Tolerance of opinions you feel to be absurd

[opus10no2]

Is tolerance a virtue? or just a skill me must learn to appease our time consuming tendencies to battle with that which is futile?

Take an example on this forum - pianistimo, she will NEVER change her mind! and yet there are so many posts and topic about it, with many people pointing to absurdities.

Have they not learned tolerance and futility? Or is there value in having hope for a slight chance of a breakthrough? Is there value in an attempt to understand what may at first appear to be absurd? Understanding a completely opposite viewpoint..

Anyway, I am learning to tolerate and resign to futility, but not without reservations and fear that my passion may be lost 

[ted]

What at first appears a simple question turns, after a few moments of reflection, into an extremely complicated matter for both an individual and society as a whole. I suppose my short answer is no, there are certain things I find it next to impossible to tolerate. Cruelty and suffering come to mind immediately. I have no time for social or philosophical systems, either general or personal, which assert that these things are right, good or even necessary beyond an absolute minimum. Lack of reason I find difficult to tolerate, although short of obdurate stupidity it is sometimes endurable in the cause of kindness.

An interesting example of the limits of tolerance as a general or societal property concerns the assumption that all cultures deserve equal respect within a mixed society - that they are all somehow "equally right". Those who assert this to be true, for example many politicians, are frequently faced with impossible decisions when blatantly ridiculous behaviours are endorsed for politically correct reasons. As there exists, so far, no universally acceptable procedure outside all cultures to decide precise bounds of tolerance, the whole picture becomes very convoluted.   

It is a very important problem in the modern world, and I am sure many people on the forum are better qualified to comment than I am.

[counterpoint]

Everyone must have the right to be different. I only accept one exception to this claim: behaviours and ways of life are not acceptable, if they do harm and injustice to others.
There are cases, where people have different views whether a special behaviour harms others or not. So the people who feel harmed must have the right to protest (and get help) against such behaviour.

That's my opinion how tolerance could and should work.

[quantum]

So can tolerance span multiple world views?  The concept of tolerance to one culture may differ completely with another. 

So would enforcing tolerance be imposing on the beliefs of world views not similar to your own?

[counterpoint]

So would enforcing tolerance be imposing on the beliefs of world views not similar to your own?

There is no right for intolerance.

[prometheus]

If someone claims that the earth is only 6000 years old; I will try to educate.

If someone claims there is absolute morality; I will debate this.

If someone claims it is a good thing to kill babies and rape little girls; I will not tolerate that.



I don't understand how educating and debating are forms of intolerance. Also, people should never tolerate ideas, ever.

[danny elfboy]

Everyone must have the right to be different. I only accept one exception to this claim: behaviours and ways of life are not acceptable, if they do harm and injustice to others.

This is pretty logical and due to a simple principle: wheter tolerance (as respect for others) exceed the equal respect for someone else (tolerance of its rights).
For example I can't be tolerant of racism and I can't even say "let's agree to disagree" for the simple fact that in doing so I would hypocritically becomes "intolerant" to the rights of the racist victims. It would be a self-referential fallacy. Tolerance stops when it start tolerating lack of tolerance and tolerating a position which assume ignoring someone else individual rights is that boundary.

Tolerance for racism would be a personal fault against the victims of racism and therefore my tolerance for their rights as individuals.

And this is why I understand those vegetarian that are intolerant of meat-eaters.
They're less hypocritical than vegetarian who are tolerant because again for a vegetarian the tolerance for meat-eaters is a personal fault against their victims (animals)

This is why tolerance is an illusion.
But I'm talking about the tolerance for concepts and ideas that deal with "others" ... and X person claiming things about an Y person an animal.

But there's a tolerance which is not an illusion and it's the tolerance for what X person claims and choose about X person (itself).

The real form of tolerance is tolerance towards the rights of the only person living through its body and its life to choose about those things belonging to him or her and no one else.

[danny elfboy]

If someone claims that the earth is only 6000 years old; I will try to educate.

Well tolerance here relies on "listening" not just going into a "mentoring rampage" and in fact that would be an act of intolerance towards you.
You might never be sure that you know the truth (which is always partial anyway) and someone else doesn't and the best way to have a constructive dialogue is listening not just educating (that's why I always say that a teacher is also a student and a student is also a teacher) because you may ignore things that revert your concept of what is true; and this not only has happened thousands of times but will happen thousands of times again.

I could tell you that the BigBang never occurred and if you would go into an "educating" rampage without listening you would miss the chance of learning about Arp's documented proofs of out of line quasars proving there's no proportion between red-shifts and distance, meaning the universe is not expanding, it's birth date is wrong and probably it doesn't either have a birth date.

