on discussing god and religion

As I had stated this is a separate topic which need to be discussed in a separate thread within the Philosophy of Morality.
I believed I have discussed parts of this in various posts but as usual your memory is failing you. e.g. [a quick search]
viewtopic.php?p=2629864#p2629864

He obviously remembered, he mentioned the Yin Yang thing above in this post you quote, then say his memory is failing him.

Here is the post you link to that you think explains something…

First off, to say that something is resolved by Kant is a mere appeal to authority. It doesn’t demonstrate anything. Kant could have been wrong, for example, which many modern philosophers believe. Your ‘explanation’ in the bolded portion is as mystical as anything from, say, St. Teresa.

I fully understand what I stated re Kant is merely a statement and ultimately my point must be justified.
This is not the place but I am fully prepared to justify my point where appropriate. Note I spent >3 years researching on Kant on a full time basis and I have a reasonable understanding of his philosophies.
It is not easy to understand Kant philosophy and the majority of philosophy do not understand Kant’s philosophy fully. Even those who are Kantian and pro-Kant end up having different interpretations of Kant’s philosophy, e.g. on the concept of the thing-in-itself aka noumenon.

The majority of philosophers understand Kant’s morality as deontological, but this is totally wrong.

That’s precisely why I want to bring all of this down to a particular context. I’m confused regarding your point here. Are you arguing that conflicting goods do in fact exist [here and now] but that, in the future, by embodying “progressive Middle-Way” behaviors, mere mortals [in a No God world] can interact sans conflict? Or are you arguing that if the conflicting goods are still around in the future rational men and women can choose to behave such that they will necessarily embody right rather than wrong behaviors?

In other words, what on earth does this…

Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview which has one god, more than one god, or none. - wiki

…have to do with the conflicting goods embedded [here and now] in an issue like abortion?

Conflicting goods will always exists, i.e. Yin -Yang, Black and White, P and -P.

In a No God world in the future, duality will still exists but the human emotional and psychological interaction with such conflicting goods will be different.
Instead of clinging to either one extreme or the other extreme, the future rational men and women with interact with conflicting goods in a complementary Middle-Way.

It is like walking on a tight rope with strong winds blowing.
The effective Middle-Way approach is to tilt up to the maximal right or left as necessary to maintain balance without falling but each time one strive to get back to the middle.
But if one were to merely lean only to the one side at the edge and limit, one is most likely to fall from the tight rope.

Not sure of your point?

As I had stated with an issue of abortion ‘here and now,’ if one do not have the competent skills to deal with its conflicting goods, there is nothing much one can do except to do one’s best based on whatever skill has and accept the associated mental pains.

It is just like a person who is not a skilled tight-rope-walker and being place on a tight rope and forced to walk across, thus wobbling all the way with fears or even fall to death.

Re the case of abortion, the solution in the near future is to develop the psychological skills to deal with it. In the later future humanity will strive for ZERO unwanted pregnancies [via a feasible master plan] so there is no issue related to ‘abortion’ at all.

In the future whilst humanity has solved the abortion issue, Moral Dualism will still exists as I had stated P and -P in other scenarios will always exist to be dealt with. But in the future rational man and woman will not be heavily effected psychological and emotionally by dualism.

For other issues it is not the case that rational/wiser people will always do the right thing in the future, they will still commit wrongs but their acts will be net-positively right plus they have a model and system to continually improve on the wrongs to the minimal.

Okay, if they will always exist in this No God world of the future, then philosophers [using the tools at their disposal] are either able to encompass the optimal behaviors for those who wish to be thought of as rational, or one or another combination of the factors that I note will become embodied [subjectively/subjunctively] in particular [and often conflicting] existential narratives.

Narratives that will necessarily continue to evolve in a world of contingency, chance and change.

Perhaps, but [so far] only in this “world of words” that you construct in your head. You have given us no arguments from which we can imagine/visualize these “complementary Middle-Way” behaviors pertaining to an issue like abortion.

Note to others:

If you believe that he has please note/link them.

I’ll bet it is.

But I repeat myself: What on earth does this mean?

You speak of “competent skills” in a No God world as though this is not based entirely on an objectivist of your ilk persuading a moral nihilist of my ilk that this does indeed revolve around your own list of prescriptive and proscriptive behaviors.

