I will use this as a springboard to clarify my own thoughts. Frankly, I must say I do not understand your position. Or I might say that I find it expressed in such 'knotty' ways that I find it hard to extract the kernel. So what I will attempt to do is simply explain my orientation which is offered a) in relation to ideas and perspectives brought up here, and b) in response to my on-going study and reading (and I am more involved in this area than I am with this forum conversation).Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 12:36 pm Morality is meaningful both in the sense of definition and applicability, and, given what morality does mean, moral truths are objective.
When I draw a distinction between a world devoid of human-conceived and human-contrived morals I do not only refer to morality, I refer to everything that is "metaphysical" that makes man man. If this is unintelligible to you or others, I could make additional efforts to clarify. But it seems all quite sound to me. Only man has "a metaphysical dream of the world".
When I say that it appears to me that "metaphysical ideas seem to come from outside and beyond our material and biological world" I am aware I am referring to a trope. I used the term "prepositional assertion" which implies location: up there, out there, over there, on top, inside, outside, etc. are prepositional concepts.
So why do I resort to this trope? I do so because we are discussing Christianity and we are, in one way or another, describing how we come to our agreements or disagreements with the core Christian assertions. I see the Hebrew revelation as emblematic of one "received from above-and-beyond" the world. A similar revelatory system is the Vedic one. And in fact these are the only two I have much experience with. It is inevitable that I make comparisons between the two.
But the important thing, in my view, is to see clearly that the Hebrew-Christian system is based on revelation. Men who are seers 'dream dreams' and experience visions. Similarly, but so different in so many ways, the Ancient Rishis (nearly mythic persons not historical personages) confronted the World (as a terrifying, strange problem) and used strange techniques (the subjective, perceiving self tuned as an antenna is tuned) to receive Vision that came to them in the form of the Vedas: revelations that were translated into language and a sacred language (Sanskrit) which, similarly to Hebrew, was understood to arrive in man's world through revelation.
Both systems refer to God and to gods, and though the Vedic system involves many different gods that are associated with world-realities like 'dawn' 'night' 'river' 'cosmic order' and also 'sphere' (that is, the view and understanding that god has provided a 'place' (the sphere of the earth) where we exist and carry on, nevertheless they did certainly conceive of a Supreme God.
The 'sphere' I refer to is an important idea: this was termed 'loka' and they conceived there were many many different 'lokas' or planet-systems' in the Creation. But that is inevitable really once one has conceived that one is located on a planet and in such a 'sphere'. If there is the one we exist in, why would there not be any number more? And so here there is introduced the notion of the three realms: hell realm, earth realm, and heavenly realm. Obviously, our Medieval system conceives something similar, but far more reduced: simplified really.
I would say that the Vedic system is more replete in many ways, but also nearly hallucinatory is scope. It is as if 'wild speculation' went to the limits.
So, you see how my conceptions work in relation, essentially, to two different schemes. They are, naturally, explanatory systems and they involve entire sets of assertions about the nature of this world, of manifest existence, of the nature of the soul, of man's purpose, and also "the will of god".
So it is within my conception of what religion is, and what an existential philosophy is, that I locate myself. Do I make myself clear? I am naturally deeply involved in the problem. The problem of arriving at solid statements of definition that I can *believe in* and apply. If you understand this, you will then understand better *what I am up to and why*.
We ourselves -- we Occidentals -- are now living in a strange and unique period. Metaphysical certainty has been challenged. You need look no further than the denizens of this forum to see that no one -- no one, not even Immanuel Can -- actually has a 'believable system'. This is why I refer to existing in a 'shadow realm' or a 'graveyard of meaning' or the ruins of a collapsed system (scholasticism essentially, a Medieval order). And as our System falls asunder we fall into chaos. That chaos is visible all around us. And it is evident in ourselves! That is where the key lies: in ourselves.
Therefore it seems to me that: the more we align ourselves with the natural order, which is to say that if we can only conceive of that order as being the most real, then we must base our own morals on that of the natural world. But we have already established that that world is amoral in the largest degree. We know that, in our world, the entire moral impetus has come to us through revealed religion. Which is to say through an established, imperative moral system imposed on us and imposed on our world.
To the degree that we *undermine* our own metaphysical selves, the way we perceive, and the content that comes to us, the more we inevitably fall down into that determined, natural world, which is amoral, mechanistic and determined.
And this describes *our present situation*.
Now, what happens to those of us who cannot conceive of God and cannot believe in a God that a) actually exists, and b) actually established demands that must be observed and applied? And what of those (like Dubious for example) who conceive of metaphysics as "invented" and therefore, itself, as mutable? What he declares is that there is nothing solid there, nothing that can be relied on. What is there is what we project as being there, but it is not there, not really.
True, as you and others astutely point out, I do not offer a solution (like IC offers one) and I do not come here predicating and preaching a System to believe in, or a solution to the problem we are in. I come as one who states: "I just want to get the problem out on the table so that it can bee seen, discussed and (in my own case, and internally) resolved".
I tend to think, along with Nietzsche, that we may require structures of belief that "order our universe" and provide us with a platform on which to build constructive social systems, even if those who are inclined to taking things to their ultimate points cannot honestly believe in 'the picture'. The principle picture I am referring to here is of course that of the God who came to the Earth and performed a sacrificial act that freed man from sin and death.
What I notice is that those who really and honestly believe that all this is true have, over me, a certain advantage. But I cannot be dishonest so I have to describe my lack of faith openly and honestly. But here is the real question: Do I believe in the essence of the Story? That is, as a revelation of higher principles, indeed of metaphysical principles?
On one hand, yes. But then on the other I can also see that my choice is arbitrary. And for this reason, obviously, I exist in a conundrum.
Now here is the curious or perhaps the comic thing. I have tried, and in a sense I am trying, to fit myself back into the former system (essentially Scholasticism or the view of Aquinas) as an act of the will. That is, I cannot really believe it but I will act as if the metaphysics, coming from realms I do not fathom and cannot understand, and which are also shrouded in story-narratives which are unbelievable, may yet contain key truths to which I must pay attention. Indeed serve them.
There, in a nutshell, is my explanation of my own "situation".
