Pagan morality

From PN:

Sure, religion has always been used for political purposes. Historically, this or that One True Path will ascend, while others will descend. Especially given the reality of what Marx called “political economy”.

Nor for the most part do I. But in my view that doesn’t make this part…

“And given that human beings are clearly a part of nature, and how nature itself is all around us, I can understand someone feeling that they are a part of it in a way that I myself do not grasp or feel.”

…go away. The profound mystery embedded in the very existence of biological life “somehow” evolving out of the lifeless laws of matter going back to the Big Bang. Or before?

A “spiritual” reality in the sense that those like Einstein groped and grappled with:

[b]“The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”

“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

“The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; It is the source of all true art and science.”

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”[/b]

Mother Nature doesn’t demand that you worship her. There’s no Scripture from her demanding that you choose between Heaven or Hell. There’s no Judgment Day. There is simply the brute facticity of her laws.

And here scientists, in using the “scientific method”, posit an either/or world where someone is either able to demonstrate that what they believe “in their head” is in fact true objectively for all of us or they are not able to.

Whereas in the spiritual realm the most sophisticated of thinkers like Soren Kierkegaard and Blaise Pascal have never posited anything other than a more rather than less sophisticated existential “leap of faith”…or a “wager”.

The part I root in dasein, of course.

This going all the way back to where our Fulminating Fanatic Master connects the dots between Nature, the Big Bang and his very own definitive explanation for the existence of existence itself!

And, for the very first time, this includes not only his ontological assessment, but his teleological assessment as well!!

Be prepared to grasp not only how you exist, but why you exist!!!

And the rumor now circulating is that it’s not looking good for Jews and blacks and women and homosexuals.

There’s the ‘why’ of the feeble mind,asking for what is for him to determine.
Asking for what does not exist…which is typical of nihilists.

Like.
Who created the world?
The question itself implies an answer to an absurdity.

Pick one:

1] He’s trying to be philosophical
2] He’s trying to be clever
3] HE FAILS MISERABLY AT BEING EITHER ONE

And put some thought into this time, okay?

From PN:

See? There you go again. Asserting that God is a phantom as though this is not just something that “here and now” you believe “in your head” to be true. Whereas I recognize that when I too argue that “here and now” from my own subjective frame of mind God is a phantom, I acknowledge that there is no way that I can demonstrate this to in fact be true given both “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rules”.

And that God is one possibility for the existence of existence itself. But then for those who believe this, I suggest we take the discussion here:

That’s flat out ridiculous. Or, perhaps, we can explore in more detail what you mean by “essential”. Given particular contexts. There are Christians and Pagans who are able to articulate their beliefs in a more or a less sophisticated manner.

No, both are reflections of the gap between “infinitesimally insignificant specks of existence” that mere mortals are given the “vastness of all there is”.

And how are you really any different given the manner in which, in my view, you come off here over and again as someone who actually believes that he does fully understand the world around us.

On the other hand, Albert Einstein was a scientist himself, wasn’t he?

But, given the quotes above, a fool?

A type of spiritual or religious humanism is humanistic paganism. Any religion that adopts a human-centered ethical perspective as opposed to a deity-centered ethical perspective is referred to as religious humanism. Instead of being determined by the will of any god or gods, what is good is determined by human experience. Dragon Horoscope 2023

Is this you, Fixed Cross?!! Head still in the stars?

From PN:

Again, the staggering gap between what any of us think we know about the universe – the multiverse? – and all that there possibly is to be known about it. Some will stick God in there…others don’t. Some experience this “spiritually” – whatever that means – and others don’t.

As though along with all the rest of us, Einstein and Spinoza weren’t themselves “infinitesimally insignificant specks of existence”. Yet over and again your scoffing contempt for those able to take that Kierkegaardian leap of faith to God. As though what you think about all of it really is the closest to the “whole truth” we can get going back to the existence of existence itself.

And to the extent that particular Pagans derive their “spirituality” from nature itself and not from a “transcendental” entity “up there” somewhere demanding that you obey His Commandments or burn in Hell, I certainly see clear distinctions.

And, given what I’ve noted from you so far, someone is delusional about God and religion if they don’t think about them exactly as you do. The Satyr Syndrome let’s call it. Whereas my main approach is to accept that others might think about these things differently than I do because the lives that we have lived and the experiences that we have had can be profoundly different in turn.

So, okay, I tell them, what’s left given that other than the extent to which we are actually able to demonstrate what we believe about either God or religion to others?

With Maia there is her “spiritual Self”. Something that she seems in all honesty and sincerity to believe in. But only to the extent she can communicate it to others or to demonstrate it to others in terms of her own value judgments, will the gaps in communication narrow. I still root that in dasein and in the “psychology of objectivism”. But in not being her what can I myself effectively convey to her? All I can do, in respecting her intelligence, is to sustain my attempt to get in closer. Or to just give up and move on to others. And, of late, Maia has not been around. So perhaps she is back to seeing philosophy as she once put it in an email as a “soul-crunching” or “soul crushing” exercise.

Okay, there’s what I believe now about my own existence out in the world around me. But then there’s the gap between what I believe now and all that there actually is to be known about the existence of existence such that the “human condition” itself becomes wholly explicable “inside” it.

As for Rummy’s Rules…

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

…you tell me how our speculations here regarding Pagan morality are not embedded in them.

How is that relevant here?

Spinoza and Einstein studied the universe, Kierkegaard was just a scared little viking looking inwards. He has nothing to say of value unless you share the same sort of angst ridden delusions he did and what to double down on that plunge into the rabbit hole.
I’ll take baruch and albert over Sad Soren anytime.

