on discussing god and religion

Perhaps, but it still comes down to how these temperments and tendencies are hard-wired into any particular individual’s genetic code; and then the extent to which the four points I raise above become rooted [in turn] in a particular memetic sequence.

As opposed to a “serious philosopher” grappling with all that and still managing somehow to define/deduce one or another deontological assessment into existence in regard to one or another set of conflicting goods.

We’re still stuck on “me” though. Yes, this is how your “I” thinks and feels about these relationships here and now. But, if my own assessment of dasein as an existential contraption is reasonable, that’s only a predisposition rooted in the variables I note above. Some people this, some people that. I argue this is largely embedded in the profoundly problematic nature of “I” here with respect to value judgments of this sort. In other words, the extent to which, psychologically and emotionally, “I” here is never really within reach of something approaching the so-called “real me”.

This part

Indeed, it doesn’t “help” me when confronting conflicting goods at the intersection of “I” and “political economy”. But there I am still anyway. At least until I can reconfigure my thinking about these things.

Your “gut” is no less an existential contraption to me. It may just be closer to the part about genes. And here in a philosophy venue, I am not concerned with “fucking” with people or being thought of as “nuts”. I’m curious instead to see if others have come up with a way of dealing with conflicting goods such that they feel a less fractured and fragmented “I”.

And the bottom line here will always revolve more around what “works” for someone. At least until someone presents me with an argument that denotes how all rational people are obligated to think about these things.

And there we are. Your frame of mind was predisposed to go in one direction given the constellation of existential variables that came together in a particular way. Mine in another way. That is when I tap the theologians, philosphers, scientists, ethicists etc., on the shoulder and ask for their advice.

We just think about interactions of this sort differently then. Things turned out better for you. That’s great. I merely point out that another sequence of variables might have unfolded such that you ended up a lot worse. But since there is no way for you to really communicate to others the “reality” that you experienced over the past ten years, how close are they going to come to understanding it? I merely suggest that even with respect to your own sense of “reality” here, there are just too many variables either beyond your understanding or control, to enable you yourself to grasp definitively “what happened”.

Let alone in speculating on how, in the best of all possible worlds, things ought to have happened.

I was just reacting to the manner in which I construed your reaction to my search for an objective morality. As though I should just accept that there almost certainly isn’t one and move on to one or another more “pragmatic” agenda.

Sure, that’s one possible alternative. But it still doesn’t make the horrors that I see “on the news” go away. And my own “grim reality” here revolves more around my having convinced myself that “I” here might just as easily have had the opposite reaction. Hell, my life might have been such that I was even contributing to that pain and suffering. Indeed, in many ways I certainly did so as a child raised in the belly of the white working class beast.

It’s not a matter of reducing the pain, but of anchoring “I” in some measure of consolation. Some [many] have convinced themselves that the pain itself exists only is as a result of the behaviors chosen by “one of them”.

And, to the extent that one or anther God or political ideology or objectivist philosophy becomes the foundation for one or another authoritarian governing contraption, the pain is often inflicted on those not construed to be “one of us”.

And yet over and again I acknowledge that the nihilism embedded in the amoral political agendas that fuel the global economy [in today’s world] almost certainly bring about even more human pain and suffering.

No, this is basically what you believe that I believe. On the other hand, how on earth could you not believe what you think I believe? That’s the nature of exchanges of this sort pertaining to “I” in the is/ought world.

And, again, it’s not what “helps” us, but the extent to which a particular frame of mind makes “I” feel more or less fractured and fragmented in a world teeming with conflicted goods embedded in an endless onslaught of contingency, chance and change.

But here the actual social, political and economic permutations gernerated historically, culturally, existentially for any particular “I” will vary in a staggering number of different ways.

“I” think of that one way, “you” in another.

It’s you who keeps suggesting that I rank the narratives others here as either better or worse than mine.

And even if I were able to convince myself that my frame of mind here is in fact a more reasoanble assessment it doesn’t change this: that it is a really, really shitty way in which to gtrapple with the parts both before and after the grave.

Thus:

No, “in the moment” what works best for me is this capacity I have for sinking down into one or another “distraction”. “I” become wholly engaged in doing something – listening to music, watching a movie, doing anacrostics – that takes me away from a fractured self.

But given how certain I once felt that an objective morality – re God or Reason – was within reach, there’s no way I can make that part of “me” just “go away”. Psychologically, it’s locked inside my head. A true existential contraption. So, sure, why not go looking for it again? Really, what do I have to lose here compared to [however remote the chance of success] what I have to gain?

It’s a no-brainer for me.

No, I focus on “I” as an “existential contraption” only out in an is/ought world awash in conflicting goods.

On the other hand, regarding the overwhelming preponderence of our interactions with others from day to day, it doesn’t seem applicable to me at all.

And, no, I don’t see “communication and unity and certainty…as fallible or non-existent.” Again, with respect to most of what we do with or around others from day to day, these things are all patently obvious. Where that communication, unity and certainty appear to break down however is when someone takes exception to a behavior of yours because 1] it interferes with a behavior of his or 2] it is deemed to be an immoral behavior that must be confronted.

