I agree with Tallis. Religion is at the origin of every culture that becomes a civilization. Nihilism is a symptom of declining Western Civilization. Skepticism and cynicism are filters that keep people from transcending their egos.
We’ll need a context of course.
And, again, religion is at the origin of every human culture because every human culture, given the evolution of biological life on Earth, consist of men and women with brains able to think up Gods/God/religion as one possible explanation for existence itself.
Assuming of course we interact in a universe that is not wholly determined. And assuming of course those who embrace the idea of an omniscient God can square that with mere mortals in possession of free will.
And my own understanding of moral nihilism isn’t a “symptom” at all. It’s a philosophical argument that I make given the assumption that we live in a No God world. An argument containing in the points I raise in my signature threads.
As for, “Skepticism and cynicism are filters that keep people from transcending their egos”, I’ll ask you to note an actual context in which you explain this in considerable more detail.
Please?
Previous attempts at dialogue with you have repeatedly broken down over your habit of dismissing other’s concepts as “contraptions” rather than showing that you made good faith efforts to understand what others mean. I’m not interested in proffering ideas only to have them summarily shot down as contraptions. Without a demonstration that you at least attempt to comprehend a proposition and your reasons for rejecting it, “dialogue” is a waste of time.
I don’t view gods as possible explanations. I view them as archetypal representations of being which is fundamentally unexplainable.
I don’t accept your three assumptions above as conditions for dialogue. The antimony of free will versus determinism is an open question. “Omniscience” is incomprehensible. “No God world” explains nothing.
A context for my statement about skepticism and cynicism is your thread and your use of the contraption dismissal. Whether or not I will supply more details depends on you convincing me that you see what you have been doing and demonstrating that you can change your habit.
Over and over again:
Note a set of circumstances in which we exchange our current thinking about God and religion as this relates to our current thinking about morality here and now and immorality there and then
Then in this exchange you can note these accusations you level against me.
That’s the dialogue that I wish to pursue. God and religion as it relates to the behaviors we choose in regard to conflicting goods as that pertains to our thinking about “I” on the other side of the grave. That is the whole point of this thread.
Okay, so how do you view god and religion in regard to the behaviors you choose when confronted with a context in which others challenge those behaviors?
Instead, it’s ever and always up in the clouds with you:
Then explain the assumptions that you have accumulated in regard to free will, omniscience and the distinction you make between a God and a No God world.
Given a context that most of us are likely to be familiar with. Instead, we get this “context”:
Note to others:
What point is he making here that I am apparently unable or unwilling to grasp?
I was just asking you to commit to reasoned arguments against propositions you disagree with rather than merely dismissing them as contraptions. That shouldn’t be hard to understand.
And how hard is it to understand that my preference is to take intellectual contraptions like this and explore them more substantively in regard to human interactions that come into conflict as a result of different assessments of God and religion. And, then, insofar as these assessments lead one to choose a moral narrative here and now in preparation for one’s fate there and then.
Arguments I make in that discussion you can defend as either reasonable or attack as unreasonable.
Or, from my frame of mind, at least be more honest with yourself and ask why you seem so reluctant to go there.
Note to others:
Would anyone else be willing to exchange points of view regarding the main intention of this thread: to connect the dots between the behaviors they choose on this side of the grave as that is intertwined existentially with their belief about the fate of their soul/self on the other side of the grave.
That way Felix can level his accusations against me as they pertain to a set of circumstances we are all likely to be familiar with.
Iambiguous, since you refuse to commit to a fair and reasonable method of dialogue, it isn’t worth my while to engage in further discussion with you.
Note to others:
Well, never mind. =D>
Yours is a predictable response of a man who is critical of others but uncritical of himself. Of course you being a moral nihilist, the value of self-criticism has no value. But by the same lack of a standard, your criticisms of other’s thinking have no value either. By your standard, which has no value, wasting time is all that is possible. As soon as you admit the possibility of value, you refute the basis of moral nihilism. But there’s a way out. Stop your ears! Without an argument or evidence, call such thinking “a contraption!” Or make no attempt to comprehend and ask others “what on Earth is he talking about?” The consolation of denial is ever only a dismissal away for you.