Indistinguishable from any other delusion. Why that one?
It’s just pure hybris.

Oh you mean Rumsfeld…
Why not take it a stage further. It might tell you something.

Zizeck completely the symmetry and talks about unknown knowns.

Those are the unrealised and unspoken endemic assumptions that guide us.
Your problem is that you have never really unpacked the assumption that the universe has to have a god, or spiritual component.
You have failed to question your unspoken assumption that “why we are here” has to have an answer - it does not.
Yout are labouring under the mistaken idea that removing god means having to replace him with something. Again it does not.
All these things are unknown knowns, and they are all suggested insidiously by your upbringing but have no merit.
Your problem is a failure to grasp the wider picture, realise your ignorance and that you ignorance has been filled with phantasms.
But you ought to embrace the possibility that there is no basis for these questions at all.
Be content.

It’s relevant because all of us are merely speculating about things like God and religion. And it is certainly not inherently or necessarily irrational or delusional to feel a spiritual connection to nature. Some feel one, others don’t. Again, given what can be at times enormous differences between the lives we’ve led, the experiences we’ve had. Or does only your own life, your own experiences count?

Then this part…

Again, from my frame of mind, this tells us so much more about you than it does the point you make. It’s awash in an “arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian” contempt for those who don’t measure their worth by your own caustic Satyrean-like assumptions. You’re like VT over at PN. Ever and always bringing me back to this with your ilk:

Only, unlike with me, in my view, it’s not polemics with you. It’s sheer hubris, swagger, scorn. What’s behind that?

From my frame of mind this is nothing less than sheer stupidity. Or maybe you are just in a particularly foul mood? To compare the two as though they were interchangeable?

This coming from you!!!

And what might that be? How about this: the unknowns that the human brain itself has not evolved enough yet to even grasp at all.

Then whatever the hell this…

…means.

You can’t help yourself, can you? A “condition” perhaps? Once again, the assumption I make is that given the gap between “I” and “all there is” going all the way back to a definitive understanding of existence itself, what on earth can “I” possibly know about the ontological – the teleological? – parameters of the “human condition”. You’re the fool here in my view who just sweeps that part under the metaphysical rug. And has actually been able to convince himself that his own contemptuous conclusion here really is the optimal explanation!

Then just more of the bumbling, bombastic same:

You really don’t have a clue as to just how ridiculous you come off here, do you?

[b]Note to Satyr:

You explain it to him.[/b]

this is all you have on ILP…
A constant display of human idiocy.
Americanism’s byproduct.

No, really explain it to him.

Still no definition for Dasien…
How is this cunt a philosopher when she refuses to even define the words she uses?
Are we supposed to discuss a concept each using our own private definitions?
to hat end?
Just to pass the time?
Then why should I adopt her definition, even when I do not know it…and lower myself to her contexts?

On what grounds are we supposed to make compromises, if not moral ones?
If there’s no morality involved in whether or not Mary Land is a promiscuous slut, or cheap whore, or an idiot demanding an abortion to sae her from the consequences of her lifestyle or her stupidity, then why should I pay for her whorish lifestyle and her idiotic mistakes - even if through my taxes and tolerance?
Why am I obliged to pay to protect her and to aid her when she fucks up?
No morality, right?
No god, right?
So why? Why should I take on the burden of her idiocy and/or her whorish ways in a world with no moral codes?

Come on, really, what else is there:

Absolutely shameless!

The quintessential philosophical pedant allowing himself to be reduced down to drivel like this. He can’t even rouse himself to go beyond the same repetitious droppings.

Fortunately [for him] the embarrassment is only one month a year. But that it is of his own making!!

How to explain that?

For fuck sake you are such a fucking dickwad.

You are totally incapable of getting your head out of your arsehols for ten minutes to read properly anything that anyone writes.

Why would you expect everyone to just agree with you and suck your dick all the time?

Such sad pathetic narcissism.

Lorikeet is bad but you are the worst contributor on this Forum. You make Lorikeet look reasonable.

What? Are you 90 years old or something? You seem to have lost the ability to think outside your comfort zone.

It’s so fucking bad that you even fail to recognise on occasion when people are agreeing with you.

Seriously you need to fuckk off and consult a psychologist. Maybe you need a brain scan.

That is your problem in a nutshell…

You cannot conceive of anything outside your narrow world view.
Dasein my arse.
Heidegger would be horrified to see you use the term.

Yeah your little wank fantasy.

Trust me: when you get this from him and his ilk here it means that in not sharing his own point of view, you haven’t read his point of view “properly”.

Then he just can’t help himself. As with Satyr [his soul-mate here with me] he simply goes berserk with the declamatory insults:

Again, he’ll either address the reason that he “loses it” here time after time or he won’t.

Otherwise, sure, if he is as intent as Satyr clearly is here to make a fool out of himself with me, so be it.

If nothing else it is entertaining. Though, admittedly, I’m not particularly proud of that. Well, most of the time.

Of course: the spitting and sputtering Sculptor!

Though, on the contrary, over and over and over again, I managed to conceive of many things that were outside of my own point of view:

How about him? What has he been wrong about?

And, given a particular context in which members here have conflicting moral and political and spiritual value judgments, anytime Sculptor wants to explore the gap between Heidegger’s intellectual/philosophical contraption Dasein in Being and Time and the manner in which I construe the existential meaning of dasein here…

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382

…I challenge – dare – him to start a new thread.

The only stipulation being that the exchange eschew the huffing and puffing bullshit that goes on “here and now” on this thread.