#materialism — Public Fediverse posts

Western psychology values society over individuals. Its project is to produce productive social actors (egos with many attachments, who work, who buy things, etc), not to free people from all possible suffering by deconstructing the ego.

#psychology #west #value #society #productivity #ego #attachment #work #commerce #materialism #freedom #suffering

Western psychology values society over individuals. Its project is to produce productive social actors (egos with many attachments, who work, who buy things, etc), not to free people from all possible suffering by deconstructing the ego.

#psychology #west #value #society #productivity #ego #attachment #work #commerce #materialism #freedom #suffering

Western psychology values society over individuals. Its project is to produce productive social actors (egos with many attachments, who work, who buy things, etc), not to free people from all possible suffering by deconstructing the ego.

#psychology #west #value #society #productivity #ego #attachment #work #commerce #materialism #freedom #suffering

Western psychology values society over individuals. Its project is to produce productive social actors (egos with many attachments, who work, who buy things, etc), not to free people from all possible suffering by deconstructing the ego.

#psychology #west #value #society #productivity #ego #attachment #work #commerce #materialism #freedom #suffering

Western psychology values society over individuals. Its project is to produce productive social actors (egos with many attachments, who work, who buy things, etc), not to free people from all possible suffering by deconstructing the ego.

#psychology #west #value #society #productivity #ego #attachment #work #commerce #materialism #freedom #suffering

Spending, Gifts and Materialism
https://wp.me/p84YjG-aT0
#relationships #zsoltzsemba #relationshipexpectations #money #gifts #dating #datingadvice #moderndating #materialism #generosity #relationshipadvice #menandrelationships #lovеlanguages #materialistic

https://zsoltzsemba.com/what-spending-on-a-partner-actually-tells-you-about-the-relationship/

“Modern materialism has convinced us to imagine that all the meaning and value in the universe is made up inside human heads. What hubris! … The materialist story leaves us lonely and alienated, cut off from the real meanings and values of a living world. This has destructive social effects. It is also destroying the life systems of this planet.”
—Matthew Segall, Why Natural Science Would Be Better Off Without Physicalist Metaphysics
#materialism #metaphysics

“Modern materialism has convinced us to imagine that all the meaning and value in the universe is made up inside human heads. What hubris! … The materialist story leaves us lonely and alienated, cut off from the real meanings and values of a living world. This has destructive social effects. It is also destroying the life systems of this planet.”
—Matthew Segall, Why Natural Science Would Be Better Off Without Physicalist Metaphysics
#materialism #metaphysics

“Modern materialism has convinced us to imagine that all the meaning and value in the universe is made up inside human heads. What hubris! … The materialist story leaves us lonely and alienated, cut off from the real meanings and values of a living world. This has destructive social effects. It is also destroying the life systems of this planet.”
—Matthew Segall, Why Natural Science Would Be Better Off Without Physicalist Metaphysics
#materialism #metaphysics

“Modern materialism has convinced us to imagine that all the meaning and value in the universe is made up inside human heads. What hubris! … The materialist story leaves us lonely and alienated, cut off from the real meanings and values of a living world. This has destructive social effects. It is also destroying the life systems of this planet.”
—Matthew Segall, Why Natural Science Would Be Better Off Without Physicalist Metaphysics
#materialism #metaphysics

“Modern materialism has convinced us to imagine that all the meaning and value in the universe is made up inside human heads. What hubris! … The materialist story leaves us lonely and alienated, cut off from the real meanings and values of a living world. This has destructive social effects. It is also destroying the life systems of this planet.”
—Matthew Segall, Why Natural Science Would Be Better Off Without Physicalist Metaphysics
#materialism #metaphysics

What the American Left Got Wrong | An #Indigenous Elder's Diagnosis
Roberto Mendoza—82 years old, six decades of organizing from Alcatraz in 1969 to Standing Rock in 2016—sits down with economist Clara Mattei to name what he thinks went wrong, and why it keeps going wrong. His answer isn't strategy or messaging. It's values. And Marxism, he argues, still shares too many of them with capitalism.
#FREE #Racialization #Patriarchy #Hierarchy #Capitalism #Materialism #Industrialization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisua-os6Mk&t=629s

What the American Left Got Wrong | An #Indigenous Elder's Diagnosis
Roberto Mendoza—82 years old, six decades of organizing from Alcatraz in 1969 to Standing Rock in 2016—sits down with economist Clara Mattei to name what he thinks went wrong, and why it keeps going wrong. His answer isn't strategy or messaging. It's values. And Marxism, he argues, still shares too many of them with capitalism.
#FREE #Racialization #Patriarchy #Hierarchy #Capitalism #Materialism #Industrialization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisua-os6Mk&t=629s

What the American Left Got Wrong | An #Indigenous Elder's Diagnosis
Roberto Mendoza—82 years old, six decades of organizing from Alcatraz in 1969 to Standing Rock in 2016—sits down with economist Clara Mattei to name what he thinks went wrong, and why it keeps going wrong. His answer isn't strategy or messaging. It's values. And Marxism, he argues, still shares too many of them with capitalism.
#FREE #Racialization #Patriarchy #Hierarchy #Capitalism #Materialism #Industrialization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisua-os6Mk&t=629s

What the American Left Got Wrong | An #Indigenous Elder's Diagnosis
Roberto Mendoza—82 years old, six decades of organizing from Alcatraz in 1969 to Standing Rock in 2016—sits down with economist Clara Mattei to name what he thinks went wrong, and why it keeps going wrong. His answer isn't strategy or messaging. It's values. And Marxism, he argues, still shares too many of them with capitalism.
#FREE #Racialization #Patriarchy #Hierarchy #Capitalism #Materialism #Industrialization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisua-os6Mk&t=629s

Bodies are a type of hardware. Being attached to them, desiring them, etc is a type of materialism. People's obsessions with 'who' looks most beautiful is actually with whose mind HAS (ie, possesses, occupies, etc) the most beautiful body.

#buddhism #body #hardware #desire #materialism #obsession #beauty #mind #possession #occupation #moha #delusion

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

#341: How Radical Should You Be In Your Belief?

https://youtu.be/mOoLMJQRrQY

How radical should you be in your belief? If you believe in something, shouldn’t you aim to believe in it more? So, let’s discuss.

All of us have our ideas that we prefer over others. All of us may have our political, religious, cultural preferences. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us human.

If we believe deeply that something is correct, that something is good, should we not think also that more of that is better? It’s a seductive idea and it seems logical initially. If you are X, if you believe in X, shouldn’t you believe in it more so? That seems to be the case because otherwise why would you believe in it? Is your belief really that weak that you can’t strengthen it?

So that’s the idea. And if you for some reason don’t want to fully commit, maybe you really never believed it completely. Maybe you’re not really a true believer. That’s the other part of the idea.