Which you will not focus the beam on in the manner in which I argue is more likely to make your point clearer to, among others, those fierce combatants outside the abortion clinic.

How would a “moral dualist” approach the issue of gun control? What would he or she note to the students and the parents at Parkland High School in Florida?

Should they aim more in the direction of banning assault rifles, or, instead, focus their attention on developing the “psychological skills” needed to cope with these tragedies? Or come up with the optimal combination of both.

From my own frame of mind [and that’s all it is, an existential prejudice] this simply comes off as yet another “general decription” of words defining and defending other words. It almost seems like psychobabble to me.

This:

Psychobabble: a form of speech or writing that uses psychological jargon, buzzwords, and esoteric language to create an impression of truth or plausibility.

But, again, it’s not really connected to anything substantive. There is not an actual context we can turn to in order to test the relevancy or the applicability of the points being made.

I have done so in various posts. I don’t keep a record, so not easy for me to find them in this ‘haystack’.

It is something like centering yourself whenever one tilt to one extreme and to the other.

As humans we are vulnerable to be exposed or engaged in extreme opposites. i.e. conflicting [rival] goods or evil behaviors and thoughts. Thus we need to develop the necessary skills to get back to our center [being the most stable position psychologically].

E.g. if you are walking on tightrope with wind blowing from different sides and one is pushed to one side. Now if you do not make an attempt to adjust to the center line, then you are likely to be pushed to the extreme and fall.
The expert tightrope walker will always adjust him/herself back to the center at the slightest deviation to the side.

This is what will happen when one fail to center in tightrope walking or in living life.

Example:
Say I am within sight of a 10,000++ crowd of abortion protestors and fierce combatants in front of an abortion clinic.
What do you expect me to do?

If would be very stupid of me to get a megaphone and start philosophizing with them or convince each of them of the right thing to do there and then. This is what you expect me to do?

The wiser thing to do are the following;

  1. Let the authorities and the law to take care of the current situation
  2. Observe and listen to what is going on - keep my emotions in check.
  3. Research on the subject of abortion re For versus Against.
  4. Apply the Generic Problem Solving Technique to understand and find solutions.
  5. Proposed solutions to be implemented
  6. Check the results and control with objectives set

The processes of 3, 4 will take some time to arrive at consensus and 5 & 6 will take a longer time.
This is why I have to project my thoughts into the FUTURE and in this case the phases will take us into the future 50, 100 or > years.

In your case your are just ruminating and brooding over the problem and not taking any action nor proposing suggestions to resolve the problem -which can only be done in the FUTURE.
All you can do is to decry and cry - “I am stuck with existentialism.” [I believe you misunderstood the real essence of existentialism]

It is unfortunate you are stuck with psychobabble yourself.

Note I have sufficient philosophical knowledge to deal with any issues and most important is I am taking real actions example phase 1 to 5 of the above 1-6 process to contribute whatever I can to humanity.

What I proposed is not psychobabble because my suggestions are abstracted from real life proven empirical evidences.
There are many examples of results from Eastern spirituality and positive incremental trends real life moral/ethical issues, e.g. Chattel Slavery and others. The limitations is so far these approaches are based on the ‘black-box’ approaches without understanding the internal mechanisms.
However with the present trend of an exponential expansion of knowledge and technology, I am very optimistic humanity will be able to understand more details of the inner mechanisms of the black-box and thus be above to improve efficiency.

From my frame of mind, a typical leap from one general description to another. Here and now what would constitute the most stable position psychologically for a woman [Mary] with an unwanted pregnancy who agrues that it is her political right to abort the fetus. As oppose to, say, her boyfriend [the father, John] who argues that the most stable psychological position for the fetus is that it be allowed to come into this world as a newborn baby.

Consider: “in your head” here and now you imagine a future world where abortion ceases to exist. Why? Because in embracing your own rendition of “progressive Middle-Way” behaviors there is simply no need for them.

What I am still confused regarding however is how you would discuss this with John and Mary [who are not living in the future] so as to encourage them to come up with a way of dealing with this unwanted pregnancy. Unwanted only by Mary however.

E.g.? The tightrope walker up on the wire interacts with the elements in an entirely either/or world. He either defeats them or they defeat him.

Morality [in a No God world] is only relevant here when the argument shifts to, say, whether or not his family and loved ones are obligated to talk him out of it. Or whether or not the authorities ought to allow him to do this. Is it his right to risk death in this particular context?

