This right here: "We are not our ideas. We are a lot more than that. And identifying with our ideas is a dangerous drug regardless of what the ideas are." I couldn't be more biased*, but this is still a fundamental truth you bring to light. Ideas are tools, as much scalpels as they are sledgehammers, and as such no idea has anymore merit…
"We are not our ideas. We are a lot more than that. And identifying with our ideas is a dangerous drug regardless of what the ideas are."
I couldn't be more biased*, but this is still a fundamental truth you bring to light. Ideas are tools, as much scalpels as they are sledgehammers, and as such no idea has anymore merit than its effects when actually implemented, from which follows that any and all ideas are only worth the measurabe effects of said implementation.
Ideas cannot be measured against their own principles and abstractions, only against what actually happens when they are put to use as instruments and patterns for behaviour, nomatter if it is on thw macro or micro scale.
So christianity must be judged as much by looking at christians acting like they think Christ would have done accoring to his teachings, as by the deeds of their churches and the clergy down the ages. Or islam, or hinduism or judaism or... The same goes for any -ism such as marxism or anarchism or capitalism or libertarianism or...
*Having taught ideas, which equires the ability to use meta-cognition to understand them and be fair to them, obviously I'm as biased as can be here.
The quoted part is something all authoritarians hate. It removes their ability to excuse their wrongdoings by blaming a power outside their own will, be it party doctrine or clerical orthodoxy.
That is such a great point!! Exactly. Talk is cheap, and anyone can say anything. It's the actions that determine what any idea "means" in the practical sense.
This right here:
"We are not our ideas. We are a lot more than that. And identifying with our ideas is a dangerous drug regardless of what the ideas are."
I couldn't be more biased*, but this is still a fundamental truth you bring to light. Ideas are tools, as much scalpels as they are sledgehammers, and as such no idea has anymore merit than its effects when actually implemented, from which follows that any and all ideas are only worth the measurabe effects of said implementation.
Ideas cannot be measured against their own principles and abstractions, only against what actually happens when they are put to use as instruments and patterns for behaviour, nomatter if it is on thw macro or micro scale.
So christianity must be judged as much by looking at christians acting like they think Christ would have done accoring to his teachings, as by the deeds of their churches and the clergy down the ages. Or islam, or hinduism or judaism or... The same goes for any -ism such as marxism or anarchism or capitalism or libertarianism or...
*Having taught ideas, which equires the ability to use meta-cognition to understand them and be fair to them, obviously I'm as biased as can be here.
The quoted part is something all authoritarians hate. It removes their ability to excuse their wrongdoings by blaming a power outside their own will, be it party doctrine or clerical orthodoxy.
That is such a great point!! Exactly. Talk is cheap, and anyone can say anything. It's the actions that determine what any idea "means" in the practical sense.