However, I would say this ignores certain facts about ideas, because every idea — whether it’s a religion, a philosophy, a cultural preference — typically has safeguards. When you look at all the big religions, they have some sort of clause, some sort of warning against taking it too far. Because that’s what the very idea of divinity is. That’s what the very idea of God is: that which we as human beings cannot completely understand. God is that which we cannot even approach so much that we can be certain of what God is. Because if we could, wouldn’t that mean in some way that we could become God? And that’s the very warning that most religions promote.

Believe, but don’t assume for a moment that you have all the answers.

There’s this joke that camels always look at humans in a specific way. The joke is that God has 100 names. We know 99 of them. But the camel knows all 100. And that’s why the camel looks so superior.

But that is the idea of religion. The idea of religion is a combination — as strange as this may sound — of belief and humility. We are not God. We are not everything in the universe. We are not all-knowing. We are not omnipotent. And we will never get there. So whatever you think of as God — whether you think that’s a religious idea, whether you think that’s nature, whether you think that’s the universe, whether you think that’s just the ultimate good — this idea is clear: do not pretend to be all-knowing yourself. Have some sense of humility.

Now that also goes for philosophy. You may say, I follow philosopher so-and-so. But philosophy is an ongoing conversation about wisdom — the love of wisdom; that’s what philosophia means. Each idea in philosophy lives in interaction with other ideas. Philosophy is more than just footnotes to Plato. Plato can be footnotes to Plato — if you look at the Laws and the Republic, there are two very different ideas there, and more than two.

Philosophers are typically smarter than those who follow a specific philosophy. Because every philosopher knows that in order to put out the strongest version of their idea, they have to leave some of the complications out. But there are always complications. And philosophy X always lives in some form of exchange with philosophy Y or Z or however many there are. Every idea lives in an ecosystem of ideas. It lives in relation with others.

Philosophy X may be good or better in certain respects than philosophy Y. Maybe philosophy Y is good in other aspects. But the truth emerges in the interaction between the two.

So you may believe that the individual is the source of all morality. But how far do you want to take this? Do you believe this to the complete abdication of responsibility for others? Do you believe this to the complete rejection of the state? Similarly, if you believe the state is the authority over everything else, at which point does this have to stop? At which point does the state have to even question itself as to how far it should go?

Everything costs money. Does this mean that everything should be judged by its price tag? Even though price is not a static thing — it depends on a lot of factors. Is the price tag always the value of something, or is it just our momentary expression of our social and cultural priorities? Of course there’s supply and demand which regulate that. But is that still everything? Aren’t there things where we should find some difficulty putting a price on? Aren’t there some things that we can’t really measure very well? So isn’t there a limit to this kind of positivist, materialist way of looking at things?

Equally, if we say the materialistic world doesn’t matter and we need to live in a more spiritual, contemplative state of mind — that may be true to a point, but eventually bills will have to be paid. You do live in some form of reality, and that reality means that resources typically are limited and there needs to be a prioritizing. How do you organize that?

The material and the spiritual belong together. They will always have friction between each other, but they will always complement each other. If you’re too materialistic — if you believe that only that which can be measured, only that which can be owned, only that which can have a price tag matters — you should maybe think about some more spiritual components of life. If you’re too spiritual, maybe you need to be rooted more in the fact that there’s also a materialist component of life.

If X drowns out Y, sides of X may appear that make it wrong, because you need that balance. And there are more than just two — X and Y is easier, but you could say XYZ or whatever.

So in fact the saying may be true that too much of a good thing is indeed not good. It distorts what it is.

This is why you see me frequently call for moderation. You could argue that too much moderation is also wrong — you need some passion and some intensity and some belief. Well, yes. But moderation can also be just a middle ground between these different poles. All these different ideas around us lead us to negotiate our space within them. Moderation does not mean you don’t have convictions. It means that you question at which point your convictions turn into such a radicality, into such an extreme version, that they become wrong — that they are undermined by their own conviction.

Is radicality the truest expression of an idea? No. It may be the most flamboyant, the most interesting. But it can’t survive well. If you turn too radical, too extremist, your idea may be more attractive to people who really think like you. But then look at history. Every time an idea became too radical, it fails. It has failed. No matter what the idea — because in its radicality, in its extremism, it loses its power of conviction towards those who don’t agree with you. And the number of people in the world who agree with you is always going to be punctuated by the number of people who disagree with you.

If you want to build a successful movement, if you want to build a successful approach to politics, to religion, to whatever your cultural or social idea may be, you need to convince others. You need to find ways of integrating aspects of the other into your own.

Which is why this very familiar symbol of yin and yang — masculine, feminine, black, white, dark, light — shows you these two parts, but there’s always something of the other in the bigger part. You know the symbol.

If we don’t find a way to integrate that with which we disagree — as some sense of doubt, as some sense of humility within our convictions — then our convictions will be nothing but arrogance, nothing but self-congratulatory pose, and turn out to be nothing else than solipsism: centering on yourself and that which you think defines you as the only thing that matters.

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]

SUNDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO + HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DONOVAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP-ap_RgR8U

#Donovan #Britishinvasion #britpop #changes #singersongwriter #DavidBowie #classicrock #socialcommentary #poprock #folkrock #popstar #fame #openroad #materialism #simplicity #jasonsouza #soldier #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge #tommallon #birthday

SUNDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO + HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DONOVAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP-ap_RgR8U

#Donovan #Britishinvasion #britpop #changes #singersongwriter #DavidBowie #classicrock #socialcommentary #poprock #folkrock #popstar #fame #openroad #materialism #simplicity #jasonsouza #soldier #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge #tommallon #birthday

🔬Why #experiments aren't always necessary – ⚛️From #physics to #philosophyofmind🧠

In our #Zoomposium with #DanielDennett, one of the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of mind, we explore this very topic.

📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk

📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/

#Consciousness #Qualia #InsightsIntoPhysics #TheoryVersusExperiment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #MultipleDraftsModel #Functionalism #Naturalism #Materialism #MindAndBrain

🔬Why #experiments aren't always necessary – ⚛️From #physics to #philosophyofmind🧠

In our #Zoomposium with #DanielDennett, one of the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of mind, we explore this very topic.

📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk

📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/

#Consciousness #Qualia #InsightsIntoPhysics #TheoryVersusExperiment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #MultipleDraftsModel #Functionalism #Naturalism #Materialism #MindAndBrain

🔬Why #experiments aren't always necessary – ⚛️From #physics to #philosophyofmind🧠

In our #Zoomposium with #DanielDennett, one of the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of mind, we explore this very topic.

📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk

📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/

#Consciousness #Qualia #InsightsIntoPhysics #TheoryVersusExperiment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #MultipleDraftsModel #Functionalism #Naturalism #Materialism #MindAndBrain

🔬Why #experiments aren't always necessary – ⚛️From #physics to #philosophyofmind🧠

In our #Zoomposium with #DanielDennett, one of the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of mind, we explore this very topic.

📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk

📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/

#Consciousness #Qualia #InsightsIntoPhysics #TheoryVersusExperiment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #MultipleDraftsModel #Functionalism #Naturalism #Materialism #MindAndBrain

🔬Why #experiments aren't always necessary – ⚛️From #physics to #philosophyofmind🧠

In our #Zoomposium with #DanielDennett, one of the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of mind, we explore this very topic.

📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk

📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/

#Consciousness #Qualia #InsightsIntoPhysics #TheoryVersusExperiment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #MultipleDraftsModel #Functionalism #Naturalism #Materialism #MindAndBrain

#StephenLaw - Is There Anything #NonPhysical About the #Mind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aporh7_yHos

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Qualia #Materialism #Dualism #HardProblem #Eliminativism #Brain #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#StephenLaw - Is There Anything #NonPhysical About the #Mind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aporh7_yHos

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Qualia #Materialism #Dualism #HardProblem #Eliminativism #Brain #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#StephenLaw - Is There Anything #NonPhysical About the #Mind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aporh7_yHos

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Qualia #Materialism #Dualism #HardProblem #Eliminativism #Brain #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#StephenLaw - Is There Anything #NonPhysical About the #Mind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aporh7_yHos

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Qualia #Materialism #Dualism #HardProblem #Eliminativism #Brain #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#StephenLaw - Is There Anything #NonPhysical About the #Mind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aporh7_yHos

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Qualia #Materialism #Dualism #HardProblem #Eliminativism #Brain #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Growing up (and even often as an adult) I need to refrain from expressing this interest and it becomes kinda lonely, alienating. When the internet became dominated by commercial interests promoting #materialism and other #mainstream values, I found myself marginalised again, so I dropped out as I had from IRL society. The #decentralised #fediverse seems to offer something like the OG internet and I am grateful for those who develop and maintain it for the #community #alternative.

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

(2/6)

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

(2/6)

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

(2/6)

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

(2/6)

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

(2/6)

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

https://youtu.be/9MURGjjG4aA

#astronomy #biology #consciousness #cosmology #cosmos #evolution #information #materialism #metaphysics #monism #neuropsychology #neuroscience #perception #philosophy #physicalism #physics #physiology #politics #psychology #quantum #reality #religion #secretsociety #science #society #socialsciences #spiritualism #technology #transhumanism #theism #theology #universe

(1/6)

#RaymondTallis - What #Exists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7HqomWm6YM

#Philosophy #Reality #Objects #Metaphysics #Existence #Categories #Materials #Materialism #Consciousness #Mind #Thought #Experience #Persons #Personhood #Sentience #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#JulianBaggini - How #Belief Systems Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLMCK_DKXKM&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #BeliefSystems #Metaphysics #Epistemology #Materialism #Physcalism #Religion #God #Faith #Truth #Consistency #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#341: How Radical Should You Be In Your Belief?

https://youtu.be/mOoLMJQRrQY

How radical should you be in your belief? If you believe in something, shouldn’t you aim to believe in it more? So, let’s discuss.

All of us have our ideas that we prefer over others. All of us may have our political, religious, cultural preferences. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us human.

If we believe deeply that something is correct, that something is good, should we not think also that more of that is better? It’s a seductive idea and it seems logical initially. If you are X, if you believe in X, shouldn’t you believe in it more so? That seems to be the case because otherwise why would you believe in it? Is your belief really that weak that you can’t strengthen it?

So that’s the idea. And if you for some reason don’t want to fully commit, maybe you really never believed it completely. Maybe you’re not really a true believer. That’s the other part of the idea.

However, I would say this ignores certain facts about ideas, because every idea — whether it’s a religion, a philosophy, a cultural preference — typically has safeguards. When you look at all the big religions, they have some sort of clause, some sort of warning against taking it too far. Because that’s what the very idea of divinity is. That’s what the very idea of God is: that which we as human beings cannot completely understand. God is that which we cannot even approach so much that we can be certain of what God is. Because if we could, wouldn’t that mean in some way that we could become God? And that’s the very warning that most religions promote.

Believe, but don’t assume for a moment that you have all the answers.

There’s this joke that camels always look at humans in a specific way. The joke is that God has 100 names. We know 99 of them. But the camel knows all 100. And that’s why the camel looks so superior.

But that is the idea of religion. The idea of religion is a combination — as strange as this may sound — of belief and humility. We are not God. We are not everything in the universe. We are not all-knowing. We are not omnipotent. And we will never get there. So whatever you think of as God — whether you think that’s a religious idea, whether you think that’s nature, whether you think that’s the universe, whether you think that’s just the ultimate good — this idea is clear: do not pretend to be all-knowing yourself. Have some sense of humility.

Now that also goes for philosophy. You may say, I follow philosopher so-and-so. But philosophy is an ongoing conversation about wisdom — the love of wisdom; that’s what philosophia means. Each idea in philosophy lives in interaction with other ideas. Philosophy is more than just footnotes to Plato. Plato can be footnotes to Plato — if you look at the Laws and the Republic, there are two very different ideas there, and more than two.

Philosophers are typically smarter than those who follow a specific philosophy. Because every philosopher knows that in order to put out the strongest version of their idea, they have to leave some of the complications out. But there are always complications. And philosophy X always lives in some form of exchange with philosophy Y or Z or however many there are. Every idea lives in an ecosystem of ideas. It lives in relation with others.

Philosophy X may be good or better in certain respects than philosophy Y. Maybe philosophy Y is good in other aspects. But the truth emerges in the interaction between the two.

So you may believe that the individual is the source of all morality. But how far do you want to take this? Do you believe this to the complete abdication of responsibility for others? Do you believe this to the complete rejection of the state? Similarly, if you believe the state is the authority over everything else, at which point does this have to stop? At which point does the state have to even question itself as to how far it should go?

Everything costs money. Does this mean that everything should be judged by its price tag? Even though price is not a static thing — it depends on a lot of factors. Is the price tag always the value of something, or is it just our momentary expression of our social and cultural priorities? Of course there’s supply and demand which regulate that. But is that still everything? Aren’t there things where we should find some difficulty putting a price on? Aren’t there some things that we can’t really measure very well? So isn’t there a limit to this kind of positivist, materialist way of looking at things?

Equally, if we say the materialistic world doesn’t matter and we need to live in a more spiritual, contemplative state of mind — that may be true to a point, but eventually bills will have to be paid. You do live in some form of reality, and that reality means that resources typically are limited and there needs to be a prioritizing. How do you organize that?

The material and the spiritual belong together. They will always have friction between each other, but they will always complement each other. If you’re too materialistic — if you believe that only that which can be measured, only that which can be owned, only that which can have a price tag matters — you should maybe think about some more spiritual components of life. If you’re too spiritual, maybe you need to be rooted more in the fact that there’s also a materialist component of life.

If X drowns out Y, sides of X may appear that make it wrong, because you need that balance. And there are more than just two — X and Y is easier, but you could say XYZ or whatever.

So in fact the saying may be true that too much of a good thing is indeed not good. It distorts what it is.