Provide them with an argument able to convince them that while they clearly embrace “rival goods” here and now there is a way to think about abortion such that “in the future” the rival goods will no longer exists; or if they do exist there is a “generic Problem Solving Technique” that allows rational human beings to derive the optimal “progressive Middle-Way” human behaviors.

You have to start somewhere right? I just wish you would start with considerably more substance regarding the actual rival goods that are embraced here and now.

Instead, we get another intellectual contraption:

And then:

Meanwhile here and now the focus is still on either the “natural right” of the baby to be born or the “political right” of the mother to abort it. And the only way that goes away here and now is still in your head.

Let’s at least agree on that.

Or, if not, please advise me of how the “real action” that you are taking above has anything remotely to do with the arguments engaged by those outside the abortion clinic pertaining to the actual abortions unfolding inside the clinic.

Also, let’s get back to this:

[b]How would a “moral dualist” approach the issue of gun control? What would he or she note to the students and the parents at Parkland High School in Florida?

Should they aim more in the direction of banning assault rifles, or, instead, focus their attention on developing the “psychological skills” needed to cope with these tragedies? Or come up with the optimal combination of both.[/b]

What might the optimal combination of both sound like in a philosophical argument?

The assumption always being [between us] that this all unfolds in a No God world.

As I had stated wherever there is a problem we need to view it from various perspectives for the individuals, groups, and humanity in terms of the following;

  1. Past trends
  2. Present situation
  3. Future state

My focus so far is on the groups and for humanity, i.e. based on past trend and present situation, how can we prevent, reduce and eliminate the problem from emerging in the future in time [re being and time].

My focus is not on the individual because I am not personally entangled on the issue, i.e. for or against abortion.
I have personal experiences [some meeting while others do not MY expectations] with my children on other issues -albeit not as critical as the issue of abortion.

In a here and now situation, the following should be noted;

  1. Preferable one should have reasonable state of equanimity.
  2. Know Thyself - do you have the competence to give psychological counselling to another, if not you will need him/her to consult expert[s].
  3. Do your best but do not expect things to meet YOUR expectations.
  4. If the other person is an adult say over 18, if it is not a crime, s/he is entitled to the final decision.
  5. Before engaging the persons involved note their past, present historicity [da-sein and being in time] and future potentials.
  6. … and other necessary steps.

As for John & Mary, there is no way I know their Nature [DNA, etc], past, present historicity [da-sein and being in time] and future potentials, the most efficient approach is for me to propose the above generic systematic procedures.

As what you can do is to DO YOUR BEST re the issues surrounding John and Mary, and if you have done your best that is sufficient [how else??]. Whatever the final decisions and consequences [even if lives and deaths are involved] is up to them to face.

But from what I gathered, it is not so much as John and Mary’s having problems, but it is rather YOU having a problem with Mary’s decision. If you have done your best already, then you should not brood over whatever the consequences which is SPILT MILK.

So your problem SHOULD BE how to deal with Crying over Spilt Milk as the fundamental problem.

If Mary had already done the abortion, why do you cry over spilt milk. If you do, then you have a problem yourself.

The next strategy is to how ensure Mary do not encounter an unwanted pregnancy in the future.
If it is a lack of impulse control, so Mary has to develop impulse control but does Mary’s historicity [deep and complex] give her the potential to improve her impulse control? This do not necessary involve Mary only but also John who has to improve his impulse control re his sex drive and lust.
Note there are a ton of complex variables to deal with re how to ensure Mary do not end up with an unwanted pregnancy in the near future or within her fertile phase of life.

The basic critical requirement for anyone is a state of reasonable equanimity so that the person can be psychological stable to deal with any psychological problems. But for the present, do the person [based on past dasein - historicity] has the potential to develop a state of equanimity?

Note my default approach is always this;
If there is a problem, I will do my best to deal with the present with my present state of equanimity, but the focus is always on the future on how to prevent, reduce or eliminate the problem for the individual, group or humanity depending on the context.

I have mentioned before, I am not interested in a psychological counselling for the individual[s] within a forum like this.

The principle is for whatever problem [tightrope walking as one example] the critical task to get back to the center, i.e. centering and do not let one emotions and other negatives get to the extreme and cannot recover.
As I had mentioned, given a current situation [a combination of da-seins] the most is one must do his/her best based on one’s ability and once done, do not brood nor regret over the consequences even if it end up with death.

