Greece Is | January 28th, 2016

UNESCO has declared 2016 the Aristotle Anniversary Year to mark the philosopher’s 2,400th birthday.

The declaration marks the culmination of a process that began in 2013, when the Interdisciplinary Centre for Aristotle Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki took the initiative to organize a world congress in May 2016 to mark 2,400 years since the birth of the great Greek philosopher and scientist.

The initiative was then adopted by the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO, which formally submitted the proposal for 2016 to be proclaimed Aristotle Anniversary Year.

To mark the event, the Interdisciplinary Center for Aristotle Studies is hosting the Aristotle World Congress at the university on May 23–28, 2016. A prominent line-up of international modern-day philosophers is expected to attend, with 25 speakers from nine countries having already confirmed.

Leading researchers will present their work on the great thinker at the university and in Aristotle’s birthplace of ancientStagira in Halkidiki, where he was born in 384 BC, as well as in ancient Mieza, where he taught Alexander the Great.

“The proclamation of 2016 as the Aristotle Anniversary Year by UNESCO honors the significant work of Aristotle and him as a person. The impact of his work is unique in terms of its influence on the history of human thought. His influence continues to be present in the intellectual evolution of Western civilization.” said Professor Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou, president of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Aristotle Studies.

Aristotle joined the academy of another celebrated Greek philosopher, Plato, at the age of 18, remaining there until he turned 37. After his teacher died, he left Athens and, in 343 BC, at the request of Philip of Macedon, began tutoring the king’s son, Alexander.

read more: http://www.greece-is.com/news/happy-2400th-birthday-aristotle/

Though Aristotle made a few blunders, we have not improved much on his tactics. Most of our politicians rely on the Aristotolian values of wafty discourse and "reason" (they don't have much of this either) rather than base their policies on the evidence of sciences. We're screwed.

It's me. I know. I tend to disagree with things. And people. And people professing things I disagree with. But not entirely. Thus here I have grand reservations about my own opinions. Caveat Emptor. My opinions could be deficient but I will try to sell them anyway for free. 

Most emeritus Emperor of university sell their opinions for a chair. Today is about secularity.  and they waft with the ease of a red-bellied snake through the grass of democracy.

In all our discourse on secularity we need to look at proportions and influence of proportions on the system of secularity. 

Let me state: religion stinks. 

Okay, I've said it. It comes from the heart. Religions have been the crutches of humanity for millennia. And by crutches I mean illusive screwed-up interpretations of reality. And by religions I mean the main drivers of loonies in the Abrahamic sphere. I am not shy of calling a spade a shit-shovel. 

These crutches only survive these days to give us reasons to fight each other and kill each other with love and righteousness. Righteousness lives in our stools. It breed like a bacterium infection. 

The basic tenet of religious beliefs is to take us away from understanding our earthly origins. 

Under these tenets, we cannot be evolved from the same ancestors as monkeys, as we are the fallen angels of god because someone screwed up at the beginning. It's a ludicrous concept but it has giganormous traction with about 2.6 billion people which represent 27 per cent of humanity on this fragile planet. Of the rest, some believe nothing, while others believe that Vishnu and voodoo takes care of our mortal remains, We're offended to really appreciate the worms will do it. No kidding. We're loonies. And most of the Abrahamic people control the loot.

So we build moats of ignorance with walls of beliefs that we defend with crosses, six pointed stars and moon crescents.

It's not very knowledgeable. It's very ignoramus based with sacred book to confirm the glory of being ignorant. 

So how can we create a "secular" society when some of us (too many of us) believe shit?

And of course there are the merchants of this crap. They survive by selling religious mumbo jumbo. It's their trade. They sell the concept of your immortality. You're welcome. It's only money. But they can go far too far.

For example the decimation of the climate change unit at the CSIRO has been religiously inspired. They will talk of not having the cash to sustain the research but the underlying reason is that Tony Abbott chose Larry Marshall to destroy sciences, with a cover to develop "technology". Bullshit. Tony Abbott is a god creature. Lying, devious, vengeful. That is god in the bible. Lying, devious, vengeful. The secularity of government has been highjacked. Same with the chaplains in public schools. Meanwhile Turdbutt is wishy washy... He is not prepared to step in because his own god is cash. 

So, bugger off. 

Democracy and secularity are overcome by religious caca. So when some philosopher from Canada comes here with oodles of recognition for being a philosopher of note, I shriek in diverse frustration. Yet another bleeding heart that make us accept diversity — as we all should —but doesn't recognise that secularity is too weak, not to be infiltrated with the massive fire power of religious bullshit. We can do better than this and reduce the influence of religion in our social make up.

So the philosopher Charles Taylor preaches ecumenical mix between the forces of religious godliness and the concept of laicité: 

In both France and Quebec, this has generated the appeal to Laicite, or secularism, as a key principle of our society, one which is allegedly threatened by certain immigrants.

