Notices by Moritz Bartl (gamambel@social.tchncs.de), page 2

@schizanon

I see it as valuable and useful if someone respectfully corrects me or disagrees with me, unknown or not, both in real life and online.

Sometimes it may be the point of a conversation for me, to exchange different opinions, to get to know the other person through that, and to learn from corrections of things I got wrong before. I am grateful for this.

I read your suggestion to instead block you, but I don't see why I would want to block you, or anyone else for that matter.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski I take offense in this insinuation: You are not even *allowing* me to be interested in understanding what is important for you, or which point you were trying to make. You are falling into the trap of making assumptions about my interests, and are taking and presenting them as fact, and *then* you are offended by that -- by your own judgement of the situation. This is where a major confusion lies. You are presenting something that is simply *wrong*, and then cutting me off.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski OK! Thanks. I did enjoy this, even though I think we failed in a few areas to communicate, but overall it was a good experience for me still, and helpful. Have a good Sunday!

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski (One of the even larger discussions would be "Should I limit my speech to things that do cause anyone to feel offended", with which I *strongly* disagree. I think that is one of the biggest dangers to society. In my blog, I call it the "Fahrenheit 451 argument". )

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski I was about to write a longer response, because I see several dimensions here that I consider of relevance, but I am hesitant to open up even more areas, since I am not sure you would enjoy it right now, and not only see it as somebody trying to school you or play mental gymnastics. If you like, I would take the time to elaborate on where I think our disagreements lie? It sounds more like you would like to stop it for now? Which is fine for me also.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski I still don't understand whether you feeling offended is based on what the author of it MAY have been trying to communicate with that, or based on what YOU read into it. There is a huge difference between these two things.

I also didn't mean to "school" you about "my" definition, but rather in collaboration agree on one definition for the sake of the discussion, to see what might be a potential intepretation of the statement? I did not care which one we pick.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

If I say I agree with the statement "religion is poison", you may want to know how I define religion in this context, and what I mean by that critisism. As I was trying to lay out, I can see the validity behind such a statement, when you assume religion to be a (pre)defined set of beliefs, and separating people into those that belong to a religion and those that don't, based on how they happen to subscribe to a different set of beliefs or even no particular set of beliefs.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

And you think it is important not to state anything that somebody else may find offensive, even if you didn't mean it as an attack against another human? Doesn't it involve a tradeoff between honesty, sharing my opinion, and pointing out what the author sees as a source of pain, a poison?

I also see elements of gymnastics, but that doesn't take away anything from how I find it important. For me, these are highly relevant and very practical discussions, not merely abstract.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski I mean, you started it, in some way. Or Jeff started it. Or I started it by retooting a picture, without evening reading or identifying with the tag. I did not even necessarily express my own opinion, I was just trying to narrow down on why somebody might say "religion is poison" and why others might have a different opinion or even feel offended about that statement. What did you want to express? That you simply disagree, or that you don't like him to say that?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

For me, it is an exercise in communication, in various ways. I enjoy such exercises.

It is also a distraction from other things, which brings relaxation.

Contact, intellectual stimulation, personal development/growth, relaxation. Probably more.

It is not my intention to cause pain, it is my intention to experiment and improve upon having intellectual debates about emotionally charged topics such as "religion" or "sacret". I am deeply interested in such exchanges.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

Wait. So you think you can determine whether something is something that I benefit from? Isn't that inherently something I can decide only for myself?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

This discussion? No, I do not believe that. I know that it is.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

Which is where we have different beliefs, which to me does not separate us, whereas "religion" would ;-)

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski So your pain that comes from your own judgment makes it so that you think the other person is not interested in it, and then in your reality that becomes a fact. Isn't it more that you *believe* the other is not interested, and that becomes an insinuation rather than an assumption to verify? Isn't it only the other that can know if they are interested or not?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski

Don't you see how you feeling offended by it is exactly the point that is being made in the article, that it creates pain, because your belief system makes you think it is wrong, and not only "a different equally valid opinion"?

The core idea here is to not merely "tolerate the pain of difference", but "dissolve the pain" by realizing how the only thing that causes the pain in the first place is the belief that one belief is wrong and the other is right.

Q.E.D.?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski If we define religion as "set of beliefs", and being part of a religion as "subscribing to this particular set of beliefs", why is it then not okay for somebody to be of the opinion that that is already and generally "poison"?

You may not agree with it, but that should be ok, in the space of hypotheses, to have different opinions?

Interesting, how you introduced "sacred" into this! We could probably talk for days about what "sacred" means and implies... ;-)

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski Again, it seems to be a mere difference in definition, not an actual disagreement?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski We move to the most important step! In religion, you believe a belief to be true! In science, you are very careful about this distinction. It is the moment where you judge a hypothesis to be true where it becomes dangerous, which is all that is being pointed out in the article, nothing else?

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski Ah. It's not that someone else decides you are part of it or not. YOUR belief makes YOU decide whether you are part of something discriminating or not. But that belief comes from somewhere external, not your own knowledge of facts. Which is what Sadghuru lays out in that article. On facts we can agree, if we both share the experience. A belief is just an idea. A possibility. The moment is is known to be true it stops being a belief, it becomes a fact.

@tokyo_0 @jeffowski I do not see "my" definition as contrary to the possible definitions that Merriam Webster offers? Religion as a set of beliefs. Which automatically means any belief that is contrary to that set is outside of it. And a belief is by definition something you cannot know for certain, you just *think* it is true. So you are introducing separation, between those that believe that, and those that believe otherwise.