on discussing god and religion

This thread revolves around the moral narratives of those who embrace one or another God.

You of course don’t.

For you “progressive” behaviors seem to revolve instead around a philosophical understanding of how rational men and women are obligated to differentiate between right and wrong, good and evil.

Yet you are telling us that in the course of livng your life from day to day over the years, you are unable to recall a specific context in which your own value judgments came into conflict with anothers.

A context in which you are able to flesh out/illustrate the points that you are making scholastically above.

As I was once forced to with respect to John and Mary and abortion. A fundamental context in my own life because, in conjunction with William Barrett’s “rival goods”, my own embodiment of objectivism began to crumble.

I’m simply trying to grasp how your ideas might work given a particular context. If not one of your own then one that we might all be familiar with in following any number of conflicted goods “in the news”.

Not in other words something like this:

Here the relationship between knowing and doing revolves largely around the either/or world. The results are clearly calcuable in that you either do or do not become a great tennis player.

But, again, shift the discussion from that to the arguments [pro and con] about parents who take their kids at a very early age and try to shape and mold them into great tennis players. The controversy surrounding the “sports parent”. 24/7 some kids are made to live and breathe tennis.

Or some other sport.

Now, is this a good thing or a bad thing? What would constitute a “progressive” parent in this particlar context?

The sort of controversy that swirls around things like this: huffingtonpost.com/john-oas … 50790.html

And yet everytime I try to bring these things down into the realm of day to day human interactions in conflict…

You basically respond like this…

All I can do then is to point out just how far removed we are from forging this exchange into a substantive discussion of conflicting goods in a No God world.

Then this:

Or:

You do not have a dilemma because you have managed to think yourself into believing that you have exhausted all of the necessary knowledge and views. And in the course of living your life from day to day you are wholly in sync with that.

And this brings you comfort and consolation. It brings you equanimity. And some day down the road when everyone else shares your knowledge and views, they too will all be doing the same things.

And, who knows, it may even be possible that you will actually be around to see this happen.

How confident are you of this?

Normally after >50 pages the theme gets lost and sway into other things. Since what we are into is related to existentialism, it is possible to reconcile this to the OP?

Nope! my emphasis is not solely on the rational.
My principle is complementarity, i.e. the rational must be complemented by the empirical, i.e. experiences by the subject toward continuous improvement based on the system approach.
Note the Yin-Yang where the opposites must embrace each other spirally.

I have stated one must be rational [using reason and intellect] to establish the knowing but at the same time one must act [doing] on what is known and reflect on the experiences within a Framework and System with a drive for continuous improvement in all aspects of life.

Being human I am definitely exposed to all sorts of dilemma, including those of conflicting goods [Barrett’s ‘rival goods’].

But the philosophy I had adopted treat these naturally inevitable and unavoidable dilemmas like water droplets on a lotus leaf. I experience these dilemma but they don’t stick around for me to ruminate on them like you do.
That is why I am not able to narrate any significant dilemma I have experienced in life that is traumatic {PTSD} enough for me to recall easily.

That is why I always fall back to the inherent principle of ‘learning how to fish’ i.e. doing and a generic do-it-yourself to tackle any life problems.

Barrett introduced the concept of ‘rival goods’ in his book, The Irrational Man’.

As you will note from the above, religions [Christianity in this case] has at least some crude rickety system [based on illusion and impossibilities but it works] to deal with the dilemma of ‘rival goods.’
The point is when existentialism explains away flimsy-theistic-religions into nothingness, meaningless and absurdities, it does not provide an alternative ‘crutch’ for the terrified and panicky newly converted believers of existentialism to cling on.

The above is your existing dilemma, i.e. in a limbo.
To resolve the dilemma I suggested a Framework and System of ‘knowing and doing’ as a generic technique to deal with the inherent dilemma.
What I had proposed is a generic [how to fish] technique re how to resolve dilemmas in life and not addressing any specific dilemma [feeding one fishes on a daily basis].

Once the person has cultivated the necessary state and skills to deal with whatever dilemmas, the dilemmas [including the worst] will be like continuous water [even if polluted] falling on and off lotus leaves.

My example is for a person who has a strong drive and personal interest in playing tennis to the highest level.
In this case you are shifting the goalpost of the discussion or changing the subject matter from the person who is personally interested in learning, to the parents.