What shall we conclude about a man who asks for an objective definition of religion and then dismisses anyone who attempts to supply such religion as an objectivist. That’s known as a double bind trap. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. You’ve been playing that game on this forum for years. That’s why I don’t play with you.
Wrong thread.
Wrong thread.
Again, choose a set of circumstances that revolve around the reason I created this thread – morality here and now, immortality there and then – and, as the exchange unfolds, you can note to others how uncritical I am in regard to myself.
That’s absurd. My point is that self-criticism in regard to the relationship between goals and behaviors out in the either/or world can be measured with a fair degree of precision. Jane is burdened with an unwanted pregnancy. Her goal is to abort it. She either does so successfully or she doesn’t.
Or: Jane successfully aborts her fetus. John, a devout Catholic, criticizes her decision as a sin against God. But: How might “self-criticism” be different here? Does this God exist? Is abortion a sin to this God? Will He punish Jane for having the abortion? How are arguments/criticisms here judged with a fair degree of precision?
It’s not a “lack of standards” in this context, but the extent to which any one particular standard can be defended such that criticism of it is always effectively rebutted.
And I challenge you to note how your own standards in regard in abortion and religion and God are not rooted in the manner in which I deem my own are on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
I don’t refute the “possibility of value”. I only suggest that the standards of “I” here are rooted more in dasein than in any particular rendition of a God, the God, my God.
Your own for example. Again, what exactly is it in regard to abortion? How did you come to acquire it? How was this acquisition more or less the embodiment of dasein?
Instead, you invariably reconfigure into stooge mode:
What on Earth are you talking about here?
Join me in a discussion of human interactions revolving around conflicting value judgments revolving around either a God or a No God world, and we can explore your own rendition of my rendition of a “contraption” more substantively.
Note to others:
Why does he refuse to take these obtuse accusations against me to a discussion involving a set of circumstances where our respective moral philosophies can be examined more in detail, more descriptively, more substantively?
Why would I? You haven’t acknowledged that you have a habit of dismissing concepts as contraptions without showing that you have understood the concept or presenting arguments for why it should be rejected. You also dismiss arguments that you don’t like by appealing to others asking “what on Earth does he mean?” You apparently think these insulting rhetorical devices constitute reasonable dialogue. This is all been pointed out to you a number of times by different people on this forum. But you don’t seem to get it or make any attempt at changing your method. I’ve watched intelligent people go round and round with you and get nowhere. You find that satisfying. To me it looks like a waste of time which apparently as good as It gets for you as you await death in your meaningless world. No thanks.
I’ve already told you. You refuse to comprehend. You are not a trustworthy interlocutor.
And around and around you go. Up in the clouds of “general accusations” against me. Your very own “intellectual contraptions” that ever and always make me the problem here. Stooge mode.
But in regard to your value judgments relating to a set of circumstances that involve your own thoughts and feeling about God and religion? How that part can precipitate contacts with others who have very different assessments of “morality here and now and immortality there and then”?
The part where you connect the dots between the bahaviors you choose on this side of the grave given your current assumptions about the fate of “I” on the other side?
The part where you discuss how your own value judgments, your own understanding of God and religion are not just a subjective “existential contraption” derived from dasein?
The part where you demonstrate how and why your own spiritual path is in fact that which all other rational and virtuous men and women obligated to take…with so much at stake on both side of the grave.
The whole point of the thread? No, you can’t, don’t, won’t go there.
And yet, from my frame of mind, if you are going to level accusations about me “dismissing concepts as contraptions without showing that you have understood the concept or presenting arguments for why it should be rejected”, would not attaching those concepts to our respective assessments of actual human interactions make your indictment that much more clearly understood? Isn’t that precisely my point in suggesting that you do bring your accusations “down to earth”?
