woodenghost

joined 4 months ago
[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 1 points 18 minutes ago

Got it, thanks.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 7 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Why did the rain impact the crossbows more? Was it because the longbowmen were better trained in rain or something?

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Nice! I wish, I had had more. I'm basically self taught with podcasts and stuff.

 

I recently leaned about how the dogma of divine simplicity shaped the history of philosophy, especially metaphysics and the problem of universals in the Islamic world as well as in Christianity. Basically it's the idea, that God is identical to each of his (her/their/just) attributes. By extension, each of the attributes is identical to every other one. So this obviously touches on the problem of universals. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) added the conclusion, that for God, essence is existence. Ibn Sina is key for this in Islam, as well as Christianity (because people like Thomas Aquinas learned his teachings and shaped scholastics for centuries).

Divine simplicity is central in the different schools of Islam and a dogma in Catholicism. Protestants kind of stopped talking about it, but never officially gave it up and Calvinists revived it. Only cool new streams like process theology distance themselves from it.

About the stupid joke in the title: Divine simplicity means, God has literally no parts you can point to (no pun intended), to determine their gender (no material parts, no temporal parts, no metaphysical or ontological constituents). If God has a gender, it must therefore be identical to all their other attributes, as well as themselves.

Question: If you got any religious education, was divine simplicity ever mentioned? Cause I never heard of it until recently, even though it's so central, that other attributes are typically derived based on it (for example immutability, infinity, omniscience) in official doctrine. Or, in Ibn Sina's case, even existence as well as every other attribute.

Do religious people still care about this? What would be cool pronouns for justice, freedom, truth, omniscience, etc.?

Edit: Also, do you know people who reject this dogma or accept it, but make mistakes around it? Like saying:"God might get angry or have wrath, but God IS love", which mistakenly elevates one attribute above the others.

I have no stake in this, as an atheist, just interested and willing to learn. And like I said it's historically relevant for the history of philosophy, no matter what you believe.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Cool! I hope to befriend some crows someday.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes, I know, it's great! Just thought wikipedia might be enough in this case.

Yes I totally agree, it's almost opposite. That's partly why I said I don't agree with the content, just the sentiment. Even as I wrote it, I wondered if someone would pick up on it. I'll put more care into it before posting random associations next time ;)

Nietzsche might not have liked those chuds though.

The idea of making the position of landlord into a minor deity is much more similar to the divine right of kings, in that ownership of land is divinely ordained, or antebellum pro-slavery Christianity, being a slaver is a necessary and holy thing.

Well said!

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That's cool, that he comes towards you. Does he already know you? Because last time I tried to feed unknown crows and they noticed me looking at them for two seconds, they got scared, even though I was like 10 meters away and other people had been passing closer than me. You could almost see a small exclamation mark above their head before they flew off. I still left some food and they came back to it, once I was further away.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Master-Slave-Morality

By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master.

I don't agree with Nietzsche on morality, as it's not a materialist analysis, but still... Seeing people elevate bootlicking to a religion always makes one want to overturn all of ethics. (Not unique to these cases of course, christians did it on large scales.)

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Maybe there will be some difference. Last administration he seemed to focus on representing a slightly different section of US capitalists then Obama/Biden (however with large overlap). Different parts of capital have different and partly conflicting interests, which might result in slightly different foreign policy.

Basically it's less about which person is in office and more about what this means for how power is distributed among capitalist factions. For example capitalists with a lot of profit depending on fixed capital inside the US might gain power, as well as the industrial military complex with profit coming from accumulation by dispossession, while highly mobile international capital might lose a bit. This is just an example. In this case it might lead to slightly less hot wars, while the war machine continues to grow. There are more factions like landlords and finance and resource extraction.

It's hard to tell now though, because these factions are probably now still fighting about power behind the scenes with very little transparency.

Also it depends not just on the interests of these factions, but also on what their respective strategies will be in dealing with the decline of the empire and inevitable crisis.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago

Ah, that makes sense, thanks for taking the time!

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

And just to come full circle:

Baalbek, named after Baal, is an ancient city in the Beqaa plane in Lebanon. It was known as the bread basket of the Roman empire. The Romans build the largest temples outside of Rome there and allowed worship of Baal to continue in the large entrance building in front of the Jupiter temple. The temples stood in good condition for centuries and are now under threat by IDF bombing, which has already come as close as 500 meters, while every building in the city has been declared a target and it's people ordered to evacuate.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 15 points 5 days ago

She will and after that eat some noodles.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Good effort comment, thanks! Are you sure about merit based evaluation for MJ? Wouldn't people just strategically exaggerate their grades?

MJ encourages honest evaluation because exaggerating grades can backfire if too many others don't follow suit.

I guess I don't quite understand this point. Why wouldn't everyone exaggerate grades?

Dolphin liberals would just tell all the dolphins to give dolphin Harris an excellent grade, insisting she was excellent in comparison to dolphin Trump. (Sorry to break out of the thought experiment.) So this:

This can help identify when all candidates are weak

wouldn't happen when all the dolphins try to game the system. Did I misunderstand?

 
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