On the other hand, where exactly does ontology end and teleology begin here? If teleology is even a factor at all. Ultimately [whatever that means], I think most of this revolves around the fact that we are creatures who know that we are going to die. And [for some of us] it seems likely that “I” is obliterated. As in utterly.
So, if someone is actually able to come up with an argument that can make sense of something rather than nothing and this something rather than another something, there’s a really, really, really slim chance that we can scale this nothingness back to a frame of mind that is a little less terrifying.
Unless of course you want to die.
And then on this side of the grave not only do I not know what I ought to do in my interactions with others revolving around value judgments, I don’t think that [in a No God world] this can be known. Anything can be rationalized. If for no other reason that almost everything already has been.
“I” here is [for me] an existential contraption far, far far, beyond being able either to completely understand or to control.
On the other hand, if there be a God, it’s His way or the highway. The highway to Hell for example.
Depending on the extent to which this extant God is in possession of, say, omniscience and omnipotence?
As for the “stages” how could they not in turn be but the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy? Not unlike the stages that a Freudian or a Marxist or Jungian might suggest.
Here [as with everything else] there are those parts that we are able to effectively demonstrate to others as being true, and there are those parts that we think are true “in our head” but can’t manage get others to believe are true in theirs.