We all await death. And we all have an abundance of existential meaning embedded in the lives that we choose to live.
But only the religious objectivists are able to think themselves into believing that death is just the beginning for the “soul”. And only the religious objectivists have a God or a Buddha to fall back on when attempting to grapple with the right thing or the enlightened to do on this side of the grave. That is precisely the font around which they can anchor the “real me”.
I get that. I once believed it fiercely myself. But now my conclusion that my existence is essentially meaningless in what I presume to be a No God/No Religion world is derived from what “here and now” seems reasonable to me. That it makes for a rather grim outlook on life doesn’t make it less reasonable.
Instead, all I can do is to come into threads like this this one and note the extent to which those who do believe in God and religion are able to relate to me why they believe what they do. And how they are able to demonstrate to me why I ought to believe it too. And then in the process being able to note how the arguments I make in my signature threads here – the source of my own thinking – are not nearly as reasonable as I think they are.
But: only in bringing our arguments out into the world that we live in – circumstantially, existentially, descriptively.
Okay, but here I’m after the insights of others. Perhaps they can reconfigure your words into a point that is clearer to me. Perhaps they might even be willing to imagine your own point by relating it to a set of circumstances in which my refusal to comprehend becomes more readily apparent. How, given my assessment of God and religion, relating to, say, an issue like abortion or social justice or homosexuality, it becomes clearer as to how I am not trustworthy.
You know, given that you won’t go there yourself.
What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.
I’ll probably never understand philosophy as a “discipline”, as the “analysis of abstract and, in some sense, ultimate concepts.”
It’s as though everyone has to agree on the words we use to communicate philosophy before we can take those carefully calibrated words out into the world we live in. The philosophy of religion. Okay, how is that connected to the behaviors that we choose in actually practicing a religion?
At the SEP it is described as “the philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance including the nature of religion itself, alternative concepts of God or ultimate reality, and the religious significance of general features of the cosmos (e.g., the laws of nature, the emergence of consciousness) and of historical events (e.g., the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, the Holocaust)”.
The Holocaust is noted. But it seems it can only be discussed and debated existentially after serious philosophers have resolved all of the technical issues that inform a truly epistemologically sound discussion and debate.
Whatever that means. And that still eludes me. Though, sure, this may reflect more my own shortcomings than those I criticize.
For me, metaphysics gets all tangled up in determinism and solipsism and sim worlds and an understanding of “existence itself”. And a part of me recognizes that I will almost certainly go to the grave – to my obliteration – utterly ignorant of what these things entail. Let alone their connection to God. But, sure, if there are any metaphysicians among us grappling with the concepts of religion in sync with the concepts of God, come as close as you can to the day to day reality of your own existence.
What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.
From Philosophy Now:
"Analytic philosophy is concerned with analysis – analysis of thought, language, logic, knowledge, mind, etc; whereas continental philosophy is concerned with synthesis – synthesis of modernity with history, individuals with society, and speculation with application.’
Imagine approaching God and religion from one frame of mind rather than the other. Which do you so suppose might come closest to to examining and assessing God and Religion as it is actually practiced by flesh and blood human beings going about the business of living their lives?
Sure, if you are in the theology department why not approach God and religion more “conceptually”, “theoretically”, “analytically” up on the celestial skyhooks?
Thus:
On the other hand, how “careful” can the analytic arguments be when their technical conclusions are taken out into the world? Why? Well, in order to examine how “for all practical purposes” God and religion function existentially in the lives of the true believers: providing them with “paths” in choosing virtuous and enlightened behaviors on this side of the grave in order to put them on the “path” to immortality and salvation on the other side.
What of “logic, precision and clarity” there?
Is it any wonder then that so many religionists on this thread become, for all intents and purposes, theologians bent only on discussing God and religion in an exchange of “spiritual contraptions”. And the last place they want to take them, in my opinion, are to the questions that revolve around “love, life, and death”. Or, in any event, given particular sets of circumstances construed by those on many different spiritual paths in many different conflicting ways.