But even if you bring the parents in, then the main theme is still skills, i.e. parenting skills. If the parents has sufficient knowledge of what is good parenting [knowing] and has the ability to put that into practice, then they will not subject the kid to 24/7 practice.

The ultimate point is still about ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’.

Note my focus is on ‘how to fish’ while you want me to find the next fish to you, then presumably I have to do it on a daily basis.

It is not that I think I don’t have a dilemma.
Based on the right efforts I have put in over many years, I have managed to develop the necessary mental state to modulate ‘rival goods’ spontaneously without having to cry and ruminate over it.

As for the majority, I won’t be around to see the average person having the average state to deal with the existential dilemma effectively. However, given the progressing trend, I am optimistic it will happen, perhaps in >75 >100 years from now. What we can do is discuss the issue at present.

Yes, a fairly standard articulation of the faithful. They project into God all that they would be unable to fully comprehend about themselves in a No God world.

In other words, if God did not exist, He would have to be invented.

On the other hand, there are those who, having yanked God up and out of our lives, come to insist that God is not even necessary in order that mere mortals acquire a complete “knowledge and understanding of self”.

Ever and always their own. And then the irony here is completely lost on them.

God is gone, but not our capacity to differentiate right from wrong behaviors.

As “on of us” or “one of them”.

Naturally it seems.

But it doesn’t matter. If there is no way to determine right or wrong, good or evil, discussions of morals do not matter, and cannot be judged bad or problematic. Or, at least, you have no way to know if being objectivist is good or bad, if having opposing objectivisms is good or bad. You have no idea if your own repeated meta-ethical position is good or bad,does harm or good. There is nothing to complain about since for all you know it may be great that there are objectivists, even if their epistemology sucks. Perhaps the only harm being done is by nihilists. Who knows? we have no criteria to evaluate this

All I can do here is to patiently explain to you [and to others like you] that until this sort of “general description” is intertwined in a context most will be familiar with, I have no clear idea at all of what you are trying to convey here regarding conflicting goods.

In other words, from my point of view you have not really explained [substantively] much at all

This basically revolves around two things:

1] the extent to which your day to day interactions with others precipitates conflicts that revolve around value judgments that precipitate out of sync behaviors that precipitate actual consequences.

2] the extent to which you can then subsume these interactions in an intellectual contraption that allows you to believe that there are in fact actual “progressive” behaviors to be embodied.

And that, eventually, in the future, everyone will understand this. And, no doubt, they will be behaviors that you are already privy to here and now “in your head”.

That’s your rendition of existentialism. Mine suggest not that meaning revolves around nothingness…around absurdities…but that meaning [in the is/ought world] is embedded historically, culturally and experientially in particular contexts construed from partiuclar points of view embedded in the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

But here you scramble straight back up into the clouds of abstraction:

What on earth am I to make of this?

Again, you are actually arguing that if the progressive parents have sufficient knowledge and are able to impart this knowledge skillfully to their children, they will then discern precisely where that line is drawn between too much tennis and too little tennis.

And what might that entail?

Quite true. On the other hand, I have always argued here that my own contribution to the discussion is no less an existential contraption.

This thread was created in order to encourage religious folks to connect the dots between the beahviors that they choose on this side of the grave and their imagined fate on the other side.

Clearly, with an extant God [often said to be omniscient and omnipotent], there is unequivocally a deontological font available in order to know the difference between right and wrong behaviors.

But what of the No God world?

What is the font – the criterion – then?

Given that mere mortals are anything but omniscient and omnipotent.

From what I have gathered so far is you too defensive to learn anything.
Note I am not pushing and insisting on you to learn or accept ALL of MY views.

What I had proposed is very positive and generic like, learn how to fish, increase your level of philosophical education, see the pros and cons of various issues and other self-improvement methods.
It is very unfortunate you have very rigid and non-pliable neurons in the learning part of your brain.

I sense your thinking is very perverted from the norm and that is why it is giving you so much problems, dilemma and conundrums.

I am not too sure what this is leading to. Perhaps you can give an example.

Whatever the problems with the above, I would propose we ‘learn how to fish’ as a generic approach to deal with the issues.

Note sure ‘understand what’.

I mentioned the generic solution to life’s problem to tackle whatever the problem, i.e.

