on discussing god and religion

I think that this is just a plain misunderstanding of how people think and behave. (not that some people are not like this but overall it misses the mark)

What you seem to be saying is that you are entirely reactive. You wait for someone or something to change your mind. You are not able to apply your will and to act proactively. :confusion-shrug:

Well I decided to use a particular philosophy and morality. Is that “plucking it off a tree”?

This was an attempt to get you to see how ridiculous it is to ask from “an argument” to get you out of your dilemma when you dismiss all arguments as “intellectual contraptions”.
It just flew over your head. #-o

You realize that “moral objectivists” can choose to be immoral. Right?

The belief that an objective morality exists, does not obligate one to always act in a particular way.

Isn’t there a danger that even if people do what you said they should do “on the one hand” that they remain within the particular? I find that for all of my experimentation, my arguments still use the symbolism, the metaphors and the allegories I grew up with. I think this is because we need a language within which we can make ourselves understood – and of course I’m not just talking about English, French or German etc.

The example at hand is your use of the word Dasein, which in my daily use of German has a specific meaning, but which doesn’t harmonise with yours. Thereby our communication is hampered by the fact that our communication is restricted to written exchanges and that lacking many facets of communication, as well as experience, we may never fully understand each other. We communicate, but we have particular assumptions about each other and our understanding of Dasein.

The same happens when people talk about God. We may have a one-on-one conversation on God and still come away not knowing what the others concept of God is – if they do at all have one. I have always wondered at Evangelicals who have ridiculed my intuitive approach to spirituality because it is “fuzzy”, but talk to three Christians separately and then you know what “fuzzy” is, or you know who has been telling them what/who God has to be for them.

You know, this “caveman’s God” has been bantered about for some time and I have doubts. Studies show that the brain of the “caveman” had enormous potential, and also that we fail to use the potential of our brains because we are preoccupied and distracted most of the time. The caveman couldn’t be distracted or he was dead and his distracted genes didn’t get passed on. He was focused and alert, and he was learning all the time. In fact, there is a lot of speculation going on today about this guys learning curve and consequently the collective learning curve. We seem to have simplified our outlook over time, rather than complicated it.

The observations will of course have brought forth false assumptions, but they will have have to learn pretty quickly to verify those assumptions. The rule of measure will be the usefulness and reliability of assumptions – nothing more. They won’t have considered whether their terminology is correct or whether a story is “true” in the sense that we use the word “true” nowadays. If it is useful or reliable, or both, they’ll keep their assumptions to heighten their resilience in a world that has numerous life-forms combatting each other in order to spread their species across the globe.

One question that will have occurred is what this experience or happening is all about, rather than why can I think about this and no-one else. The survivors who managed to reproduce themselves will have been those who formed a working theory that roughly fitted reality. It will only be later, when humankind had time to think deeply about their situation that they’ll have further developed those concepts. This too as an attempt to heighten resilience by increasing foresight and flexibility.

I think that the “caveman” will have been more a part of the collective than we are, with our imagined individuality and attempts to be unique in some way. Therefore, if the group had the concept of a singular or multiple Gods, our man will have too. If there is no God-concept, he will have none either. Therefore the interaction of our man is active and not reflective like ours is deemed to be. We forget that we can’t not communicate, we can’t not interact either. In one way or another we are always interacting, even though we might not notice or even forget where it was apparent.

Therefore, I think that there are false assumptions on your part that means that the discussion you want isn’t actually happening. The question you should ask is the last one: How do they intertwine their behaviour on this side of the grave in order to have an effect on their fate on the other side.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the only answer you’ll get amounts to pascals wager.

Okay, take another stab at it.

How do you think and behave when confronted with a behavior that some see as the right thing to do and others see as the wrong thing to do? In particular given how you weigh the choice that you’ll make in the context of God and religion.

Most religious folks clearly seem to embrace one or another denomination revolving around one or another Scripture revolving around one or another moral narrative. And “us” and “them” would seem to be the obvious demarcation when assessing good and bad things to do.

You tell me what mark I am missing here. As that relates to particular behaviors in particular contexts.

