religion and morality

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:52 pm I'm asking you to critique it.

No thanks...not interested.

As I say: my sole purpose has been to give you what you asked for: an ethic applicable to all men, all the time, everywhere. This, I did, over and over. I gave you the ethic, and that from which even a bubba can derive the ethic.

Your datsun, that's your worry, not mine.
Okay, fine, suit your "owned" self.

How about this then...

Has anyone ever prompted you to change your mind about an issue that is important to you? Have you ever been wrong about an issue that was important to you?

And, if you have been, doesn't that imply you may also be wrong about other things?

And just to be clear, are you saying that no matter what new experiences you have, what new relationships you form, what new information and knowledge you come upon, there is no possibility of you changing your mind about abortion or guns?

Really, how on earth can anyone know that for sure?

Yet if you are a fulminating fanatic objectivist [and I suspect you are] you will insist that you "just know" nothing could ever change your "owned" mind. Your "owned" self is as rock solid as a solid rock. It's the moral equivalent of 1 + 1 = 2. It's, what, a metaphysical certainty?

And nothing comforts and consoles you more than "just knowing" that.
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henry quirk
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Re: religion and morality

Post by henry quirk »

How about this then...
🙄

As I say: I'm not obligated to splay myself out for dissection.
Walker
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Re: religion and morality

Post by Walker »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:07 pm
Walker wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 12:19 pmI haven’t followed the thread
Outside of my always entertainn' posts, you ain't missed a damn thing.
And here I was thinkin’ my modest contribution might change minds and part clouds.

:D
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:21 am
How about this then...
🙄

As I say: I'm not obligated to splay myself out for dissection.

Nor are you obligated to splay yourself out for ridicule. 8)
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henry quirk
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Re: religion and morality

Post by henry quirk »

So, as I say, my sole purpose has been to give you what you asked for: an ethic applicable to all men, all the time, everywhere. This, I did, over and over. I gave you the ethic, and that from which even a bubba can derive the ethic.

You wanna talk about it?
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 5:46 pm So, as I say, my sole purpose has been to give you what you asked for: an ethic applicable to all men, all the time, everywhere. This, I did, over and over. I gave you the ethic, and that from which even a bubba can derive the ethic.

You wanna talk about it?
What I've been trying to get you to talk about are those who "give us an ethic" that is wholly in opposition to your own regarding such "conflicting goods" as abortion and owning bazookas.

Indeed, they share your conviction that there is but one truly rational assessment. But it's theirs not yours.

Then [for objectivists on both sides] this part:
Has anyone ever prompted you to change your mind about an issue that is important to you? Have you ever been wrong about an issue that was important to you?

And, if you have been, doesn't that imply you may also be wrong about other things?

And just to be clear, are you saying that no matter what new experiences you have, what new relationships you form, what new information and knowledge you come upon, there is no possibility of you changing your mind about abortion or guns?

Really, how on earth can anyone know that for sure?

Yet if you are a fulminating fanatic objectivist [as I understand it], you will insist that you "just know" nothing could ever change your mind. Your Self is as rock solid as a solid rock. It's the moral equivalent of 1 + 1 = 2. It's, what, a metaphysical certainty?

And nothing comforts and consoles the objectivists more than "just knowing" that.
That, in my view, is what you don't want to talk about. Or, I suspect, to even think about. You just have too much at stake -- re the psychology of objectivism -- given all the years you have spent "perfecting" your own moral and political [and for some spiritual] dogmas.
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henry quirk
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Re: religion and morality

Post by henry quirk »

So, that's a hard no, then.

👍
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 6:07 pm So, that's a hard no, then.

👍
But I repeat myself...

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

No, seriously!



Note to others:

Would you [could you] have ever imagined an exchange of this sort at the Philosophy Now forum?!

Me, coming from The New ILP, I'm rather used to it. But some here no doubt are, well, flabbergasted. :wink:
popeye1945
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Re: religion and morality

Post by popeye1945 »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:37 pm Religion and Morality
Ryan McKay email the author, Harvey Whitehouse
at APA PsychNet
Descriptive Ethnocentrism

["If moral psychology is to contribute to the psychology of religion, it will have to describe a moral domain as expansive as that of the Gods.
—Graham and Haidt [/quote.


The mind is as expansive as the universe, which is far beyond the reach of humanity's petty gods.
jayjacobus
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Re: religion and morality

Post by jayjacobus »

iambiguous wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:34 pm
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pm
Religion addresses mysteries. The creation is a mystery. How life came from matter is a mystery. Ghosts are a mystery. And what comes after the end of life is a mystery.

