Re: CHAT: The Fabulous Personalities of Conlang

> >
> >Sorry... MEGO?  Megolomania?
>Nothing so dire.  My Eyes Glaze Over.
Heheh... oops... what do I do but launch into an exposition of my favorite
philosophers... LOL ;)

> >As for philosophy .... these guys were "lovers of
> >wisdom" in the true sense of the word.
>
>Yes.  In my blanket condemnation, I should have excluded the ancients >and
>most thinkers up to, say, the 19th Cent.
Well, on that note, I should say something about a blanket condemnation of
my own, just to clarify.  The other day, I posted this to the list:

>>>how to train the mind & self to live that way.  "Religion" is just
>>>the instutionalized combination of the two (philosophy & mysticism),
>>>with a lot of bureaucracy, propaganda / dogma, and all sorts of other
>>>useless sh*t piled on top - which is why us industrialized folk tend to
>>>be either afraid of it, or view it as pointless superstition (not to
>>>mention that spirituality and materialism have generally not worked well
>>>together)...
A gentle hand prodded me this evening to review this message once more, and
consider that it may be interpreted as somewhat offensive.  It was not my
intention to offend anyone, and I apologize if I have.  I didn't think much
about it mainly because since I really didn't want to "argue" religon on the
conlang list - just to see how many conlangers were spiritually inclined /
curious, which I consider to be a part of any discussion of personality.  I
suppose there is a fine line...

As for my comments - to be clear, I only was referring to historical
*TENDENCIES* within Western industrialized culture.  It is undeniable that
positivistic materialism (i.e. science / scientism) has largely displaced
religion in the West, but that does not mean that I think there are no
spiritual people here.  Religion persists precisely because science is
incapable of addressing basic human problems (not that science is bad either
- it's just a different project, though it's easy to confuse the two).  I do
believe that the Western lifestyle makes it rather difficult to undertake a
spiritual life in a meaningful or practical way - I did not mean to imply
that nobody tries or succeeds at it despite the challenge.  I've been trying
myself for many years, and I would have stopped long ago if I thought it was
hopeless.

As for what I said about "religion" - I was only referring to the tendency
of any movement to lose touch with its original aims once it becomes an
institution - religion is no exception.

I'll refrain from discussing religion openly on the list any further - I
really didn't intend to make a big issue of it in the first place.  Sorry if
it bugged anybody.

On the bright side, there are lots of personality and conlang questions to
consider from this - religious-social dynamics and such; not to mention the
curious linguistic oddity that a word like "religion" is.

Andy



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