For example, if say despite all your advice but your only very beloved son insist on climbing Mt. Everest in a bad season knowing the high risk of death. Unfortunately the statistics of mortality actually strikes and he is dead. There will be grief, but one should get over it as soon as possible and do not brood nor regret one has not done enough.
If one do not know how to get back to the center norm, one’s grief could lead to terrible sadness, depression and subsequently suicide due to self-blaming, etc.

What I proposed above is the most optimal for an individual at present in facing the above problem.

Note counselling one person is already so complex, especially when you don’t have the counselling skill plus your philosophical database is so narrow and shallow.

My question to you is how can you counsel the 10,000++ individuals individually [of complex variables and historicity] to accept your views when their individual historicity is so complex? How??

This is why a rational and wiser person should consider the following;

  1. Let the authorities and the law to take care of the current situation
  2. Observe and listen to what is going on - keep my emotions in check.
  3. Research on the subject of abortion [or any issues] re For versus Against.
  4. Apply the Generic Problem Solving Technique to understand and find solutions.
  5. Proposed solutions to be implemented
  6. Check the results and control with objectives set

What is most critical is for one to stabilize one own beingness [da-sein] within one’s being [action] in time, past, now and future. The essential requirement is a state of reasonable equanimity.

I believe in the above case you are too objective and being an objectivist, i.e. worrying about objects [John, Mary, issue of abortion, etc.] that are external to you and not looking inward to review yourself as the interdependent subject.

Note my principle, one must always complement Yin-Yang, +/-, object with subject and drive spirally [being] within the Middle-Way through the past, present and future.

And you would tell them this:

From my frame of mind, this in no substantive way has anything to do with the fact that Mary had reasons [deemed sufficient to her] for aborting the baby and John had reasons [deemed sufficient to him] for bringing the baby to term.

Now, in your head, they would hear you out and come up with the most appropriate decision. But in their heads [and I was privy to that] your intellectual contraption above would have had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the conflicting existential narratives they pursued at the time.

Of course if the “Middle-Way progressive” behavior revolves around being celibate, then, sure, we can just blame it all of “impulse control”. They could have chosen to become practicing Catholics.

Still, the “spilt milk” back then would have been either the dead baby or Mary being forced to give birth.

Same with the tightrope walker. Getting back to the “center” up on the wire is either/or. Getting back to the center with regard to the moral conflict is is/ought. Didactically you bring the two into sync in your head. But only when you provide me with an argument able to convince me that I too can be in sync here, am I likely to be more understanding of the “intellectual” narrative you provide. Instead, all I grasp is something that you have carefully worked out only in your head.

When someone willingly risks death in a context that they have created themselves it is not only their own existence that is at stake. How much should the fate of others [wives, children, loved ones] be factored in here? How on earth would philosophers go about calculating it?

Again, my problem [and, admittedly, I may well be the problem] is that this seems to bear no substantive value/relevance regarding the conflicting arguments being made “here and now” by those on opposite sides of the gun control issue.

These arguments: gun-control.procon.org/

In the future, sure, there may well be an optimal frame of mind here. But what would that even begin to sound like given the reality of the conflicting goods here and now?

We would seem to be ever and always back to one or another combination of 1] might makes right 2] right makes might or 3] moderation, negotiation and compromise in a democracy sustained by a political tug of war embedded in the rule of law.

My suggestions were;

  1. you do the best you can given the ability and resources you have.
  2. Thereafter do not brood over the consequences
  3. Resolve to find measures to prevent future occurrences

If you are unable to do the above, then you are the one who is having a serious problem and thus will suffer for it.

So the critical problem is not John or Mary, or how it effect others, rather the problem is on you to learn how NOT to have the above attitude [worry to death sort of] so you can avoid sufferings.

Note this video re ‘The Suicide Forest’ which is about a man who go into the forest regularly to advise people who are about to commit suicide.
This is a very wise man who is very concern about the problem of suicides.
You will note the wise man there is did his very best given the circumstances to counsel those in a suicidal state but thereafter just leave the final decision to the person.
He could have used ‘might’ to pull the person out of the forest, but it a likely the very desperate would find other ways to commit suicide.

