Bertrand Russell Warned Us...

[indigobusiness]

In all this I feel a grave danger, the danger of what might be called cosmic impiety. The concept of 'TRUTH' as something dependent upon facts largely outside human control has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a certain kind of madness...The intoxication of power to which modern man, whether philosophers or not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disaster.

Bertrand Russell - 1941
----

...but we didn't listen.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. increasing the danger of vast social disaster.

A society that finds its solace in "things" will always tend towards disaster.

Small minds discuss things.

Average minds discuss events.

Exceptional minds discuss ideas.

[indigobusiness]

3. So true...

I see that everyday, and everyday I'm amazed at people that keep score and reduce life to a balance sheet.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. reduce life to a balance sheet.

Too bad that capitalism is the only system that works. <sarcasm intended>

What it is is the only system that allows pillaging, plundering and control over the masses with the stroke of a pen. I am not a socialist, but I am abhorred at the ravages of rabid capitalistic domination of other peoples' lives, lands, natural resources, and minds.

[nolabels]

2. Do you understand who's truth you are seeing?

Truth, the very subjective subject

I have no Hero's because all are Hero's in their own special way, but understanding that all to which we communicate have a piece of the truth (aka, knowledge) makes it an imperative to listening to all as best as possible.

I am not sure, but I have heard that in quantum physics that truth and belief exist in the same space. Any cage you see in front of you lies in the ability of your imagination.

[indigobusiness]

5. Truth is not aka knowledge

Nor is it about belief, or subjective in any way.

That is the impious perspective to which Russell referred.

[nolabels]

8. These ideas come from what I feel or have experienced

All persons have knowledge and all different. If one cannot understand that than one will never understand how a paradox works. To me a dualisms is like a capricious line someone decided to draw. Pitting one against another. This serves a purpose, but is it always the best purpose?

Truth, a confession, truth, a light to follow, truth, a opinion, truth, a means to an end, truth, at nausea. Words are the ideas which we attach to things in order to convey our experiences and any thing that comes to mind. My idea of what truth is, might be different from what your idea of truth is and this is good as far as I can see.

From your words "impious perspective"


A Buddhist Perspective on WTC
This was written by David R. Loy, an American professor at a Buddhist University in Japan, and he welcomes people to share it.

A NEW HOLY WAR AGAINST EVIL? A Buddhist Response
(snip)
This dualism of good-versus-evil is attractive because it is a simple way of looking at the world. And most of us are quite familiar with it. Although it is not unique to the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam it is especially important for them. It is one of the reasons why the conflicts among them have been so difficult to resolve peacefully: adherents tend to identify their own religion as good and demonize the other as evil.

(Historically, the dualism seems to have originated with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, which saw this world as the battleground of a cosmic war between good and evil, and anticipated an apocalyptic victory for the forces of good at the end of time. The Jews probably absorbed this idea during their Babylonian captivity, and both Christianity and Islam got this dualism from them.) It is difficult to turn the other cheek when we view the world through these spectacles, because this rationalizes the opposite principle: an eye for an eye. If the world is a battleground of good and evil forces, the evil that is in the world must be fought by any means necessary.

The secularization of the modern West did not eliminate this tendency. In some ways it has intensified it, because we can no longer rely on a supernatural resolution. We have to depend upon ourselves to bring about the final victory of good over evil as Hitler and Stalin tried to do. It is unclear how much help bin Laden and Bush expect from God.

Why do I emphasize this dualism? The basic problem with this way of understanding conflict is that it tends to preclude thought, because it is so simplistic. It keeps us from looking deeper, from trying to discover causes. Once something has been identified as evil, there is no more need to explain it; it is time to focus on fighting against it. This is where Buddhism has something important to contribute.
(snip)
http://americanmediawatch.tripod.com/id51.htm

[indigobusiness]

9. Cosmic impiety was Russell's term, and his point

was that truth exists independent of perspective, or humans for that matter. Opinion doesn't enter in to it. How we come to terms with it is a different matter.