But religion is also about the control and organization of societies. Religions developed the rules of justice, morals, punishment, leadership, devotion and faith.
The part that revolves around, among other things, religion being the "opiate of the people".
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pmBut also religions provide studies in the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.
True. But in a discussions that interest me, we need a context.
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pmYou may not be able to define religion, but there must be a definition.
For those who believe this, let them define it.

Then bring the definition down to Earth and explore the existential implications of it given this context.
With context you can analyze religion in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. You don't have the context of religion. You have opinions without saying what religion is all about.

You might step aside and let someone else define and understand.
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

Why are people calling Bitcoin a religion?
The Conversation website
by Joseph P. Laycock
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University
This model -- when "many Europeans understood that there were only three types of people in the world: Christians, Jews and heathens -- shifted after the Protestant Reformation when a long series of wars began between Catholics and Protestants. These became known as “wars of religion,” and religion became a way of talking about differences between Christians. At the same time, Europeans were encountering other cultures through exploration and colonialism. Some of the traditions they encountered shared certain similarities to Christianity and were also deemed religions.
More to the point [mine] how is the rift between Catholics and Protestants -- same God, different narratives -- related to the historical existence of the capitalist political economy. And what does this tell us about what mere mortals came to believe back then and how that was connected historically to such profound changes as the death of feudalism [in Europe] and the birth of the industrial revolution? God and religion construed in a whole different light precisely because the way people interacted economically shifted the focus from "the next life" to "this life", from "we" to "I", from monarchy to republic, from the ecclesiastics to the captains of industry and their cronies in the government

After all, would the term Bitcoin even be around had there been no capitalist political economy to give birth to it.
As religion scholar Russell McCutcheon argues, “The interesting thing to study, then, is not what religion is or is not, but ‘the making of it’ process itself – whether that manufacturing activity takes place in a courtroom or is a claim made by a group about their own behaviors and institutions.”
The making of it. And concomitantly how this or that denominational Scripture comes to reconfigure The Word in order to accommodate a God, the God, my God to the changes that unfold out in the world historically and culturally. How re those like Marx you can't more fully understand the social and political superstructure without first grasping the fundamental components of the economic base.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

jayjacobus wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 8:45 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:34 pm
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pm
Religion addresses mysteries. The creation is a mystery. How life came from matter is a mystery. Ghosts are a mystery. And what comes after the end of life is a mystery.

But religion is also about the control and organization of societies. Religions developed the rules of justice, morals, punishment, leadership, devotion and faith.
The part that revolves around, among other things, religion being the "opiate of the people".
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pmBut also religions provide studies in the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.
True. But in a discussions that interest me, we need a context.
jayjacobus wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:48 pmYou may not be able to define religion, but there must be a definition.
For those who believe this, let them define it.

Then bring the definition down to Earth and explore the existential implications of it given this context.
With context you can analyze religion in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. You don't have the context of religion. You have opinions without saying what religion is all about.

You might step aside and let someone else define and understand.
We seem to construe the meaning of "context" here differently.

From my end, it revolves around any particular assessment of God and religion in discussions that revolve in turn around these factors:

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

For you it might be something other than these aspects of human "spirituality".

How one might define or deduce God and religion into existence is only of interest to me when those definitions and deductions are taken out into the world that we live and interact in. In particular when those interactions result in conflict.
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Re: religion and morality

Post by jayjacobus »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:39 pm
jayjacobus wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 8:45 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:34 pm

The part that revolves around, among other things, religion being the "opiate of the people".



True. But in a discussions that interest me, we need a context.



For those who believe this, let them define it.

Then bring the definition down to Earth and explore the existential implications of it given this context.
With context you can analyze religion in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. You don't have the context of religion. You have opinions without saying what religion is all about.

You might step aside and let someone else define and understand.
We seem to construe the meaning of "context" here differently.

From my end, it revolves around any particular assessment of God and religion in discussions that revolve in turn around these factors:

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

For you it might be something other than these aspects of human "spirituality".

How one might define or deduce God and religion into existence is only of interest to me when those definitions and deductions are taken out into the world that we live and interact in. In particular when those interactions result in conflict.
I use context as it is defined in dictionaries.

1) Will you demonstrate no god and define spiritual path?
2) My path has been full of experiences that I interpret. Is your path straight and narrow which doesn't get interpreted?
3) Human existence is not profound. We exist.
4) You have certainties which I doubt.

Questioning the existence of God does not make a person immoral.
Atheists know right from wrong and act accordingly.