If the persons in the forest are his own ‘John’ or ‘Mary’ he would have done the same and hope for the best.

I believe it would be the same with other psychologist and psychiatric counsellors, i.e. they can only give the best advice and not be overwhelmed by the thoughts of the consequences.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDSdg09df8[/youtube]

There is nothing much you or I can do about it but do your best and do not be too emotional over the issue of gun-control.

As with the problem of killing of innocent by guns in the case of school-shooting, the critical root causes are these;

[list]1. The evil proneness and mental health of the killer
2. The availability of guns and the ease to own gun(s)
[/list:u]
Gun-control is basically a moral issue because innocent humans are killed.
The moral absolute is ‘No humans can kill another human being’.
(any exceptions to be done within ethics and the judiciary).

If we resolve the two root causes, then there will be NO more deliberate shooting of innocent people.
‘The evil proneness and mental health of the killer’ is a tougher root cause to deal with but nevertheless must be addressed.
Therefore the most optimal solution is to ensure only certain people [not all] are given licence to own or carry guns. This meant getting rid of the 2nd amendments and creating new laws to restrict gun ownership to special people only.

However at present, given the current psychological state of the majority, it is too complex to get rid of the 2nd amendment.
So what we can do is to do our best, i.e. pushing for stricter gun ownership, etc.
What is needed is for those concern to keep striving harder but what is fortunate is the moral drive to greater moral good is inherent in all humans.
Like illegality of “Chattel Slavery” in all Nations, in future gun ownership by private individuals [except very special cases] will be illegal in all nations.

There is already an existing trend of where gun ownership [with exceptions] is illegal in most countries as compared to 50, 100 or 200 years ago.
If I am not mistaken it is only few nations, i.e. the USA, Switzerland,Brazil, Canada and ? which has very permissive firearms policies.

So it is a matter of time [50, 75 or> years] the moral maxim of ‘no killing of another human being’ will prevail to make gun ownership by private individuals illegal [special exceptions] in all nations.

In the meantime, the most efficient stance you can take is do your best and do not be too emotional over the present state.

Your problem is your inability to reconcile reality-as-it-is with your troublesome mental expectations and thus suffers mentally.

And that is exactly what all the other moral/political/philosophical objectivists will advise in a No God world. Only their own understanding of “doing the best you can” will surely revolve around a different set of “progressive” behaviors.

Then what?

Well, then we have the future. It’s out there somewhere ready to determine which frame of mind was the optimal. If, in fact, any of them were. Or, perhaps, decades from now our species will still be embedded in interactions that pretty much revolve around the manner in which I construe the components of the “human condition” here.

Here and now though one thing stays exactly the same: objectivists left and right, religious and secular all clamoring to insist that the future starts – must start – with them.

As for your own political narrative pertaining to the gun control debate, that’s all it is: a bunch of subjective/subjunctive assumptions culminating in this:

So it is a matter of time [50, 75 or> years] the moral maxim of ‘no killing of another human being’ will prevail to make gun ownership by private individuals illegal [special exceptions] in all nations.

Now, how old will you be 50 years from now? I’m almost certain to be dead. So, I guess I’ll never know.

You, on the other hand, are able to obtain and then sustain “equanimity” here and now by simply knowing all of this is in the offing. Well, if everyone eventually does come around to your own political narrative here.

Note the truth [justified beliefs] will always prevails.
What is critical is whatever truths and possible truths in the future which I had proposed, it must be justified beliefs based an extensive and deep knowledge database.

Note there are many philosophers, scientists and others who had make certain truth claims and prediction for the future and they turn out to be true long after the predictors were dead.
Note the counter against the masses long ago on the flat Earth Theory, the heliocentric theory.

Note,
9 Incredible Historical Predictions That Actually Came True
rd.com/culture/historical-p … came-true/

Did those who predict the above worried it will not materialize in their lifetime?
What you implied above is these people should have shut up because what they predicted will not be determined/confirmed by them in their life time.
It is the same with the above where you imply my proposals are useless because you and I will not be around in the future to confirm whether they turn out to be true or not.

All you do is to condemn my proposals which are realizable in the future is ‘intellectual contraptions of the future’
To be credible, you should prove why my proposals cannot be true in the future.
So far you have not provided any credible arguments to support your stance.