[nolabels]

14. I agree and disagree

With the things we are born with one could only come to these conclusions which would be fine I believe(if you love vanilla). All rules could be concrete and things would be predictable. Some even say you make your own world. This could be true or maybe not, but would that be important. That would mean you basically live in world by your self and anything else is not important (narcissus).

I don't know about anybody else in particular, but my world is filled with people with different points of view. The dust is the dust, I can support that. The thing I realize is we can focus on things outside our ordinary realms of senses. The rules of vanilla get broken when forces outside change as a result of different mechanizations, tools and instruments we use to create it.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0061091480.01._PE_PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

How long are you going to be dead?, August 9, 2002

Reviewer: Andrew Parodi (Gervais, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

In YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES, Wayne Dyer encourages his readers to ask themselves this question: "How long am I going to be dead?" Dyer suggests that taking such an "eternal perspective" will aid one in gaining a more "take charge" stance in life. Life is a risk, and we are all going to die anyway, so why not do what we want with our lives? This has been one of the most helpful self-help books I have ever found. In fact, I think it may be THE best self-help book I've ever read. This is one of the "classics," and many others have taken its lead. I believe this is Wayne Dyer's best work.

The other not-so-pretty reality of life that Dyer suggests we face is that things are not fair, and they never will be. In chapter 8, "The Justice Trap," the author writes bluntly about the fact that injustice is committed every day and that if one has enough money one can get away with it. Poor people will rot in jail, while rich people get a slap on the wrist for the same crime. It is not an "erroneous zone" (self-defeating behavior) to notice the injustices of this world; the erroneous zone is the belief that becoming incapacitated with anger, guilt, worry, or indignation, by the injustices will change anything. Many heroic people try to change the injustices, and they are to be commended. But they often fail because they are against impossible odds. Year after year, century after century, the privileged few get away with what the rest of us do not. Is it fair? No! Should we convince ourselves that it is okay? No! Should we fool ourselves into believing incapacitating ourselves with worry and anger is going to change anything? No, again. If you can do something to end an injustice, then do it. If you can't, don't feel guilty.

I also enjoyed Dyer's candor on the hypocrisy of educational institutions, and found it surprising considering that he himself is a professor. He notes that one of the greatest "erroneous zones" is the need for approval, and then he points out that schools are one of the main culprits in instilling the need for approval in people. From the moment you walk into a school, he says, you are told where to sit, how to talk, what to write, how to think, control, control, control, and then you are graded according to your willingness to hand your mind over to the authority figures. Students with high self-esteem, who are full of self-love, and who are not susceptible to guilt and worry, are systematically labeled "trouble makers" by the school faculty. The inference is clear: ridding oneself of guilt and erroneous zones often means going against the very fabric of this society.

This is a radical book! And it's been a good friend for years. I had the honor of meeting Mr. Dyer a few years back at a book signing, and he seems to live what he preaches.
(snip)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0061091480/002-5929264-5285638?v=glance#product-details

[indigobusiness]

17. You are arguing perception

not Truth.

[nolabels]

21. Sad but true

This is all I have. In the idea that I wanted to learn something I did. What I (re)learned was the relentless need to be correct or have that proverbial one up. The need we learn at our very earliest of ideas. More like an instinctive thing than something that could be over come by anything. I don't know where everything is going, but I would be foolish not to look at the past.

The truth I mostly hear people talk of is some kind of doctrinal concept that has been predicated on trial and error. Even getting 100% agreement from any and everybody that you could find to communicate with does not prove or bring on this hypothetical myth of the 'absolute truth'. Just like the word pure or anything else. To think the ancient Greeks had schools to teach their people this type of thinking for money

I. THE SOPHISTS

CARDINAL DOCTRINE OF THE SOPHISTS:

The impossibility of any real or objective truth, morality, or religion. We cannot prove that anything is true or good. Hence, the best rule of life is to get as much pleasure and satisfaction as one can.

