God is an Impossibility

Okay, let’s test this then:

Note a particular context in which value judgments come into conflict. How would you imagine those subscribing to Eastern philosopies reacting differently from those subscribing to Western philosophies?

Historically, what would constitute an “improvement” here? What would constitute “progress”?

How is this not instead [as I construe it] merely the embodiment [existentially] of particular sets of political prejudices rooted in particular historical, cultural and experiential [interpersonal] contexts?

All of this may well be true. As an argument. But what transpires when this argument is made to actual flesh and blood human beings who find themselves in a particular context in which particular values have precipitated particular behaviors that have precipitated particular conflicts?

That is always where “I” aim to take these “general description” analyses.

The part where “here and now” I am entangled in my dilemma above. How are those who embrace an Eastern philosophy not entangled in it? Or considerably less entangled in it?

And then we can take the discussion to the part where what we choose to do on this side of the grave has actual consequences regarding our imagined fate on the other side of it.

Well, from my frame of mind it is more a question of how to interact with others socially, politically and economically, when you have managed to think yourself into the dilemma that I am in.

In flesh and blood human relationships there are actual consequences that can make our lives [from our own perspective] seem considerably better or worse. And sometimes it can revolve literally around matters of life and death.

To the extent that Eastern philosophies are able to mitigate that, all the better. But [for me] it doesn’t make the part about dasein, conflicting goods and political economy go away.

In other words:

Okay, but sooner or later these “spiritual practices” are going to collide with any number conflicting religious and moral and political agendas out in our modern world.

Again, if they succeed in minimizing the stress and anxiety these conflicts bring with them, that is clearly a victory.

But in trying to imagine a Buddhist reacting to, among other things, Trumpworld and the global economy, I begin to wonder just how far that can go.

This is another bankrupted and childish approach of yours and insulting your own intelligence and credibility.
Show me your justifications for each accusation you made.

Nah. You can’t fill an already-filled cup.

Prove to your cat that the Internet is real.

Generally ‘ontology’ in its widest sense is,
“Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.”
My take re ‘ontology’ is restricted to an existence that is independent of human conditions, e.g. Plato Forms, God and the likes.

The point is this, any one can think of any thing in thought but it is only real as a thought.
For example any thought of empirical possibility need to be justified with empirical evidence as objectively real.
If one cannot justify whatever is thought as real within empirical-rational reality, then it is false or illusory within that reality.

God is a thought rationalized by pure reason only [for psychological reasons] but to be real a theist must justify God’s existence within empirical-rational reality.

You tell me, what other reality than empirical-rational reality can any one justify a thing is really real? - dream world? moral world? a psychiatric world?

My point was, a thoroughly understanding of Kant will enable a person to realize philosophically, the idea of God is an illusion. It does not bring any one closer to a God.

Kant thesis is true knowledge arise from a posteriori experiences but knowledge is also tied to a priori of the collective experiences embedded in the DNA via the experiences of our past ancestors.

According to Kant, the idea of God arose when the theists [out of psychological factors -mine] untie whatever empirical basis to the thought to conclude the existence of a God which in fact is an illusion.

Note this [again];

As I had stated before, ALL humans are infected with a ‘virus’ that generate an existential crisis in the psyche. The virus in the majority are active while in others it is dormant.
Because the existential crisis generate terrible subliminal angst, a rationalized thought [emptied of the essential empirical base] of God is a very effective balms to soothe those angst. This belief in God thus provide real psychological security to theists to deal with a turbulent reality.

The fact that there are others who resort to non-theistic approaches [more efficient & not evil laden] to deal with that inherent viral existential crisis is indication theism is not the only way.

The ‘exist’ in ‘God exists’ is not a predicate.
With a predicate, then it is ‘God exists as a thought only’.

The contention re ‘the Murderer - lying’ scenario is a criticism of Kant as advocating an absolute rule ‘Lying is not permissible absolutely.’ The dilemma is if the man at the door sticks to the rule of no lying [telling the truth where the woman is hiding], then he is complicit to the murder of another human being which is a greater evil.

