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Elements of Style

SolitaryWalker

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Well, I was hoping you'd take my criticisms on the first appearance of this post and parse it down / tailor it so as to be an actual personalized response to a posting, rather than just ripping another page out of your philosophical journal and slapping it online.



God is infinite and therefore is outside of human understanding. We can not understand what is infinite as we break things down into fragments of time, space, matter, heat, color.. etc. The real world (noumenal, don't know if you've heard this term before) doesnt have any of those qualities. Everything that we see in the world is filtered through our perceptions and because of this there are things like time, space, matter,color and heat. Hence the real God is out there where we cant experience him, therefore we filter His presence if he exists through our perceptions. Therefore if there is such a thing as Cosmic Purpose, we will never be able to experience it for its raw essence. This renders the design argument untenable. Even more so can be said for the 'divinely inspired ethics'. It is not possible for us to have direct knowledge of God's morality because we can not directly understand anything about him, let alone something so complex as morality. So we can not use religious testimony to discover how we should live our lives, we are still on our own, we are left with nothing but reason. In the light of this the Bible has gone down from sacred truth to a merely set of recommendations on what we should do. Yet if we examine human nature and build a sound ethical framework, we will see that our ethical framework will be along the same lines of what the Bible says. So it gives us good advice and does have something to do with God, but it is not God's word directly, but God's word through the perceptions of man. There are no absolute rules. The end here is erradicating evil and good people dont kill, steal or commit adultery, yet if you think you are good only because you dont do those things, you're obviously wrong. Surrendering yourself to God is what will make you good, not forcing yourself to not do those things for the reason that you dont understand like the Pharisees did. The Feminists cant say that God is a male chauvinist because all of those pesky rules are man made. God's idea is general and outside of human understanding, and because God is outside of human understanding, there is no reason for us to regard God as a He. There is only one law of God that we can be confident about. That is love your God, surrender to him and everything else will than be fine. Love thy neighbor is superfluous because if you love your God, God will put you into the position where you start to love your neighbor. We must have only one commandment--love thy God. Any more will open the door for Phariseenism.
 

Rajah

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Rajah Edits Seawolf - A First Pass

Wow! This has been a very instructive assignment. I started stripping things down. As I went on, I realized you made one, not especially profound, point:

We are limited by our senses.


To be fair, here's a slightly-longer version:


We cannot comprehend God, so we cannot prove he exists. In the Critique of Pure Reason and Religion, Kant asserted that if God exists at all, He is in the "noumenal" world. Kant explained that we cannot understand the noumenal world, or world "as it is." Our minds can only grasp the finite, "phenomenal" world.

Religions require dogma because they involve concepts we cannot comprehend by using our senses. Kant says God is (or resides in) the noumenal world. (You were unclear on this point, Seawolf.) When we try to understand the noumenal world, we necessarily translate it into what we can fathom -- the phenomenal world.

Everything we profess to know about God actually comes from our senses (we read about God; we see God, etc.). Unsurprisingly then, we imbue God with human characteristics. We put a human face on him. We make him act with compassion. We even make God share our tastes and prejudices. In essence, we impose ourselves on God. Anthropomorphism, though, ultimately fails because we recognize God is infinite, but our minds are finite.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Wow! This has been a very instructive assignment. I started stripping things down. As I went on, I realized you made one, not especially profound, point:

We are limited by our senses.


To be fair, here's a slightly-longer version:


We cannot comprehend God, so we cannot prove he exists. In the Critique of Pure Reason and Religion, Kant asserted that if God exists at all, He is in the "noumenal" world. Kant explained that we cannot understand the noumenal world, or world "as it is." Our minds can only grasp the finite, "phenomenal" world.

Religions require dogma because they involve concepts we cannot comprehend by using our senses. Kant says God is (or resides in) the noumenal world. (You were unclear on this point, Seawolf.) When we try to understand the noumenal world, we necessarily translate it into what we can fathom -- the phenomenal world.

Everything we profess to know about God actually comes from our senses (we read about God; we see God, etc.). Unsurprisingly then, we imbue God with human characteristics. We put a human face on him. We make him act with compassion. We even make God share our tastes and prejudices. In essence, we impose ourselves on God. Anthropomorphism, though, ultimately fails because we recognize God is infinite, but our minds are finite.

Yes this was Kant's groundbreaking discovery. That everything we have here is limited to our senses. It is indeed very profound because noone before him ever thought of this. Yet the way it is stated makes it sound so simplistic, but it truly is an insight of lofty depth.
 

Rajah

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Yes this was Kant's groundbreaking discovery. That everything we have here is limited to our senses. It is indeed very profound because noone before him ever thought of this. Yet the way it is stated makes it sound so simplistic, but it truly is an insight of lofty depth.
Then why do you want to hide it from everybody?
 

SolitaryWalker

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Then why do you want to hide it from everybody?


I am not, did you see how simply and clearly I tried to write about it? You yourself even thought that it was all just one point and not that profound of a one for that.
 

Totenkindly

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We cannot comprehend God, so we cannot prove he exists. In the Critique of Pure Reason and Religion, Kant asserted that if God exists at all, He is in the "noumenal" world. Kant explained that we cannot understand the noumenal world, or world "as it is." Our minds can only grasp the finite, "phenomenal" world.

