Atheism: the antithesis of cynicism

[_Hoops]

wrong post

So, no reply to me on this thread. I can deal with that.

I don't see the command here. Can you show me?

[_EAllusion]

Part of what makes the dark ages dark (though that itself is a huge oversimplification) were Christians who purged pagan materials. The concept and term itself comes from a late middle ages writer who despaired at Christian purging of pagan sources. It's wrong to lay the dark ages at the feet of Christianity, but it is also wrong to neglect the role Christianity played in it as well.

Marg -

If you google the phrase "warm and fuzzy feeling" you will find an endless supply of references to the experience and phrase, almost none of which have anything to do with Mormonism. I'm not interested in holding your hand on this point, but I do marvel at how you could be so utterly unaware of how common it is. It's like not knowing that people sometimes call spicy food hot. It's a heck of a cultural blindspot.

[_Milesius]

Part of what makes the dark ages dark (though that itself is a huge oversimplification) were Christians who purged pagan materials. The concept and term itself comes from a late middle ages writer who despaired at Christian purging of pagan sources. It's wrong to lay the dark ages at the feet of Christianity, but it is also wrong to neglect the role Christianity played in it as well.

Hi EA,

Please provide a citation for your claim that Christians systematically purged pagan texts (as opposed to, say, favoring other texts to their neglect) as well as the identity of the "late middle ages writer" who is supposed to have coined the term.

[Guest]

So if you believe you are supposed to have such feelings at particular times, it may very well be that’s the reason you do, by being preconditioned to expect such feelings. I personally do not describe good feelings as “warm and fuzzy”. I’d describe drinking a glass of wine or two as eliciting warm fuzzy feelings. That’s why I don’t accept the assumption that everyone or even most people..experience a physical reaction of a “warm and fuzzy” feeling for helping someone.

I do, every time I go out of my way to help someone in need, expecting no reward. I think many (maybe most) feel this way as well. I'm agnostic and don't ascribe these feelings to any "other worldly" sources.

Humans have been social animals as long as they have existed. My own view is that the care for members of ones tribe, village, etc. has always been a deep instinct in humans. Any anthropologist would tell you this. Altruism has been an important element human survival since before the times of Neanderthals.

People who don't have concern for others are often called sociopaths.

Well does everyone who does something nice or good for someone think of it in terms of "warm fuzzy feelings". Maybe I'm the only one in this entire world who doesn't perceive positive feelings as warm and fuzzy or if I do something to benefit someone out of concern..as eliciting warm fuzzy feelings. A problem I have is I hear "warm and fuzzy" so often on Mormon message boards...related to reading the Book of Mormon, praying.. doing good works as eliciting warm fuzzy feelings..and frankly I've never thought of reading any book, or experiencing any t.v./movie show or any entertainment which has been a feel good type movie as one which elicits "warm and fuzzy" feelings. I understand one can use the term..when one feels contentment and good about something..I think the only time I would use the term is how I feel after a couple glasses of wine. Maybe I'm unique, maybe it's how I was brought up, maybe I don't have "warm and fuzzy feelings" ...I don't know.

by the way with regards to your last line, this is not about concern for others..this is about an emotional physical response.

So as I mentioned I listened to Prof. Paul Bloom give a talk on pleasure and from one of them I've transcribed a portion of the question and answer period.

-----------------------------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWOfP-Lubuw
@ 43:56

Q: What do we know (a funny thing ?) about the genetic component of pleasure and how it's distributed in the brain?

Bloom...Ans: the question is about the genetic and neurological basis of pleasure. The answer to what what we know about this is very little. So there's 2 ways to ask the question. One is the question about universals. I made a claim about how pleasure works in general. And you could ask how is this wired up in the brain. How is this wired up in the genome. The only honest answer is no one knows. Neuroscience is an incredibly young science and has told us very little about these questions. Same with genomics. We just don't know. I think it's an incredibly fruitful area for the future but now it can tell us very little.

A different question is about human differences..why does sexual preference vary, why do artistic preferences vary and so on. There genetics plays a tool not at the level of genetic analyses but at studies of behavioural genetics. And there, there's a lot of interesting research looking at why are people different. To what extent do our difference have to do with our families, how we are raised, with random events have happened in our life..or through our genes. And there i think the answer is going to differ from pleasure to pleasure in interesting ways. So for instance one surprising fact about the pleasures we get from food is..everybody here if you listed your 10 favourite foods and your 10 least favourite foods everyone would come up with a list. This list is largely predictable from your culture. Americans tend to like different foods than Koreans. But within a culture it is a mystery why we like the foods we like. It is not easily explained by genetics, people's food tastes differ a lot from their parents, they differ from their siblings. It is not easily explained by early experience. it seems to be some sort of randomness that we know nothing about, it's just a puzzle.