They did, i was a mess, for years. IOW ten years gave me the experience of me not doing well at all and then having done well perhaps, it turns out or on some level by the end of that period. Neither the horrible mess me in the middle nor the ‘oh, it seems that shit horror period may have improved me’ changed my approach in its core. And at no point did I wish for objective morals. The intervention of deities, ok. But objective morals would have seemed like bringing a daisy to a knife fight. Something may come along and do and change my core approach, but I was reacting to the idea that the I and the approach is like a leaf flitting around. This may fit your I and life, but it is not universal. That’s all. Still, yes, a change may come to the core.

The context is you systematically using ‘objectivist’ as a pejorative term. If you simply were seeking to find an objectivist stance you felt was rational and demonstrable, I would not have the same reaction. But here you often present objectivists in a negative light. You see them as tending to use means you think are bad, (might makes right for example) In a context OF YOUR PRESENTING where what you seek you also in parallel mock, critique and present as negative, YUP, I wonder what you are up to.

This is not some objectivist coming and telling you what you should be doing, this is me reacting to what you yourself write.

And beyond that, remember: there is always the possibility you will be convinced but IN ERROR. The current ‘you’ for some reason is seeking to join a club you judge negatively - while acknowledging you cannot be sure they are a problem - AND consider it possible that you might be convinced to join some objectivist club on fallible grounds. I don’t get why the current ‘you’, GIVEN YOUR CURRENT BELIEFS, heads in that direction and takes that risk.

Doesn’t make it wrong, but it sure seems odd. But one thing that is not happening is me saying you SHOULD react the way I do. Given how you view objectivists, however, I find the way you react really weird.

I guess I would hope I don’t come off so stupid that I need to be told this.

Well, if you use objectivists as a perjorative term, it is implicit ranking. If you think moderation and compromise are the better means, then you are ranking.

Yes, you are not certain. You rank, but you are not certain about the ranking. But you rank.

Well, from what I get here you have two activities: 1) distraction activities alone 2) seeking objective morals in your contact with others.

What you may or may not be losing would be what is gained by relating to others in a more diverse way, under both categories 1 and 2. And also what can be gained from activities that are not merely distractions, but where you have, in addition, goals.

I am not suggestion you should try these things, just wanting to make it clear, given the next statement, that your sense this is a no brainer may simply be an existential contraption based on poor induction and generalizations created by past experience and is of little relevance to others, even other nihilists - since those I know do not limit themselves to those two activities and do not present themselves or seem to me as fractured as you present yourself and as you seem. It may not even be a reasonable conclusion for you. But, again, let me stress, I have no idea what you need or could possibly hear from another human even if I did know what you needed. But when you say…

[/quote]

  1. it calls for contextualization and 2) for any third parties reading, it needs to be pointed out how idiosyncratic this solution, however temporary, likely is.

Nihilist artisans, very social nihilists whose interactions with others cover joint projects, commiseration, support, joint creative work, play, exploration of psychology through discussion of specific people and concrete interactions, discussion of art and so on are all possible. And then under the category of distractions that also have goals: art, helping people - which the internet makes available to anyone - crafts, collecting, teaching, designing, writing for publication or distribution, etc.

yes, yes, you may very well be making the perfect choice for yourself, but I see a phrase like no brainer and I want to come in with how specific and idiosyncratic the lack of choice you see actually is.

None of that may have appeal to you, based on poor or good induction and all the factors you and I have mentioned, but other nihilists make other choices AND and the same time are not part of the empathyless neo-con, or fascist or community or autocratic ‘winner’ crowd.

Having as the two primary activities distraction and seeking objective morals is not a no brainer choice. It seems like there are many other choices to fit many different individual nihilists.

On the other hand Your choice may fit you perfectly, now, or for the rest of your life. I have no idea.

Imagine hypothetically we could pluck 100 men and women at random from around the globe. You relate to them in great detail the experiences that you had over this period of time.

Imagine then, at their “core”, the many different reactions. Unlike you, some will fall back on their objective moralities, on their gods, on their political prejudices.

From my perspective, this so-called “core” is just an endlessly constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed frame of mind – “I” – rooted in a particular lived life. And from the cradle to the grave. Except for the parts that we are all able to agree reflect what is in fact true for all mere mortals in what may or may not be a No God world.

Then we segue to a room filled with distinguished philosophers, ethicists, political scientists. They hear your story and the reactions of all the others.

What would they conclude? What could they conclude?

On the other hand, when I root much of the pain and suffering inflicted on “the masses” by those “show me the money” nihilists who own and operate the global economy, some will insist I am using “nihilist” here as a pejorative term.

What then can I do “for all practical purposes” but to draw certain conclusions about a world governed by either the moral objectivists or the moral nihilists?

Indeed, in the near future, the United States Supreme Court may well send the abortion wars back to the states. Or even outlaw it altogether as “unconstitutional”. The debate here will revolve around “the law”, but who is kidding who? The moral objectivists on the right see abortion as killing babies. The moral objectivists on the left see abortion as the right of women to choose.