Again, another “general description” assessment. And, when confronted with them, I can only keep returning to this: What does it mean for any one particular individual, in any one particular context to “apply his will and act proactively?” With or without God. How is the manner in which I construe these profoundly problematic existential interactions any less the embodiment of dasein and conflicting goods?

How are your own?

You claim that you “decided to use a particular philosophy and morality.”

The assumption then being that this decision is in fact not an existential contraption at all. Instead, it revolves around this:

1] there is a “real me” that transcends contingency, chance and change
2] this “real me” is in sync with one or another understanding of “virtue”, “truth”, “justice”
3] “virtue”, “truth”, “justice” is embedded in one or another rendition of God, Humanism, ideology, nature

Sure, but the assumption still exists “in their heads” that they can tell us the difference between moral and immoral behavior. And if others inssist that, on the contrary, it’s the other way around, then they are necessarily wrong. Why? Because the moral objectivists assume that they themselves are necessarily right? Why? Because they are righteously intertwined in/with one or another God, deontological philosophy, political ideology or assessment of Nature.

Then around and around they go:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the ideal
3] I have access to the ideal because I grasp the one true nature of the objective world
4] I grasp the one true nature of the objective world because I am rational

They merely presume that, as with the either/or world, this is applicable to the is/ought world in turn. You merely have to become “one of us” and share our own moral and political values.

And then when God and religion become a part of it “we” acquire immortality and salvation and “they” don’t.

I’ll chalk it up as two more failed attempts to shift you away from your dilemma and leave it at that. :laughing:

If I get some new ideas, I’ll spring them on you in the future. :evilfun:

Okay, sounds good.

But what I would be particularly curious to explore is your own existential trajectory regarding God. Your own indoctrination as a child. Experiences that were especially crucial in propelling you to probe religion along one path rather than another.

And [especially] your thoughts and your feelings when you do in fact come upon an issue [on the news, in your interactions with others] that prompts you to note how different individuals come into conflict regarding right and wrong behavior.

How does that “work” insofar as you situate your reaction to the conflict in the context of immortality, salvation and divine justice.

After all, we are either judged “here and now” as this pertains to our fate “there and then” or we are not.

And you will either address this beyond just another “general assessment” or you won’t.

I have talked about my life several times. You either ignored it or dismissed it as a “contraption”.

There are only so many times that I’m willing to be dismissively kicked in the nuts.

I’m not going to talk about it again.

:-k (Interesting that you now toss off people’s posts as “general assessments”. That’s new. )

Yeah, that’s about what I expected.

I’m looking for your own rendition of this…

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

…and you claim to have provided a reasonable facsimile of it several times.

So, we will just have to agree to disagree about that.

But, sure, if you bump into a new experience or a new way of thinking about why you behave as you do on this side of the grave in order to be judged favorably by your own rendition of God on the side of it, by all means, bring it here.

At the very least I will be happy to assess the extent to which, in my view, it either is or is not a “general description” of your own interactions with others. And the part that a God, the God, your God plays in them.

Well, not “my own rendition” but rather you’re looking for what you want the rendition to be.

Right. My rendition of my life is not acceptable. It doesn’t meet your , err, “standards”. :smiley:

Sure. I need you to assess it. :laughing:

And yeah, that’s what I really want to get on this forum. :evilfun:

All humans must die.
No human can explain what an afterlife entails or if such exists.
Our future is our children.
Morality then would consist of leaving the planet habitable for our children.
A morality based on reward an punishment is animal training. It does nothing to perpetuate life on this planet.
There is no hell beyond some life experiences.
We are born without sin. Hence morality entails recognizing who we really are and not the judgment and condemnation of ourselves as taught in many churches.
Environmental morality (Wiki) is hands on, here and now ,practical love of life. Heaven and hell are theological, philosophical abstractions.

Most rational people I know no longer believe in afterlife heaven or hell.

Kudos to you.

Yes, but:

…pertaining to what particular context out in what particular world construed from what particular point of view?

What happens when the contexts [experiences] change? What happens when, as a result of this, you bump into a conflicting point of view?

