play dice" soundbytes). All one needs to do in order to
be an Atheist is live life without a belief in the literal existance of
an all-powerful, personal god, or some other such supernatural deity.
And anyone who prides themself as logical or rational but believes in
some such entity, which, by its nature, cannot have its existence
proven, is, quite frankly, a hypocrite.
I will go as far as to say that being an Atheist is *NECESSARY* to being
thoroughly rational.
<< P.S. Within atheism, why should the individual male care about how
women are treated? >>
Because Atheism is not Nihilism. Your beliefs of what Atheism is are
entirely off-the-mark. I, as an Atheist, have no dogma or religious
belief forcing me to care about how women are treated. But I, as a Homo
sapiens (a highly social animal), have an intrinsic compassion,
particularly for women and children. If I did not have said compassion,
I would be what one calls a sociopath; possesing a very serious, and
more rare than most people imagine, variety of mental disorder.
Why do you think Bugs Bunny and nearly every imaginable "GoodGuy"
cartoon character has big eyes and puffy cheeks? And often a small
nose? What subconscious mechanism existing within the minds of
cartoonist incites them to include these features in "cute" characters,
and which same mechanism in the minds of every human allows us to
recognize them as cute? Could we logically deduct that, as these are
unmasculine features, as they are features usually apparent in women and
very young children, then we humans are hard-coded to be sympathetic
toward them?
I am a pacifist. I am a generally friendly guy. I help old ladies
across the street. I am angered at the mistreatment of people and even
of other animals. I am a vegetarian for chrissakes! But I do not
believe in the existence of any god or of the human soul or of any other
such example of the supernatural.
Understand?
-robbie
"I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless."
[Peter Walker on alt.atheism]
"I don't think we're [here] for anything, we're just products of
evolution. You can say 'Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you
don't think there's a purpose' but I'm anticipating a good lunch."
-Dr. James Watson, Nobel laureate Biophysicist, co-discoverer of DNA
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