So, when does the discussion and debate here become tangled up in alleged “pejoratives”?

For “I” out in the is/not world, both means and ends are deemed by me to be existential contraptions. And the manner in which “I” or “you” argue our points here does not make that go away. At least not for me.

And the bottom line [for me] is that if someone is able to convince me that morality can be grasped objectively [perhaps even universally], I’m up out of my hole. And then [on this thread] someone may in turn convince me that to the extent I embody this morality in my interactions with others, I will be judged favorably by God.

Instead, what is going on here [from my frame of mind] is you hearing me out and then making certain assumptions yourself about my motivation and intention.

Meanwhile I am more than willing to concede that even my own assessment here can never really be more than just an existential contraption that I have come to believe here and now “in my head”.

In relationship to what is “really true” here what are the odds that either one of us have come even close to an actual ontological or teleological assessment?

I couldn’t have put it better myself. We just react differently to what that means. Something, however, that makes perfect sense to me.

So, how close to or far away from psycho-babble is this? You may well be considerably closer to the whole truth here than I am. But that doesn’t make the hole that “I” am in go away. Nothing substantive really changes for me given my reaction to all the shit “in the news” that yanks me ambivalently in different directions. All I know is that once my reactions were grounded in the “real me” in sync with the right way to think and to feel and to behave. And that was a great source of comfort and consolation.

And now that’s all gone. It’s just that this seems to bother me in a way that it no longer bothers you. Why? Well, that’s what we’re both groping here to understand.

Only, from my frame of mind, the “answer” is buried [perhaps inextricably] in dasein. In all of those countless experiences that I have had from the cradle to now that predisposed me to think this instead of that.

But: What IN FACT is true?

Weird in relationship to what other point of view? I was once an objectivist. It felt good. I’m not now. Except to those who insist that I am – at least to the extent I won’t change my mind and see things more the way they do.

Things here are weird only to the extent that a frame of mind can be concocted which is able to be demonstrated as not weird.

As long as one chooses to interact with others, wants and needs will come into conflict. When on earth have they not? Given this, human communities have no choice but to rank behaviors. To assign rewards and punishments to particular sets of behaviors. That is simply the human condition.

Then it’s just a matter of being or not being down in the hole with me when it comes to be your turn to rank.

I react to this as yet another “general description” of human interactions. We would need to focus the beam on a particular context in which descriptively we noted that which we thought to be “poor induction”. We would need to exchange “experiences” in order gauge the extent to which another may or may not be able to grapple intelligently and insightfully with our own.

Clearly, that which is deemed to be a no brainer for this nihilist may well not make much sense to another one. At least not necessarily. After all, nihilists are no less embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein.

And so much here revolves around perceived options. Not to mention actual ones.

Sure, some people would shift, though this doesn’t prove much and it’s abstract. It’s not about you for example or me. Put 100 people in random Woods and some will get lost and some will find their way out. We could conclude that there is no skill involved, no core, just atoms in Brownian motion.

I know you think this way. For you there are no degrees of authenticity. When the gay guy with conservative parents finally admits what he has been feeling all along, he has not come closer to doing what he wants, accepting his emotions/desires, etc. It is an existential contraption. Now he has a new one gayness. For you it is a shift, just like any other, completely contingent, as likely to jump back to being straight again. But if like me you had made this one of the core tasks of your Life - the feeling into myself, noticing the effects of memes on my emotions, feel of myself, feel of unity, you would notice that like entropy there is in fact a direction. There are changes towards what is more stable because it fits my nature. For you there is no nature, just nurture and shifting mental, word based beliefs and contents. But smashing a glass is very hard to undo. Due to entropy, some states are more stable. Similarly some ways of being in the world suit us better, individually and even at the species level. Certain kinds of self-relation are less jumbled, split, self-suppressing…and I could give a long list of other metaphors and words that elicit for those who make this a priority or through circumstance are thrust through these states. This does not mean they are morally better. To Think that if you are not perfect, you should physically punish yourself is nto something I would argue is objectively immoral. But it is damaging for the organism. For me there are qualitative differences between states - unified in a spectrum to shattered/fragmented - and one can come closer to what one is, even if some things will change or can. Just like most people who come out as gay do not go back, especially if they were in environments where this transition brought up a lot of fear, there are facets of being in the world that feel much more natural to me, they fit me. I stop pretending, for example, that I am so nice, and realize where my anger was actually going. That persona that I myself believed was not very real. I may use it now, but I am no longer fooled. I can feel into a way of interacting with others and self-relating and notice what feels more unified. For you this is just Another existential contraption and that is because you see change as via verbal mental interactions and identity as thought content. Sure, experiences change you, but you do not Think you have the ability to test what memes are doing to you. You do not Think you can throw off ideas and/or will only do this when they are proven objectively wrong.

I’ll get a meme off my back if it feels bad over a long time. If I cannot come to some agreement with myself, and must for some reason be split and self-hating, how the hell would I help anyone outside of me? Oxygen mask on me first. And since I do not Believe in objective morals, worrying about them does not help me and has no attraction.

