Over and over and over again, I make that crucial distinction between what we think we know about ourselves and what we or others are able to demonstrate is in fact true.
What else is there?
Sans sim worlds or dream worlds or one or another rendition of the matrix etc., I know that I am sitting here typing these words. There are facts about me. My situation. My “set of circumstances”. Things that I am able to demonstrate are in fact true about me. Things that I and others know are true about me.
But this thread concerns itself with what I think I know is true about God and religion. And, subsequently, how what I think I know is true precipitates particular behaviors relating to morality on this side of the grave and to the fate of “I” on the other side of it.
So, what am I able to demonstrate here as in fact true? How do I determine if what I think I know about God and religion here and now is in sync with what is actually true about them going back ontologically – teleologically? – to an understanding of existence itself?
And how are you not in the same boat?
Think of all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables [from the day you were born] that go into the making of who you think you are today. Many beyond your understanding of or control over. How close can anyone come to nailing down a definitive understanding of themselves?
I already do recognize that. But what disturbs many about my narrative here [objectivists in particular] is how I am especially suspicious of “I” in the is/ought world. Here I focus on how and why being “fractured and fragmented” is a reasonable assessment given the assumption that we live in a No God world. Here I note my argument in my signature threads. Others are able to react to it by noting how it is not applicable to them.
Instead, most of them seem intent on keeping the discussion on this level:
In another words, another general description intellectual contraption.
To which I respond, “what on earth do you mean?”
So, what do you mean? Choose a context, a set of circumstances and behaviors we are all likely to be familiar with and embed your own assessment of “I” in it. For example, given the nature of this thread, how do you construe your own sense of identity in relationship to God and religion in relationship to the moral values you embrace in relationship to what you imagine your fate to be when you die?
Are you a moral nihilist as I am? If not, why not?