The Crisis of Meaning

[noddy]

the only advantage of being gay is not losing half your wealth when your relationships break up and being able to walk away from a relationship without the legal system stepping in.

still cant believe a magority of em wanted this - I suspect its a middle class white chicks that have brought about this cultural shift.

[Nonc Hilaire]

.
The Jesuit Pope
authorizes blessings for same-sex couples


Interesting to see how Catholics take this .. Bible is clear on this (not so Koran) ..

Good to see what Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has to say.

Catholics bless everything. Houses, boats, livestock. It’s a cool practice. I really want to see a priest armed with an aspergillum blessing a gay disco.

Matrimony is a sacrament for Catholics, which is a different relationship. The priest is a proxy for God in a sacrament. A blessing is much less.

[Nonc Hilaire]

the only advantage of being gay is not losing half your wealth when your relationships break up and being able to walk away from a relationship without the legal system stepping in.

still cant believe a magority of em wanted this - I suspect its a middle class white chicks that have brought about this cultural shift.

In the US gay marriage is the same as straight marriage. You join property and debt in a contract with the state.

It’s mostly a lesbian thing.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Lot one could say to this but I don't really see how this fits under "The Crisis of Meaning" thread

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

the only advantage of being gay is not losing half your wealth when your relationships break up and being able to walk away from a relationship without the legal system stepping in.

still cant believe a magority of em wanted this - I suspect its a middle class white chicks that have brought about this cultural shift.

Is Germany (and therefor the EU) a gaggle of middle class white chicks? (Please anyone out there reading this, don't answer that.)

With an anti-American pope, and Francis being the good Argentinian that he is, is not shy about disliking Americans on a personal level; Germany is the financial backbone of the Church. And Germany, starting under Merkel, has a list of things it wants the Church to do.

The Top Four, from what I hear, being:

Recognizing irregular spousal situations
Merging Protestant confessions into the Church
A Female Episcopacy and all the usual fights against the lists of -isms.
Full bore climate change hamartiology

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

It's not been reported all that much in secular news but the German situation has been causing lots of headaches with mostly a "stay silent and ignore it" attitude from the Vatican. Things are coming to a head though and I believe it was just last [edit: originally wrote "month" instead of "March"] that the German church decided that they would go ahead with some sort of formalized blessing.

In one sense, this circumscribed allowance of blessings undermines what the German church was preparing to go forth with; and without excommunicating the whole church.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Lot one could say to this but I don't really see how this fits under "The Crisis of Meaning" thread

It can be seen as a symptom of The Crisis of Meaning”. Hedonism is largely replacing “life partner” as a basis for marriage, and the cycle of generations increasingly delayed or ignored.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Lot one could say to this but I don't really see how this fits under "The Crisis of Meaning" thread

It can be seen as a symptom of The Crisis of Meaning”. Hedonism is largely replacing “life partner” as a basis for marriage, and the cycle of generations increasingly delayed or ignored.

point taken

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Matrimony is a sacrament for Catholics, which is a different relationship. The priest is a proxy for God in a sacrament. A blessing is much less.

The couple is the proxy, which is why deacons can preside over the wedding.

[Heracleum Persicum]

the only advantage of being gay is not losing half your wealth when your relationships break up and being able to walk away from a relationship without the legal system stepping in.

still cant believe a magority of em wanted this - I suspect its a middle class white chicks that have brought about this cultural shift.

In the US gay marriage is the same as straight marriage. You join property and debt in a contract with the state.

It’s mostly a lesbian thing.

True, it's mostly lesbian thing

Reason is, still for men, openly being gay not as comfortable (and acceptable) as for lesbians.

Heterosexual men do not look at Lesbians as really gay, not so at gay men

.
The Jesuit Pope
authorizes blessings for same-sex couples


Interesting to see how Catholics take this .. Bible is clear on this (not so Koran) ..

Good to see what Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has to say.

Catholics bless everything. Houses, boats, livestock. It’s a cool practice. I really want to see a priest armed with an aspergillum blessing a gay disco.

Didn't know this .. thought only Jews bless everything (against payment)

Matrimony is a sacrament for Catholics, which is a different relationship. The priest is a proxy for God in a sacrament. A blessing is much less.