There is a misinterpretation of Kant’s Framework and System of Morality & Ethics in the above case.
Kant’s moral framework do include Absolute Moral Rules but they are only to act a guides and never to be enforced in practice. In ‘the Murderer - lying’ example, Kant was merely discussing the workings of an absolute moral rule, and he NEVER advocated such an absolute moral rule [morality] must be enforced in practice [ethics]. Kant agreed with Hume, an ‘OUGHT’ [morality] cannot be an "IS’ [ethics] but nevertheless both can work in complement to each other.

So in a real [in practical] ‘Murderer - lying’ scenario, the man at the door will have to ‘lie’ [a lesser evil] to counter a greater evil of assisting a murder to kill.

The above is a gist of how Kant’s Framework and System of Morality & Ethics works.
It is not easy to understand Kant’s work and 90% of the understanding of the above case within the philosophical community on this point is wrong.

Not too sure of this point.

I understand theism is a critical psychological necessity for the majority of people to soothe the inherent unavoidable angst arising from an existential crisis.
However I am also aware of theism-as-a-whole has malignant evil elements [in Abrahamic religions especially Islam] that pose a critical threat to the human species. [MAD is not a deterrent to Muslims].
Given the existential crisis is inherent and unadvoidable, humanity must strive to find alternative foolproof replacements for theism [with a malignant potential].
At present we already have non-theistic ideologies and practices which tackle the same existential crisis and are benign. All we need is to improve on them and repackage them without an specific brand.

Note we are in a philosophical forum and thus the need for intellectual integrity. It would be an insult to one’s intelligence to accept an illusion [proven] as really real, i.e. within an empirical rational reality.

One cannot present the idea of God as really real [empirical rational reality] without making the appropriate qualification that God is in fact illusory within an empirical rational reality .

As I had stated ‘God is an impossibility’ as proven [in thoughts via the highest possible rationality] is like a square-circle is an impossibility.
No rational person would doubt a square-circle is an impossibility because there is no deep psychological interest in such a point.

The original basis of theism is psychological, i.e. a desperate drive to soothe the arising angst pulsating from an existential angst.
This is real and has been recognized by Eastern spiritualities since thousands of years ago who has improved upon theistic methods [potentially malignant] to establish non-theistic methods which are benign.

It is this psychological desperation and insecurity that compel theists to defend their position as giving up theism for them at present without a replacement would be a psychological catastrophe. I understand this dilemma and I have never advocated replacing theism at the present or near-future but only later in the future when we have the capacity to do so without destabilizing the psychological state of theists.

I do not expect any one to believe me [100%] based on what I have posted.
What I have posted should be taken a clues and one need to do research on the subject.
However before one can proceed one must first understand the psychological compulsion that is driving one to theism. Using mindfulness one need to navigate to understand and reflect on what is really going on.

You would be wrong about that too. But at least you finally learned to use a dictionary.

Now if you could just accept what it says rather than your own version of the words.

An ontology is a set of concepts and their relations used to describe reality, an understanding of reality. There can be many true ontologies, just as there can be many languages. And there can never be a language without an underpinning ontology. Ontology is what gives language meaning: concept -to- word and how the puzzle fits together - the “map” to the “terrain” of reality.

Oh really?
So the back side of the Moon doesn’t exist unless you are watching it?

That’s good. So far, no one has.

This quote is supposedly attributed to Einstein [disputed];

The fact as I noted is the ultimate effectiveness of Buddhism [& other Eastern spiritualities] is too advanced for the masses at the present. This is why at present the Abrahamic religions are more popular, i.e. just believe and viola one is ‘saved’.

In addition to crude practices for the masses, Buddhism has a solid Framework and System of knowledge & practices to enable the believer to align optimally with reality san an illusory God and its negative baggage.

