on discussing god and religion

You’d have to run JSS past Iamb., whose thread this is and who expects a concrete notion of God. It does not suit me. Too impersonal and abstract.
So Kant was aware of ecosystems and the sense of morality inferred from them? I thought that was Spinoza.

Humans have thousands of years of experience … which economic systems worked and why?

It appears that capitalism substantially raised the standard of living of the “lower classes”. Is that not right?

In other words, you are insisting that even though you do not have access to all that would need to be known ontologically [teleologically?] about the very existence of Reality itself [or the very reality of Existence itself] you are still confident that that which you construe to be “essential truths” about the relationship between “in my head” and “out in the world” prevails.

And, if, pertaining to any possible discrepancies between you and, say, James S. Saint, your essential truths are more truly essential than his own.

And we are asked to believe this because you say so.

And that this is all true in turn pertaining to your assessment of God and religion as that is pertinent to the behaviors that you choose on this side of the grave as they will gain you access to one or another rendition of immortality, salvation and divine justice.

Whatever this even means to you. Let alone your capacity to encompass what it means to you for the rest of us.

I don’t agree. Until we have a complete understanding of how and why anything and everything exists at all, we come up against Hume’s speculation about the difference between correlation and cause and effect. All we can ever know about the Reality of Existence [and the “human condition” that is a part of it “here and now”] is predicated on the knowledge that we have been able to accumulate “so far”.

That’s just common sense.

And even philosophers have speculated endlessly regarding that which epistemologically we either can or cannot know. Or has one of them actually pinned this part…

Noumenon [plural Noumena] in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. the precise relationship between noumenal and phenomenal existence.

…down.

Hell, they can’t even pin down the precise relationship between memes and genes. Or determine if this exchange is only as it ever could have been.

Yes, but what is the “essential truth” regarding this: Ought the NSA be using the telephone system to spy on American citizens in the name of “national security”?

We can leave it there.

Biguous has an idealistic understanding of truth.
So he thinks everyone else does too.

In other words, with your comforting and consoling God and “essential truths” still intact.

Though [perhaps] frayed a little? :wink:

It seems to me that if I wanted comforting and consoling truths, then I would pick a different bunch of them. I can think of many which would be preferable to the ones I have “discovered” or logically deduced from observations. And, yeah, some of them have to do with the nature of God. :astonished:

But, you know, it’s impossible to explain that to you.

Again, the entirety of this thread revolves around allowing those who do have a relationship with God to at least make an attempt at explaining to others what this means when “out in the world” they find themselves having to choose particular behaviors. Choosing behaviors such that it brings them back to connecting the dots between “here and now” and “there and then”.

How [for them] is this not embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods? In other words, when the behaviors that they choose come into conflict with that which others would have them choose instead.

And that brings me back to the gap that I perceive between my rendition of this and yours.

Now, historically, the traditional source of “comfort and consolation” for most who believe in God is rather straightforward: behave on this side of the grave so that you will be judged favorably by God on the other side of it. And that’s the part where immortality, salvation and divine justice comes in.

And you will either grapple with the difference between that and your own narrative or you won’t.

Because I still don’t really have a clue as to how “for all practical purposes” that “works” for you regarding the behaviors that you do choose. How are or are you not comforted and consoled by God and religion in your day to day experiences.

And, thus, where the exchange should end reasonably is when you come to the conclusion that you have in fact explained all of this to the best of your ability and I just don’t get it.

Then you move on to others.

Or, you come up with a new way to reconfigure your narrative, and try again.

Or, in a world of contingency chance and change, your narrative itself is reconfigured by new experiences, relationships and/or sources of information/knowledge.

Then you bring that here.

You can sum that up in one little paragraph for some stereotypical “folks”. :smiley:
The reality is that all fall short in terms of this simple “behavior” so “comfort and consolation” seems as elusive as the perfection of Jesus or Mary. How much are they comforted by the guilt that they feel?

And then there is the fact that atheists keep saying that religious “folks” were brainwashed and indoctrinated as children. So these “comforting and consoling” beliefs have been inflicted on them and may be contrary to their preferences. Some atheist call religious instruction “child abuse”. Right? No inner conflict there?