I can feel what is more the core me. You will likely say this is abstract and cannot be done or is Another existential abstraction, blah, blah. But it is actually Concrete and lived.

Perhaps you will think that, OK, gayness, but it’s likely hardwired, and even there some will switch to be trendy - which is why I mentioned a context where one is really motivated not to explore. But I find there is a lot that is temperment, and separated twins studies support this. There are activities and interests that suit us. There are ways of being int he world that feel right. And these will tend to find expression in how we act, what hobbies we choose. What kind of mates we seek and much much more. What we are told we should be like, pressures from family and culture and trends can suppress, turn us against ourselves. And it may not be easy to sort that out, and many are afraid to try and never do.

Further some things this is not individual. There are things our bodies, you could say, prefer and feel healthier doing. The huge rise in cortisol levels should let us know that culture is, by choice, moving in directions that do not suit us.

For you even if I am right, there is no way to know what suits me or us better.

We can only evaluate memes with verbal tool memes.

For me the memes you use to prioritize you activities are very abstract. They leave you out. They are seeking as a cipher. Again, might be just peachy for you and might even be objectively moral for all I know.

I think the reason you cannot grasp this is because you build your identity and hope around what is or might be objective. I ask you if something is working for you and I hear about the world. Like here below…

It doesn’t matter, certainly not to me.

For you there is just this flitting self. And for the Buddhists also. Nothing more real than anything else. Just transient forms.

Maybe it is true for you, but for me: NO there are changes that are towards a more grounded less split me and I can fallibly but clearly move towards a way of being that is less split and feel more correct and from which my organism thrives.

This doesn’t mean I know what yours is.

Some shifts like the move from trying to be attracted to women, while one is trying to be even believing one is straight, to accepting one’s actual desires and allowing the movement towards men are really rather obvious. Startling different experiences of sex and romantic love, I would guess, as a straight guy. A clear sense, now I have moved closer to myself.

A dramatic example. But there are so many other less dramatic examples that one can go through, that are also clearly grounded in the organism. And since most belief systems out there, for example, have built in self-hate as moral (not that they Word it this way), the Changes can be just as dramatic, though often harder for others to understand. Who still Think [i]that ain’t self-hate that’s just common sense, those emotions are bad.

[/i]Just because something is sometimes, often or even usually hard to track, does not mean it is not real. And there are skills involved here. Some people have worked hard on this and some have not, and that makes a difference. I can’t make out precancerous tissue on an MRI image, but some people can.

Most people confuse the contents of their thoughts with themselves or in your case with a mere ‘I’. They identify with the content. You see the content as infinitely flexible. But that is where you both look for identity. And that text based mental, just one portion of frontal lobe activity is the most culturally affected, most easily manipulated portion of the self. You look there, hope to find something there that gets you from the hole - and while you are more alone in relation to this than objectivists, they look in the same place for change or not to change, for the I or ‘I’

I think that his not where the I is. And I think focusing there is to flutter or be always on the defensive of an I one wants to defend.

I know doing anything else is of no interest to you. But if you want to know why I am less fractured than you, it is because of how we have focused differently and what you have focusing on gives you NO GROUND to evaluate. You could be gay in a month, dislike nature or start liking being out in it, suddenly feel drawn to X, and repulsed by Y, be conservative next week, be an objectivist in a year, feel best in Latin culture…and so on.

I have no answer to your objective morals quest. But you are confused about how fluid it all is and it is no coincidence you leave nature off your list of factors in dasein and only have nurture.

Not quite, you are using show me the money nihilists as a perjorative term. You are ranking them. Distinguishing them from other possible nihilists. Ones like you for example. You rank depending on several factors, objectivism, nihilism, moderation vs might makes right, domination vs compassionate community focus and given that you are still an ‘I’ with lefty urges, this too affects your ranking. Objectivists who tend towards moderation rank higher than those who use might, etc. You haven’t sat down and made a nicely number ranking list, but I can easily put them in some kind of order with some rankings being utterly clear. And yes, I know you cannot be sure how you will rank tomorrow or how contingent all this is, but you rank.

Oh, I know some things you have more trouble ranking than others. That doesn’t mean you don’t rank.

I know. I do not think anything will change you now. Not the objectivists and not nihilists. What could you possibly find in yourself to trust. Not your intellect, not your emotions, all changes int he self are merely contingent and your goal seems to be solving all the worlds interpersonal problems that are based on values. I do not think a change is possible with that demand or need as the criterion for what you would trust to make a change. Don’t mean your wrong, objectively or subjectively. But of course what I say does not make ‘that’ go away.

Something always strikes me as odd. Beyond that I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what your motivation is or your intention, however you are distinguishing those terms.

Maybe that’s a better assessment of your mind than mine. You just ranked us by the way…

Meanwhile I am more willing…

You, right here , ranking us. It’s implicit ranking, yes. Often you rank openly and the pejorative is clear. Here it is implied. And notice the contradiction between the act and what you are saying about yourself. Yes, yes. I know, you can now tell me that you know you might be wrong. But you rank and you ranked us.