[prometheus]

I could tell you that the BigBang never occurred and if you would go into an "educating" rampage without listening you would miss the chance of learning about Arp's documented proofs of out of line quasars proving there's no proportion between red-shifts and distance, meaning the universe is not expanding, it's birth date is wrong and probably it doesn't either have a birth date.

Yes. This would be correct if I had not been aware of the theory Arp proposed in the '60 and if observation with our telescopes, which have advanced greatly since then, hadn't suggested otherwise.

Fact remains that at this point being educated means accepting that all the evidence we have gathered lead to a 13.7 billion years old universe. If we find new evidence there would be no need to educate them because I will change my position without any problem and admit that it was the wrong position. But I will never say that science is the wrong method. Because always when science is proved wrong it is done so by science. Nothing other than science has ever proved science wrong. And science has been wrong many times.

So please show me the observed Redshift quantization that proof that Hubble's law does not hold. I'll share the nobel prize money with you.

[pianistimo]

which opinions, stevie, do you feel that i have that are absurd.  the world being 6000 years old - etc.  and why - since i am one little person  - do i threaten your existence?  you can ignore my messages you know.  i suppose you don't disagree that i called you good looking.  anyways.  what exactly is it?

and, why do you think i would somehow rob you of passion?  i don't even know you.  i'd have to come and take it. 

was listening to a bible preacher this morning and he was joking about the differences between one denomination and another.  and that one  - if they were to perform an operation - would just go by blind faith and not use any pain killer on the patient.  i'll have you know that i do believe in study and doctors and anesthesia.  but, when everything is done (that a person does) about a problem or a situation that is humanly possible - then what?  or, even when you have a situation that is financial or something comes up that you need advice or help?

as i see it - being proactive is good.  to study the bible for 1/2 hour in the morning and pray and then let your day be guided as you work.  i believe even God himself said to work 6 days a week.  but, soemtimes people forget to rest and then they get lopsided. you know - only think about work.  that is what causes people to lose passion.  they don't relax.

[danny elfboy]

Yes. This would be correct if I had not been aware of the theory Arp proposed in the '60 and if observation with our telescopes, which have advanced greatly since then, hadn't suggested otherwise.

Fact remains that at this point being educated means accepting that all the evidence we have gathered lead to a 13.7 billion years old universe. If we find new evidence there would be no need to educate them because I will change my position without any problem and admit that it was the wrong position.

Actually the evidence comes from 2005 when Arp theories have made a further step towards evidence with the observation of Pasquale Gallianni and Martin Lopez Corredoir.

So actually Arp evidences have moved on since 60's and the evidence doesn't point out at all anymore to the expanding universe model.

https://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

[pianistimo]

if i only understood the half of it.  the thing is - i just believe.  but i'm thankful for danny elfboy for explaining about red-shifts and a possible non-expanding universe. 

about passion -i think that nature shows a discreet passion in everything. the brilliance of flowers.  the smells, the bees buzzing around.  but, everything has a sort of order.  like the mandelbrot set.  (sorry - it's the only thing i sort of wrap my head around ok with).  you see this order and then you realize that the world doesn't ahve to be in chaos.  the animals don't start world wars.  have you ever seen animals other than musk oxen try to knock each others brains on the pavement?  i heard that basically when studly musk oxen do their mating thing (as rivals for the female musk oxen) - they come at each other with the force of a 30 mph car accident.  what's amazing is that they seem to get it together again for another run sometimes.

[opus10no2]

which opinions, stevie, do you feel that i have that are absurd. 

I was speaking for others. You know fair well that many people find some things you say absurd.


I brought up my passion in the context, because after realising that some peoples feelings and opinions are unchangable, the pursuit gets frustrating and one must tolerate this..and actually shouldn't make me a less passionate person, just a more discerning and wise one perhaps?

[thalbergmad]

if i only understood the half of it. 

If only

[rach n bach]

Food for thought you all...

What if somebody's view is seen by somebody else to be "intolerant" ?

Should you still tolerate this view? 

What if a lot of people think said view is tolerant, but others don't?  Does the majority rule on whether it is "intolerant? 

If it is ruled as "intolerant" would it be justifiable to be "intolerant" towarts this "intolerant" view? 

(bah, I was up too late last night...)

[prometheus]

Actually the evidence comes from 2005 when Arp theories have made a further step towards evidence with the observation of Pasquale Gallianni and Martin Lopez Corredoir.

Well done, you baited me to click on his website trying to find evidence.


I tried to find the published redshift observations you speak of. I only found out their real names: Corredoira and Galianni.

I tried very hard to find any in depth explanation of how the redshift may be caused if it is not caused by velocity.

What Arp does is claim that some quasars are at the same place as galaxies that appear together in our frame of view. There is no reason to think this is true.

The redshifts of these objects are vastly different.

