My own purpose here is precisely to note the distinction between that which we can both agree is true objectively – that we are engaged in an exchange about God and religion on this thread at ILP – and that which will [in my view] revolve only around subjective assumptions – that my point of view is more reasonable than yours. Or that your point of view is more reasonable than mine.
Why? Because neither of us are able to pose arguments regarding the truth about God and religion that are the empirical/material equivalent of noting the existence of the exchange itself.
And, in turn, that how you and I came to these subjective value judgments about God and religion is rooted more in dasein than in our capacity to attain the knowledge necessary to provide the most rational/logical argument for or against His existence.
There are two ways in which we can come to a point of view pertaining to value judgments. On the one hand, we can spend hours and hours and hours actually thinking about the pros and the cons of the behaviors we derive from our particular value judgments. We can then try to have as many different experiences as possible relating to those behaviors ; and we can discuss them with as many different people as possible in order to get diverse points of view; and we can try to acquire as much knowledge and information about these behaviors/value judgments in order to be fully informed on it.
On the other hand, based on my own experience, most folks don’t do this it all. Instead, they live in a particular time and place, acquire a particular set of experiences, accumulate a particular set of relationships and acquire particular sources of knowledge and information – which then comes [rather fortuitously] over the years to predispose them to particular subjective points of view that might well have changed over and again throughout the years. And, indeed, may well change many times more.
I do not see anything to disagree in that. Though, i am the product of second method but after that, i opted for the first one, thought about it over and over, also tried to get second opinion and crosscheked it with whatever means that i had.
Again, think about that. What would any particular individual need to experience or know in order to be able to say with a definitive assurance that God does in fact exist…and that the God that he or she believes in is the only existing God? Compare the experiences you have had here as an individual with the vast number of experiences that are available to be had by someone of our species.
In short, your own personal experiences are but a teeny, tiny fraction of what can be experienced. Same with all of the people you have discussed this with…or all of the information “out there” to be had that might profoundly influence your current point of view. Each individual can only come into contact with a very, very small percentage of all there is. After all, why do you suppose there are so many vast and varied narratives here?
And yet over and over and over again we come into places like this and encounter objectivist after objectivist after objectivst all claiming that their own value judgments here do indeed reflect what is really true about God and religion.
And how would “a long one-to-one interaction in person” with another change any of that?
Okay, point taken. I did misunderstand you. But, sooner or later, a discussion of the relationship between God and religion and any particular church has to come down to demonstrating the actual existence of this God – or simply in someone having faith in His existence. Or in predicating one’s belief in his existence on definitions and deductions, on tautological arguments and analysis, on “personal experience”, on a God that exists “in your head”.
And, sooner or later, those who profess a belief in a God have to get around in turn to speculating [for others] on whether or not this is tantaumont to their belief in the God. And whether this is the same God. And the relationship between this and the question “how ought one to live” – given that a belief in the God almost always revolves in turn around things like immortality, salvation, divine justice, and – down here – differentiating Sinful behavior from virtuous behavior.
I think that i addressed that issue already.
Yes, we come across this many times here. Someone will make an argument. Another will address it. But the person making the argument will not construe the rebuttal/rejoinder as in fact addressing it at all. Or as missing the most important parts. But this does not surprise me. And precisely because with respect to things like God and religion [or identity, morality and conflicting goods] both sides will make arguments that can neither be fully verified nor fully falsified. Instead, only the actual manifestation/embodiment of God Him/Her/Itself can “settle” it.
That is why for thousands of years now these discussions and debates persist. I merely inject dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into the conversations in order to offer one possible explanation as to why nothing ever gets resolved.
And then to note that, for many, what is of chief importance is that it can be resolved. And thus to suggest further that so much of this revolves instead around human psychology rather than either philosophy or religion.