Of course, this slippage into false moralization was aided and abetted by the geopolitical threat of miltant jihadism. But this should have been - and in another situation would have been - an additional motivation to make the essential distinction between pious, practising Muslims as such and jihadis: the first can be the allies of our society against the second. In fact, the rhetoric of Laicite has tended to elide the two.

Here we have a classic case of democracy turning against itself. We might say, its "immune system," which should be detecting betrayals of its ethic, is turned against potentially "friendly" cells. So that democracy generates exclusion when its "immune system" turns against itself. This is what we are witnessing today in France and Quebec, as well as other Western societies.

How to combat this? First, it is important to fight for lucidity and for better definitions of secularism. Secondly, it is vital that we accept that our political identity is always going to need redefinition as our population renews itself - not just through immigration, but also by the coming of new generations of young people, with their own shifts in identity.

Let me conclude by saying something further about secularism. Everyone agrees today that modern, diverse democracies have to be secular, in some sense of this term. But what sense? The term (along with the corresponding French term laicite, and its derivatives) has more than one sense. There are in fact many different meanings, but I believe that we can get to a crucial issue if we single out two key conceptions:

• On one view, secularism is mainly concerned with controlling religion. Its task is to define the place of religion in public life, and to keep it firmly in this location. This doesn't need to involve strife or repression, provided various religious actors understand and respect these limits. But the various rules and measures which make up the secularist (or laique) regime all have this basic purpose.
• On the other view, the main point of a secularist regime is to manage the religious and metaphysical-philosophical diversity of views (including non-and anti-religious views) fairly and democratically. Of course, this task will include setting certain limits to religiously-motivated action in the public sphere, but it will also involve similar limits on those espousing non- or anti-religious philosophies. (For instance, the degree to which either can discriminate in certain relations, like hiring). For this view, religion is not the prime focus of secularism.

It seems clear to me that the second is much superior to the first, at least for our time. The popularity of the first is to be explained by certain Western histories of struggle in which secularist regimes came to be. But our present predicament is for the most part rather different than the one which generated these conflicts. It is above all, one of growing diversity in all Western democracies. For these reasons, the second is more appropriate.

Charles Taylor is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University, Montreal, and one of the world's most celebrated living philosophers. He is the recipient of the Kyoto Prize for Arts and Philosophy, the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities and, most recently, the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity granted by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Religion stinks. Not a single mention of sciences in this article by the emeritously famous prof. 

Gus "believes" (knows)  that sciences can give us clues as to the make up of our universe contrary to the religious beliefs that can easily be unpicked by knowledge and simple observation. But we stick with the easy fluff because let's face it it's easy. Religion is easy. It's the lazy option to be human. 

But in any circumstances, though we need to be accepting of all, we cannot let the merchants of religious beliefs take over — or influence — the secularity of our present and next generations. 

I am angry. I am angry because we're trying hard to destroy the future of this planet by various means, including religion. And this "philosopher is part of the plot to destroy this planet. I am angry because pseudo-philosophers like Charles Taylor miss the point of secularity by a million light years and I could be out by a couple centimetres. And I'm the one who will get the brickbats.

Angry!

Seeing the world through pain, contentment and limit of self-existence rather than explore illusions of an eternity of supplies in goods and transcendental excuses could be an ascetic philosophy accepting of relative nihilism. Too real. True real. As human, with deceit and delusion on our subconscious mind, we feel we need to gild the lily. 

Big Corp is good at gilding the lily. Comforts. Promises of heaven on earth for those with cash. Work, steal, save, spend on credit. Cash can be hidden like a pirate's treasure on a tropical island. Offshore. Exciting... The young of today will be lured by the real cash-game far more than we used to be, because we have educated them to enjoy the trappings of cash, while we played with cardboard boxes at their age. No-one in the Western world wants to go back and live by candlelight and eat cold stew. We've had our iPhones, cars and fashionable clothes. Of course, at the time of candlesticks, the kings and queens enjoyed better trappings including better wigs and perfumed laced handkerchiefs than the rest of us because we lived downstairs or at the pig farm. 

So, in the law of proportions, there will be a certain amount of people prepared to follow the nazis. It gives a neat purpose, cash and a regular bowel motion with a clear conscience derived from a devoted decision. Same with religious fervour with mercantilism adaptation.

Big Corp has nazi-like tactics with subtleties in the delivery of the quasi-religious message. It knows it cannot catch all the people, but even a small minority of buyers can result in big profits. In the case of oil, gas and coal, the buying base is basically 99.9 per cent of the population. We are all hooked. So even if a small proportion of us managed to live happily in a bear cave, this would not make a dint in Big Corp's mill.

What makes a dint in Big Corp's philosophy is the growing realisation that Big Corp's resource of stuff is limited — or dangerous — and that our religious devotion to consumerism needs to realise god had nothing to do with this universe. 

