iambiguous wrote:If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction.
MagsJ wrote: I think that’s called indecisiveness..
It also sounds like your thoughts are possessing you, rather than you possessing them and taking control of their ebb and flow.. thoughts could then be thought of as tide-like, but what is it that causes them to be so? internal and external factors perhaps.
iambiguous wrote:Again, from my frame of mind, we are in two very different discussions.
Being decisive or indecisive about what particular behaviors in what particular context? Same with being "possessed" by thoughts. In rergard to what?
MagsJ wrote: I guess making decisions is easier for some than it is for others.. some decisions taking longer to arrive at than others, dictating how a person would go about making them all. We can break our decisions-to-make down and then compartmentalise them, in order to enable us to prioritise them. The mind as a filing cabinet and To Do list.. just like many here like to label, some prefer to compartmentalise.
Well, the decisions that concern me in regard to God and religion are the ones that revolve around the behaviors that the religious choose on this side of the grave insofar as that sustains their thinking about the fate of "I" other side of the grave.
I suggest that this is embedded and embodied in a particular self out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially. And that it is considerably easier to choose "the right thing to do" if you are convinced that it must be in accord with "God's will". Or with respect to Buddhism whatever might be the equivalent of that re the "universe".
But again: what particular decision in what particular context? Why are some choices easier than others?
To what extent are we able to demonstrate that the choice that we make reflects the choice that all reasonable and virtuous people are in fact obligated to make themselves?
For example, you may decide that you want to be rich. And there are clearly choices that you can make such that you either become rich or you don't. But what if others insist that in becoming rich you chose behaviors that resulted in the exploitation or the impoverishment of others. That your behavior was immoral based on their own assessment of social and economic justice.
The part I root in dasein. The part others root in political philosophies that champion either capitalism or socialism. The part that still others root in one or another religious dogma.
MagsJ wrote: Is there always a context (which you seem to think needs to exist) before we ‘do’ anything.. so a reactive, rather than active, process. I’m sure we do both..
Let's focus then on another context relating to the manner in which we connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then. Explore it. After all, what else is there in a philosophy venue? There's what we think and what we do. Then the consequences of that for others. And, finally, our reactions to them. The parts I root in the manner in which we come to acquire a particular identity, out in a world of conflicting value judgments where, politically, rules of behavior are established and enforced. I'm interested in the components of your own thinking and doing here.
What are those "internal and external" factors -- existential variables -- that go into creating a particular "I" when confronted with conflicting goods such that one's religious values kick in in order to make distinctions between moral/enlightened behavior here and now as that then becomes translated into a frame of mind revolving around that which these "spiritual" paths are said to bring into fruition on the other side of the grave.
MagsJ wrote: Not every decision we make has to be a moral dilemma.. I guess you could say that religion does indeed guide some’s life and every day decisions, like what we eat and drink etc., but then that becomes known as a trusted way of life. I, for instance, cannot eat fermented foods.. even though they’re all the rage at the moment, so that would dictate where and what I eat, and so somewhat alienating me from those that can, in a short and then over a longer-term period of time.. leading to the diversification and divergence of those different types, who can and cannot eat fermented foods.
Okay, but what does does this really have to do with the point that I am making? And, in fact, on a thread devoted to understanding a particulat religious denomination, it is precisely the way in which morality can pose dilemmas for both believers and nonbelievers that most interest me. What happens when, say, a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is torn between reasons to abort the unborn baby and reasons not to. How do her religious values factor into her decision?
That is the component of religion that I am drawn to to. Why? Because her answer may or may not allow for me to question my own truly grim assessment. What does morality here and now and immortality there and then mean to someone like me? Someone convinced that human existence is essentially meaningless and that, one by one, we all tumble over into the abyss that is nothingness.
Well, what if that's
not true? All I can do is to explore this with others who are in fact convinced that it isn't. What's their story? Given the lives that they actually live from day to day.
As for you not being able to eat fermented foods, I'm not at all clear as to what you are saying here. You can't eat it because it is prohibited by your religion? It is deemed immoral to eat it? If, in eating it, you'll risk the fate that you want for yourself on the other side of the grave?