On reflection, it doesn’t seem all that straightforward.

I have been talking to you for years. :laughing:

And even now, I still get the impression that you are trying to shoehorn me into one of your stereotypical religious “folks”.

Mind you, that’s one of the amusing and challenging aspects of our discussions. Will Iambig go beyond his cut-and-paste responses? Will he actually read my post and thinks about it? Alas, the answer is always - no.

Sure, given the vast and the varied circumstantial contexts in which mere mortals can find themselves in, and given the enormous complexity of human psychological states, any particular behavior chosen by any particular individual will be bursting at the seams with all manner of problematic components. And that includes our own reaction to those behaviors.

But that is basically my point. What the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir called “the ethics of ambiguity”.

In my view, the function of God and religion is to efface that ambiguity. It is to provide a subjunctive anchor — a “spiritual” foundation — so that “in our head” there is [b]something[/b] that we can aim for in order to make that crucial distinction between an essentially meaningless world that topples over into the abyss, and a righteous path that brings us closer and closer to immortality, salvation and divine justice.

And, on this thread, folks are either willing to connect these dots as that pertains to their own behaviors and their own religious faith or they’re not.

And, as well, they are willing to at least make the attempt to demonstrate why reasonable men and women are obligated to emulate the same behaviors and share the same faith, or they’re not.

However one acquires their faith in God, it seems abundantly straightforward [to me] that God [if there is a God] either judges our behaviors on this side of the grave or He does not.

And that with immortality, salvation and divine justice at stake, those of faith are surely going to grapple with the behaviors that they choose “here and now”.

This is just a thread that allows them to describe how, for all practical purposes, this “works” for them “out in the world with others”. To the best of their ability. And, given the profoundly existential nature of such attempts, it is quite the opposite of “shoehorning” the faithful into a one size fits all “stereotype”.

My own frame of mind here merely focuses on instances when, in choosing behaviors, they come into conflict with others. Conflicting religious narratives precipitating conflicting religious agendas out in a particular world where there are any number of additional secular narratives in turn.

Of course, on this side of the grave, I am entangled in my dilemma. So, how are others not entangled in it?

And, as for the other side of it, in whatever manner I behave “here and now”, I have nothing at all to comfort and console me with regard to “there and then”.

Again : any attempt to connect the dots (or however you want to describe this thread), is dismissed as “general”, “abstract”, “in your head” or “comforting and consoling”.

I don’t think that you’re giving a fair hearing and consideration to the people who do post. I think you are jumping straight to the dismissal.

But we have already agreed to disagree so no point in rehashing it.

Well, when the arguments revolve around identity and value judgments as construed by conflicted individuals out in a particular world, yes, my point is aimed in the general direction of noting the extent to which my own understanding of dasein and conflicting goods and political economy [here and now] render such exchanges “existential contraptions”.

All I can then do is to acknowledge in turn that this argument is no less an existential contraption.

Then it’s up to folks like you reacting to that and insisting it is actually something else instead. And certainly not, what, serious philosophy?

Then I react to that by pointing out the very intent of this thread is to nudge folks who do take both God and philosophy seriously into a discussion/description of their behaviors on this side of the grave such that [to the best of their ability] God and philosophy become intertwined in a particular moral narrative.

All we can do here is to react to arguments from others not in sync with our own. Of course the objectivists among us will always insist that only to the extent that you move in their own direction are you ever sincerely making any effort to move at all. Meanwhile throughout the entire course of my own life I have “moved” a bewildering number of times. Just not of late.

Still, given the nature of these exchanges [most of them], it will always come down to others deciding what my motivation and intention here really are.

Well, to the extent that most religious folks do believe in an objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality, salvation and divine justice on the other side, that is clearly something that they can lose. I know for a fact that I did.

But, okay, you are one of the exceptions. But all I can think to note then is this: that from my own ungodly bleak perspective this must be particularly comforting and consoling.

In confronting assertions [almost retorts] of this sort, I can only marvel at the mind able to make them. As though this is actually something that can be known by “mere mortals”.

That is how the universe works. That is how God works. That is how religion works. That is how morality works.

Period.

Exclamation point?