  1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
  2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
  3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
  4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)

If we let the suffering or problem be X, then we can resolve whatever the problem through the above model.

Don’t be doubtful because it has only 4 lines.
To be adept in the above one need years of knowledge and practices plus continuing attention on it to sustain its effectiveness.

Abstraction??
This is your problem that prevent you from any breakthrough.
As I had stated many times, all knowledge has to start with abstraction from past experiences to progress.
If you dismiss abstraction as ‘clouds’ then you are into trouble.

As stated there is no other way in such a discussion except to start with abstractions, i.e. hypothesis, thesis and various knowledge on the intellectual and theoretical basis.

What on earth am I to make of this?
The onus is on you to look into the Why, What, How, When, Who, and the likes towards knowing and doing.

Note the views of ‘existentialism’ is not mine but that is the general theme.
I believe your invention and understanding of your ‘dasein’ is wrong and out of alignment with the original. This is why you are having so much problems with it.

But the general view with existentialism is it does not provide existentialists with as set of practices to get them out of the problems of life it exposes. Agree?

Note we can deduce from empirical observations and matching with average expectations of what good parenting entails.
As for tennis we can gather evidences [good and bad] from what all the top tennis players and other non-pros has done in their life. This is not difficult at all. Then we can abstract the general norms of what constitute good parenting in relation to playing tennis and other sports.

As for good parenting we can do the same from observations, setting expectations, etc.
We can abstract what are the norms relative to various conditions.
In addition we will note what are the extremes to be avoided and the risks involved.
Again we reduce the above to ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ with a striving for continuous improvements.

Look, you are either convinced that objective morality exist [in a No God world] or you are not.

And you are either convinced that others can learn from you to embody rational/progressive behaviors regarding conflicting goods [in a No God world] or you are not.

But:

You will either bring all of this down to earth in order to substantiate your claims or you will not.

But you can’t resist it:

You tell me: Is it even possible to be more abstract?

Yet even in discussing abstraction you fall back on more of it:

Well, if this is true it smacks of determinism. And if determinism is applicable what does it really mean to hold me responsible for whatever I think, feel and do?

The norm? Subtantiate this please. A context. A set of conflicting goods.

Are you telling me you have never encountered others who objected to your behaviors because they violated their own understanding of right and wrong? What on earth then does it mean to “learn to fish” here? How was the dispute “dealt” with to the satisfaction of both of you?

Instead, your argument [to me] is that there is a progressive Middle-Way behavior out here and that in the future both of you will come to embody it if you wish to be thought of as rational human beings.

But only if this is “dealt” with first in an exchange of “general descriptions” of human interactions. You have this “thing” about “generic solutions to life’s problems”. But that doesn’t surprise me at all.

For example this thing:

And then when I ask you to bring this down to earth in order to grapple with an actual suffering human being in an actual context, you don’t see the point of that. Or you claim that [with me or with others] you already have done this.

I’m just not privy [yet] as to where and when.

Either that or we just have to agree to disagree regarding what that exchange entails.

Indeed, that is why folks like de Beauvoir wrote novels in order to situate the general themes out in a particular world that revolved largely around the actual existential lives of herself and those around her.

Even the mother of all Objectivists, Ayn Rand, made that attempt.

No, they suggested that those who insist that “essense precedes existence” [in the is/ought world] acted out of “bad faith”, acted “inauthentically”. Why? Because in order to embrace their doctrinaire, dogmatic and generally authoritarian moral/political prescriptions, they insisted that everyone else had to embrace [b]the same set of practices that they did[/b]. In other words, the psychology of objectivism: one of us vs. one of them.

That you know what is true not what you know is true.

Again, substantively, “what might that entail?” What particular behaviors would be in sync with a “progressive” frame of mind in regards to striking a Middle-Way balance [from day to day to day] between too much tennis and too little tennis?

What would all of the great tennis players agree upon here?

Though I suspect that you [much like me] don’t really have a clue because you [much like me] have never been a parent faced [existentially] with that dilemma. You just know that if one thinks about it in the right way equanimity will prevail.

Theoretically as it were.

I want to repeat the above has nothing to do with ‘objectivist’, it is about dualism and related to Moral Dualism in this case.

I do not believe it is possible for a God to exist as real.
I do not believe objective morality exist ontologically in the non-theistic No-God perspective.