The "devil" made us do it. The real cost of Big Corp discounted prices is that we are destroying the natural balance of this planet. And global warming is one of the problems. A major one. There is no more time for Big Corp to carry on as usual without dangerous pay-back. We need to find a solution for Big Corp that is sustainable and non fossil fuel based. The rest is okay. "Big Corp, you can steal from me as long as long as you don't destroy the place. Thank you."

Put your thinking cap on. Find new ethical ways to rob us (it's only cash — mostly on credit), as long as you don't thrash the planet. Easy.

No one has a better handle on the effect climate deniers have on the socio-political stage than science historian and author Naomi Oreskes.
 
Her book Merchants of Doubt charts the path of many of the world’s most notorious deniers, skeptics, shills, PR men and experts-for-hire. Plus, as a trained historian and professor of earth and environmental sciences at Harvard, Oreskes has the ability to take a 10,000-foot view when it comes to climate politics and the turning tide of public opinion.
 
Oreskes recently visited Vancouver to discuss climate change and climate denial in Canada at a talk organized by thePeter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.  
 
For Oreskes, understanding how climate denial is active in places like Canada involves acknowledging the expansiveness of climate change as an issue, one that cuts across boundaries between government, society and market power.
 
We asked Oreskes what she makes of Canada’s current political situation — a situation in which our  prime minister announces impressive climate targets on the world stage but then quietly approves B.C.’s first LNG export terminal on a Friday afternoon.
 
“Of course there is a long road ahead,” Oreskes said. “[Climate change] is a very big issue that reaches into economics, politics and culture.”

Although new governments on both the provincial and federal level have reinvigorated the prospect of nationwide climate action, Canada has yet to make substantial headway in limiting carbon pollution, Oreskes admits.
 
A February report from Environment and Climate Change Canada shows the country is not on track to meet its climate targets. Development of oil and gas in both Alberta and B.C. is expected to prevent Canada from getting back on course.
 
Oreskes says straight-up climate denial is less visible in Canada than it once was, but that doesn’t mean the interests of the fossil fuel industry have disappeared.
 
A new form of climate denialism is at work, Oreskes argues, one meant to persuade the public that fossil fuels are necessary and renewables unreliable. Alternatives to fossil fuels, Oreskes recently wrote in The Guardian, “are disparaged by a new generation of myths.”
 
Those myths include the idea that countries like Canada are dependent on new fossil fuel infrastructure for prosperity.
 
Canada has been beset by a new collective of industry advocacy groups, like British Columbians for Prosperity,Resource Works, Canada Action and Oil Respect, that advance this kind of thinking.
 
Asked what Canadians should be on the lookout for, knowing that climate denial groups and pro-industry organizations continue to advance a fossil fuel agenda, Oreske said awareness is the first step.
 
“A lot of groups now are saying, well, yes, maybe there is a bit of climate change, but we can't afford not to fill in the blank: develop tar sands, frack for gas, build new pipelines, etc.”
 
“This is not a new argument,” Oreskes added. “We've heard it since the early 1990s. I wrote about it back in the 2000s. But we can expect it to be made more strongly post Paris.”
 
The myths don’t stop there, Oreskes said.
 
“We are also seeing a line of argument that goes like this: yes renewables are nice, but they are too intermittent and unreliable to be our primary source of power.”
 
“There are several important recent studies that show this is not true, especially in North America where we have so much solar, wind and hydro.”
 
One such study, recently published by The Solutions Project research team at Stanford University, outlines howCanada could achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2050 with a mixture of solar, wind, existing hydro, wave and geothermal energy.
 
The idea that renewables aren’t reliable has gained a lot of traction, Oreskes said. She added a particularly “egregious and sexist version” of that argument was on full display in Shell’s highly criticized video campaign that compared renewable energy to a fickle woman.
 
According to a new report by the UK-based Influence Map, Shell spent USD$22 million in 2015 lobbying against climate legislation.
 
Despite industry-sponsored attacks on clean energy, renewables have taken off in recent years. Nearly $500 billionwas invested in clean energy in 2015.
 
But that figure is overshadowed by global fossil fuel subsidies. The International Monetary Fund estimates government subsidized the fossil fuel sector to the tune of USD$5.3 trillion in 2015 by failing to charge for the climate, environmental and human health impacts of oil, gas and coal combustion.
 
Oreskes cautions that “because energy is not a free market” we cannot simply rely on market mechanisms to solve the climate conundrum.
 
“Fossil fuels are still gigantically subsidized,” she said. “So we need to eliminate those subsidies.”
 
Oreskes added these combined social and political influences driving fossil fuel interests make it dangerous to think the era of climate denial has come to an end.
 
“It ain't over till its over.”  

http://www.desmog.ca/2016/04/07/naomi-oreskes-new-form-climate-denialism-work-canada