This is why you see me frequently call for moderation. You could argue that too much moderation is also wrong — you need some passion and some intensity and some belief. Well, yes. But moderation can also be just a middle ground between these different poles. All these different ideas around us lead us to negotiate our space within them. Moderation does not mean you don’t have convictions. It means that you question at which point your convictions turn into such a radicality, into such an extreme version, that they become wrong — that they are undermined by their own conviction.

Is radicality the truest expression of an idea? No. It may be the most flamboyant, the most interesting. But it can’t survive well. If you turn too radical, too extremist, your idea may be more attractive to people who really think like you. But then look at history. Every time an idea became too radical, it fails. It has failed. No matter what the idea — because in its radicality, in its extremism, it loses its power of conviction towards those who don’t agree with you. And the number of people in the world who agree with you is always going to be punctuated by the number of people who disagree with you.

If you want to build a successful movement, if you want to build a successful approach to politics, to religion, to whatever your cultural or social idea may be, you need to convince others. You need to find ways of integrating aspects of the other into your own.

Which is why this very familiar symbol of yin and yang — masculine, feminine, black, white, dark, light — shows you these two parts, but there’s always something of the other in the bigger part. You know the symbol.

If we don’t find a way to integrate that with which we disagree — as some sense of doubt, as some sense of humility within our convictions — then our convictions will be nothing but arrogance, nothing but self-congratulatory pose, and turn out to be nothing else than solipsism: centering on yourself and that which you think defines you as the only thing that matters.

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]

#341: How Radical Should You Be In Your Belief?

https://youtu.be/mOoLMJQRrQY

How radical should you be in your belief? If you believe in something, shouldn’t you aim to believe in it more? So, let’s discuss.

All of us have our ideas that we prefer over others. All of us may have our political, religious, cultural preferences. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us human.

If we believe deeply that something is correct, that something is good, should we not think also that more of that is better? It’s a seductive idea and it seems logical initially. If you are X, if you believe in X, shouldn’t you believe in it more so? That seems to be the case because otherwise why would you believe in it? Is your belief really that weak that you can’t strengthen it?

So that’s the idea. And if you for some reason don’t want to fully commit, maybe you really never believed it completely. Maybe you’re not really a true believer. That’s the other part of the idea.

However, I would say this ignores certain facts about ideas, because every idea — whether it’s a religion, a philosophy, a cultural preference — typically has safeguards. When you look at all the big religions, they have some sort of clause, some sort of warning against taking it too far. Because that’s what the very idea of divinity is. That’s what the very idea of God is: that which we as human beings cannot completely understand. God is that which we cannot even approach so much that we can be certain of what God is. Because if we could, wouldn’t that mean in some way that we could become God? And that’s the very warning that most religions promote.

Believe, but don’t assume for a moment that you have all the answers.

There’s this joke that camels always look at humans in a specific way. The joke is that God has 100 names. We know 99 of them. But the camel knows all 100. And that’s why the camel looks so superior.

But that is the idea of religion. The idea of religion is a combination — as strange as this may sound — of belief and humility. We are not God. We are not everything in the universe. We are not all-knowing. We are not omnipotent. And we will never get there. So whatever you think of as God — whether you think that’s a religious idea, whether you think that’s nature, whether you think that’s the universe, whether you think that’s just the ultimate good — this idea is clear: do not pretend to be all-knowing yourself. Have some sense of humility.

Now that also goes for philosophy. You may say, I follow philosopher so-and-so. But philosophy is an ongoing conversation about wisdom — the love of wisdom; that’s what philosophia means. Each idea in philosophy lives in interaction with other ideas. Philosophy is more than just footnotes to Plato. Plato can be footnotes to Plato — if you look at the Laws and the Republic, there are two very different ideas there, and more than two.

Philosophers are typically smarter than those who follow a specific philosophy. Because every philosopher knows that in order to put out the strongest version of their idea, they have to leave some of the complications out. But there are always complications. And philosophy X always lives in some form of exchange with philosophy Y or Z or however many there are. Every idea lives in an ecosystem of ideas. It lives in relation with others.

Philosophy X may be good or better in certain respects than philosophy Y. Maybe philosophy Y is good in other aspects. But the truth emerges in the interaction between the two.

So you may believe that the individual is the source of all morality. But how far do you want to take this? Do you believe this to the complete abdication of responsibility for others? Do you believe this to the complete rejection of the state? Similarly, if you believe the state is the authority over everything else, at which point does this have to stop? At which point does the state have to even question itself as to how far it should go?

Everything costs money. Does this mean that everything should be judged by its price tag? Even though price is not a static thing — it depends on a lot of factors. Is the price tag always the value of something, or is it just our momentary expression of our social and cultural priorities? Of course there’s supply and demand which regulate that. But is that still everything? Aren’t there things where we should find some difficulty putting a price on? Aren’t there some things that we can’t really measure very well? So isn’t there a limit to this kind of positivist, materialist way of looking at things?

Equally, if we say the materialistic world doesn’t matter and we need to live in a more spiritual, contemplative state of mind — that may be true to a point, but eventually bills will have to be paid. You do live in some form of reality, and that reality means that resources typically are limited and there needs to be a prioritizing. How do you organize that?

The material and the spiritual belong together. They will always have friction between each other, but they will always complement each other. If you’re too materialistic — if you believe that only that which can be measured, only that which can be owned, only that which can have a price tag matters — you should maybe think about some more spiritual components of life. If you’re too spiritual, maybe you need to be rooted more in the fact that there’s also a materialist component of life.

If X drowns out Y, sides of X may appear that make it wrong, because you need that balance. And there are more than just two — X and Y is easier, but you could say XYZ or whatever.

So in fact the saying may be true that too much of a good thing is indeed not good. It distorts what it is.

This is why you see me frequently call for moderation. You could argue that too much moderation is also wrong — you need some passion and some intensity and some belief. Well, yes. But moderation can also be just a middle ground between these different poles. All these different ideas around us lead us to negotiate our space within them. Moderation does not mean you don’t have convictions. It means that you question at which point your convictions turn into such a radicality, into such an extreme version, that they become wrong — that they are undermined by their own conviction.

Is radicality the truest expression of an idea? No. It may be the most flamboyant, the most interesting. But it can’t survive well. If you turn too radical, too extremist, your idea may be more attractive to people who really think like you. But then look at history. Every time an idea became too radical, it fails. It has failed. No matter what the idea — because in its radicality, in its extremism, it loses its power of conviction towards those who don’t agree with you. And the number of people in the world who agree with you is always going to be punctuated by the number of people who disagree with you.

If you want to build a successful movement, if you want to build a successful approach to politics, to religion, to whatever your cultural or social idea may be, you need to convince others. You need to find ways of integrating aspects of the other into your own.

Which is why this very familiar symbol of yin and yang — masculine, feminine, black, white, dark, light — shows you these two parts, but there’s always something of the other in the bigger part. You know the symbol.

If we don’t find a way to integrate that with which we disagree — as some sense of doubt, as some sense of humility within our convictions — then our convictions will be nothing but arrogance, nothing but self-congratulatory pose, and turn out to be nothing else than solipsism: centering on yourself and that which you think defines you as the only thing that matters.