The effectiveness of genuine Buddhism can only be realized upon a high degree of continuous hardwork in the self-development of rewiring one’s brain for the purpose. This is why not many people are taking Buddhism seriously at present.
In your case, if you are above 55, genuine Buddhism is not going to be very effective on an older atrophized brain with low degree of plasticity.

As for the future generations, with the incremental trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technological in the advance knowledge of the neurosciences, genomics, etc. I am optimistic one can use these advancing knowledge to advance self-development programs like Buddhism [& other Eastern spiritualities] to optimize spirituality without malignant elements.

Btw, I am not a Buddhist per se and I am not insisting Buddhism is the only way. I believe in the future humanity must adopt the effective principles and practices from Buddhism and the likes and repackaging them for general use without reference to any specific religion or spirituality.

Prisimatic is right about one thing: ontology — the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations — ultimately leads to the existence of the ontological God. He’s wrong about everything else, but he was right about that. It’s a mystery to me how he can say that and, in the very next line, say that it is restricted to an existence that is independent of human conditions.

I’m not seeing the truth of that. Can you explain a bit more detail? Why would a ontology necessarily lead to the existence of a “God”? Being an ontologist, I am a little curious.

Metaphysics is a very broad field, and metaphysicians attempt to answer questions about how the world is; ontology is a related sub-field that answers questions pertaining to what things exist in the world. An ontological narrative serves the same purpose as myth: it tells us how be in the world and how to relate to it. The prevailing modern myth is secular scientism – a metaphysics devoid of living First Principles. It’s rich in factual knowledge, but very, very poor in it ability to tell us how to live and relate.

Ships are safe in their harbors, but that’s not what they’re for. Once we knowingly set foot on a metaphysical path to discover the nature of Ultimate Reality, the reality of First Principles, there is the “danger” that we might want to find meaning in the quality of existence. And quality, being a matter of mind interpretation, represents an estimate of values and must, therefore, remain an experience of the individual. Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things, but not companionship. Companionship cannot be enjoyed unless both are persons. Only personalities can commune with each other. The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the qualative concept of goodness is understandable only in relation to divine personality.

This is what Prismatic fears.

Well, that was very well put and in general would seem to be true. People do tend to either fall toward an anthropomorphic God or First Principle God. But I have to disagree that it is of necessity that values and quality of life cannot be understood through impersonal principles. Just because they didn’t, does mean that we can’t. My own Affectance Ontology bridges that gap, as has been brought up here in RM:AO - EM:DE.

And in here Where Does Meaning Come From?

And quite a few other threads.

Well, I guess I don’t understand it. The highlighted are my concerns about your philosophy. The first has to do with certainty. Certainty is an illusion. It imprisons us and closes the doors of perception to the unlimited possibilities before us. Linked to the human need to belong, which is driven the fundamental anxiety Prismatic talks about, it establishes rivalrous interests. Read the article I linked to at Psychology Today.

While true to some extent, my second concern is that it has the same as problem Prismatic’s idea of “evil”: it rests firmly on a foundation of thin air. There’s no there there. There’s nothing to facilitate fellowship except personal interests.

The last fails to distinguish between values and things that have value. Values (for finite beings) are indeed relative and subjective, but relative to what? Values are utterly meaningless without an Absolute or ideal against which they can be measured.

No doubt. It takes considerably more than a superficial revue to understand such things, whether they be worth while or not.

Emm… certain about that, are you? Perhaps a presumptuous illusion?

That is the second time I have noted you claim a falsehood based upon your prediction of how people would handle the thought; “If it leads to people behaving the foolish way that I think they will, then it must be a false theory.

That one, I will have to completely disagree with and ask for your evidence.

Actually, I explicitly pointed out both of those concerns and their relation to each other as well as to the make of the universe itself.

As is often the case, you appear to be guilty of your own accusations; you are claiming certainty that something can’t be done and even the certainty that one can’t be certain of anything such as to maintain the status quo “illusion”.

But this isn’t the thread to bandy this topic.