It is very unfortunate you are caught in such paralyzed stated of mind.
I believe your current state of mind in going against justified beliefs in the future is very inhuman, i.e. unnatural. What is natural to humanity is the drive to expand their horizon and this is so empirically evident since humans first emerged from Africa to colonize the whole Earth and the corresponding expansion of knowledge in all fields.

What I can reduce the whole mess you are in is this;

1. If you are caught and entangled with the issue.
Say, if you are unfortunately caught with some terrible fatal allergy.
If you want to ask me [say, an expert on allergy] for my opinion or solution, I can only offer the best solution based on the whatever knowledge base I have.
If you disagree with me, then you still have to resolve your allergy as soon as possible, by seeking solution else where.
The point here is you MUST take action to save yourself or suffer the consequences.
If you are a normal rational person you will take action.

But with our current discussion on the various issues, whatever solution that is offered by me or anyone else, you complain the solutions are merely “intellectual contraption” and that is not based on any reasonable views nor arguments but merely based on your psychological blindness.
To be normal, if you cannot accept the solution of others, then you will have at least come up with your own views and solution.
But your response is you cannot offer yourself any solutions because you are stuck in a hole [dilemma] and you are also psychologically paralyzed to accept an external ideas and proposed solution.

From the above, there is something terrible wrong with your mind with that sort of paralysis.
If you ever have suicidal tendencies, then no one will be able to talk you out of it and the consequences will be very mortally fatal.

2. If you are not caught personally and directly with the issue.
In this case, you are not personally suffering from that fatal allergy but you have introduced the subject as a serious problem to humanity and thus seek to discuss the issue.

In such a discussion, what will arise is a study of the past to find the root causes and proposals to prevent the problem from recurring in the future. In such a situation, those discussing should not too emotional on one’s views or the counter views of others.

Since this is discussion of a subject, you have not offerred your alternative views.
Your response to my views is the same of ‘intellectual contraption’ similarly to those of the objectivists.

Since I have uncovered your intellectual paralysis, I believe I have participated enough in this discussion and leave you to your destined fate [hopefully it turn out good].

Again, all I can do here is to note that, yet again, your entire argument is embedded in a general description of human interactions embedded further in your own particular political prejudices regarding the relationship between the present and the future.

Note that the manner in which you note that “the truth [justified beliefs] will always prevail” is entirely predicated on others embracing the assumptions that you provide them with in yet another intellectual contraption. After all, how is a “fatal allergy” not embodied in the either/or world?

No, only when you are willing to take this numbingly didactic/scholastic contraption of yours down out of the clouds [in a No God world] and flesh it out/defend it pertaining to a context [here and now] that we might all be familiar with is this discussion likely to become, say, substantive?

Consider: It’s not for nothing that the nine historical predictions you link us too revolve entirely around components of the either/or world. Sure, there, something predicted either can be realized or it can’t.

But let these folks at Reader’s Digest predict the outcome of the great moral and political debates that have plagued the species now going all the way back to the caves.

Just not in the manner in which you “predict” the future: my way or the highway.

Besides, five will get you ten their predictions in the is/ought world will revolve around their generally conservative political prejudices.

I believe quitting is a matter of wisdom, i.e. taking the wiser choice.

It is like seeing a drowning person in the middle of a deep lake.
If one assess the drowning person is struggling like mad, it would be very stupid to try to save him/her due to the likelihood s/he will grip so hard and pull the life-saver down as well.

Okay, quitting.

Note the context. Note that which you are able to demonstrate to others as the embodiment of the “wiser choice”. Why yours and not theirs?

Again, we may be able to establish that someone has in fact quit in their attempts to demonstrate to others that we live in either a God or a No god world.

But how do we then demonstrate that in fact we do live in a God or a No God world?

How we establish that in fact others are obligated to embrace our own narrative here if they wish to be thought of as a rational human being?

Here we can try to assertain what the facts are. But only to the best of our ability. After all, even with regard to actual facts in the either/or world, only God is privy to all of them.

Mere mortals, on the other hand, can only speculate as to what is actually unfolding in the middle of the lake.

So, when someone broaches the question, “are we morally obligated to make an attempt at rescue?” there will almost certainly be any number of conflicting narratives.

Yet in a God world, we must take into account the judgment of God here.

While in a No God world who is really to say what our moral obligation is?

You with your assessment of the “wiser choice”?

