If your conversations go on past the first of October, I would love to join you. N
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Victoria Hughes Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 2:42 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist Absolutely to Steve, and whiskey and a talk about all this. I would LOVE to. Just tell me the time and place. Tory On Sep 14, 2012, at 12:33 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Victoria, I was speaking from the perspective of two religions with which I have first-hand familiarity: Christianity and Islam. Both of which require faith as a prerequisite of membership. But yes, I'd enjoy drinking whiskey with you and, if I may suggest, Steve S. to discuss further. --Doug On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Victoria Hughes <[email protected]> wrote: Doug - You are defining religion differently than I am. I said nothing about blind faith. That was your term. I was talking about belief. You have belief (blind faith?) in your intellectual objectivism. Buddha said very clearly and consistently "Do not do this because I tell you to. Try this and see if it works for you, and then do it or not." I am happy to continue this until the cows come home, but I suspect this list is not the place. If you want to meet over whisky, and get into this, let me know. Tory <SeaCliff 24.125.jpg> Tory Hughes unusual objects and unique adornments www.toryhughes.com www.toryhughes-galleryshop.com www.facebook.com/tory.hughes1 On Sep 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Well see, here we go again. To which I come back again with the point of view that any philosophy, or religion that is human-centric in nature as both Christianity or Islam are, is inherently bad. A narrow world view, enabled, promoted, and enforced with even narrower strict fundamentalist practitioners is by definition destructive. There can be no greater moral deficiency than having been born with an intellect and then refusing to use it. Blind faith is exactly that: blind. "Faith" in religion is defined as having accepted, unquestioningly, what someone else has told you is the one true way. I personally have no respect for religious faith. I respect people's right to chose to live that way, right up to the point where they attempt to influence how I live and think. But not their decision to unquestioningly commit to a dogma. Religion, because it requires "faith" to become a subscriber, is inherently bad. And as long as we're on the subject, if religion is bad for the reasons described above, then the opposite of religion is cosmology: the science of trying to understand the universe rather than attempting to explain it away with fairy tales. --Doug On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Victoria Hughes <[email protected]> wrote: Religion is not inherently bad. It is the use of it for mundane power that is the problem. All religious traditions began with a prophet / visionary / mystic who urged tolerance, peace and self-awareness. Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha... In most cases, that person's initial followers began to leverage their own closeness and supposed 'superior understanding' to that original figure to justify behaviour that benefited their mundane activities. Every religion has gone through this. Every creed of any kind has gone through this. The challenge is our use of belief. Nick could speak to this too: there are developmental lines in the psychology of individuals, groups, nations, tribes, etc: and these will use powerful innate tools (like the human need to believe in something) for different purposes, depending on their development. And there is nothing inherently wrong or flawed in the things in which people embed their beliefs. Science, truth, the divine, all those have positive beneficial elements. Again, it is the use of those concepts as tools to persuade others into actions that destroy that is the problem. Self-awareness in all this is the key. Tory On Sep 14, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: One semi-final note from me about culture and religion: I lived in Libya for a year in 1976 when I was a consultant to Occidental Petroleum. I traveled extensively between Tripoli, Benghazi, and several points about 900 miles southeast of Tripoli in the northern tip of the Sahara during that year. I quickly learned that the culture of the Arabic half of Libya (as compared to the Berber Bedouin culture that comprises the eastern half of the country) is dominated by the Islamic religion. You cannot separate them. Religion is interwoven into every aspect of their culture. Any attempt to exclude the impact of religion on their culture will fail. --Doug On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Douglas Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: Let's see if I understand you correctly, Owen. There are a bunch of fundamentalist Islamists all up in arms shouting "Allahu Akhbar" whilst burning down our embassies and killing our diplomats because there is a film out that is derogatory of the Muslim religion. And this is not about religion? I don't see it. Or you don't see it. What I do see is that there is one very large disconnect on this particular issue. --Doug On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: I do not believe this to be a religious issue at all. The question is of groups and institutions. When a faction of a group becomes apparently insane, do we not expect the entire group, its leaders and majority, to speak up and to mend? When civil rights were an issue in the south, many of us (I was at Georgia Tech) spoke up, and indeed many churches of all stripes did so. Many NRA members also speak up about the extreme position the organization takes. Examples abound. And yes, I consider this a Complexity domain, much like Miller's Applause model. Isn't this possibly a cultural issue? Possibly regional? The largest Muslim population is not Libya or Egypt or even all of the middle east, its Indonesia. They do not appear to have this issue. So my question stands as Kofi stated: "Where are the leaders? Where is the Majority? Nobody speaks up." NOT the religious leaders but the leaders of the culture in which the religion lies. And Hussein, forgive me, but your inward religious stance has nothing to do with speaking out against injustice. It is not a religious issue, but a civic, cultural one. -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts [email protected] [email protected] http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -- Doug Roberts [email protected] [email protected] http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts [email protected] [email protected] http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts [email protected] [email protected] http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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