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]

#341: How Radical Should You Be In Your Belief?

https://youtu.be/mOoLMJQRrQY

How radical should you be in your belief? If you believe in something, shouldn’t you aim to believe in it more? So, let’s discuss.

All of us have our ideas that we prefer over others. All of us may have our political, religious, cultural preferences. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us human.

If we believe deeply that something is correct, that something is good, should we not think also that more of that is better? It’s a seductive idea and it seems logical initially. If you are X, if you believe in X, shouldn’t you believe in it more so? That seems to be the case because otherwise why would you believe in it? Is your belief really that weak that you can’t strengthen it?

So that’s the idea. And if you for some reason don’t want to fully commit, maybe you really never believed it completely. Maybe you’re not really a true believer. That’s the other part of the idea.

However, I would say this ignores certain facts about ideas, because every idea — whether it’s a religion, a philosophy, a cultural preference — typically has safeguards. When you look at all the big religions, they have some sort of clause, some sort of warning against taking it too far. Because that’s what the very idea of divinity is. That’s what the very idea of God is: that which we as human beings cannot completely understand. God is that which we cannot even approach so much that we can be certain of what God is. Because if we could, wouldn’t that mean in some way that we could become God? And that’s the very warning that most religions promote.

Believe, but don’t assume for a moment that you have all the answers.

There’s this joke that camels always look at humans in a specific way. The joke is that God has 100 names. We know 99 of them. But the camel knows all 100. And that’s why the camel looks so superior.

But that is the idea of religion. The idea of religion is a combination — as strange as this may sound — of belief and humility. We are not God. We are not everything in the universe. We are not all-knowing. We are not omnipotent. And we will never get there. So whatever you think of as God — whether you think that’s a religious idea, whether you think that’s nature, whether you think that’s the universe, whether you think that’s just the ultimate good — this idea is clear: do not pretend to be all-knowing yourself. Have some sense of humility.

Now that also goes for philosophy. You may say, I follow philosopher so-and-so. But philosophy is an ongoing conversation about wisdom — the love of wisdom; that’s what philosophia means. Each idea in philosophy lives in interaction with other ideas. Philosophy is more than just footnotes to Plato. Plato can be footnotes to Plato — if you look at the Laws and the Republic, there are two very different ideas there, and more than two.

Philosophers are typically smarter than those who follow a specific philosophy. Because every philosopher knows that in order to put out the strongest version of their idea, they have to leave some of the complications out. But there are always complications. And philosophy X always lives in some form of exchange with philosophy Y or Z or however many there are. Every idea lives in an ecosystem of ideas. It lives in relation with others.

Philosophy X may be good or better in certain respects than philosophy Y. Maybe philosophy Y is good in other aspects. But the truth emerges in the interaction between the two.

So you may believe that the individual is the source of all morality. But how far do you want to take this? Do you believe this to the complete abdication of responsibility for others? Do you believe this to the complete rejection of the state? Similarly, if you believe the state is the authority over everything else, at which point does this have to stop? At which point does the state have to even question itself as to how far it should go?

Everything costs money. Does this mean that everything should be judged by its price tag? Even though price is not a static thing — it depends on a lot of factors. Is the price tag always the value of something, or is it just our momentary expression of our social and cultural priorities? Of course there’s supply and demand which regulate that. But is that still everything? Aren’t there things where we should find some difficulty putting a price on? Aren’t there some things that we can’t really measure very well? So isn’t there a limit to this kind of positivist, materialist way of looking at things?

Equally, if we say the materialistic world doesn’t matter and we need to live in a more spiritual, contemplative state of mind — that may be true to a point, but eventually bills will have to be paid. You do live in some form of reality, and that reality means that resources typically are limited and there needs to be a prioritizing. How do you organize that?

The material and the spiritual belong together. They will always have friction between each other, but they will always complement each other. If you’re too materialistic — if you believe that only that which can be measured, only that which can be owned, only that which can have a price tag matters — you should maybe think about some more spiritual components of life. If you’re too spiritual, maybe you need to be rooted more in the fact that there’s also a materialist component of life.

If X drowns out Y, sides of X may appear that make it wrong, because you need that balance. And there are more than just two — X and Y is easier, but you could say XYZ or whatever.

So in fact the saying may be true that too much of a good thing is indeed not good. It distorts what it is.

This is why you see me frequently call for moderation. You could argue that too much moderation is also wrong — you need some passion and some intensity and some belief. Well, yes. But moderation can also be just a middle ground between these different poles. All these different ideas around us lead us to negotiate our space within them. Moderation does not mean you don’t have convictions. It means that you question at which point your convictions turn into such a radicality, into such an extreme version, that they become wrong — that they are undermined by their own conviction.

Is radicality the truest expression of an idea? No. It may be the most flamboyant, the most interesting. But it can’t survive well. If you turn too radical, too extremist, your idea may be more attractive to people who really think like you. But then look at history. Every time an idea became too radical, it fails. It has failed. No matter what the idea — because in its radicality, in its extremism, it loses its power of conviction towards those who don’t agree with you. And the number of people in the world who agree with you is always going to be punctuated by the number of people who disagree with you.

If you want to build a successful movement, if you want to build a successful approach to politics, to religion, to whatever your cultural or social idea may be, you need to convince others. You need to find ways of integrating aspects of the other into your own.

Which is why this very familiar symbol of yin and yang — masculine, feminine, black, white, dark, light — shows you these two parts, but there’s always something of the other in the bigger part. You know the symbol.

If we don’t find a way to integrate that with which we disagree — as some sense of doubt, as some sense of humility within our convictions — then our convictions will be nothing but arrogance, nothing but self-congratulatory pose, and turn out to be nothing else than solipsism: centering on yourself and that which you think defines you as the only thing that matters.

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]

#341: How Radical Should You Be In Your Belief?

https://youtu.be/mOoLMJQRrQY

How radical should you be in your belief? If you believe in something, shouldn’t you aim to believe in it more? So, let’s discuss.

All of us have our ideas that we prefer over others. All of us may have our political, religious, cultural preferences. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us human.

If we believe deeply that something is correct, that something is good, should we not think also that more of that is better? It’s a seductive idea and it seems logical initially. If you are X, if you believe in X, shouldn’t you believe in it more so? That seems to be the case because otherwise why would you believe in it? Is your belief really that weak that you can’t strengthen it?

So that’s the idea. And if you for some reason don’t want to fully commit, maybe you really never believed it completely. Maybe you’re not really a true believer. That’s the other part of the idea.

However, I would say this ignores certain facts about ideas, because every idea — whether it’s a religion, a philosophy, a cultural preference — typically has safeguards. When you look at all the big religions, they have some sort of clause, some sort of warning against taking it too far. Because that’s what the very idea of divinity is. That’s what the very idea of God is: that which we as human beings cannot completely understand. God is that which we cannot even approach so much that we can be certain of what God is. Because if we could, wouldn’t that mean in some way that we could become God? And that’s the very warning that most religions promote.