And the point being that the ontology did not lead to claims about a “God” character. Einstein’s General Relativity is also an ontology, involving the warping of spacetime and makes no mention of God, nor does the Quantum Physics ontology of the Standard Model.

Well, either I don’t understand what you’re saying, or I’m seeing something you are not. (Beware of philosophy’s hidden implications.)

As is often the case, you appear to be guilty of your own accusations: you, too, are claiming certainty. :angry-argument: Com’on, let’s not be childish about it. Each of us is confident in what we believe. So what? I don’t think either one of us do what so many others here do, which is to sit back and wait for truth to come to us in the form of evidence.

You’re conflating physics and metaphysics.

No, no. I didn’t say that one cannot be certain. I teach quite the opposite. So no, I’m not guilty of my accusation in that way … perhaps in some other way.

All that said was “Without a reason, make no judgement.
Of course not (although a rarity to actually do).

Personally, I never expect anyone to accept anything that I say without me providing a reason. And more than that, if they do not accept something that I say, it can only be that I did not provide the right kind of reason for them. The problem is, as you mentioned, most people don’t actually seek out or even listen to reasons, but rather merely want to make snap, superficial decisions and go about preaching their opinion. And that seems to be the case concerning this thread; " I did my part. All objectors are childish and ignorant.".

No. The metaphysics of General Relativity proposes an ontological foundation that space and time “warp”/“contract”/“dilate”. The physics then describes the relations involved, the equations concerning how much.

Classical Newtonian physics involves the motions of items within a space described by the ontology of Newton’s Laws of Motion. It is an ontology of rigid bodies, forces, and scaler velocities (It’s claim as to the nature of being and existence). The Newtonian metaphysics has no room for “bending space” as in General Relativity (“gravitational force” doesn’t exist in Relativity). The question as to whether space bends is an ontological question, from which physics equations can be derived in order to give detail concerning the specifics. As it turns out, neither ontology is true to reality, but that is another issue. They are both “physics” based upon their own “metaphysics” presumptions.

One cannot have a physics without there being an underpinning metaphysics.

That’s the problem.

True. And the underpinning metaphysics of physics is the belief that the “scientific method” is valid.

Anselm of Canterbury said something very poignant: “For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.” Felt values are among the things I want to understand, and “that unless I believe I shall not understand.”

Search deep enough, and it is a dilemma all of us will encounter. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves, and only a person can love and be loved. Only a person can give us solace without being in denial.

What is meant is,
in general, the term ‘ontology’ ultimately leads to a discussion of the existence of God and thus ontological God.

From my awareness and experience the subject most related to ontology is God, the Soul, the Whole Universe or Whole Reality, the devil.
No philosopher would be interested in discussing the ontological existence of an apple or a ball. By default the term ‘ontology’ is restricted to things beyond the empirical, which is metaphysical [more so the empirical impossible].

Any attempt to bring in ‘ontology’ to relate the empirical or anything scientific [like JSS] is trying to be rhetorical and deceptive.

The central theme of discussion related to ‘ontology’ is about whether an existence is absolute independent of human conditions [philosophical realism] or interdependent with human conditions.

Theists will claim God has an ontological existence in the sense God who created humans is absolutely independent from humans. Some theists will claim the Soul has an independent existence and will survive after physical death.

I claim the the ideas of God, Soul and ‘Whole Universe created by God’ is not independent but interdependent with the human conditions. In this senses, God exists only as conditioned by human psychological factors, i.e. no humans no God.

Good post. =D> It reminds me of an article I read:

For many theists, it’s not that that there is absolute independence, but that God is ontologically different; i.e., non-contingent as opposed to contingent.

Existence (the fact or state of continued being) is axiomatic (meaning that it does not rest upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any “more basic” premises) because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth (a denial of something is only possible if existence exists). “Existence exists” is therefore an axiom which states that there is something, as opposed to nothing. Theists argue that God is that existence. True, it’s not a predicate – it doesn’t say anything about God, but with it comes a whole slew of philosophical implications and ramifications.