Arp claims that young objects have high redshifts. How this happens he does not explain.


So why didn't they win the nobel prize and refute the big bang?

[rach n bach]

First of all, realize what redshift is everybody... light leaves a source at a known wavelength.  As it travles, it may be streached out, or it may be compacted together and change it wavelenth accordingly.  If it is being streched out, we call it redshifted, if it is being compacted; blueshifted.

The reason this is of immense scientific intrest is because virtally ALL objects are redshifted.  Very very few are blueshifted, and these are fairly close by ones that may be affected by our galaxies gravitational force.

There are several reasons for redshift.

1.  The universe is infinate and unbounded, and the object is moving away from us.  (This has, at large, been rejected by the scientific community as the actual reason why stars are red shifted.)

2. The universe is finite, but unbounded, and it is expanding.  (Thus streaching the light durring it's journey)

3. The universe is finite and bounded, and we are at the center.  (This would, again, cause the light to be streached out on it's journey)

4.  Gravitational redshift.  Basically, the light becomes streached out just by trying to escape the gravitaional pull of a large object. 

Arp seems to hold (in part) to number 4... in that the younger objects (quasars) may be primordial galaxies, and therefore, very very massive objects.  The gravitational force woudl make the light appear very redshifted, and henceforth, apparentlly farther away, as the traditional big bang model seems to clam that only option 2 is really in effect.  Using that is how people have tried to calculate distances... we assume a constant rate of expansion in the universe, and if we figure out how much the light is shifted, we can figure out how long it has been traveling.  Great in theory, but it doesn't account for options 3 or 4.

[danny elfboy]

about passion -i think that nature shows a discreet passion in everything. the brilliance of flowers.  the smells, the bees buzzing around.  but, everything has a sort of order.  like the mandelbrot set.  (sorry - it's the only thing i sort of wrap my head around ok with).  you see this order and then you realize that the world doesn't ahve to be in chaos.

I'm not christian or religious for that matters (as in organized system of spirituality) but I'm with you on this and I despise any form of nihilism including positivism. I have more respect for pantheism than positivist nihilism as a non-spiritual perspective in that a strong materialist view doesn't contrast with the belief and feeling that existence and everything within it is beautiful and contemplating its beauty and sheer perfection is a very important human experience. Nihilism and its abuse and misuse of foggy concept like rationality and empiricism isn't even logically defensible as observed by some of the most insightful individuals on earth: Max Weber, Ortega Y Gasset, Aurel Kolnai, Benedetto Croce, Nicholas Rescher (nihilist professionals are usually raw specialized in their restricted field and has no grasp of "whole" or an "holistic" reality ... their labour may be worth of praise but their insight leaves much to be desired)
An authoritative perspective which is self-referential and elevates a limited neuter and small non-integral fraction of possible human "scito" to an all-inclusive and unquestionable arbiter of everything there's to know and experience is just sickening and more dark age than believing in possession, witches and evil black cats.
So it doesn't matter if it's atheist pantheism, spiritual humanism, animism, neo dualism, new thought, steinerianism, naturalist mysticism, trascendentalism, zenism, agnostic existentialism, phenomenology or even old monotheism, what they disagree with is way less important than what they all have in common: a strong self-determined reaction against nihilism.

[pianistimo]

athiest=opposite of theist.  does not believe there is a God.
pantheist = God is in everything and IS everything.

wait!  there's a problem there.  if 'God' is in everything and IS everything - and most things around us are alive - God is ALIVE.

but, i think there is more.  I think something had to start this whole thing in motion.  how did helium (the lightest element) make it's way to every part of the universe in equal portions? 

it seems that this order is finite in the known universe.  what we don't know is the meaning of infinite.  we cannot define it or box it .  therefore- we cannot explain or box God.

[danny elfboy]

I tried to find the published redshift observations you speak of. I only found out their real names: Corredoira and Galianni.

I just have paper on my language, I need to look around for english paper but they seem to be available only through journal subcription.

I tried very hard to find any in depth explanation of how the redshift may be caused if it is not caused by velocity.

Whatever explanation, especially from my english would be rather irrelevant.
Arp theories are known as exceptionally mathematically solid.
I-m saying this just to point out that Arp and Narlikar theories are not simplistic and always growing. In a 2004 conference Arp explained what very recent discoveries and obervation was implying in its and other theories. At the end of the conference he replied to questions from other astronomers with new explanation developed from recent evidences not found in his earlier studies and books.
Thats to point out how complex and evolving Arp, and other proposers and researchers of alternative cosmology models, theories through new and compelling evidence are.

