What does it mean empirically to prove that “ontology”/ontology is not a possibility? How on earth would Kant go about demonstrating what that means beyond asking others to accept the definition and the meaning that he gave to the words in his argument/analysis itself?
How, in this respect, is Kant really any different from the rest of us here?
It is argued by some that God exists as the Creator — the entity [first cause] responsible for the existence of Existence.
Whatever that means. But that’s the point. In a world of words it means whatever one wishes to assert that it does. As long as you are not actually obligated to produce this God substantively.
On the other hand, how do the atheists go about demonstrating that a God, the God is not the Creator…the ontological/teleological font upon which mere mortals can fall back when they are unable to demonstrate any of this.
From my frame of mind we are all in the same boat here. We all embody [from the cradle to the grave] that enormous gap between what we think we know about these things at any particular “here and know” juncture, and all that would need to be known in order to demonstrate that we do to others.
Kant had his chance, right?
But the same can be said of the atheist’s argument regarding [among other things] the impossibility of God’s existence. Beyond arguing that it seems more reasonable for those who claim the existence of something to demonstrate that this is so, the atheist is still left with no solid, irrefutable empirical evidence that a God, the God does not exist.
All I am noting here is that, either way, one or the other frame of mind may well be correct. It has just not been so demonstrated to me. In other words, to my very own entirely individual and unique existential “I”.
And that is what the objectivists are most wary of in my opinion. That this is also applicable to them.
But I will always be the first here to flat out admit that I may well be wrong.
But, right or wrong, how would one actually go about demonstrating it?
You claim that you have…
And, sure, to the extent that you embrace this “general description” as proof, it is proof. To you.
To me however it in no way compellingly demonstrates how in the staggering vastness of “all there is” you have proven that God is an impossibility. After all, how “on earth” could any mere mortal possibly know something like this?!
From my frame of mind, your frame of mind is no less a psychological contraption. Unless of course you are able to convince me that it is essentially true. Yet even than that wouldn’t necessarily make it so.
We are all stuck in the same boat here: Grappling to connect the dots between an infinitesimal speck of existence – “I” – and the mind-boggling extent of Existence itself.
Again, I largely share your own assumptions about God but…
But that would require closing the gap between “I” as a psychological contraption and an understanding of human psychology in the context of “all there is”.
What interest me most about Buddhism [and other Eastern narratives] is really no different from what interest me most about Christianity [and other Western narratives]: how to connect the dots between the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave and what we imagine our fate to be on the other side of the grave. As that relates to whatever we conclude when confronted with the question, “how ought one to live?”
In particular when one has come to believe that mere mortals inhabit an essentially absurd and meaningless world that seems to culminate in oblivion for all of eternity.
How are the Buddhists able to yank themselves up out of my dilemma above in regard to a particular existential context in which value judgments come into conflict. Including the judgment that revolves around establishing what value judgments are and how we come to acquire them historically, culturally and experientially.
[note: if anyone knows of any other folks who do embrace one or another “Eastern philosophy”, by all means, bring them into the discussion. Either on this thread or on my own: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929 ]
Marx would argue that slavery was impaled on capitalism. Historically, organically, the market political economy prefers the “wage slave”. The labor of the working class is exploited but when you don’t “own” folks, they are on their own for everything else. But, sure, it can be argued the other way around: that out of the Enlightenment came political ideals. And that out of these ideals came such beliefs as the “natural rights of man”. White men then, and then later men of color. And then women.
But slavery still exists in the world today: cnn.com/2017/09/19/world/glo … index.html
And there are any number of folks no doubt who could rationalize it again if economic conditions made it profitable.
My point is that sans God it is still largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. That there does not appear to be a way in which to establish philosophically [logically/ethically] that slavery is necessarily/inherently wrong.
After all, sociopaths and nihilists are able to justify any and all human interactions that they construe to be in their own best interests.
Only a God is able to embody both the omniscience and the omnipotence that renders such things as slavery sins. With sins there is never any question of not getting caught, of not being punished. That’s why the Gods are invented in the first place!!
In my view, you still cling to the illusion [if it is an illusion] that moral “progress” can be defined and then established essentially by mere mortals in a Godless universe. I, on the other hand, as a moral nihilist, construe these things more as existential contraptions rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
And that is precisely why I ask folks [religious or not] to bring their own moral agendas “down to earth”; “out into the world” of actual human social, political and economic conflicts; conflicts we can probe and discuss given the differing sets of assumptions we bring into play here.
Thus you bring one set of assumptions regarding slavery above and I bring another. Now how would philosophers/epistemologists/logicians/ethicists/scientists/theologians/naturalists etc., go about establishing the most or the only rational assessment.
It basically revolves around distinguishing between those things that can be established as true objectively for all of us…
Catholicism is a Christian religious denomination here on planet earth.
…and those things which many believe in their head to be true – the God of Catholicism does in fact exist – but are unable to demonstrate [at least to me] that all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.
After all, whether in reference to God or to Santa Claus or to unicorns, there is what we claim to know is true and there is what we can demonstrate to others is in fact true.
And this is applicable to both Western and Eastern narratives/agendas.
And yet there have been any number of secular narratives – ideologies, political dogmas, isms etc. – that have inflicted just as much human pain and suffering over the course of human history. The 20th century in particular.
For me [God or No God], human interactions will always revolve around one or another combination of 1] might makes right 2] right makes might or 3] moderation, negotiation and compromise.
From my frame of mind, the worst of all possible worlds is reflected in the first two. But I also clearly recognize that “here and now” this is no less an “existential contraption”. A value judgment that I have come to embody over the course of my own lived life.