Quote from Carl Sagan - Discuss?

[wigginhall]

I remember using it in therapy, not to find an exact mid-way point though.  For example, if someone is prone to violent outbursts of rage, and they say, well, I'm not sitting here with my thumb up my arse, if my wife is nagging me, and I might say, maybe there's a middle way?   This doesn't really mean a half-way point, but something like, 'a way of expressing annoyance without smashing the furniture'.   I think people often got the point, and didn't think it was something you could calculate.   But maybe with emotions it's rather different, since we don't arrive at them rationally, but we can see them vaguely as a kind of gearing. I mean, I don't have to go into high-octane drama because you forgot to buy the cat-food.  Well, the cat might.

[Hope]

Well, collective symbols have a great danger built-in, that they become compulsory.   Monarchs and states start to use them to exert power - this obviously happened with Christianity, on a large scale (church-going used to be obligatory), and a small scale (at my school, Christianity was like a heavy suffocating blanket).

In the case of Christianity, was any of this compulsion a integral part of the faith, or whas it something imposed on the faith?

So I think individualism has also been liberating, and has led to pluralism.   Let a 100 flowers bloom, and so on.

Sticking with Christianity, one of the main criticisms of Christianity through my life has been that it is very individual not corporate.  How does that fit with the feeling that individualism has been liberating?

[Owlswing]

Please see modified OP

Thanks for that, Matt.  As I've pointed out to jeremy, the board rules requires posters to make quotes clear.  By the way, the system does provide a way of automatically showing quotes - press the 'Insert quote' button in the function list or enclose the quote with quote ... /quote [both in square brackets]

Go teach your granny to suck eggs!

I thought that, to anyone with a modicum of common sense, the OP title would be sufficient - I forgot the nit-pickers and those with an axe to grind because they do not like my views on their particular religion.

[Jack Knave]

Quote - You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe. - Unquote

Quote above by Carl Sagan

If this is so, it would, it appears, make all calls for "proof" and "evidence" redundant.

It would also, it seems, mean that my beliefs are as valid as the beliefs of a follower of any religion.

That quote, in itself, seems to be a belief.  Like all universal assertions, all you need is one instance where a believer has relinquished his/her belief e.g. a belief in Santa Claus (or a quote from Floo).

To change that from a belief statement to one of fact he would have to do a survey of all believers as to why they believe.

[Jack Knave]

Oh no, I think we definitely need collective symbols, its just the traditional set we have are no longer fit for purpose in an increasingly integrated global community. I know things feel politically and culturally fractured but underlying that is a interconnectedness through trade and communication that is now fundamental to how we relate to one another. In that way nationalities, religions, flags etc. no longer seem relevant and even cultural icons are harder to 'own' and identify with in a universal way.

Individualism has corrupted so much of what could be good about society. I think in this country one of the last collective symbols is the NHS. Its not so much the practical function of the NHS but the idea of it that people unite around. Those kinds of unifying subjects are so valuable for social cohesion.

So Apple, Amazon, Google, and what not, are our new religious symbols?

[jeremyp]

It took me 10 seconds with Google to answer that question.

Clue: try entering the first sentence into a Google search.

The problem is, jeremy, that the rules of the board state that we ought to reference any quote - not leave it up to the raders to hunt it out.

He correctly attributed the quote to Carl Sagan. What more do you want?

[Enki]

Oh no, I think we definitely need collective symbols, its just the traditional set we have are no longer fit for purpose in an increasingly integrated global community. I know things feel politically and culturally fractured but underlying that is a interconnectedness through trade and communication that is now fundamental to how we relate to one another. In that way nationalities, religions, flags etc. no longer seem relevant and even cultural icons are harder to 'own' and identify with in a universal way.

Individualism has corrupted so much of what could be good about society. I think in this country one of the last collective symbols is the NHS. Its not so much the practical function of the NHS but the idea of it that people unite around. Those kinds of unifying subjects are so valuable for social cohesion.

Well, collective symbols have a great danger built-in, that they become compulsory.   Monarchs and states start to use them to exert power - this obviously happened with Christianity, on a large scale (church-going used to be obligatory), and a small scale (at my school, Christianity was like a heavy suffocating blanket).

So I think individualism has also been liberating, and has led to pluralism.   Let a 100 flowers bloom, and so on.  OK, there are dangers here, that we get a kind of atomism, or Thatcher's 'there is no such thing as society'. 

But I remember the 50s and the choking atmosphere of fake virtue, no thanks.

As regards the UK, it seems to me that the fifties, especially the late fifties were some sort of turning point against authority in all its forms, and that included the church, probably because the teenagers of that time were becoming much more important as a group because of their spending power. They were also the first generation for many years that hadn't experienced war and were no longer required to conform to national service.

Yet what happened is that they created their own symbols, which took the form of a dress code...the teddy boy era had begun. This was followed by the Mods and Rockers of the sixties, and then, increasingly, a more libertarian, anti-authority approach. But each movement still had need of its own symbols, such as the CND or the A/A Badge.

It also seems to me that, as you say Wiggs in another post, Christian symbols that had had such power and influence, started to become increasingly irrelevant to this young generation. And now, of course, they are the older generation, so I find little surprise in the fact that church ritual/symbols are fast becoming irrelevant to society generally.