How do you know they're ignorant? I don't see that kind of thinking as ignorant, just different. Human beings had to survive and evolve for several hundred millennia without the benefits of science, logic, and college educations, and while it's _possible_ that all that weird stuff in primitive heads was some kind of aberration, I believe that serious mental errors would have caused early extinction of those who made them along with their genetic configurations. Now, in modern man the funny stuff is probably sadly atrophied and deformed through disuse, just as unused muscles would be, so it doesn't work very well. But that's a different issue. The _need_ for gods is still there, in any case. And Modern Man is not without gods: the aforesaid science, logic, and college educations; the technologies; the political institutions and movements; stars of stage and screen; Man's narcissistic concern with himself: gods one and all, to say nothing of the explicit spooks hawked about the literal religions. We probably have more spooks today than ever before. One longs for the simple, honest shamans of yesteryear with their snakes and potions.
1) Ignorant simply means "not knowing." "Primitives" possibly didn't have the time and certainly not the physical facilities to arrive at empirical explanations of phenomena; I'm not arguing that people who accepted an explanation of a goddess giving birth to the sun each day were somehow mentally deficient. That was about the limit their ability to observe nature took them, the myths were made up to fill in that lack. The explanation made sense to them so why should they question it? Yes, that's different from what "we" use today to explain phenomena; "we" have simply gotten less ignorant about some things, while getting more ignorant about others (could you imagine a "modern" individual plunked down into a "primitive" milieu? What would the natives think? Watch the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" for a great example). The "errors" (as "we" would see them") weren't grievous enough to wipe out the whole species of humanity all at once.
2) Is this "need for gods" you talk about the need for meaning? If so, then yes, this has been and probably will still be around for a long time to come. But, if this need for gods is a need for someone/thing to tell humans what to do/be, and so give meaning to their lives that way that sounds a bit too much like Fascism for my taste. What I (and Carrol, I think) am arguing is that humans should use their brains and senses to determine what our situation is in regards to Nature and each other, to recognize our limitations, and act accordingly.
Gordon said:
I think the idea of man being the supreme being for man is terribly depressing. The fact is, we're just one more organism crawling around on a dirty ball away out in space, mostly getting it dirtier. What kind of supreme being is that? It's ridiculous. And now Marx wants to crush out of this poor worm its spooky fantasies -- to be replaced, I guess, by spooky fantasies he approves of, since that's what we seem to be stuck with.
It means we shouldn't measure ourselves up to and/or cater to what might not or is not in existence. Marx doesn't seem to me to require that humans naively worship themselves as some supreme being (heh. Pictures of Fascist art and The Futurist Manifesto just danced through my head); we should examine ourselves, warts and all, and our environment and act appropriately. If we make a mistake, then try to do better. Fantasies are OK, so long as you recognize them for fantasies (as a role-playing gamer, believe me I'm familiar with and welcome this line of thought). Humans are another organism on this dirt ball, but we're far from just another organism (do you watch Malcolm In the Middle BTW? That show revels in the sort of logic you are using to describe humanity, along the lines of: humans are scum, therefore they need to be kept in their place by some sort of authority figure).
Gordon said:
Carroll was complaining, I think, about Aristotle -- it certainly sounded like Aristotle, someone using a spook like The Good to oppress people. But bad as Aristotle may be, and it's hard to think worse of Aristotle than I do, some of his ideas may have some value, and the fact that he used one to justify slavery doesn't mean someone else couldn't put it or others to good (== what I approve of) use.
I agree. But Aristotle didn't believe the same as Plato did about Ideas. For a really short hand view of their differences, take a look at Michelangelo's (I think) painting "The School of Philosophy" in the Vatican: Plato points up to the sky, Ari gestures towards the ground.
Gordon said: "Proven" -- as I said before, it's a spook. If one proves something it's supposed to acquire some sort of ghostly aura which subjugates the mind of all who come upon it. What's more, it's usually given that what's proven yesterday will be similarly proven tomorrow, so already the dark miasma is beginning to blow out of the Eternal. At least, this is what appears to be the case. Ollman thinks his work is _valid_, doesn't he? Hmm? What about Marx scratching away in the British Museum day after day? Was he writing throw- away lines for provincial music halls?
"Proof" is a bad word in my opinion. It commonly has connotations of truth and eternality about it. When an observation is made, then backed up by "proof" it means that, so far, the explanation (proof) makes sense. As more data comes in, what was thought to be proven, needs more "fine-tuning" or needs to be thrown out altogether or still stands.
Todd