Religions require dogma because they involve concepts we cannot comprehend by using our senses. Kant says God is (or resides in) the noumenal world. (You were unclear on this point, Seawolf.) When we try to understand the noumenal world, we necessarily translate it into what we can fathom -- the phenomenal world.

Everything we profess to know about God actually comes from our senses (we read about God; we see God, etc.). Unsurprisingly then, we imbue God with human characteristics. We put a human face on him. We make him act with compassion. We even make God share our tastes and prejudices. In essence, we impose ourselves on God. Anthropomorphism, though, ultimately fails because we recognize God is infinite, but our minds are finite.

Huh. I understood this even better! Very nice, Rajah (with an assist from SW, for motivating you to indulge).
 

Rajah

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I am not, did you see how simply and clearly I tried to write about it? You yourself even thought that it was all just one point and not that profound of a one for that.
I had to sort through all of it to get to the one point. It's work. It took a while before I went, "Shit... there's really just the one point."

That's why you need an editor.

Believe me, I am more than able to use flowery words. In fact, it's how I made easy As through high school and college. It's far more difficult to strip things down and make them easily-digestible.
 

Geoff

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Agreed. The big words just come across as intellectual snobbery mixed with an attempt to appear more intelligent than we are. The point of communication *should be* to be understood by our audience....

-Geoff
 

SolitaryWalker

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I had to sort through all of it to get to the one point. It's work. It took a while before I went, "Shit... there's really just the one point."

That's why you need an editor.

Believe me, I am more than able to use flowery words. In fact, it's how I made easy As through high school and college. It's far more difficult to strip things down and make them easily-digestible.

I've been trying... I really have... you should of seen how much less clear my writing has been before..

And I agree that quality writing in philosophy is primarily about clarity ... and being succinct is a factor too...Truth is most beautiful when stated in as few words as possible.
 

Ivy

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I've been trying... I really have... you should of seen how much less clear my writing has been before..

And I agree that quality writing in philosophy is primarily about clarity ... and being succinct is a factor too...Truth is most beautiful when stated in as few words as possible.

Yes. Look THAT up in your Strunk & White. :)

Seriously, have you read Elements of Style? It's appropriately short and a great read. I would never have believed anybody who told me a style guide could be a good read, but it really is delightfully written.

And I can tell you're working on it.
 

Rajah

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I've been trying... I really have... you should of seen how much less clear my writing has been before..

And I agree that quality writing in philosophy is primarily about clarity ... and being succinct is a factor too...Truth is most beautiful when stated in as few words as possible.
(I know I'm derailing the thread... sorry. I'd split the thread, but I can't. ;) )

Especially if you're apt with language, it's hard to delete a particularly good turn of phrase. I look at it like cleaning house. Write it, and strip out anything unnecessary, down to the last comma. And don't fall in love with what you've written.

I know I can make my revision one or two paragraphs, but I'm also trying to do actual, paid work simultaneously. ;)
 

Rajah

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Hmpf, Ms. Powerwielder.


Maybe the original revision, for context? ;)


EDIT - Color me impressed! I knew you'd do it, anyway. You're awesome.
 

Totenkindly

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I've been trying... I really have... you should of seen how much less clear my writing has been before..

Well, I'll agree with that. I noticed your efforts. And it's also a long process, to learn to think in a different way and then condense stuff to retain coherence/truth and decide what level of nuance might be unnecessary.

One thing to always consider is your audience.

And I agree that quality writing in philosophy is primarily about clarity ... and being succinct is a factor too...Truth is most beautiful when stated in as few words as possible.

See? he is an INTP, he is, he is! (Or he's just trying to trick us.)
 

Geoff

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(I know I'm derailing the thread... sorry. I'd split the thread, but I can't. ;) )

Especially if you're apt with language, it's hard to delete a particularly good turn of phrase. I look at it like cleaning house. Write it, and strip out anything unnecessary, down to the last comma. And don't fall in love with what you've written.

I know I can make my revision one or two paragraphs, but I'm also trying to do actual, paid work simultaneously. ;)

Working in a professional environment helps, don't you find? I write "clever" pieces that are crossed through by an editor (boss) and then I do the same to others.

At the end of the day, it is about getting the point across in a succint accurate way. Using a word that few understand should be a last resort, if a more widely understood one will not suffice.

Of course, it's also fun to write on multiple levels, to see if people pick a subtext, but get the basics right first.

-Geoff
 

Rajah

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Working in a professional environment helps, don't you find?
Legal training definitely helped. It makes me wonder why lawyers are, on the whole, such terrible writers.

Actually, my first foray into editing was in eleventh grade. I took a Writing II class that focused only on editing -- how to strip things down to their essence.

It was the most useful class I've ever had.
 

rivercrow

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I'll say the same about my technical editing class and (to a lesser degree) about the user documents classes.

Seems to have helped my creative writing, too.
 

Geoff

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Legal training definitely helped. It makes me wonder why lawyers are, on the whole, such terrible writers.

Could it be because the legal profession attracts some quite pompous rule obsessed naysayers? Sorry, I don't include you in that.. but it does, right? Regardless of the training they just like to witter on in a pompous manner sometimes.

Also, many legal firms seem to charge by the page. Never a good idea when balancing that with succintness. That certainly used to be the case, but maybe is less common in today's email world?

-Geoff
 

rivercrow

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I suspect it has to do with learning to temper iNtuiting with Sensing in your writing.
 
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