Steve Breen for April 05, 2015

Let us hope that the Prince of Peace is not not mocked this Easter season. Happy Easter

An Easter Gift.*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hBhRv-640s*Peace, Love, Courage to allRespectfully, C.

Sadly, princes, kings, emperors, prophets, and other such icons are often unable to guide their followers in paths that would benefit all, R2. Perhaps the peace we’ll find is yet to come.We’ll see.With much respect.C.

Oh, brother.

Could I ask you to define ‘reason’? This is an honest request. Some people use words like ‘reason’ to mean various viewpoints or ideologies. Thanks.

I don’t claim to have the last word on reason, but I would make a few initial points. Reason would include the principle that you shouldn’t believe anything that is clearly inconsistent with evidence. Reason would suggest that the strength with which you hold a position should be commensurate with the grounds for holding it. Reason would avoid equivocation, that is, using a word with more than one meaning in order to prove a false position. Reason would approach the statements of others in a spirit of sympathetic critique, attempting first to understand but reserving assent until good grounds are offered. That’s a start, maybe. (I might also mention that my own professional work is in the arts, not the sciences. I love reason, but I don’t think reason covers the whole of human experience.)

Agreed. But where does empathy fit? Is it part of reason? Should it be part of governance?

Happy Easter.

Richard Feynman disagrees with you.

@markjoseph125 I rather liked this line: "All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.” – Richard P. Feynman

Thanks.

I’m interested in de Waal’s books… while I was away I took along de Waal’s book “Bonobo and the Atheist”. Evolutionary theory applied to empathy and how moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution.

Sorry if I bring up Frans de Waal again:"The enemy of science is not religion… . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.- “The Bonobo and the Atheist”“

As you said above, ” They simply replaced the ideology of religion with the ideology of economics".

I’m not sure about the arts and governance, per se, but I think the arts can have a social value. I spent some time in my younger years working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and in both groups singing was very important. There’s lots of discussion of the importance of singing in the Civil Rights movement. From another perspective, drama held an important place in the governance of ancient Athens. The plays were major civic events, and they clearly played a role in the formation and cohesion of the community. So perhaps there is a place for the arts in governance.

Sorry I did not get back sooner. Things happened. Thank you for the definition. It’s been a long while since I read Plato, but I’m thinking you may be considering something along the lines of the Republic?