Relating to or not relating to God and religion.

Words like “faith”, “sin”, “justice” and “freedom” for example. Sooner or later the use of these [and so many similar] words are going to be misunderstood…or understood subjectively/contextually given the manner in which I have come to construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods.

This thread was created in order to discuss religious narratives as they relate to morality as that relates to one or another rendition of Judgment Day.

Or, if someone balks at the idea of God’s “judgment”, of reward and punishment of “the other side”, how is he or she able to demonstrate that this is a reasonable point of view?

My own entirely existential understanding of dasein is encompassed here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

What are you own assumptions then regarding its meaning “out in the world” of human social, political and economic interactions?

Dasein at wiki:

Dasein is a German word that means “being there” or “presence”, and is often translated into English with the word “existence”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasein

Being there instead of here [culturally experientially]. Being here or there now instead of here or there before or later [historically].

What aspects of “I” is this most relevant to? And, on this thread, how that relates to the behaviors we choose “here and now” in order to be in sync with what we imagine our fate to be “there and then”.

Yes, this certainly seems reasonable to me. But intuitively or otherwise, your own understanding of God and religion is [in my view] no less an “existential contraption”. In other words, subjective/subjunctive fabrications [rooted in the actual experiential trajectory of your lived life] pertaining to that which you believe “in your head” that you either are or are not able to demonstrate to others as a reasonable thing to believe.

If it doesn’t come down to that in a philosophy forum then anything that anyone claims to believe is true “in his head” becomes the bottom line.

It doesn’t work that way among scientists though, right? So, where should the line be drawn among philosophers?

We can only speculate about what our “prehistoric ancestors” thought and felt regarding these relationships by interpreting the archaeological evidence. There are no written records. But it seems reasonable that any consciousness able to connect dots between “out in the world” and “in my head” is going to get around to “what’s it all mean”?

But: back then science was not around to offer “natural” explanations. Today of course religion doesn’t often go there. Instead the focus seems to be on this:

1] how ought one to live?
2] what happens after we die?

Which happens to be the whole point of this thread: intertwining the two as this relates to the behaviors that we choose from day to day to day.

Well, our earliest ancestors no doubt intertwined God into a rather primitive [prescience] understanding of nature. One imagines that the interactions in any particular community [and between communities] revolved more or less around might makes right. And then they either appeased “the Gods” or they did not.

Survival of the fittest [among themselves, between themselves and in conjunction with nature] would seem to be entirely more reasonable.

Films like Quest For Fire explored this. But no one really knows for sure.

Imagine trying to explain “Pascal’s wager” to them! Or Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith”. Let alone the appeal of Don Trump to evangelicals.

My assumptions are rather straightforward:

1] we are all confronted [from the cradle to the grave] with the question, “how ought one to live?”
2] we all die
3] almost all of us will ponder the manner in which the two are intertwined “out in a particular world” from a “religious” perspective

This thread is here for folks to discuss that – given the manner in which they choose to live their lives from day to day to day. One way rather than another.

My rendition is rather straightforward.

I bump into someone [on or offline] and the discussion gets around to abortion. I’m asked to relate my own value judgments regarding it. I note the dilemma that I am entangled in above and then explain how the life that I lived predisposed me existentially to be entangled in it.

Again, this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

And, entangled further in this frame of mind, I suspect that there is no “afterlife”; and, thus, that how I behave on this side of the grave with regard to abortion is of no consequence regarding the other side.

Now, imagine [for us] your own reflections on all of this if you bump into someone [on or offline] and the discussion gets around to abortion.

Or some other conflicting good.

Or with respect to your belief in God itself.

Or, sure, just insist that you have already done this “several times”.

Then we can go back to agreeing to disagree that you have.

I know your rendition. You seem to expect me to mirror it exactly … 7 points, some particular crisis which moved me to a particular point of view. If I use my own words, if describe my life in my particular way … then it falls short of your expectations. I have talked about my upbringing and why I think that God exists. I have talked about abortion. My attitude towards abortion is to strike a balance between what the woman needs, the man needs and the fetus needs.