However I believe we humanity can generate the idea of objective morality via the highest possible reason and work them together complementarily with relative morality. In this case it is not an either/or thing.

Note my concept of complementarity neutralize your dualistic either/on concept.

Whenever you encounter a dead-end either/or scenario look at it from the complementary perspective. This is the principle used in Taoism re Yin-Yang and elsewhere to generate optimality and rationality.
Note in Physics as well.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementarity_(physics

It is very common and normal for me to have disagreements with others.

Here is an example;
Note theists will not agree with my non-theistic views.
I believe there is a Middle-Way out of that chasm, i.e. the theists should learn ‘how to fish’ using the generic problem solving technique;
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=187395&p=2516030&hilit=4NT#p2516030
like I do which is much more that the theist’s mere belief based on faith.

Thus theists will have to execute [take real action on] right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

The theist will have to take real action to understand the issue in the whole perspective to get the right view, i.e. on

Why God is an Impossibility?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=193474

the real solution is found in;
The Ultimate Ground of God is Psychological.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=193697

There is no easy way out, to learn how to fish [beside the above] one will have to learn and research as much as possible and practice whatever is necessary.

If one do not want to learn, research and practice, then it is the end of discussion.

Example;
Generally*, the route to be well rounded in education, one has to go through certain basic phases of educational processes, e.g. attend grade/home school to a PhD program.
But if the person refuse to go through the educational phases, give all sorts of excuses, be defensive and prefer to do nothing about it, then that the end of the discussion on the topic of education.

  • not taking into account the autodidactic.

Do you notice what you say in your response?

You say that other people need to learn things. Other people need to know and do a bunch of “right” stuff. They don’t know how to fish and they don’t know the “right” things, but you do.

If only they knew what you know and if they did the things that you do, then they would also be as good as you.

You don’t seem to be able to acknowledge that other people might know how to fish, they might know what is “right” better than you.

The two links which you provided have had many responses. People have pointed out your errors and yet you simply deny legitimacy of what they have said. You bring up those threads as if they are proof of your claims when in fact, they show how poor your claims are.

I am not expecting every one who knows what I know to be as good as myself. They could be better or lesser.

It depends on the subject matter. I don’t claim to be expert on everything but only in those areas I have expertise.
As far as my discussion with Iambiguous is concern, i.e. his dilemma related to existentialism and digging a hole so deep he cannot get out, I believe I am well equiped in knowledge and practices to address this specific problem.

Note this is a philosophy forum which by default is for people to present their views, the more the better.

In those two links, as far as I am concern I have countered all arguments against my views and there are no outstanding points for me to address and counter in the above two links. If there are outstanding points I will definitely want to address and I cannot leave them hanging and leaving my proposition in doubt.

I believe you have raised the same issues a few times and I have addressed them.
Why don’t you highlight the outstanding points you think I have not addressed in those links, I will definitely appreciate that and will addressed them accordingly.
I am also hoping there will be new counter arguments from different perspectives other than the ones already presented.

I’m not going to waste any more time on those threads.

Note to others:

He believes that he does not believe this. Others, however, believe that they do not believe that he what he believes he does not believe is what a virtuous man or woman ought to believe.

Then what?

What on earth does that mean? You won’t tell us. Why? Because, in my view, you are just one more of Durant’s “epistemologists”.

Either that or it’s a Yin-Yang thing.

Then this thing:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementarity_(physics

So, what on earth does that have to do with the secular equivalent of choosing behaviors in a No God world as it relates to your fate after you are dead and gone?

As I had stated this is a separate topic which need to be discussed in a separate thread within the Philosophy of Morality.
I believed I have discussed parts of this in various posts but as usual your memory is failing you. e.g. [a quick search]
viewtopic.php?p=2629864#p2629864

He obviously remembered, he mentioned the Yin Yang thing above in this post you quote, then say his memory is failing him.

Here is the post you link to that you think explains something…

First off, to say that something is resolved by Kant is a mere appeal to authority. It doesn’t demonstrate anything. Kant could have been wrong, for example, which many modern philosophers believe. Your ‘explanation’ in the bolded portion is as mystical as anything from, say, St. Teresa.