Believe, but don’t assume for a moment that you have all the answers.

There’s this joke that camels always look at humans in a specific way. The joke is that God has 100 names. We know 99 of them. But the camel knows all 100. And that’s why the camel looks so superior.

But that is the idea of religion. The idea of religion is a combination — as strange as this may sound — of belief and humility. We are not God. We are not everything in the universe. We are not all-knowing. We are not omnipotent. And we will never get there. So whatever you think of as God — whether you think that’s a religious idea, whether you think that’s nature, whether you think that’s the universe, whether you think that’s just the ultimate good — this idea is clear: do not pretend to be all-knowing yourself. Have some sense of humility.

Now that also goes for philosophy. You may say, I follow philosopher so-and-so. But philosophy is an ongoing conversation about wisdom — the love of wisdom; that’s what philosophia means. Each idea in philosophy lives in interaction with other ideas. Philosophy is more than just footnotes to Plato. Plato can be footnotes to Plato — if you look at the Laws and the Republic, there are two very different ideas there, and more than two.

Philosophers are typically smarter than those who follow a specific philosophy. Because every philosopher knows that in order to put out the strongest version of their idea, they have to leave some of the complications out. But there are always complications. And philosophy X always lives in some form of exchange with philosophy Y or Z or however many there are. Every idea lives in an ecosystem of ideas. It lives in relation with others.

Philosophy X may be good or better in certain respects than philosophy Y. Maybe philosophy Y is good in other aspects. But the truth emerges in the interaction between the two.

So you may believe that the individual is the source of all morality. But how far do you want to take this? Do you believe this to the complete abdication of responsibility for others? Do you believe this to the complete rejection of the state? Similarly, if you believe the state is the authority over everything else, at which point does this have to stop? At which point does the state have to even question itself as to how far it should go?

Everything costs money. Does this mean that everything should be judged by its price tag? Even though price is not a static thing — it depends on a lot of factors. Is the price tag always the value of something, or is it just our momentary expression of our social and cultural priorities? Of course there’s supply and demand which regulate that. But is that still everything? Aren’t there things where we should find some difficulty putting a price on? Aren’t there some things that we can’t really measure very well? So isn’t there a limit to this kind of positivist, materialist way of looking at things?

Equally, if we say the materialistic world doesn’t matter and we need to live in a more spiritual, contemplative state of mind — that may be true to a point, but eventually bills will have to be paid. You do live in some form of reality, and that reality means that resources typically are limited and there needs to be a prioritizing. How do you organize that?

The material and the spiritual belong together. They will always have friction between each other, but they will always complement each other. If you’re too materialistic — if you believe that only that which can be measured, only that which can be owned, only that which can have a price tag matters — you should maybe think about some more spiritual components of life. If you’re too spiritual, maybe you need to be rooted more in the fact that there’s also a materialist component of life.

If X drowns out Y, sides of X may appear that make it wrong, because you need that balance. And there are more than just two — X and Y is easier, but you could say XYZ or whatever.

So in fact the saying may be true that too much of a good thing is indeed not good. It distorts what it is.

This is why you see me frequently call for moderation. You could argue that too much moderation is also wrong — you need some passion and some intensity and some belief. Well, yes. But moderation can also be just a middle ground between these different poles. All these different ideas around us lead us to negotiate our space within them. Moderation does not mean you don’t have convictions. It means that you question at which point your convictions turn into such a radicality, into such an extreme version, that they become wrong — that they are undermined by their own conviction.

Is radicality the truest expression of an idea? No. It may be the most flamboyant, the most interesting. But it can’t survive well. If you turn too radical, too extremist, your idea may be more attractive to people who really think like you. But then look at history. Every time an idea became too radical, it fails. It has failed. No matter what the idea — because in its radicality, in its extremism, it loses its power of conviction towards those who don’t agree with you. And the number of people in the world who agree with you is always going to be punctuated by the number of people who disagree with you.

If you want to build a successful movement, if you want to build a successful approach to politics, to religion, to whatever your cultural or social idea may be, you need to convince others. You need to find ways of integrating aspects of the other into your own.

Which is why this very familiar symbol of yin and yang — masculine, feminine, black, white, dark, light — shows you these two parts, but there’s always something of the other in the bigger part. You know the symbol.

If we don’t find a way to integrate that with which we disagree — as some sense of doubt, as some sense of humility within our convictions — then our convictions will be nothing but arrogance, nothing but self-congratulatory pose, and turn out to be nothing else than solipsism: centering on yourself and that which you think defines you as the only thing that matters.

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]

#SusanGreenfield - Is #Consciousness #Irreducible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZkPldjI6Uo

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfMind #Science #Physics #Mind #Neuroscience #Brain #Qualia #SecretSauce #Dualism #Physicalism #Materialism #Reductionism #Emergence #Panpsychism #Soul #HardProblem #Behaviorism #Behaviourism #Assembly #NeuralAssembly #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

The question of whether consciousness can be explained by materialism is one of the most challenging and controversial issues in philosophy and science. However, many philosophers and scientists argue that consciousness is something more than just physical, and that it poses a hard problem for materialism. They claim that materialism cannot account for the qualia, the intrinsic qualities of conscious states. #Consciousness #Materialism #HardProblem https://mindmatters.ai/2023/08/does-consciousness-defeat-materialism/

#NedBlock - Toward a #Science of #Consciousness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmCou0xZLCE&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #Mind #TheMind #Awareness #ConsciousAwareness #Qualia #Experience #Materialism #Dualism #Physicalism #PanPsychism #Eliminativism #Neuroanatomy #Neuroscience #NeuralCorrelates #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Not only a political economic or ecological issue but the future of humanity that is at stake.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. We have a profound responsibility to protect and assist the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and to pass on to future generations a planet that is thriving and healthy.”

Continuation of  ‘Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering’ #1 & 2

2015, July 21, Paris Why do I care Interreligious meeting

For people who believe in the Divine Creator God and honour and worship Him there is no question that we can keep ourselves at the side and do nothing to change the way the world is behaving at the moment. Jews, Non-trinitarian and trinitarian Christians, Muslims who do know their Holy Scriptures are aware that man has no excuse how he treats the creation of the Most High.

Perhaps people may be a little bit selfish, in a certain way,trying to make a nice living and trying to make a better place for themselves. And it can well be that “Selfishness” does not have to mean being shortsighted and harmful to others, but we all do have to know what ever we do for ourselves may also effect the life of others. Often we find Christians thinking they are the only ones who have an idea about God’s creation and respect it. Some of them, like several atheists may see that man in his position has to play an important role in that universe. They see the dangers of our way of living at the moment. They fear climate change and know we do have something to do against it.