If there was an interaction between our universe and another universe, then that interaction would just be a part of our universe and anything we saw as part of that interaction would be part of our universe. That’s what “universe” means FFS. It has nothing to do with “mere mortals”.

As for determinism … I have to make exactly the same decisions based on the same information whether everything is determined or I have free will. Determinism changes nothing in the actions that I must take. It plays no role … none.

You’re right. There are clearly frames of mind about God and religion that provoke ambivalence. And, in any event, each individual reaction embodies an enormous number of profoundly problematic reactions over the years.

Again, any particular combination of historical, cultural and experiential components/variables embodied in any one particular life can precipitate an unimaginably vast number of clearly existential reactions.

Reactions that, in all likelihood, we are not able to effectively communicate to others. In other words, to those who have virtually no access to our own experiences.

Still, to the extent that someone does believe in Kant’s “transcending font” [which most call God], there is a fountainhead available to them to ultimately adjudicate conflicting goods “down here”.

And there is some measure of hope that, once toppling over into the abyss, this is not all there is for “I”. That immortality, salvation and divine justice are not beyond all hope.

And, in turn, I will readily acknowledge that, while this seems reasonable to me “here and now”, there may well be others who do not find it reasonable at all.

But then that’s what I’m here for: to be nudged back in that direction.

If I can be.

Nope, apparently not. :wink:

I think that I’ve responded to all the stuff that you rehashed. :techie-offtheair:

No, my point is that my opinions about God and abortion [like your opinions about God and religion, like Kant’s and Plato’s opinions about God and abortion] are largely “existential contraptions”.

Which in the world of conflicting goods, exposes a gap between what we claim to believe about these things, and that which we are able to demonstrate to others that all reasonable [and for some virtuous] men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

From my frame of mind then, that’s what makes a discussion of God and religion in a philosophy forum distinct from a discussion that takes place around the campfire, around the dinner table, in a bar or at Bible study.

Also, for both Kant and Plato, the “transcending font” is a vital component of their moral narrative. It just comes down to the extent to which this can be differentiated from what most folks call “God” in the world today.

How do you differentiate it?

It seems that your own understanding of God is by far the one most appealing of them all. Why? Because to the extent that I understand your own understanding of Him, everyone is entitled to enter His Kingdom.

All that is necessary is that you exist.

And, over and over again, I suggest that until “mere mortals” on this infinitesimally tiny planet in this staggeringly vast universe are able to grasp the very ontological meaning/nature of Existence itself, none of us have access to “objective certainty”.

Perhaps not even God.

But: God is of fundamental importance here because without Him how do we even begin to imagine the possibility of a teleological font?

Analytic philosophy cannot fathom the ontological roots of ideas. Consequently, the veracity of ideas is a matter of their practical applications, a pragmatic approach, if you will, to truth.
It appears a bit crafty, at least, to proclaim a stereotypical set of religious beliefs as the only ones worthy of being weighed against concepts of conflicting goods, etc. But you have heard this before and can only respond that my belief in eternal salvation, which was believed by certain early Christian church fathers (Origen, for one), is not a legitimate view of God which can be accepted by many rational people.
The 21st century Christian yearns for a God who exemplifies empathy and compassion. The age is ripe for ideas of Man’s reconciliation with God. The idea of a God who rewards and punishes in some afterlife is being done away with because of the atheistic questions about the morality of God., questions worthy of anyone’s consideration.

That’s one of Iambig’s points … that God is molded to suit the desires of the people of a particular time and place. IOW, God does not transcend time and place nor does His message … He’s the product of the desire for “comfort and consolation”. People find comfort and consolation in different ways so there are many different ideas about God. For example, people concerned about ecology will see an ecological God and they will find supporting passages in the scriptures.

Of course God does not change, but ideas of what God is like have evolved. We have come a long way from believing in the tribal God who zaps our enemies. Of the “many different” concepts of what God is like, which would you say that most reasonable people will believe? I can say that God is the teleological driver of memes and genes. Would reasonable people believe that?
What humans desire is pursuit of happiness without suffering. I just opine that the stakes are a lot higher than the selfish notion of reward and punishment. They involve the future of life on this planet.