Seems "blessing" not yet "sacrament" ..

[Heracleum Persicum]

the only advantage of being gay is not losing half your wealth when your relationships break up and being able to walk away from a relationship without the legal system stepping in.

still cant believe a magority of em wanted this - I suspect its a middle class white chicks that have brought about this cultural shift.

Is Germany (and therefor the EU) a gaggle of middle class white chicks? (Please anyone out there reading this, don't answer that.)

With an anti-American pope, and Francis being the good Argentinian that he is, is not shy about disliking Americans on a personal level; Germany is the financial backbone of the Church. And Germany, starting under Merkel, has a list of things it wants the Church to do.

The Top Four, from what I hear, being:

Recognizing irregular spousal situations
Merging Protestant confessions into the Church
A Female Episcopacy and all the usual fights against the lists of -isms.
Full bore climate change hamartiology

In Europe still the old mindset re homosexuals .. not much has changed .. in this regard it is still 1960s
.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

There is a joke that the Church is the only place where the 60 and 70 year olds tell the 20 and 30 year olds to get with the times.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

The Crisis of Orthobro....'>.....

[Parodite]

Just some Merry Christmas thoughts.

Having your eyes looking at the past most of the time while generating virtual dreamy futures, hardly aware of what is really here-now and what is coming. Walking backwards to the sun. These hallucinations about the future in turn color and filter what you see in the past which then feeds forward into the future, bouncing back to the past again…. and so forth.

This re-iterating loop is how causal maps are generated and updated from moment to moment. It also makes possible the generation of psychotic hallucinations; the causal map of reality gets distorted, sometimes even destroyed. The neural network that “prints” these maps can have a defect being the cause of a distorted map as with schizophrenic disorders or dementia, but also a healthy press can generate faulty maps when it is fed enough with false data, i.e. you are being brain washed.

People can go nuts on their own, but also as a group when these distorted maps are shared and socially integrated. Socialized delusions then become part of a cultural pattern that can persist over a long time and multiple generations.

An individual nut can hardly survive as it is dependent on the generosity of his environment to be tolerated and fed. A group of synchronized nuts where delusions are socially integrated is much more resilient however. It can develop behaviors that are very similar to a healthy non-corrupted individual organism and have its own strategies for survival.

You then have sort of a blind mob, consisting of individual zombies who see less and less for themselves, hardly knowing what they are doing. The mob is emerging as a quasi-new individual with a mind of its own; it has a good chance of passing a Turing test.

Herd-intelligence is a fascinating feature in nature, where a collective does amazing things, with constituent parts seemingly unaware of anything beyond their immediate stimulus-response reality doing local specialized tasks only. Ever felt like a cog in a machine? Well, probably you are or in the process of becoming one.

One can toy with the idea that herd-intelligence is the emerging mind of complex systems and multi cellular organisms. To be “an independent individual with a mind of its own” is only a temporary situation: it is inevitable you become part of some herd, a mob, a system that integrates you into itself. Your own conscious self will be sacrificed and processed into a new mind of different and probably greater complexity.

A mob not necessarily developes into a conscious, independent intelligence with agency. It can get stuck in the mud and stay there for a while before it disintegrates again like a failed experiment. It probably is going to do a lot of damage to its environment in a desperate attempt to become something worthy of a life. Some individuals not completely digested yet by that muddy-whale-mob will jump the sinking ship in time and get rescued. Many will not survive however.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Just some Merry Christmas thoughts.

[Parodite]

Just some Merry Christmas thoughts.

Pretty much that A global glob absorbing a muddled mob.

[Parodite]

Religion and science

In the twilight of human thought's expanse,
Where the realm of faith meets empirical chance,
In doubt's elusive and uncertain light,
Science and religion converge in sight.

One seeks truth in atoms, particles unseen,
In equations, laws, the universe's keen,
With methodical gaze and rigorous test,
Science delves deep, strives to attest.

While the other, anchored in sacred lore,
Finds solace in myths and beliefs of yore,
In prayers whispered, in faith's embrace,
Religion weaves stories, bestows grace.

Yet, at the crossroads where uncertainties lay,
Science and religion meet in a curious way.
Both explore the mysteries beyond our ken,
Seeking answers that elude mortal men.