I fully understand what I stated re Kant is merely a statement and ultimately my point must be justified.
This is not the place but I am fully prepared to justify my point where appropriate. Note I spent >3 years researching on Kant on a full time basis and I have a reasonable understanding of his philosophies.
It is not easy to understand Kant philosophy and the majority of philosophy do not understand Kant’s philosophy fully. Even those who are Kantian and pro-Kant end up having different interpretations of Kant’s philosophy, e.g. on the concept of the thing-in-itself aka noumenon.

The majority of philosophers understand Kant’s morality as deontological, but this is totally wrong.

That’s precisely why I want to bring all of this down to a particular context. I’m confused regarding your point here. Are you arguing that conflicting goods do in fact exist [here and now] but that, in the future, by embodying “progressive Middle-Way” behaviors, mere mortals [in a No God world] can interact sans conflict? Or are you arguing that if the conflicting goods are still around in the future rational men and women can choose to behave such that they will necessarily embody right rather than wrong behaviors?

In other words, what on earth does this…

Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview which has one god, more than one god, or none. - wiki

…have to do with the conflicting goods embedded [here and now] in an issue like abortion?

Conflicting goods will always exists, i.e. Yin -Yang, Black and White, P and -P.

In a No God world in the future, duality will still exists but the human emotional and psychological interaction with such conflicting goods will be different.
Instead of clinging to either one extreme or the other extreme, the future rational men and women with interact with conflicting goods in a complementary Middle-Way.

It is like walking on a tight rope with strong winds blowing.
The effective Middle-Way approach is to tilt up to the maximal right or left as necessary to maintain balance without falling but each time one strive to get back to the middle.
But if one were to merely lean only to the one side at the edge and limit, one is most likely to fall from the tight rope.

Not sure of your point?

As I had stated with an issue of abortion ‘here and now,’ if one do not have the competent skills to deal with its conflicting goods, there is nothing much one can do except to do one’s best based on whatever skill has and accept the associated mental pains.

It is just like a person who is not a skilled tight-rope-walker and being place on a tight rope and forced to walk across, thus wobbling all the way with fears or even fall to death.

Re the case of abortion, the solution in the near future is to develop the psychological skills to deal with it. In the later future humanity will strive for ZERO unwanted pregnancies [via a feasible master plan] so there is no issue related to ‘abortion’ at all.

In the future whilst humanity has solved the abortion issue, Moral Dualism will still exists as I had stated P and -P in other scenarios will always exist to be dealt with. But in the future rational man and woman will not be heavily effected psychological and emotionally by dualism.

For other issues it is not the case that rational/wiser people will always do the right thing in the future, they will still commit wrongs but their acts will be net-positively right plus they have a model and system to continually improve on the wrongs to the minimal.

Okay, if they will always exist in this No God world of the future, then philosophers [using the tools at their disposal] are either able to encompass the optimal behaviors for those who wish to be thought of as rational, or one or another combination of the factors that I note will become embodied [subjectively/subjunctively] in particular [and often conflicting] existential narratives.

Narratives that will necessarily continue to evolve in a world of contingency, chance and change.

Perhaps, but [so far] only in this “world of words” that you construct in your head. You have given us no arguments from which we can imagine/visualize these “complementary Middle-Way” behaviors pertaining to an issue like abortion.

Note to others:

If you believe that he has please note/link them.

I’ll bet it is.

But I repeat myself: What on earth does this mean?

You speak of “competent skills” in a No God world as though this is not based entirely on an objectivist of your ilk persuading a moral nihilist of my ilk that this does indeed revolve around your own list of prescriptive and proscriptive behaviors.

Which you will not focus the beam on in the manner in which I argue is more likely to make your point clearer to, among others, those fierce combatants outside the abortion clinic.

How would a “moral dualist” approach the issue of gun control? What would he or she note to the students and the parents at Parkland High School in Florida?

Should they aim more in the direction of banning assault rifles, or, instead, focus their attention on developing the “psychological skills” needed to cope with these tragedies? Or come up with the optimal combination of both.

From my own frame of mind [and that’s all it is, an existential prejudice] this simply comes off as yet another “general decription” of words defining and defending other words. It almost seems like psychobabble to me.

This:

Psychobabble: a form of speech or writing that uses psychological jargon, buzzwords, and esoteric language to create an impression of truth or plausibility.

But, again, it’s not really connected to anything substantive. There is not an actual context we can turn to in order to test the relevancy or the applicability of the points being made.