According to Arp quasar are rejected by the nucleous of galaxies.
They have an high redshift post rejection and slowly the redshift decreases the quasar becomes a galaxy and gets closed to the mother galaxy getting farther from their axis.
The redshift therefore depends on the age of the particles and theres no expansion in the universe just creation of new matter.

The theory especially explained with my terms may sound weird but its rigorous and documented and would need a whole book to be even explained superficially. What is happening is that new observation of redshift anomalies are piling up as evidences of this alternative model and as counterevidence to the expanding universe model.

Arp claims that young objects have high redshifts. How this happens he does not explain.

This is explained by Narlikar and his work on pregressively expanding mass of particles.

So why didn't they win the nobel prize and refute the big bang?

That is a question that implies a certain ideological and naive view of science.
There is a famous quote from Lauterbur that says <You can write the history of science in the last 50 years in terms of rejected papers>
There are too many interests at stake: political, economical, gerarchical ... postpositivism has taught us that there is not such a thing, not anymore at least, as immaculate science and that it and even its method is subject to all sort of biased ideologies, fundamentalism and totalitarianism. This has been pretty obvious lately in medicine and biology. Acceptance and acknowledgment are not criteria of rigour and fidelty or value of a discover and certainly the Nobel Prize is not the universal arbiter of good science.

[danny elfboy]

athiest=opposite of theist.  does not believe there is a God.
pantheist = God is in everything and IS everything.

wait!  there's a problem there.  if 'God' is in everything and IS everything - and most things around us are alive - God is ALIVE.

but, i think there is more.  I think something had to start this whole thing in motion.  how did helium (the lightest element) make it's way to every part of the universe in equal portions? 

What I said was beyond the point of focusing on contrasts between beliefs or world views but actually to embrace these contrasts in order to focus on what they all have in common: a reaction against nihilism. It is irrelevant at this point if there is just a natural world, a christian god, a muslim god, a source of life, universal ki, buddah, pagan essences, an illusory olographic universe ... they belong to the personal sphere of what we hold true but are not serious and meaningful reason for contrasts. What is relevant is the massive rebellion against the nihilism world view of humanity, human perception, human consciousness, beauty and meaning ... the path you choose to concretize this antinihilism is less relevant.

[pianistimo]

i think i understand what you are saying.  what is odd is that nietsche (sp?), despite espousing nihilism, was a very very intelligent man.  what causes someone to disdain their own intellect?  a lack of power?  they don't think the life we live is enough?  why cannot we be satisfied with what we are given?  that is the essence to me.  not to wish to be god.  and yet the bible says 'ye shall be gods.'  we were created in the image and likeness of God and are 'born.'  born of flesh and then ultimately 'born of spirit.'  that means eternal.  LIKE GOD.  if it were not so, He wouldn't have said it.  if we have the potential (as seeds) to be LIKE GOD - then that means what we do is very important.  if we are masters over small things - we may be masters over much more.   that means - our existence truly matters and what we do matters.

also, if there were no heaven (as the beatles song goes) then there would be no hell.  that would mean - God was lying to adam and eve about the possiblity of them living forever by taking from the tree of life.  in fact, i believe he encouraged it.  the tree that HE told them not to eat was the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' - not 'the tree of life.'  it would mean that we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil.  and goodness in any form will not be rewarded.  God is not like the landowner who went away and gave matters into the hands of his servants.  also, it would mean we all inherit the same thing whether we are hitler or mother theresa (just an example).  i think God considers saints to be his own choosing - but in any case - mother theresa did a lot of good and encouraged others - so i am just pulling her name out of a hat. 

[opus10no2]

Intelligence and nihilism are unrelated...

Intelligence and organised religion are related , less intelligent people buy into them.

Personal faith is unrelated to intelligence.

[pianistimo]

according to the bible - the 'wise' of the earth will be confounded by the 'foolish.'

[opus10no2]

Irony of ironies.

[pianistimo]

but, every so often - intellectuals do contemplate God - even when they jest about biblical passages.  lord byron may have been skeptical of the event with saul and the 'seer' - in regards to seeking knowledge from the dead (which God proved was wrong and impossible - since they were dead) - but lord byron had a curiosity about the story.  so he wrote the poem. 

but, he was completely serious when contemplating creation and in speaking of the sun 'what booted it to traverse oer plain, forest, river...'  in other words - what started this whole process?

[danny elfboy]

i think i understand what you are saying.  what is odd is that nietsche (sp?), despite espousing nihilism, was a very very intelligent man.  what causes someone to disdain their own intellect?

Nietzsche was actually an anti-nihilist but a materialist one. He opposed nihilism and positivism. What Nietzsche called The Death of God was very symbolic and not an accuse.

[opus10no2]

Intellectuals comtemplate theism, yes, this has nothing to do with organised religion, which is purely a social construct, and one in which lesser intellects are likely to pervade.