on discussing god and religion

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.

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Mind you, this is not about how this or that Catholic or this or that Calvinist views God and religion. Let alone the existential relationship between “morality here and now” and “immortality there and then”. Instead, it’s about how “philosophers of religion” speak of these two Christian paths such that the actual lives of those on them, and the behaviors that they choose will hardly ever come up.

Indeed just noting the two paths may well be as far as they go.

For some reason, this is important to know. For you perhaps.

On the other hand, there is still no actual God around for them to study epistemologically. To, for example, ascertain how God can know things.

Get it? Not books about the existence of an actual God who has revealed Himself, or who has been beyond all doubt demonstrated to exist by mere mortals. Instead it is books that focus solely in on how the belief in God can be justified in arguments. A God/the God created epistemologically. Not unlike what a lot of the posters here attempt. And since this God exists only in the author’s head there’s no reason yet to bring Him “out into the world”. Not until the arguments for and against His existence themselves have been…resolved.

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Though even the unimportant ones are almost always encompassed only in a world of words. God defined into existence with knowledge that revolves almost entirely around the meaning we give to words derived from the meaning we give to other words.

Why must God exist? Because it is logically necessary. And who asserts this? Mere mortals. And mere mortals have access to what definitive arguments and evidence to actually demonstrate this on par with, say, the arguments and the evidence that can be presented in order to demonstrate that the universe itself exists?

Modal logic. Whole books written about it.

On the other hand, whole books have been written about the existence of the Big Bang. But unlike with God the evidence goes considerably beyond just modal logic.

So, explore the definition and meaning of modal logic here: plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

Then in regard to the existence of God and, in particular, His existence given the main components of the ontological argument how close can one come to connecting that dot to actual empirical, material evidence that through experiments, prediction and replication brings one to the conclusion that a God, the God, my God does in fact exist: plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto … arguments/

In other words, before we get to the part revolving around theodicy.

The Pope, the coronavirus and a God/the God/his God

nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opin … e=Homepage

[b]In this past year of change, my mind and heart have overflowed with people. People I think of and pray for, and sometimes cry with, people with names and faces, people who died without saying goodbye to those they loved, families in difficulty, even going hungry, because there’s no work.

Sometimes, when you think globally, you can be paralyzed: There are so many places of apparently ceaseless conflict; there’s so much suffering and need. I find it helps to focus on concrete situations: You see faces looking for life and love in the reality of each person, of each people. You see hope written in the story of every nation, glorious because it’s a story of daily struggle, of lives broken in self-sacrifice. So rather than overwhelm you, it invites you to ponder and to respond with hope.[/b]

And on and on and on. Heartfelt perhaps, but as with so many other religionists, an utter refusal to acknowledge the fact that if this God of his does in fact exist then He is Himself responsible for the existence of the coronavirus. And hundreds and hundreds of other pathogens, diseases and physical afflictions.

Unless, of course, He is not omnipotent in regard to His creation.

And there is an underlying message throughout this particular sermon:

God asks us to dare to create something new.

In other words, that maybe the coronavirus is God’s way of spurring us on to become, what, Catholics like the Pope?

Or Pedro?

Sure, I recognize what prompts this particular reaction of mine. That I am myself virtually powerless in the face of all the terrible ordeals that afflict the human race. And that I actually need for God to exist so that at least there is someone or something to blame. Better that than lump all of the ordeals into the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless existence.

But, for me, it is always about theodicy. And the sheer absurdity of reconciling the world as it is with a so-called “loving, just and merciful” Creator.

Jew-God is cruel as hell.
When someone dies, it was because God was angry.
When someone is born, it is because God was merciful.

I’m still wondering where the globalist Pope was while COVID was secretly poring into Italy and the Vatican.

And you have ample evidence with which to demonstrate this? Or, if it’s all on faith, how more or less blind?

And, just out of curiosity, would you be willing to commence an exchange in which you connect the dots between the behaviors you choose in regard to conflicting value judgments on this side of the grave, your beliefs in God and religion, and what you imagine the fate of your own particular “I” will be on the other side of the grave.

That, after all, was the whole point of my having begun this thread with zinnat.

How about you?

I would be equally curious to explore this aspect of the religious experience with those who practice it.

Only more in the spirit of this thread: Christian meditation insofar as it becomes a part of the life that one lives…insofar as there is an existential interaction between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

The part where reflection and study gives way to practice such that one set of behaviors is deemed virtuous and another not.

Again, this is the sort of spiritual/religious exchange that often unfolds here. They can go on and on post after post and almost never bring either the meditation or contemplation down to earth.

It’s all embedded instead in how the technique [whatever it’s called] allows one to attain and then sustain a more comforting and constructive frame of mind.