Can you not see how this is an assessment?

I pointed out something that is not psychobabble. It is a conclusion one can deduce based on your ideas of the contingency of your beliefs and also your judgments of objectivism.

Psychobabble deals with your dad or your inferiority complex etc., not the beliefs you are putting down on the page and conclusions one could draw from them. My deduction may be faulty but it wasn’t about your personality.

No, that’s not the only way. I tried to point out contradictions between your goals and what you think of people who you think are the only ones who can help you, how you rank them in relation to you and where you see the damage coming from in the world.

It was not effective. I see that. And a better word would have been self-contradictory.

Your first reaction to my saying that you rank was to say you didn’t. That you used nihilist sometimes as pejorative. Now you are saying that it is inevitable that one ranks.

I can only try to point out these contradictions and see if you can go into the cognitive dissonance long enough to see what might be going on that you don’t want to notice.

Good.

I’m off. It’s been interesting. I’ve gotten something from it, a bit like, perhaps, arguing with Derrida about whether we are having an argument and him getting angry because clearly we are not because neither of us exists. Which hopefully doesn’t come off mocking. It’s a discussion I would have liked to have had with Derrida. And he too saw text as primary.

And while I love Don Quixote, I don’t want to be him. I accept that I am encountering a transient form here.

But I am not the right interlocutor for your goals. So the discussion will always be skewed. It’s your thread, you have a really rather clear goal. Good luck.

My point though is more in imagining the reactions of philosophers, ethicists and political scientists reacting to what I construe to be political prejudices rooted in dasein.

Would they agree that this is basically what they are, or might they concoct a frame of mind said to be the moral obligation of all rational people to embrace?

And folks walking in the woods [either getting lost or not] revolves more around the either/or world. They either possess the skills necessary to find their way out or they don’t.

Again, it comes down [for me] to assessing your experiences in contrast to the experiences of others; or assessing them such that it can be determined which choices you ought to have made in order to be construed of as a rational and moral human being.

In a No God world.

Here though, we are still grappling with the extent to which homosexuality may or may not be embedded in genes. For some it may be entirely natural to be gay. And, since human beings are inherently a part of nature, it can also be argued in turn that any behaviors that any of us choose are natural.

But, historically, culturally and experientially, any number of conflicting memetic narratives have been broached and embraced.

So, putting the two together, what are philosophers, ethicists and political scientists to make of it? Is there a frame of mind here that transcends the existential components embedded in my own frame of mind?

I would certainly never argue that there is not one, only that no one has yet to convince me of one. But that can ever only be embodied in the “here and now”.

What interests me about speculation of this sort is in imagining those on both sides of this cantankerous political debate reacting to it. The part in other words where your “general descriptions” above bump into the actual experiences that particular individuals might have.

Out in a particular world of actual flesh and blood human interactions.

And then in imagining a particular community coming up with a set of behaviors – either prescribed or proscribed – relating to homosexuality.

How would the “best of all possible worlds” here not revolve around moderation, negotiation and compromise?

“You” can, “I” can’t. And what you call “actually concrete and lived” in embracing one set of values/behaviors, those who embrace an entirely opposite set of values/behaviors champion in turn. Somehow they just know – intuitively? viscerally? – that helping and hurting others revolves around that which they have come to construe as their “core” self.

But we are still back to moderation, negotiation and compromise as the best of all possible worlds here.

Something the objectivists will accept only to the extent that they still believe that their own frame of mind reflects the most rational/moral agenda. They need but convince the other side of this.

And that [psychologically] is the source of comfort and consolation that folks like me are not able to experience.

What on earth is abstract about this…

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

…as a description of my own approach to moral values? “I” here is embedded in the actual existential trajectory of my life as it intertwines ideas/ideals in a sequence of experiences that helped to shape and mold them

Choose a value of your own and situate it out in the life that you have lived. Then note how you are still able to somehow just know what your real “core” is.

The “for all practical purposes” “I” that “works” for you here and now. And then when you bump into the points that I raise here about that you just brush them aside. Why? Because [I speculate] if you do go down that path, whatever comfort and consolation you have managed to stitch together with the “I” you have now is put in jeopardy.

And I know this in particular because “I” did tumble down into the hole I describe myself.

Yeah, but the Buddhists have this whole “spiritual” thing going for them. And, one suspects, they too are all over the map when it comes down to reacting to conflicting goods.

Consider: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_abortion

And, re this thread, any particular Buddhist will express an opinion about abortion as it reflects a point of view regarding behaviors on this side of the grave and the manner in which behaviors here and now relate to an imagined fate on the other side of it.

But even Buddhists are no less daseins.

And then there’s this part:

“True happiness, enlightenment, and freedom from suffering can be found through Buddhist teachings. A spirit is not extinguished upon death, but instead transfers into another life in one of six separate planes (three fortunate and three unfortunate).”

Any Buddhists here willing to bring their own value judgments down to earth?

Now this is abstract.

Note a particular value judgment of yours and situate it out in the world that you live in.

What on earth does it mean to speak of behaviors “grounded in the organism”? And how is that reconciled with human autonomy?

This sort of thing…

…really gets me no closer to understanding this “core” self of yours. “Fluid” in what way? In other words, given an actual encounter you had with someone whose “core” self challenged one of your own values/behaviors.

You both might embrace this idea of a more or less “real me”, but that doesn’t make the conflicting goods go away. Or the part about dasein and political economy.

But to the extent that I use the expression “show me the money nihilists” in a pejorative sense, I am recognizing my reactions here as just one more existential contraption rooted [re dasein] in the particular political proejudices I came to embody as a radical leftist. Ranking things here [in the is/ought world] is just another manifestion of my frame of mind.

In fact, ranking is inevitable given that the human condition revolves entirely around the need to establish “rules of behaviors” in any community of human beings.

There are – necessarily – rewards and punishments that must meted out. But which behaviors get one rather than the other?

How are the components of your moral philosophy more reasonable than mine?

We all must rank if we choose to interact with others. There is no getting around it. But most here are not in the hole that I am in when the time comes to rank.

The objectivists for obvious reasons. I’m just still fuzzy about the ranking that you do. In other words, I suspect that what seems clearer to you about “I” here is just another “psychological defense mechanism” that you have concocted in order to sustain at least some measure of comfort and consolation.

Here and now it works for you. It just doesn’t work for me. So, in that sense, as with Prismatic, phyllo and so many others here, you “win”. You feel more grounded and in control of your lives than I do.

The rest is just the part that revolves around death…the part after the grave.

That [to me] is just common sense embedded in the manner in which the human brain is programmed by the evolution of life on earth to ask “why?”

To connect the dots between “in my head” and “out in the world”?

Obviously: something or other [ontologically/teleologcially] set it all into motion.

Not to grapple with this is to be cow or a bacteria or a rock.

But to assess it all correctly? How on earth would that be demonstrated?

And here [perhaps] the only thing more mysterious than a No God world may well end up being one with God. In other words, who or what set Him in motion?

The next time one of your own value judgments comes into conflict with anothers, situate a description of the exchange in the point you are trying to make here.

My own goal revolves around feeling less fractured and fragmented in confronting conflicting goods out in the world that I live in; given how I construe the embodied “I” here as an existential contraption.

Considering that one or another set of behaviors must be either rewarded of punished in order to sustain the least dysfunctional human interactions, how on earth would not ranking even be possible?

In other words:

Please note where I stated that I do not rank above. What was the specific context?

My point is only to suggest that ranking will revolve around one or another agglomeration of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.

And even here I make it abundantly clear that my own assessment of all this is just another existential contraption.

Same here. I always savor an exchange with someone who is obviously intelligent and articulate. Indeed, the fact that someone like you easily holds his own against the points I raise, allows me to better imagine that the points I make are wrong.

So, sure, maybe some semblance of “comfort and consolation” is still within reach for me.

Good luck to you in turn.

Tim Madigan from “The Basis of Morality” in Philosophy Now magazine.

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Isn’t that basically what morality comes down to in a No God world? We can frame human interactions in whatever secular/humanist narrative that happens to appeal to us. But “for all practical puropses” it seems to come down to creating social, political and economic interactions that are construed to be the least dysfunctional.

The only other really important factor then being political power. You can think about the “right thing to do” however you wish. But, when push comes to shove, you can either enforce your own narrative existentially or you cannot.

And this seems to be true whether the community is predicated more on might makes right, right makes might or on moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Rewards and punishments. It all evolves into or devolves out of that. Depending on your point of view regarding pleasure and pain.

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In fact, any number of religious folks scoff at the idea of discussing morality in the absense of God. Even philosophers like Plato, Descartes and Kant recognized that without a “transcending font” there is “for all practical purposes” no basis upon which to resolve conflicts revolving around “right” and “wrong” behavior. Not on this side of the grave.

And that has certainly been my own argument here in defending “moral nihilism” as a reasonable frame of mind.

No God, no access to a morality in which the behaviors of mere mortals can be judged from both an omniscient and omnipotent point of view.

Then what?

How about this: Human history to date.

From “The Basis of Morality”
Tim Madigan in Philosophy Now magazine

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Of course without genes there would be no memes. So, is morality more intimately intertwined in the evolution of life itself? Are memes only manifestions of human biology out in a particular world historically, culturally and experienctially — given a particular context in which particular individuals interact?

My guess: We’ll probably never really know. Not in the sense that we can finally pin down with precision the exact manner in which genes and memes interact in the mind of any one particular individual predisposing him or her toward or away from a God, the God, my God.

Instead, I tend to steer the discussion here more in the general direction of the subjunctive: emotionally and psychologically a belief in God provides the clearest, cleanest, most definitive foundation for “I”.

With God:

1] Sin on this side of the grave when right and wrong behaviors are at stake
2] immortality and salvation on the other side of it if we choose the right behaviors
3] a place to dump all of our pain and suffering
4] a teleology able to provide the ultimate reason/meaning for…everything

Genes or memes, there is simply no getting around that for atheists . Old or new.

From “The Basis of Morality” by Tim Madigan in Philosophy Now magazine.

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The idea being that arguing back and forth about whether religion is a good thing or a bad thing, misses the point.

This one: That for all practical purposes it was necessary to invent it. Why? Because as we evolved from those naked apes living in caves to the communities that we are familiar with going back centuries now, without it there was really no capacity to anchor human interactions to anything that might be embraced teleologically.

Indeed, why on earth would one choose to be good if not in order to be in sync with the rules of behaviors that are said [in any particular community] to be in sync with the “meaning of life” itself?

And how else to secure a belief that death is not the end of life at all?

There’s only one possible font for that. And while philosophers eventually came along to explore all of this more “academically”, science was progressing to the point that “the meaning of things” we experienced from day to day became more and more in sync with the discovery of “natural laws” than with supernatural explanations.

But God and religion are still the only way to connect the dots between “here and now” and “there and then”.

Or, rather, they are if teleology is important to you.

From “The Basis of Morality” by Tim Madigan in Philosophy Now magazine.

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In fact this can still be what is at sake when you bring God and religion down out of the theological clouds and implicate them in the actual existential interactions of flesh and blood human beings. The part where, among other things, The Bible meets The Communist Manifesto or The Wealth of Nations.

In other words, the part where actual individuals move back and forth between rendering unto God and rendering unto Caesar. That governing body otherwise known as the state.

And while in much of the world today you are not likely to meet Socrates’s fate, there are still any number of places where that is nowhere near out of the question.

And even in places like America where God and religion are particularly well-entrenched, you roll the dice when choosing behaviors deemed to be “unChristian.”

The point being that one way or another, a narrative will be found that rationalizes either rewarding or punishing certain behaviors. It just comes down to how intertwined the interests of sacred and the secular become in any partivular historical or cultural context.

The “politics” of religion.

Which reflects in part just how problematic it can be for the moral nihilists. It’s one thing to argue back and forth about the “transcending source” of morality, another thing altogether to suggest that there may well not be one.

Folks like Nietzsche got around this by eschewing God but then reconfiguring right and wrong into one or another rendition of the “will to power”. In other words, though God is dead, morality can still be manifested in those men who deserve to call the shots. Might makes right meets right makes might.

The crucial thing being that there is still a font that mere mortals can invest “I” in. In becoming one of the Übermensch.

Think Satyr and his clique/claque over at KT.

This is something I often find myself coming back to with respect to either God in the universe or the universe in God. The universe manifested in the world of the very, very large [the surreal multiverse?] and the very, very small [the surreal quantum world?].

Namely this: Does the world of the very, very large and the very small exist as they do because this in the way God created them, or did God create them as He did because this is the only way that they could have been created?

Which [of course] takes the mind [mine] back to the profound mystery that surely must be embedded in the existence of existence itself.

In fact, nowadays that more or less reflects what is still left of my own religious sense. Why something exists rather than nothing, and why it exists as it does and not in some other way, is something I am just not able to wrap my mind around at all. So, sure, from time to time I think, why not God?

But then it all tumbles over into the abyss. Nothing of any real substantial value mamages to “stick”.

What is this however but a suggestion that religion is as much a reflection of what we want to be true as it is what we are able to demonstrate to others [or even to ourselves] is true. And, for some of us, considerably more. It becomes a reflection of what we yearn for in order to make life more bearable on this side of the grave and even possible at all on the other side of it.

The deeper we go psychologically, the more it seems that coherence is just a frame of mind that allows us to square or to reconcile what we see around us [in a frightening world] with a yearning for an explanation that can somehow be squared or reconciled with the “will of God”.

And the human brain is wired such that one only has to believe this in order for it to be true “for all practical purposes”. We behave in accordance with what we think is true. It doesn’t necessarily actually have to be true.

We get this sort of thing from religious folks all the time.

As though others are expected to believe that something like this is true simply because someone believes that it is.

Of course some will argue they don’t believe that this is true so much as that they have faith in it being true.

And that is certainly something that is not an irrational thing to believe. God would seem to be one possible explanation for the existence of existence itself.

And the more you think about how and why this something exists rather than something else or nothing at all, you are right out there at the very end of the metaphysical limb. The deeper you go the “spookier” existence itself can seem.

So, sure, why suppose that God and religion can be ruled out.

Still, the last thing that many who think like the poster above will be willing to concede, is that they believe what they do either because others told them to, or because it just feels a whole lot more conforting to believe it than to not believe it.

Yeah, I’ve seen that nightmare. I’ve also seen what’s there when you ‘overcome’ it and get past the ‘spookiness’ of it.

Okay, describe for us how you have in fact come to embody this “overcoming” in the course of living your life from day to day.

And then connect that to the OP: to the manner in which someone who has “overcome the spookiness” is able entwine this new frame of mind into his behaviors on this side of the grave so as to achieve that which he is after regarding his soul on the other side of the grave.