But also people from other religions, like Hindus as Mahamandeshwar Swami Avdeshanand Giri, religious leader of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, India, said they saw climate change both as an existential threat and as an opportunity for renewal.In the afternoon reverend Takayuki Ashizu, Chief priest of Munakata Grand Shrine (Japan) was part of a discussion pannel with Jean-Luc Fauque, President of the Supreme Council of the European Confederation – the Scottish Rite,  Rev. Fletcher Harper, Director of GreenFaith (USA), Sister Chan Khong, representative of the Thich Nhat Hanh Community (France), Fr. Dominique Lang, Chaplain of Pax Christi France, Author of the blog “Churches and Ecology”, and Mr Henrik Madsen, CEO DNV-GL, Norway.

Hindu leader Nandita Krishna, who has restored 50 sacred forests, feared that insatiable greed had gripped everyone on earth and this had led to climate change.

“We cannot replicate the environment or create it. Unless we see the divine in creation we will not understand our role and duty as humans,”

she said.

Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, Bishop of Bunyoro Kitara (Uganda) was in charge of the Keynote addresses of the third plenary.

Bringing the day into its discussion between panelists Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, Director of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (Sri Lanka), M. Swami Amritasvarupananda, Amma’s representative (India), Sheikh Khaled Bentounes, Spiritual Guide of the Alawiyya Sufi brotherhood (Algeria), M Sailesh Rao, Director of “Climat Healers Initiative for Transformations” (USA), Ms Alina Saba, Environnemental activist (Nepal) and Bishop Frederick Onael Shoo, Founder of the Lutheran Movement for the Environment in Africa (Tanzania).

Guide spirituel de la Tariqa Alâwiyya, Cheikh Khaled Bentounes

Sheikh Bentounes, leader of the Sufi brotherhood Alawiya, urged mankind to carry “a hope of a future”.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of Inter Religious Affairs “of the American Jewish Committee said:

“Climate change takes place where there is unbridled avarice. It is a symptom of the disease and cry for us to respond. It is the opportunity for humans to rediscover the higher values than materialism and indulgence.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, despaired at humanity’s blindness, but quoted writer Fyodor Dostoevsky saying that

“beauty would save the earth”.

For him as for many others it is clear that scientists and theologians agree that humanity depends on nature. Therefore he made an urgent appeal:

We must accept the moral imperative for action. Religion must also be involved in the crucial question of climate change.”

Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002, as President of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, found it truly inspiring to see leaders at this meeting in Paris from so many faiths and secular traditions, and to hear of their impressive commitment to the simple yet deeply profound message: “why I care”.

She said

Our lived experiences, our religious beliefs and our cultural backgrounds may be diverse – but you are showing that great traditions have a shared sense of morality and fairness, and a collective recognition of the need to act on climate change to protect people and our common home.

For her this is an example of human solidarity at work.

She outlined why she believes that it is this human solidarity that is the key to igniting
global will to act on the climate.

The idea of human solidarity is sometimes misunderstood. Some people say that it is a well-meaning moral guideline, but it does not help political leaders to conduct negotiations and reach complicated legal agreements – including those that will be needed to reach a climate agreement in Paris later this year.

and said why she disagreed with this view.

Because if we look past all the complex science, economics, legal arguments and political negotiations which are necessary parts of the process towards a climate agreement, we can see that acting on climate change can be summarised very simply:
we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we act to help each other.

Passing those two tests is the challenge of our generation, and will decide whether we leave our children and grandchildren a safe world of hope and fairness, or a world where climate change is causing misery and stress.

She spend a lot of time listening to people all around the world, and she thinks that a lot more people care about fairness and our collective future than we sometimes realise.

All across the world, people are witnessing the damage to lives and livelihoods caused by climate change, and are standing up to say that it is time to act.

At the meeting those present have shown the deep level of thinking that underpins why
different people care in different ways about climate action. So she strongly believes that
the first component of igniting climate action is already well underway,

and today is a very important milestone in that process.
So perhaps the next challenge is to move from understanding why we must act on climate, to understanding how we collectively overcome the diverse obstacles to action faced by different people in different places around the world.

We have to realise that peoples from throughout the developing world have their role to play.

There is no solution to climate change without the developing world. This is because most of the energy supply, buildings and transport infrastructure that has yet to be built will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of the supply of nutritious food to feed an ever more populous world will come from the same places. And the world’s major forests –
including the Amazon, Congo Basin and the forests of South East Asia – are in exactly the same regions. Energy, transportation, forests, agriculture – these will either be managed in a way that over-uses fossil fuels, locks in greenhouse emissions and damages our world, or in a way that protects people and preserves our natural home.
But energy, transportation and agricultural systems are not abstract concepts.
They are fundamentally about people, and their legitimate desire for development. And despite all the economic models and theoretical blueprints, we still live in a world where
too many people are prevented from making a low carbon development choice. We have to change the reality where poverty means that up to three billion people, mainly women, still cook using dangerous and dirty energy sources – the black carbon that comes from this use of coal, charcoal and wood makes an enormous contribution to climate change
as well as to deaths and ill-health.

This is the reason why forest communities must be able to work with others to protect their forests, which was also stated earlier in the afternoon. She also wanted to ad that farmers must be free to find ways to move to more sustainable practices –

together deforestation and agricultural practices are about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Indigenous peoples must be able to continue their traditional practices that help to preserve the innumerable benefits provided by our natural world.
The hundreds of millions of people living in slums across the world need access to affordable, sustainable food and energy – and to be consulted in the world-wide
drive for sustainable cities because they will form the majority of the population that will live in them.

For her the whole world needs the people of the developing world to be able to use their innovation and their energy to create a new model of low carbon and equitable development.

Her foundation, which she set up to promote climate justice, summarises this new development model as zero carbon, zero poverty –

and we are certain that we can achieve these dual outcomes with the right kind of international co-operation.

she said.

Though she is also aware that this includes the need for international financing for climate action – not as aid, but rather as part of the collective global recognition that while today’s rich countries built their prosperity from fossil fuels and unsustainable land use, leaders from the developing world are trying to find a way to a more sustainable model of developing without emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change provides the platform for advancing this international  co-operation – and Minister Fabius and the French Government, as hosts of the Paris climate meeting, have been impressive in their recognition of the need for a mature discussion about the approach to international climate finance.

She ended her speech by reminding us that

we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we help each other.
But this possibility will only be realized if concerned citizens, organisations and businesses from across the world build informed, respectful partnerships with those who are willing to lead in the developing world.

She is finds it positive that there are many other individuals and organisations who are already thinking deeply about individual pieces of the climate puzzle. Women’s groups. Youth groups. Progressive businesses. Trades Unions. Grass-roots activists. In all countries, rich and poor.

She strongly urged those present to build from this meeting and reach out to all these groups.

If you do, your work today can be the spark that ignites an unprecedented wave of human
solidarity in the cause of climate action. You can gather into a “big tent” those who represent, and understand the lives of, billions of people.
Together, this movement can truly change the world.

she said.

On 1st January, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals become the new development agenda for our world. Many believe we should mark that day with special prayer and
reflection to bring us together as a human family.
Together, we can show the world that human solidarity is not only the domain of religions and human rights activists. Rather it is the golden key that unlocks the collective power of billions of people.  Those people can act together to build a more resilient world, stabilise our climate, and create an unprecedented attack on global poverty and inequality.