I can’t think of a specific incident in my life which lead me to adopt this attitude.

I don’t know of any reason why that would go against “God’s will”. I could be wrong so I may have to take some heat in the future. :evilfun:

Sorry to disappoint you.

You should. There are an infinite variety of both.

Actually, each of us dies one by one by one. And some particular thing happens to us one by one by one or some other thing happens instead. And while you have concocted this “psychologism” that puts all of this in perhaps the best of all possible comforting and consoling frames of mind, all the rest of us can do is note that while “in your head” you do believe this, you appear to have absolutely no capacity to demonstrate why we should believe it too.

Just as others insist that if you choose behaviors on this side of the grave deemed to be Sins by their God, you risk eternal damnation in Hell. Among other things supposedly.

Again, around the campfire or the kitchen table or at a Bible study, we can share particular sets of assumptions and expect most others to just nod their heads and say, “Amen”.

In a philosophy forum however some of us expect more than that. There’s what you believe or claim to know is true “in your head” and what you are able to demonstrate is in fact true for all of us — whether “in our head” we believe it or not.

If that [here] is not deemed the “best of all possibly wisdoms” what else is?

Sure, in the context of All There Is [i.e. Existence qua Existence] God may well be the explanation. Possibly even your own rendition of God.

But why should any of us believe that? As opposed to other possible explanations? For example, so-called “natural” or “scientific” ones. Or the beliefs that revolve around particular religious denominations. Including Evangelicals. Many of these folks are just as sincere in their beliefs as you are.

Come on, out in the real world, people have wants and needs. And they have ever and always come into conflict. Rules of behavior [whether you call it morality or not] have never not been embedded in the interaction of all communities.

Now, if you don’t reward and punish particular behaviors in particular contexts, what else is there?

How, in the community that you are a part of, is this done? Do the folks that you interact with from day to day “recognize who they really are and not impose judgment and condemnation on themselves as taught in many churches.”

Cite some examples of this.

Again, I don’t doubt the sincerity of your belief. And a part of my reaction no doubt revolves around that part where I wish I could believe it [again] in turn.

You still have the comfort and the consolation that I once had myself. And, sure, a part of me wants to return to it.

So a part of me envies [and thus resents] your own frame of mind.

And I suspect that is where we will have to leave it.

All I can do then is leave it to others to decide for themselves the extent to which my existential account above is a more revealing examination of my own particular value judgments.

I don’t expect you to mirror it so much as to provide an account that allows me to grasp more succinctly why you believe one thing rather than another relating either to a particular conflicting good or to your belief in God and religion.

That is all still rather vague to me. But, perhaps, not to others.

Okay, fair enough.

Here then my reaction would revolve more around the extent to which you are convinced that, pertaining to this, “you are right from your side, and others are right from their side”; or that others who don’t share your values and beliefs about God are wrong.

And, if the later, the extent to which you are able to demonstrate that what you believe is that which all rational men and women are obligated to believe [and thus become “one of us”]; or are willing to acknowledge it may well be embedded more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

I merely point out that with respect to God and religion, when one acknowledges that they “may be wrong”, they may end up on the wrong side of immortality, salvation and divine justice.

In other words, all that is —enormously, ominously, staggeringly – at stake here.

If you don’t accept that there are some essential truths then there is no way to demonstrate anything to you. You have thrown away the foundation on which a demonstration can be built. Those essential truths come from our physical existence on this planet.

It seems much more likely that “all this” came about as a result of intelligent intent rather than randomness. Therefore God exists.
I can’t be any more succinct than that.

I personally have little use for organized religion but it gives others structure and satisfies some of their needs. I don’t spit on that. And contrary to the one-sided claims of atheists and ‘haterz’, I think that it has done quite a bit of good throughout history.

I think that I am unable to demonstrate many things which are none the less true or probably true. So the emphasis on “demonstrations” is not fruitful.

I’m on the same page as Marcus Aurelius … even if I am wrong about the gods, at least I’m living what I evaluate as a virtuous life. You know - as I understand virtue in my head. :wink: