popeye1945 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:42 pm
You've kind of overwhelmed me here with so many objections. The first thing that might straighten out things somewhat is you cannot make these irrational desert religions rational. They are not going to want to live in the here and now, their traditions are blueprints for societal function but of societies over two thousand years old. An imaginary magic man in the sky is still dictating the plan. If you really think that religion can present a rational blueprint for the morality of today, its a fool's gambit.
Yes, given my own particular existential trajectory in regard to God and religion, I have more or less come to think the same thing. But in regard to morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side, what exactly
is rational or irrational? God is one possible explanation for why something exists instead of nothing. He is one possible explanation for why it is our something and not something else.
So, either through Kierkegaardian leaps of faith or Pascalian wagers, some will be able to include God and religion in their understanding of the human condition. I have met a few of them myself over the years. And they were not fools.
But, in my view, even to them it doesn't make this...
1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path
...go away.
They will either go there or they won't. Same with those here who, spiritually/religiously, believe in their own One True Path.
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:42 pmJust as all man-made things in the physical world are his biological extensions, expressions of his human nature and its knowledge, these desert religions are the biological extensions of the ignorance of our ancestors. You seem to think in some of your protests to my reasoning that context is important, and it is, these old traditions need to be read through today's context to put things in a rational framework. If we hold onto these traditions as guides we might as well not have come down from the trees, just to tread these stagnate waters.
Old traditions, new traditions. To each I attempt to bring them around to answering this question:
"How, in a world teeming with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change, ought one to live?"
Morally. Righteously. In either a God or a No God world.
But [from my frame of mind] you keep it all up in the general description intellectual/spiritual clouds:
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:42 pmReligions in the past have had the purpose of giving the population an orientation to the world as they knew it, which didn't amount to much in the way of knowledge. In the beginning these religions were oral traditions and tended to change with the times but the printed word concretized the word, and ignorance became sacred. Morality in order to be rational must serve the self -interests of our common biology embracing all life forms, for it is only when one identifies one's self with the self in others does compassion arise which is the bases of morality. It is perfectly natural to assume that life in general is part of something larger than itself but to credit that something to something supernatural, a anthropomorphic god, that is not manifest in space/time can be considered insane even if it is being politically incorrect, seems crazy isn't crazy if the crazies have the numbers.
Pertaining to what particular context?
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:42 pmAs to your concerns over the confusion of what is suffering across the board first, you must have a point of reference and that reference is our common biology. Certain generalizations can be made, it is after all are common carbon-based biology and its suffering which evokes compassion across the board. Where there is no compassion you have a psychopathic individual or a collective as found in the aggression of empires. Biology is the creator of all meaning in the world and the only possible, read rational reference point.
Okay, above you focused in on the "simple principle" of suffering.
To which I noted:
Given a particular context that most of us will be familiar with...situations in which moral and political and spiritual convictions often come into conflict...how would you imagine his "simple principle" being applicable.
You embrace the right of the unborn to live in order to prevent it suffering the fate of extinction. You embrace the right of a woman to choose abortion in order the prevent her suffering the fate of being forced to give birth...or being arrested and tried for murder.
You embrace the right of gun owners in order that they don't suffer a world in which their guns are taken. You embrace the right of gun haters in order that they don't suffer a world where guns slaughter thousands and thousands, year in and year out.
And on and on with all the rest of the "conflicting goods". What one side construes to be suffering the other side construes to be relief.
Now references are made to our "common biology" and "compassion".
Okay, so how is my point above any less applicable to them? Common biology and compassion in regard to the unborn or the pregnant woman, to the gun lovers or the gun haters?
What I do here then is to note my own assessment of conflicting goods as the embodiment of dasein.