86-year-old Benin writer and politician Albert Teveodjré represented the views of secular thinkers.

“Nature was loaned to us as a place to live. I witness a world of profit at all costs which will ruin the environment and devastate everything. I am very worried. I think I will leave the world with many worries.”

Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, COP21 President, delivered the closing speech at the Summit of Conscience at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
Following the informal ministerial conferences on July 20 and 21, which mobilized the international community at the political level, this event will provide an opportunity to address civil society and, beyond that, the public, in order to ensure the success of COP21.

The Summit has seen the launch of the “Green Faith in Action” project, a global initiative stemming from a coalition of partners with the objective of rendering pilgrimage destinations of all religious and spiritual persuasions, low-carbon cities resilient to climate disruptions. Three hundred million pilgrims travel to these cities each year.

As I wrote already in an other posting we do have to go “Forward ever, backwards never!” and should not only look for positive constructive dreams, which lead us further to the right path, but should also get more people involved in trying to work and motivate others to work at a balance in our position in creation and to find a good way to live in respect to nature. Let us for some moment think also that “Less… is still enough” and that we can, if we are inventive enough, find ways to still have more than we need, living in Luxury, without damaging nature around us. sometimes it would not be bad to take on ‘A bird’s eye and reflecting from within’. Let us look at what is going on, how we can stop the bad evolution, twist the curve of the negative way and come to a good healthy path for all creatures in the world.

*

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Paris in December this year. An effective and equitable international agreement will be critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate impacts. France, as the host and chair of COP21, is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement at COP 21.

ending the day with the speakers handing over the baton to the children

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Preceding articles:

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Climate change guilty of doing too little

Postponing once more

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Vatican against Opponents of immigration

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

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Additional reading:

1. Stopping emissions will not stop the warming of our planet
2. Voice for the plebs
3. Temperatures rising
4. Science, 2013 word of the year, and Scepticism
5. 2014 To remember our Earth
6. USA Climate Change Action Plan
7. 2015 Summit of Consciences for the Climate
8. Vatican meeting of mayors talking about global warming, human trafficking and modern-day slavery
9. Senator Loren Legarda says climate change not impossible to address
10. Burgemeesters in het Vaticaan tegen moderne slavernij en klimaatverandering
11. Top van het geweten voor het klimaat in Parijs
12. A look at materialism
13. Less… is still enough
14. Less for more
15. Luxury
16. Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth
17. Summermonths and consumerism
18. Looking at a conservative review of Shop Class As Soul Craft
19. Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world
20. Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day
21. From Winterdarkness into light of Spring
22. Not holding back and getting out of darkness
23. Learning that stuff is just stuff
24. Why “Selfishness” Doesn’t Properly Mean Being Shortsighted and Harmful to Others
25. How to Find the Meaning of Life and Reach a State of Peace
26. Forward ever, backwards never!
27. A bird’s eye and reflecting from within

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Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

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Further reading:

1. What’s it worth, planet earth, what are you prepared to do?
2. Climate change and security: here’s the analysis, when’s the action?
3. Latest on Climate Change
4. Climate Change; The Burning Question
5. Climate Change: New resources for readers
6. Phyllis Trible on Genesis 1, Dominion, and Ecology
7. Integral Ecology and Respect for Human Life
8. Environmental Ethics – Readings in Theory and Application – Fifth Edition
9. All is Connected
10. Public History Journal Part 5: Human Ecology
11. Our Common Responsibility
12. Shocking quote from Pope Francis’ new encyclical
13. Pope Francis – The earth as our sister
14. Pope Francis – He’s not suggesting a return to the Stone Age
15. Pope Francis – God calls us to commit to the environment
16. Pope Francis – The lack of universal truth has led to environmental and social damage
17. Pope Francis – Environmental ethics is social ethics
18. Pope Francis – We fool ourselves into thinking nothing will happen
19. Pope Francis – Beauty as a politics against consumerism
20. Pope Francis – Man thinks he is free as long he is free to consume
21. Pope Francis – The current political and economic strategy does not solve the problem
22. Pope Francis – When man gives priority to himself everything becomes relative
23. Pope Francis – Consumerism level all cultures
24. Pope Francis – Consumerism makes the world less rich and beautiful
25. Pope Francis – We are one single human family
26. If You’re Too Busy to Read Laudato Si, Now You Can Listen to It!
27. Laudato Si! and Lifestyle
28. On Care for Our Common Home
29. Blue Moon and Laudato Si’
30. Reflection on Laudato Si by Pope Francis (Part IV)
31. Still reading…
32. The Pope Hits a Triple!
33. Bob Thurman: The Pope Hits a Triple
34. Pell hoists himself on his own logic
35. The Cut Flower of Creation
36. What’s This?
37. A Breath of Fresh Air
38. Intentional Life
39. Little things matter.
40. Parishes Respond to Laudato Si’
41. So How Cool is Pope Francis?
42. Dr. Willie Soon on the Vatican’s repeat of its Galileo debacle
43. The Pope Scare: A New McCarthyism Spitting in the Face of Christ
44. Thoughts About Elizabeth Johnson’s “Ask the Beasts” after Pope Francis’s Creation-Care Encyclical
45. Young climate bloggers lobby their MPs and reflect on Laudato Si’
46. The Galilean Shaman and Ecological Conversion
47. Sisters & Brothers You Never Knew You Had
48. …he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’
49. Earthly Advice from Pope Francis
50. Laudato Si
51. Hidden Seeds in Laudato Si by Peg Conway
52. Papal Encyclical Laudato Si’ and CAFOD’s Petition
53. A Special Addu Day for Laudato Si!
54. The genius of Laudato Si’ should make us all uncomfortable
55. Article by Leonardo Boff on the Popes’s Encyclical
56. Catholicism on Economics
57. Why Pope Francis’ Criticism of Capitalism Makes Sense
58. Of Kings, and Popes, and Abortions, and the Environment
59. Boundless Creation
60. Quotes, Thoughts, Reflections on Non-dualism, evolution, God, ecology, War and more…
61. The Tragedy of The Commodity
62. Kingdom of God Stewardship Meet the 50 to 1 Project
63. Kingdom Stewardship Meet the 50 to 1 Project
64. “Climate Scientism is Made of Green Cheese”.
65. Wildflower Wednesday
66. Idea for the day on complexity science and a new philosophy for life
67. Hope Springs Eternal
68. Digital tools for environmental field researchers and citizen scientists.
69. Humans
70. Human and Biodiversity
71. Stanford research finds climate change regulation burden heaviest on poor
72. Fantastic George Monbiot quote
73. Musicians as activists, and tales from the Clinton White House
74. On the Road to Paris
75. Climate Change Update: FOCUS 2015 and Preparing for COP-21 in Paris
76. COP 21 à Paris en décembre 2015: mobilisations.
77. Why CBCP “welcomes” UN Climate Change Conference 2015 [Document]
78. My reflections of Rebuilding Justice, London

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