To me, as far as the philosophy/evidence is concerned, the concept of God is something like N’s WTP. That begs a question. Is there any evidence of WTP? No. Can it be demonstrated phycially? No. Then why people believe that there is any such thing? WTP is a metaphysical premise and cannot be verified physically. So, does that mean that believing in WTP are fools? I think that the concept of the God should be given the equal treatment too. Philosophy allows that.
There is certainly plenty of empirical evidence to be had that suggests the human brain is capable of producing human interactions that clearly seem to revolve around what we construe to be “power”.
But the often brutal manifestations of conflicts over power would seem only to be overwhelming proof that the evolution of life on earth came down to brains able to embody this. But how does that then make the existence of God [of my God not your God] any more manifest?
To me it still comes down to sheer speculation about one of the possible “metaphysical” explanations.
And in that respect [for me] what is always of fundamental importance is the extent to which any of this speculation [“in your head”] would be able to convince me that God does in fact exist; and then the manner in which one would be expected to relate to this God in the context of achieving immortality, salvation, divine justice and an understanding of objective morality.
The rest [again for me] is just academic, scholastic, theological masturbation. Sure, it can be a fascinating intellectual excursion: a grappling with the very nature of existence itself! Of Reality itself!
But once a mere mortal starts to run out of time, he or she tends to become more “practical” about these things.
Now, indeed, this might “work” or seem reasoanble to you:
The first reason is that one should believe in the God because good, honest and sincere people like Jesus asked to do so. I am not asking believing in imagination (God) but in reality (Jesus). Forget about God and just remember Jesus. Was he real or not? Was he a good and kind person or not? I am not saying that he cannot make mistakes but history tells us that he was at least a good person by intent and sacrificed himself for the sake of others.
The second reason is that he offered a good value system by and large. Keeping one odd mistake of his aside as an exception, there is nothing wrong with his social premises and still very much applicable.
Thirdly, there may be a possibility that whatever he said about the God may be true? After all, there is at least a posibility of that or not? So, why one cannot give it a shot? Let us see what happens.
lastly, Keep Jusus just as moral preacher or philosopher, just like Socrates and Spinoza. At least, Jesus can find a place in the leage of those people, or even this demand is exaggerated too?
But it does not “work” or seem reasonable to me. I still go back to the arguments I raised above. And then all I can do is to ask myself if the arguments of others “address” these points. And, sure, up to a point, some are considerably more intelligent than others. Your own are certainly more sophisticated [to me] than the arguments of James S. Saint, Phyllo and their [rather shallow and transparent] objectivist ilk.
As for the “reality” of Jesus. That is still in dispute: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
godlessgeeks.com/JesusExist.htm
While, on the other hand, very, very, very few would argue that Socrates and Spinoza did not exist.
And, in any event, the philosophy of Jesus is still just a political narrative to me. The sort of behaviors he championed, are not championed at all by others.
Indeed, it would be quite interesting to discuss the morality of abortion with Jesus. How would He address the manner in which I construe it in terms of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?
Me, I’m not looking for “simple” answers. On the contrary, given how I construe these relationships I always assume that the answers will be hard. But that is at the very least. What intrigues me [far more] is how any particular individual makes a distinction here between “I” as dasein and I as his or her TRUE self. And then in how they come up with an argument that obviates conflicting goods by showing us how we can attain the objective good [an objective truth] instead.
For me, there is only one I/ME, whether knowledgeable or ignorant. And, i will tell you how i concluded those judgements. You are welcome to question their validity.
Then we think about these things in very different ways. But I can well understand why most folks do react as they do to “dasein”. And that is because emotionally and psychologically it is just too discomfitting to imagine that, after peeling away all of the existential layers of their life, there is not some True Self nestled down there at the center of it all: I/ME
But the closest I can come to this is in acknowledging that I come into this world predisposed by my particular gentic/biological makeup to go in some directions rather than others. And that as a child I was indoctrinated/brainwashed [historically, culturally, experientially] to embody one particular “reality” rather than another. But then nurture is as well a truly powerful component of “I”.