I can accept atheists without conflict unless they challenge me.
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iambiguous
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Re: religion and morality

Post by iambiguous »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:39 pmWe seem to construe the meaning of "context" here differently.

From my end, it revolves around any particular assessment of God and religion in discussions that revolve in turn around these factors:

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

For you it might be something other than these aspects of human "spirituality".

How one might define or deduce God and religion into existence is only of interest to me when those definitions and deductions are taken out into the world that we live and interact in. In particular when those interactions result in conflict.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm I use context as it is defined in dictionaries.
Dictionary definitions are, up to a point, fine. But in regard to my own main interest in philosophy -- "how ought one to live in a world awash in both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?" -- I prefer that they be introduced to and intertwined in actual sets of circumstances.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 1) Will you demonstrate no god and define spiritual path?
I won't because I can't. And I can't because how would I go about it? I presume that somehow, if "a God, the God" does in fact exist, He is intertwined in the understanding of existence itself. And where would any of us start in grasping that?

But then back to the argument that it is incumbent upon those who argue that something does in fact exist to provide evidence to substantiate it. And not the obligation of others to demonstrate that it does not.

As for a spiritual path, let's first go to the dictionary there too:

Spiritual:
1. relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
2. relating to religion or religious belief.

The path then being one of hundreds and hundreds that have been proposed down through the ages by one or another God or No God religious denomination.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 2) My path has been full of experiences that I interpret. Is your path straight and narrow which doesn't get interpreted?
Interpretation is precisely my point. However, I root it subjectively/existentially/problematically in dasein. As encompassed in the OP of these threads:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And my own path "here and now" is "fractured and fragmented" in regard to religion and morality.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 3) Human existence is not profound. We exist.
Given what particular context? Are you arguing that "in general" this is applicable to all of us? If so, imagine traveling throughout Ukraine right now and arguing this.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 4) You have certainties which I doubt.
Then note them. But note them in regard to a particular set of circumstances. Or, sure, stay up in "intellectual clouds" with all the others here inclined to discuss things as one of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

But if that is your preference, I'd steer clear of me.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm Questioning the existence of God does not make a person immoral.
Atheists know right from wrong and act accordingly.

I can accept atheists without conflict unless they challenge me.
Just another general description intellectual contraption to me. It might mean anything to anyone.
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Re: religion and morality

Post by jayjacobus »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:03 pm
iambiguous wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:39 pmWe seem to construe the meaning of "context" here differently.

From my end, it revolves around any particular assessment of God and religion in discussions that revolve in turn around these factors:

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

For you it might be something other than these aspects of human "spirituality".

How one might define or deduce God and religion into existence is only of interest to me when those definitions and deductions are taken out into the world that we live and interact in. In particular when those interactions result in conflict.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm I use context as it is defined in dictionaries.
Dictionary definitions are, up to a point, fine. But in regard to my own main interest in philosophy -- "how ought one to live in a world awash in both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?" -- I prefer that they be introduced to and intertwined in actual sets of circumstances.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 1) Will you demonstrate no god and define spiritual path?
I won't because I can't. And I can't because how would I go about it? I presume that somehow, if "a God, the God" does in fact exist, He is intertwined in the understanding of existence itself. And where would any of us start in grasping that?

But then back to the argument that it is incumbent upon those who argue that something does in fact exist to provide evidence to substantiate it. And not the obligation of others to demonstrate that it does not.

As for a spiritual path, let's first go to the dictionary there too:

Spiritual:
1. relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
2. relating to religion or religious belief.

The path then being one of hundreds and hundreds that have been proposed down through the ages by one or another God or No God religious denomination.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 2) My path has been full of experiences that I interpret. Is your path straight and narrow which doesn't get interpreted?
Interpretation is precisely my point. However, I root it subjectively/existentially/problematically in dasein. As encompassed in the OP of these threads:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And my own path "here and now" is "fractured and fragmented" in regard to religion and morality.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 3) Human existence is not profound. We exist.
Given what particular context? Are you arguing that "in general" this is applicable to all of us? If so, imagine traveling throughout Ukraine right now and arguing this.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 4) You have certainties which I doubt.
Then note them. But note them in regard to a particular set of circumstances. Or, sure, stay up in "intellectual clouds" with all the others here inclined to discuss things as one of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

But if that is your preference, I'd steer clear of me.
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm Questioning the existence of God does not make a person immoral.
Atheists know right from wrong and act accordingly.

I can accept atheists without conflict unless they challenge me.
Just another general description intellectual contraption to me. It might mean anything to anyone.
You are dodging your own answers to your own points.

You should just say to each of your points, "I don't know." because you don't.
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