New generations must go far beyond their legacy
Descartes’ legacy to all of us via philosophy can be labeled, I think, as rationalism (discovery of truth through pure reason), dichotomy (mind/body split), and certainty. Even though very few of us know anything about philosophy, almost everything we think results from the philosophy we inherit through social osmosis (unconscious assimilation). Philosophy theory permeates almost all of our mental gymnastics without our conscious recognition.
I speculate that such is true because it fits well for the ego of all humans, especially philosophers, and because it also fits well with the interests of the Christian faith. Descartes’ legacy makes it easy to place our self in a hierarchy of being with humans one step below God and a giant step above animals.
It appears to me that psychology would say that we are essentially creatures of desire rather than creatures of contemplation. A modern day Descartes, who was tuned into Freudian psychology, might very well conclude that “I desire, therefore, I am.
If we want to understand our self and our world we will necessarily have to learn some bit of philosophy and psychology. We become interested in philosophy when we begin to ask questions that go to the ‘root’ of all matters and we turn to psychology if we want to comprehend why humans do the things we do.
Someone said that only one person in a thousand ever “strikes at the root. I do not think a liberal democracy in a hi-tech world can survive if such remains to be true. Hi-tech gives us the ability to easily destroy our self and our world; liberal democracy makes all citizens to be sovereign and thus responsible in some small way for the integrity of our existence.
We are all in the same boat and if only one person in a thousand accepts the responsibility of democracy I think our species may have a very limited engagement on this planet. I think that we must become much more intellectually sophisticated than we are now and I do not expect that our educational systems can help us much in that effort. We must become independent learners.
New generations must go far beyond their legacy
New generations must go far beyond their legacy
The resurgence of organised religious belief is a cause for concern. Religions don't want independent thinkers, by their very nature they only want people to believe what they are told without question, believing as a child believes. Independent learning and religion cannot coexist as they are mutually exclusive.
Given enough influence religions take steps to coerce everyone to their belief system.
Incidentally are you quoting someone or are these your own viewpoints?
Given enough influence religions take steps to coerce everyone to their belief system.
Incidentally are you quoting someone or are these your own viewpoints?
New generations must go far beyond their legacy
gmc;589756 wrote: The resurgence of organised religious belief is a cause for concern. Religions don't want independent thinkers, by their very nature they only want people to believe what they are told without question, believing as a child believes. Independent learning and religion cannot coexist as they are mutually exclusive.
Given enough influence religions take steps to coerce everyone to their belief system.
Incidentally are you quoting someone or are these your own viewpoints?
There are only two quotes in my OP and these are commonly known sayings.
These are my views. I think that religion has co-opted many concepts and in so doing have removed them from others understanding their importance. Humans have certain attitudes that appear to be part of our genes and these attitudes, like morality, become distorted by religion. We must develop a secular morality that will make it possible for our species to survive.
Given enough influence religions take steps to coerce everyone to their belief system.
Incidentally are you quoting someone or are these your own viewpoints?
There are only two quotes in my OP and these are commonly known sayings.
These are my views. I think that religion has co-opted many concepts and in so doing have removed them from others understanding their importance. Humans have certain attitudes that appear to be part of our genes and these attitudes, like morality, become distorted by religion. We must develop a secular morality that will make it possible for our species to survive.