More to the point, in living lives that may well be very, very different from your own, how might that feedback be construed as either constructive or destructive?
In either a God or a No God world.
Perhaps then you should stop reading my posts.
On the other hand, would any feedback suppotive of Communism be construed as thoughful by you?
But my point is to suggest that narratives relating to God are largely existential contraptions anchored subjectively/subjunctively in dasein.
You tell me: What [u][b]IS[/u][/b] the truth about God?
They would first have to note how, with regard to their own conflicting behaviors with others, they not down in the hole that I’m in.
All I can do then is to react to what they tell me. And in the either/or world there are countless things that can in fact be demonstrated to be true for all of us. My “expectations” here are almost always in sync with what is.
Indeed, I eschew a “dismissive” attitude here time and again.
Until we are able to establish precisely what the relationship would be between an existing God and any particular mere mortal, how on earth could any “content” be realistically speculated about?
Go ahead, provide us with a hypothetical relationship.
And why not in a world where there are so many things that can be so demonstrated.
My point is that historically any number of moral and political objectivists insisted that the is/ought world could be construed in much the same way: right/wrong, good/evil, true/false.
And God help those who refused to become “one of us”.
Well, admittedly I’m not privy to the rock bottom ontological/teleological truth about existence.
But in the interim I’m willing to settle for mathematical truths, scientific truths and logical truths.
And, sure, even moral truths. If they are in fact demonstrated to exist.
But it always still revolves around “I”. As I construe this in being a moral nihilist. Here and now. In other words, “I” could come to believe that there are objective moral truths. But how would “I” then go about demonstrating that all rational men and women are obligated to believe it too?
That’s because you don’t have the same standard for the demonstrations:
Someone refuses to accept that humans landed on the moon : Refuses to accept pictures, video, eye-witness testimony. Dimwit.
Someone thinks that all human life on the planet ought to be exterminated : Well you can’t argue with that, it’s a value judgement. You can’t demonstrate that it’s a crazy idea. Perfectly rational person.
At some point, you dismiss one guy as a nutter, but the other guy is never a nutter no matter what.
Well, a determinist who focuses centally Dasein cannot logically believe in rationality. All believe, not just religious ones, the determinist knows he or she is compelled to have and compelled to think they make sense. It is not necessary to add on the distortions of Dasein to this since knowing one is rational about any decision/conclusion is not possible. Knowing one has been. He loves the is ought distinction, but his own philosophy makes the distinction irrelevant and indiscernible.
Indeed, in the first context, there are any number of facts that either can or cannot be established as true [objectively] for all of us. But, sure, there will always be those who insist that since they were not in the actual capsule that landed on the Moon, there’s always the possibility that the whole thing was just made up…a government conspiracy.
And, as always, there will be the solipsists. Or those who speculate that everything – everything – that we experience from day to day is really just a manifestation of some Sim world, or some cartesean demon’s dream.
And how on earth could I demonstrate otherwise?
As for the second context, yes, there may well be those who live lives so fucking miserable that, were they able to, they would readily push the button that blew up the planet.
And how on earth would you go about demonstrating that, philosophically, such a behavior is necessarily irrational and immoral? In a No God world.
The irony here being that, if there is a God, He brings about “extinction events” on planet earth from time to time Himself.
And almost all scientists agree that it is not a question of whether but of when one or another Big One will bring about our own extinction.
So, when this occurs, will this be an example of God acting in a necessarily irrational and immoral manner.
Here, again, I will need you to note instances of this.
Since, in my view, with respect to God, religion, value judgments and morality, we are all only exchanging “existential contraptions” here, it would never occur to me to label someone a “nutter”. That would make me one.
On the other hand, please define a “nutter” for me.
Which says basically nothing because “everything” is one of those idiot words which means practically nothing. Obviously some human thinking would revolve around God and some would not.
Then you quote me :
and you respond with :
Not responding to my questions or suggesting any ideas.
More of me:
and you responded with:
That’s not really a substantive answer is it?
My hypothetical situation consisted of God having revealed himself - no demonstrations of God’s existence would be required to discuss the situation.
If one were a determinist, she would have to acknowledge that her views on determinism [and God and religion and dasein and everything else] were only as they ever could have been.
Period. Immutably.
And what then would that tell us about our exchanges on this thread?
Talk about being “stuck”!!
And, indeed, it would seem ludicrous to make a distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world. Not that we would have any choice but to do so.
But that just begs the question: How exactly would we go about demonstrating this when anything that we attempt to demonstrate [using whatever methodology that we “choose”] is in turn merely a manifestation of whatever brought into existence Existence itself.
Philosophers call these things “antinomies”: “a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable; a paradox.”
And this takes us back to a world created either by God [an actual teleological component that mere mortals crave], or to that legendary “brute facticity” embedded in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that for all “living” components of it ends in oblivion.
If someday an existing God did in fact make His existence known, how could any particular mere mortal react realistically to that without first being apprised as to what this extant God could/would or could not/would not know about the behaviors they choose and what He could/would or could not/would not do about it?
That’s just common sense to me.
If someone is aware of this existing God, he or she would surely respond to this new reality [God having revealed Himself] based on what they surmise this God can know about the behaviors they choose, and on how they surmise this God will react to the behaviors they choose.
If someone was not aware of this God, and chooses a behavior deemed by Him to be a Sin, what would be the consequences? Or, as I noted on another thread:
[b]Imagine hypothetically three Christian missionaries set out to save the souls of three different native tribes. The first one is successful. The folks in the first tribe accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and are baptized in the faith. The second is not successful. The folks in the second tribe refuse to accept Christ as their personal savior and instead continue to embrace their own god…their own religion. The third missionary is not even able to find the tribe he was sent out to save.
Now, imagine one member of each tribe dying on the same day a week later. What will be the fate of their souls? Will the man from the first tribe ascend to Heaven having embraced the Christian faith? Will the man from the second tribe burn in Hell for having rejected the Christian faith? And what of the man from the third tribe—he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?[/b]
Okay, imagine in turn this God of yours being around at some hypothetical point in the future?
Then what? How would this change things for mere mortals?
[b][i]Note to others:
Is his point of an entirely different nature? A point that I keep missing? Please advise.[/i][/b]
"And, as always, there will be the solipsists. Or those who speculate that everything – everything – that we experience from day to day is really just a manifestation of some Sim world, or some cartesean demon’s dream.
And how on earth could I demonstrate otherwise?"
What “facts” here am I attempting to demonstrate are true for all of us? I am merely noting the sort of speculations that can be broached regarding human interactions. In fact, there are no doubt folks who really do believe in some rather “far out” explanations for, well, everything.
I’m merely noting the gap between the fact that they believe something “in their head” to be true, and the fact that they either have or have not convinced others that all rational men and women are obligated to believe the same.
And the extent to which what others believe either is or is not in sync with all that would need to be known about Existence itself in order to know this.
This is just you – yet again! – bringing into sync the fact of this exchange with the “fact” that the arguments you make in it reflects the optimal or the only rational frame of mind.
Something I do not do myself regarding my own admitted “existential contraption”.
Sometimes I seem able to challenge him to intelligently explore further the gap between his frame of mind about God, religion and morality and my frame of mind.
We basically respect each other’s intelligence and do what we can to articulate our conflicted points of view.
Though other times, however, I seem to reduce him down to “retorts” like this.
Here I speculate that my own arguments are nudging him closer to the hole that I’m in. And that exasperates him because he has so much more to lose.