The philosophers who first impersonate the new state of mind were called Sophists. The Sophists were teachers of various subjects, especially oratory, dialectic grammar, and logic, who came into prominence in the second half of the 5th century. They aimed to create in youth the ability to attain the offices of the state. They discussed problems of knowledge, ethics and right. They introduced the study of man, made philosophy practical, and taught for pay. Sophistic thinking started with the Heraclitean "flux": it maintained that all was fleeting and that no stable principles existed.

Theory of Knowledge

Sophists hold that knowledge is essentially empirical and relative to man. They asserted that each man has his own perceptions; that one man's perceptions are as good as another's; there is no truth binding on all alike. Protagoras, for instance, says that "man is the measure of all things," and here man means the individual in particular. Thus reality is reduced to the subjective experience of man. Hence, the philosopher Gorgias could conclude that nothing exists, nothing can be known, nothing can be taught.
(snip)
http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilmetaphysical.htm

The kind thought process that i find interesting is looking for that next step we can try and take

Krishnamurti and the Direct Perception of Truth

by Prof. P. Krishna

Rector, Rajghat Education Centre, Krishnamurti Foundation India, Varanasi 221001, India
(snip)
2. The individual changes only when his consciousness changes. Virtue cannot be practiced.

All religions have tried to change man but they have failed. Had they succeeded, we would not have today so much cruelty, war and hatred. We must examine why religions have failed to change man and learn from this. Essentially, every religion has prescribed a path, a set of virtues to be practiced and vices to be eschewed. And man has struggled for thousands of years to do what they prescribed, but it has not worked. The practice of virtuous acts does not in itself alter the consciousness of man. The practice of pre-meditated kind acts does not produce kindness in one's consciousness. It becomes another achievement, another aim in life, another method of seeking self-satisfaction. On the other hand, if there is kindness in the heart, it will express itself in every action, every thought, word and deed. Then it does not have to be `practiced. Similarly, one cannot practice non violence, so long as one is aggressive, hateful, violent inwardly. Then non-violence becomes only a facade, a hypocritical exterior, a cold calculated performance. It is only by observing the causes of violence in oneself and eliminating them ( not through effort but through understanding) that there can be an ending of violence. And when there is the ending of violence, there is no need to practice non-violence. Only a lazy mind needs to discipline itself ! So, virtue cannot be practiced, it cannot be cultivated. It is a state of mind, a state of consciousness which is come upon when there is self-knowledge, understanding, clarity and vision. It cannot be achieved through willful effort, it requires insight. And insight comes through observation, through reflection, through sensitive awareness. It is the perception of truth that liberates consciousness from its ignorance and illusions; and it is ignorance that generates disorder in the psyche. Goodness must be spontaneous, otherwise it is not goodness. Any change in the outward conduct of man, brought about through fear, coercion, discipline, conformity, imitation and propaganda does not represent a true change in his consciousness and is therefore both superficial and contradictory.
(snip)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:ftIOOM2VJ3QJ:www.pkrishna.org/K-DirectPerception.html+perception+of+truth+%2B+understanding+%2B+Krishnamurti&hl=en

But truth is such everyday word what can we do :shrug:
(a post from another board)

Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedPanda
Can there be absolute truth without an omniscient creator? My guess is no.


Even if we ignore Deeviant like one ignores rude children, your question still needs a bit of clarification for people to answer.

I'd eliminate the semantic definition of truth right up front because philosophically-speaking at least there isn't anything very deep in that perspective (even if it does help us understand communication). For the same reason we can eliminate the sort of truth that describes “correspondence” between one’s words and the actuality of occurrences in external reality.