The point of Bloom's talk is that all pleasures and the opposite.. pain, is affected by beliefs and preconceptions. It is my opinion that this "warm and fuzzy feelings" so often discussed and described by Mormons on message boards, which perhaps they do feel (I don't know) when reading the Book of Mormon or praying,doing good works is a culturally induced nurtured feeling created by church teachings.

If you google the phrase "warm and fuzzy feeling" you will find an endless supply of references to the experience and phrase, almost none of which have anything to do with Mormonism.

The fact that you are not acknowledging any connection of the phrase to Mormonism leads me to believe you wish to disagree for the sake of it...to harass. I understand the phrase can mean "feeling good and contented"..I don't think that's how it is encouraged with the Mormon culture nor mean the same thing that others outside the Mormon culture when using the phrase. How does one get a "warm and fuzzy" feeling reading the Book of Mormon or praying...I don't think it would occur in anyone unless it's been culturally induced and encouraged. I think when Hater....asked the question of science explaining good works generating warm fuzzy feelings it was a function of his cultural background..that one is supposed to feel "warm and fuzzy" from good works..if not then to describe the feelings in that way.

[_Jersey Girl]

marg

Well does everyone who does something nice or good for someone think of it in terms of "warm fuzzy feelings".

Not me. I'm usually too frickin' exhausted from it. I do feel a sense of peace or relief that a problem has been solved.

The one and only time in my life where I felt genuinely warm and fuzzy, I was on a morphine drip.

;-)

[_marg]

The one and only time in my life where I felt genuinely warm and fuzzy, I was on a morphine drip.

;-)

Not had that experience but I love the feeling of going under by anesthesia... maybe that's because they give a relaxant before hand.

Okay I'm going to the pool now..going to also sit in the hot tub for a bit as well as the steam room...to generate some "good feelings".

[_EAllusion]

Hi EA,

Please provide a citation for your claim that Christians systematically purged pagan texts (as opposed to, say, favoring other texts to their neglect) as well as the identity of the "late middle ages writer" who is supposed to have coined the term.

Petrarch is generally credited with coining the term 'the dark ages" along with the concept of a loss of antiquity knowledge.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dark_Ages

I'm not sure what you are looking for with the latter. It's widely understood that there was a systematic purging of pagan sources starting in late antiquity where Emperor Theodosius's suppression of pagans can act as a convenient bright line. But by purge, I did also mean to include intentional, systematic neglect. So I'm not sure we even disagree on the substance of this point so much as how to understand it.

[Guest]

So, no reply to me on this thread. I can deal with that.

I don't see the command here. Can you show me?

Numbers 31:

31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Well, the commands are:

1. Kill all the boys that have not already been killed along with the men.

2. Kill every woman who has had sex.

3. Keep the virgin girls 'for yourselves'.

So God commands the men to murder two lots of defenceless people (nice, eh?), and then retain the virgins.

Assuming that God was not stupidly naïve, what did he think male warriors 'kept' sexy young women for? To teach them needlework, perhaps? You think God was expecting these young women to go free, and that no-one would have sex with them? Both those conditions would have to be fulfilled for them not to count as slaves with a major probability of sexual exploitation. If God not only did not mind, but even explicitly commanded that little boys and their mothers should have their throats cut, what makes you think he was not OK with the girls being kept alive and raped by their masters?

[Edited to restore to form quoted by Schmo. God must be taken to intend the obvious consequences of his actions must he not?]

[_Buffalo]

The pot reproaches the kettle.

Very rarely do you rise above a one-liner response. That's telling.

[_Some Schmo]

Assuming that God was not stupidly naïve, what did he think male warriors 'kept' sexy young women for? To teach them needlework, perhaps? You think God was expecting these young women to go free, and that no-one would have sex with them? Both those conditions would have to be fulfilled for them not to count as slaves with a major probability of sexual exploitation. If God not only did not mind, but even explicitly commanded that little boys and their mothers should have their throats cut, what makes you think he was not OK with the girls being kept alive and raped by their masters?

It was Moses speaking as a man.