This part will always be fascinating: Deciding essentially on exactly what the existential parameters of God actually are.

Once, for the sake of argument, we agree that a God, the God does exist then we have to pin God down.

What exactly does it mean to be God? How is the existence of God to be embedded in or become the foundation for the existence of existence itself? Is or is not God omniscient and omnipotent? Is or is not God constrained by the immutable laws of matter?

Does everything exist as it does because that is simply the only way in which it ever could have existed…including God? Or did God choose for it to be that way? And why that way and not some other way? Why quasars and black holes and dark matter and dark energy…and the staggering distances between celestial bodies?

And is it really all just for us here on Earth?

Sure, that’s a rather comforting way to think about it. God as this ecumenical Dude combining bits and pieces of all the different denominations into one or another rendition of “can’t we all just get along”.

But that still leaves the part about deciding which bits and pieces are going to be enacted into legislation [rules of behavior] that does in fact proscribe actual behaviors. Behaviors that are either embraced or excoriated by folks all along the moral and political spectrum.

Sure, up in the clouds of “general description”, it’s nice to imagine the way the world could be if God and religion were reduced down to the “good of society”.

But all we need do is to go here – viewforum.php?f=3 – and peruse the arguments of, among others, the liberals and the conservatives. You know, in order to imagine just how far that would go “in reality”.

And that’s before you get to folks like me who argue that we appear to live in an essentially absurd and meaningless world on this side of the grave, ending for all of eternity in oblivion on the other side of it.

So, maybe the “best of all possible worlds” for most folks here is that at least they’re not me! [-o<

Yet.

Actually, I am not at all familiar with Abraham as either a “historical figure” or as the “father” of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

And I certainly have no opinion as to whether or not he was a “cuck”.

No, instead, I’d like to probe the extent to which Abraham and those who follow him can be described as “spiritual nihilists”.

How on earth can anyone who believes in such things as a “spirit” or a “soul” or a “God” be ascribed qualities that come anywhere near nihilism?

On the contrary, it seems here that nilhilism is being twisted into an intellectual contraption. One such that it is only to be understood to further the particular political prejudices of yet another objectivist.

Nihilism defined into existence such that you either share his own meaning or you are said to be stupidly ignorant of the one truly “natural” way in which to grasp it.

Me, I start with the assumption that nihilism revolves around living in a world that, in terms of value judgments [religious or otherwise], human interactions are essentially meaningless and absurd. There does not appear to be a font – religious, philosophical, scientific, political – enabling mere mortals to make that crucial distinction between “the right thing to do” and “the wrong thing to do”.

Instead, my own moral narrative [in a No God world] revolves more around the manner in which Richard Rorty construed “ironism”:

* She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered;
*She realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
*Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself.

From this perspective then how might one grapple with “Abrahamic spiritual nihilism”.

Anyone care to comment? object?

The first two items might simply indicate they are a dualist. That there are non-physical components to reality, in this case dealing with the individual. Reality could still be pointless, allowing no way to determine morals, etc. I could easily see someone who believed in the mechanics and ontology of hinduism being a nihilist. Brahma for some reason breaks himself up into individual souls, who suffer, reincarnate, finally over time realize they are pieces of Brahma and rejoin Brahma. And this will go on forever. No morals, point, lots of suffering in the endless process. Of course most believers see this process as divine and good and that Brahma (and by proxy we) gain something from this leaving and returning that is good. But it is not a necessary condition of the ontology.

Certainly Calvinists with predestination could also be nihilists. Of course most are not, or will not admit it. But where the outcome is determined in advance - people are predestined to go to hell or heaven - morals have no point and life is absurd.

A person believing in Buddhist ontology, or really in one of the many Buddhist ontologies, might easily also be a nihilist for similar reasons to the possible Hindu I mentioned above.

You have doubts about the vocabulary you use? Why is it always the same, then?

So when you say that you think that human interactions are ‘absurd and meaningless’, when you use that particular vocabulary, you do not think those terms are closer to reality than the terms other people use to describe life, even those that contradict those words and your vocabulary? If you do not think they are closer to reality, why keep using them? Why say you think X, if you think X is not closer to reality than Y that, say, a religious person uses or a non-nihilist?

I went more general. I could probably come up with a way to describe what that specific kind of nihilism might be, but the meta-level objections and questions seemed more clear.