And that’s not unimportant, of course. But it steers clear of what I deem the most fundamental purpose of religion is: to provide us with a moral scripture on this side of the grave in order that we continue to exist beyond the grave.

And then the extent to which conflicts occur when different faiths clash and the manner in which Marx spoke of religion as the opiate of the people. Religion used by the rich and the powerful in government to sustain their wealth and power.

And of particular importance to me: theodicy.

I understand why people react to denominations that take their faith very, very seriously in this manner…while finding it hard to understand why they would question that they do.

After all, with the fate of all souls for all eternity riding on their worshipping and adoring the right God, who would not feel compelled to witness?

And given Judgment Day for most denominations isn’t the price of admission into Paradise based on the behaviors that are chosen by the faithful on this side of the grave?

The point isn’t why do Jehovah Witnesses go door to door but why aren’t Catholics, Protestants and every other denomination doing exactly the same?

If some Jews see themselves as God’s “chosen people” and if some Moslems are obsessed with “infidels” why aren’t they going door to door or stopping people on the street in order to save their souls?

Either the reality of what is at stake for the soul here is acknowledged or it isn’t.

On the other hand, imagine it this way:

Let’s call it a spiritual conundrum.

And then, for some, when those like me note, “we’ll need a context”, they insist we are missing the point.

But here my point is that given what I construe to be the “for all practical purpose” reason for God and religion – morality here and now, immortality there and then – why not take a stab at connecting the dots between God and religion as intellectual contraptions and the manner in which the conclusions you come to here pertain to the behaviors you choose from day to day.

In particular, as they are understood by you to be pertinent in turn to one or another rendition of Judgment Day.

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Of course here the contingency – for all practical purposes – is that if there is a word there must be still more words to define it and it give it meaning. With the word God that’s all the cosmological argument turns out to be. A truth wholly contingent upon a world of words.

The “necessary being” is just that: two more words. I merely suggest that what makes these two words necessary – again for all practical purposes – is that if we don’t merely assume that the words themselves bring this being into existence then we have neither an omniscient/omnipotent font from which to differentiate vice from virtue nor an entity able to bring about our immortality and salvation.

How do you think up all these super wise things to say?

More to the point, why would it never occur to me to ask you the same? In regard to, say, 99% of the things you post?

Anyway, now that I’ve got you here, why don’t you and I explore your own attempts to connect the dots between the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave and your beliefs about the fate of “I” on the other side. Re God and religion.

The main point of the thread.

Okay, let’s assume all of this is true.

But instead of bringing the points to bear on having a beer, they are focused instead on having an abortion.

And, further, the mind focuses in as well on the existential relationship between having an abortion and the fate of “I” on the other side of the grave…given one’s belief in any particular God/Universe on any particular religious path.

What of meditation then?

And how come this aspect of it as almost always avoided by those who tout the more “earthly” benefits of it?

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Natural religion. On the other hand, where to begin? With the watchmaker? With the human species? With the first instance of biological life? Than going back to the Big Bang. Then speculating about the possibility of an infinite number of Big Bangs in an infinite number of universes. Then going all the way back to the “design” of existence itself?

To the Designer. The one behind the curtain that minds like us are able to “design” completely out of definitions and deductions that go into “proofs” like this one?

Probability theory and God. How about probability theory and theodicy…or probability theory and conflicting goods intertwined in the probability theory of dasein.

And you can bet that the debate here never gets all that much closer to an actual demonstrable God than all of the other “proofs” above.

But that’s the beauty of proofs like this. The only condition that really counts is that somehow you are able to think yourself into believing them. And what could possibly be more comforting and consoling than that?

Especially given the fact that it can be taken all the way to the grave. And after that it can hardly be said to matter.

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

So? You can argue until you are blue in the face about whether God does or does not exist, but one thing [to the best of my current knowledge] doesn’t change: that every and any school of philosophy that has ever existed has never actually succeeded in verifying the existence of God. Let alone Heaven or Nirvanna.

Though, sure, some of us think that is more important to point out than others.

Now you’re talking. This matter is by far – by far – the most important question of all in regard to any God and any religion.

Indeed, imagine that we lived in a world where there was no human suffering. A world where no one ever spoke of evil because there was nothing that could be thought of that would allow us to make sense of what some say that it was. Now, in this world, we may well still be unable to demonstrate that an actual God did in fact exist. But when people spoke of Him as loving, just and merciful that would certainly make a whole lot of sense. We may not be able to communicate with or interact with this God, but how could anyone doubt that something “up there” must be sustaining a world totally without pain and suffering.

Let’s run this by the religionists here. But, really, how could they not all be reduced down to this: God works in mysterious ways.

Or, for the Buddhists, the universe works in mysterious ways.

But, fortunately enough, for both, one of them results in immortality and the other in salvation. And all the evil in the world doesn’t make that go away.