I’d have trouble with what you seem to be implying too. It seems by linking absolute truth to omniscience you are suggesting the "truth" has something to do with knowing. In that case, I suppose we'd need an omniscient "something" for an absolute truth to exist. But that is not necessarily the best way to define truth. For example, if something is true about reality, but no one knows it, is it still true? Yes it is. We know this because lots of things have happened in the past which we are just now finding out about, and whether we knew about it or not had no effect on the occurrence. Therefore, it seems to me that truth and knowing the truth are two different things.
(snip)
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=39134

On edit Imagine that, getting trial and trail mixed up while typing, guess that must be a clue that it's time to go to work :hi:

[indigobusiness]

22. It seems you might be missing the point.

Which is about a disconnect from the sacred by arrogant disregard and disrespect of Truth. Not a semantic disagreement of what is true.

Your statement about needing to be right and one-upmanship is curious in its context, but clear in its example of Russell's point about the arrogance that will, probably, destroy us.

[el_gato]

6. That's just post-modernist trash

Facts are facts and dead is dead.

If we are ever to deal in any real way, with what we are facing we have to go back to root causes.

[indigobusiness]

7. Your are reducing this to the lesser realm

of small t truth.

Truth is immutable and built in. As in fundamental truth, the sacred geometry of nature as seen in the fractal fabric of all that is, etc. Clues are seen in the Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Mean, etc. From which all lesser truth is spawned.

Root cause is the point.

[H2O Man]

10. "Truth

is God." -- Gandhi.

[indigobusiness]

11. That is probably "true"

but seems slightly oversimplified. Like "God is love".

[H2O Man]

16. Actually

"God is love" is simple; "Truth is God" is far more complex. Had Gandhi said,"God is truth," it likewise would have been philosophy light. But Truth is God is, like Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy," worthy of serious consideration.

[indigobusiness]

19. Surely, and I would not argue the assertion.

Nor was I comparing the import of 'Truth is God' and 'God is Love', just saying it is, perhaps, oversimplification.

on edit-

Then again, perhaps not.

[allemand]

12. Actually, it's more like the opposite of Postmodernism n/t

[nolabels]

13. Not to dismiss anything, but a opinion is all that I wanted to express

When we come to obstacles we can move them, or go around them or chop them in half and go through them. That would seem to me why so many contact team sports have so much popularity.

With the size that the mass of humanity has become the best way for change and dealing with our problems is leading by example. Things like doing it because everybody else is doing it is something which someone like me has a hard time dealing with (but will take it up at the end, I hated follow the leader).

Telling people something is wrong and demonstrating why it's wrong by example is what Bushco does best :D

[Jim__]

15. Good heavens, Euthyphro! ...

... and have you such a precise knowledge of piety and impiety, and of divine things in general, that, supposing the circumstances to be as you state, you are not afraid that you too may be doing an impious thing in bringing an action against your father
- Socrates - in Euthyphro

I think what Russell says is correct. Questioning what is TRUTH puts us at great risk. But, so does putting a limit on what we can question about TRUTH. Indeed, limiting our ability to question what is TRUTH might also be called a cosmic impiety. (IOW - You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game.)

I am curious as to the context of this quote - I don't doubt that you are presenting it accurately, I would just like to read more of this opinion.

[allemand]

18. It's from the chapter about John Dewey in History of Western Philosophy

To be precise, it's the last paragraph of that chapter.

[Jim__]

23. Thanks - I'll try to read that - n/t

[indigobusiness]

20. Russell's overarching point seems to have been lost here...

That the arrogance resulting from our "cosmic impiety" has crippled our chances and undermined our potential.

Without a reverence for truth (i.e. Truth is God), we are destined for the ultimate lie.

[NuttyFluffers]

24. pride has routinely been considered a prime root of evil

its temptation is great.
and humility its prevention and cure.

bertrand russell, though fun to read at times, can be a bit windy for me in these modern times. though it's a pity he isn't more required reading in schools these days.

[Swamp Rat]

25. My grandparents were friends with Bertrand Russel

They had a pacifist group with some other noted folks. Here's a group photo from late 1931.