Talk:Living Together/Table of content

Questions

• What about the spritual/religious aspect? --Nad 12:48, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

What excactly do you mean? do you mean if religion and spirituality in general will have a place in the paper or do you have something specific in mind? Thx for setting the links!--Flower 13:09, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

Just thinking that it's an important thing to cover since its often difficult for people of different religeons to live/work together - also about ethics/morals of a system etc. --Nad 14:19, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

i totally agree that it should be somehow included. spirituality would be covered under 3.1. with religion its a bit more tricky cause we often are confused about what religion is. this is not so true for budhism (and possibly others im not aware of) but very true for e.g. christianity where the church plays a very strong role and actually is quite different to the actual religion. dont know though if this conflict needs to be talked about in the paper...is this what you thought should be covered within the paper? or do you think i do need to talk more specific about religion in specific? i think they are far more the same than they would admit anyways, but guess that could be a whole other 100 pages:)--Flower 16:58, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

"Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization." - William Irwin Thompson, yogi, historian

in a sense, the project in itself fits the definition of a "religion": "... a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought. " --Phalseid

consider also incorporating with the concept of "lifestyles"/"brands"/"nationalism"/"team"...things we as humans tend to identify ourselves with. i don't know if it reductionist to include spirituality in this mix, but to me religion (that which binds) is another attribute that can either blind us or free us. --Phalseid

i agree. i also would see the project as a form of religion (in its original meaning as something that binds and frees us as you said) not too sure about the concepts you mentioned though. nationalism would be somehow covered under 2.2.3. lifestyle is a rather abstract concept as it changes very quickly and is closely related to branding, marketing and advertising, but also to tv programs. what do you mean by team?--Flower 16:58, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

I was linking all things that "identify" us in a broad sense. what our world view is, what our philosophy is, what football team we like and spend money on to identify with, what guild or clan we join on a RPG, our religion, our language, the clothes we wear, the cliques we form, etc. All these "attachments" could be called religion, I think.

The difference between religion and spirituality I would argue is private practice. (action/doing vs. simply "belief") I suggest the following: what makes us unique and intrinsically valuable is our "difference". I think if we focus on that difference between religion and spirituality, we might be able to steer clear of the minefield. On the other hand, we may not be able to cover this adequately without offending some religious sense, but the religious sense that would be offended is not "spiritual" --Phalseid 03:50, 26 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

see also: orthodox christian view of religion

That's not religion, that's ego - all the attributes that hang off the "I am" at the center, religion being just one aspect of them. The class/instance view of spirituality/religion as described in William Irwin Thompsons quote above is better.

the link above is in reference to flower's comment about the church (as a political entity) being different from the christian religion. the orthodox christian religion is by far the most "absolute" when it comes to defining truth, and presented the biggest obstacle in my conversion. I agree with irwin's quote above. my whole point though is to differentiate between "orthodoxy" and "orthopraxis" (in Judaism, Islam and Eastern Christianity . To paraphrase: faith (sprituality) without works is dead (religion). The project i think is a good example of mixture of West (codification) with East (mystery) --Phalseid 07:36, 27 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

• How can we define sustainability? what factors can we consider, how can we measure if something is sustainable?--Flower 13:12, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

Sustainability must come down to the ability to see things in terms of energy (resource) flow between systems and environment --Nad 14:19, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

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Comments

Wikipedia's Living Together article redirects to Cohabitation

i think the problem is that not much work has gone into this area on wikipedia yet and living together is understood in a very limited way. i understand living together in a global context. might get into that sometime on wikipedia...Flower 13:12, 25 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

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I've trouble to figure out what are the actual philosophical foundations of our society? any ideas?-- Flower 13:37, 16 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

This is a confusing issue because our societies "officially" have quite good philosophical foundations, see the constitution of the U.S. but in practise due to media propaganda and the education system it reduces down to simple competitiveness and consumption. It is difficult to ignore the issue of power here, in that those who are powerful will attempt to instil in the populace a philosophy which reinforces their power. I believe Michel Foucault has done some good work on power relations in society.

Overall, the philosophy of our society (btw., what does "our society" mean?) would be almost identical with the ideas promoted by the "Chicago school" of economics. The values of a competitive, consumption-focussed market system have replaced civic values to do with being a good citizen, etc. Also check out the work by Clare graves on spiral dynamics to compare the various levels of development in society, since society is not a uniform block which has the same values, rather there are different levels, which are generally structured from egotistical and impulsive to more holistic and inclusive.--Milan 13:21, 16 Nov 2006 (NZDT)

Thx for the input will check it out. i think i might actually think a bit further back and might get into aristoteles and plato, cause if i remember right they've written stuff we later used to set up our societies. regarding the q what i mean by 'our society' i only have a feeling for it right now, but im aware that i need to define this at some stage. so im afraid u gotta wait with that:)--Flower 13:37, 16 Nov 2006 (NZDT)