Obviously, a lot of this revolves around intentions. For those whose faith in God is genuine, religion is their connection to immortality, salvation and divine justice. On the other hand, re folks like Marx, religion is construed to be but the “opiate of the masses”. And then there are those who note how religion can be used as a political tool to control the masses.

On the other hand, fake news as we bandy it about these days may or may not have a religious element. And those who propagate it may or may not be aware of just how fake it actually is. Again, it can be used as a tool to control those unable or unwilling to dig down deep enough to discover the extent to which the news is fake.

Cue, among others, Niccolò Machiavelli.

Or, perhaps, Don Trump?

But in either case it still revolves around the extent to which what you believe is true is something you can demonstrate that other rational men and women are obligated to believe is true in turn.

And then the part where rationality itself can only go in so far. And can only explain so much.

First of all, both historically and culturally, “guilt and shame” are clearly embedded deep down in the human brain. We all come into this world genetically equipped to feel these things.

So they were actually “invented” by nature itself. Then it comes down to the extent to which “I” have any substantial capacity to choose or not to choose to feel them autonomously in any particular context.

But, historically, religion is hardly the only memetic contraption to “weaponize” them. Political ideologues can do [and have done] the same. Just as those who [philosophically] embrace one or another deonotolgical assesment of human interactions speak of things like “categorical imperatives” and “moral obligation” in judging the behaviors of others.

Or the folks who insist that only those who embrace their own assement of human nature can be admitted as “one of us”.

Like most things embedded in human raltionships, there is that enormously complex and convoluted line to be drawn between genes and memes.

Christians here are just one of hundreds and hundreds of objectivist fonts intent on shaming those who refuse to draw the line where they do.

[i]Theism: belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures

Rational: based on or in accordance with reason or logic[/i]

Here and now there does not appear to be an accumulation of evidence that allows folks like me to rationally believe in the existence of one or of many Gods.

But that’s not the same as insisting that there is no accumulation of evidence out there.

Even a belief in No God ultimately comes down to a leap of faith.

And that’s where we are collectively. Existence clearly seems to be all around us. Why? God is the explanation of choice. But “reason” here seems to be embedded as much in human psychology as in cold hard logic. We want God to exist because He becomes the moral font on this side of the grave and the source for immortality and salvation on the other side.

But: making this argument hardly settles it.

It would seem necessary that existence itself was either created or not. But there does not appear to be a way in which to establish that it was created by No God.

So, until there is a “philosophical” or “scientific” explanation for existence, God will always be around.

It’s not that modernism believes in the absolute ONE, but that there are dozens and dozens of hopelessly conflicting and contradictory narratives out there all espousing one or another authoritarian rendition of it.

The “one of us” ONE in other words.

And that’s before we get to all of the various post-modern attempts to deconstruct ONE into an essentially absurd and meaningless world.

And the irony then being that their own intellectual contraption ONEs are but more psychological/secular manifestations of God.

Some believe that the ONE truth revolves around their own understanding of Nature. Figure out how it is “natural” to behave and you won’t need God.

But, of course, they have already figured this out for you.

This sort of thing is always tricky. And that’s because God and religion can be understood in two very different ways.

On the one hand, discussions and debates about God and religion can unfold in places like this. Arguments are made involving conflicting sets of assumptions embedded in conflicting sets of premises resulting in conflicting conclusions. But, by and large, the exchanges are aggregations of intellectual contraptions swatted back and word in a world of words.

But out in the world that we live in combustible beliefs about God and religion can easily become embedded in any number of “for all practical purposes” confrontations. Then we have things like crusades and inquisitions and infidels and fatwas and evangelical bluster about those “left behind”.

And while the faithful concentrate on all the good that can come from religious faith, many in the atheist community point to the at times very real human pain and suffering that can be attributed to conflicts over God and religion.

And then the part where those wealthy folks in power use religion as the “opiate for the people”. All in a more or less calculated effort to sustain economic and political relationships that make God and religion all that more crucial for those focused more on “salvation” in the next life.

This sort of thing speaks volumes regarding a fundamental role that religion plays in the lives of many.

It takes behaviors in which the options might be vast and varied and reduces them down to either this or that. It’s not what you choose to wear but that what you choose to wear is more or less obligatory. That way you don’t really have to choose at all.

And you don’t have to grapple with feminism because the particular religious denomination that you have been brought up in tells you how to be a righteous man and how to be a rigteous woman.

Some things are inherently the same, other things inherently different. But there is always someone there to make those distinctions. To prescribe and to proscribe certain behaviors. To make them a necessary part of your life.

And, as we all know, what you choose to wear can be the least of it.

Still, in the modern world all of this gets more and more complicated. And that is because we have access to so many alternatives. Others have reasons for doing things differently. Why our ways and not theirs?

Also, in the world today, religion is often more an ecumenical hodge-podge of whatever behaviors can be rationalized. So those who choose to wear burkhas [or allowed others to choose that for them] might be seen as a reaction to that. It might even be argued that they take their religion more seriously.

And, with immortality, salvation and devine justice at stake on the other side, why wouldn’t they?

And then the part where historically religion and patriarchy become intertwined in a political narrative in turn.