Science, with its microscope and scope so wide,
Unravels nature's secrets, with relentless stride.
Religion, with its scriptures, divinely spun,
Offers wisdom, guiding when day is done.

In doubt, they dance, in a cosmic ballet,
Where reason meets faith in a delicate display.
Their discordant notes, a harmonious blend,
As human minds seek truths that transcend.

For in the heart of doubt, a quest unfolds,
Where science and religion, their stories told,
Coalesce in a quest for the profound,
In the hazy realms where truth is found.

So let not doubt sow division's seed,
For in its midst, there's no need to concede.
In science or faith, a common ground,
Where wonder and awe in unity are found.

In doubt's enigmatic, perplexing feat,
Science and religion converge, complete,
For both seek the essence, the core, the key,
To fathom life's intricate mystery.

- Chat GPT Xmas 2023

[Heracleum Persicum]

Religion and science

Religion is "genetic"

There is a "gene" for religion

Some have that gene, some don't



NYT
The Evolution of the God Gene

Nov 14, 2009 — Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favoured by natural selection

NYT
In Search of the 'God Gene'

Nov 2, 2004 — Dr. Dean Hamer, a molecular geneticist, argues persuasively that genes predispose humans to believe that "spirituality is one of our basic human evolution

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/book ... enome.html



Human specie, million yrs ago, living like caves .. those who believed in and hang on "unnatural forces", hanging on HOPE , they lasted longer than those who did not believe in "unnatural forces" and "gave up", they died out.
.

[Nonc Hilaire]

My Wesleyan Christianity postulates prevenient grace, which is that all humans are created with a drive state drawing them to know God.

I don’t see the evidence limiting this to dna, or evidence excluding other sources.

Positive reinforcement and classical conditioning account for religious behavior very well.

The test case would be persons who suddenly become religious, but I don’t even see the need of an experimental protocol.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Wouldn't even go with that amount of sincerity....

Inquiry is good; as is wheel-spinnin' and shadow-boxing.

Their amusements, like everything else, don't deserve such solemnity.

[noddy]

if anything the genes express as personality and how the beliefs manifest themselves.

like the earnest atheists/greens bible thumping global warming etc with as much voracity as the most god bothering of religious cliches.

or the "god helps those who help themselves" protestants who are undectably different from agnostics.

or the vast magority of atheists and cultural religious folks who just do what their parents taught em and dont think much about it beyond that.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

yes and that is a speculative well worth looking at again and again. Maybe one day someone or someones will strike oil from it.

I'd personally direct a peak into husbandry in the broad. Cavemen-ing, when it did occur, would've selected for better marshals; and that'd include cultural product as well.

Instead we get a (popular audience) article about the guys who look at alphabet soup molecules looking for language games words like "faith" and "spirituality" to apply to mind phantasms psychology over a forever bridge of time (from the archaic to modern).

But this we proclaim our oaths!

[noddy]

chasing after the latest statistics and living in fear of them is a different way of life to following religous practice, their is no doubt.

then again, their is a certain segment of the religious community which hangs off the latest proclamtions ( muslims its hadiths?) too.

and a certain segment which mumbles about human fallibity in church officials and ignores them.

zooming out, zooming in, its all matters of perspective.

[noddy]

Instead we get a (popular audience) article about the guys who look at alphabet soup molecules looking for language games words like "faith" and "spirituality" to apply to mind phantasms psychology over a forever bridge of time (from the archaic to modern).

yeh, this is the childish stuff, uni stoner levels of self awareness and experience.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

chasing after the latest statistics and living in fear of them is a different way of life to following religous practice, their is no doubt.

then again, their is a certain segment of the religious community which hangs off the latest proclamtions ( muslims its hadiths?) too.

and a certain segment which mumbles about human fallibity in church officials and ignores them.

zooming out, zooming in, its all matters of perspective.

There aren't perspectives; that is the problem. We often lack the tests to cut back on tautologies and circular reasonings. On paper, a critical eye does us well but matters aren't lived on paper and things get messy, especially when there is a lot of unpack.

The statistician is supposed to be searching for functional relations. The religious community is stating a self-expression. How would these two relate?