What does it have to do with faith???
There is a limit to human knowledge. What if you asked an atheist what happens to a soul after death and he answered “I don’t know”? Would you attribute it to “faith” or that the “un-god works in mysterious ways”?
Maybe it’s simply an understanding and acceptance that there are things beyond your control. Or believing that each man/woman is seeking only his own salvation. Or believing that each man/woman has his own relationship with God.
He doesn’t need to demonstrate anything. If God exists, then God will take care of the soul in some way. If God doesn’t exist, then the soul dissolves and there is nothing to take care of.
Most embrace one or another narrative/agenda pertaining to one or another God. They say that their own religion is the right one.
Furthermore the major religious denominations [on this planet] argue that God will judge our behaviors on this side of the grave. And that, if we pass muster, our reward is immortality, Salvation and Divine Justice.
Now, sure, we can define a “demonstration” of God’s existence here with either more or less specificity.
But the bottom line [mine] is that there are still many different renditions of God out there with any number of conflicting scripts relating to any number of different human behaviors; and they all more or less insist [like those missionaries above] that you either get it right…or else.
[b]How about you?
What “here and now” do you believe your own fate to be “beyond”? How is this related to your current belief in God? And what of those who reject your frame of mind – the stuff that you claim to believe or know to be true “in your head”? What is to be their own fate?
Is there any way at all that you can take this out of your head? A way that you can demonstrate that your own moral and political values are in sync with the one true God?[/b]
Indeed, I’ve lost count of how many times that I have tried to pin religionists down on this.
On the contrary, I recognize that those on either side of any particular moral conflict of note can make reasonable arguments. Conflicting good, remember?
And then there is the argument of the sociopath. Or the argument of those nihilists who own and operate the global economy and predicate almost all transactions on a scripture that commences with “show me the money”.
But most folks “resolve” this dilemma by positing one or another God. It’s all settled. Behave as you should and you are rewarded, behave as you should not and you are punished.
I’m just trying to grasp the extent to which you think like this? Do you? And, if so, name a particular behavior out in a particular context out in this particular world.
Again, bringing it all down to earth. Existentially as it were.
Many scientists recognize that the laws of nature are still embedded in David Hume’s radical skepticism. Correlation [no matter how many times A begets B begets C] does not necessarily equate with cause and effect.
Sure, there are things about both time and space [space-time] that we may well be far, far, far from fully understanding.
The point though is this: is it either 1] one or the other re the immutable laws of nature or 2] is there a teleology behind it all? That which most call God.
And it is with God that [supposedly] the world of is/ought [on this side of the grave] is able to be reconfigured into a world of either/or on Judgement Day. You either get in or you don’t.
All I do here is poke the religionists in the side and say “let’s talk about it”.
Only “out in the world” of actual human interactions rather than up in the stratosphere of intellectual contraptions.
Or as all of this pertains to the psychological defense mechanism that some construe “blind faith” to be.
On the other hand, as you get closer and closer and closer to it, you may well come to change your mind. I sure wish that I could.
Indeed, as with most things of this sorts, it is embedded more in existence itself rather than in any particular way in which any particular mind can concoct a “defense mechanism” to keep it all more…at a distance.
I wonder how he fared on Judgment Day? You know, if he had one.
On the other hand, if there be a God, it all comes down [necessarily] to that which He insists is “just”. And that takes us right back to all the different Gods out there that are worshipped and adored prescribing and proscribing conflicting [even contradictory] renditions of all this as it pertains to different behaviors.
For example, being homosexual. Is that “just”? Are there homosexuals in Heaven?
That’s funny. One would think that it falls into your categories of identity, value judgements and intellectual contraptions. Yet, you suddenly “embed it in existence itself”.
Well, it is one thing to say that you have faith in God, and another thing altogether to insist that God does in fact exist. Faith [to me] implies doubt.
And, over the years as a political activist, I bumped into any number of very, very intelligent men and women [whom I had great respect for] who professed a faith in one or another God.
As, at one point in my life, I had a great faith in too.
If there is a limit to human knowledge, it can only be as a result of the God who created us. Right?
An atheist would say “I don’t know” because, in the absence of a belief in God, she has no capacity to know.
And, sure, the atheist is no less faced with her own ignorance regarding this. She too can [ultimately] only have faith in No God.
But, it’s not really the same though, is it? For instance, for all practical purposes.
Unless “in your head” you make them the same.
But if one of the things that is beyond your control is knowing which God to worship in order to embrace a set of behaviors that will gain you access to immortality and salvation, how is that too not but another indication of a less than Almighty God?
Like the song says…
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication
But don’t get him wrong.
Come on, just in terms of common sense, is that really the doing of an entity said [by most] to be “all knowing and all powerful”, “loving, just and merciful”?
Of course there are literally millions upon millions of religionists out there who will insist that you could not possibly have gotten the one true God more wrong. Oh, there’s a soul all right, but yours is clearly in need of “saving”.
But I’ll let you take that part up with them yourself.
Or are you one of those “cafeteria” type religionists? An ecumenical? You get to pick and choose any and all behaviors that you can personally square with the God that exist “in your head”.
But my “categories” of identity and value judgements are ever and always only existential contraptions here. What I go looking for are the arguments of those able to demonstrate that this is considerably less the case with/for them. And that they are somehow able to transcend these existential components and arrive at a God that they are indeed able to demonstrate as in fact existing.
As this relates to the manner in which they do connect the dots between before and after the grave.
Something that [above] I broached with you. And, once again, you don’t seem to find it worth exploring.
On the other hand, neither do folks like Uccisore or Turd.
They are deemed reasonable given the political assumptions/premises that are commanded from both sides.
If you start with the assumption that the unborn have a natural right to life then those who abort babies are wrong.
Then it comes down to the consequences of that. With God, the consequene [for the vast majority of religionists] revoles around Judgment Day.
If you start with the assumption that women have the political right to abort, then those who would stop them are wrong.
Then it comes down to consequences. Without God, the consequence [for many pro-lifers] would be an arrest, a trial, a verdict and if found guilty one or another punishment.
And how is this not the same for all other political issues in which conflicting goods exist?
And that’s before we get to the part in which I explore the extent to which these goods come to be embodied more existentially than essentially.
Indeed, I suspect that any number of miserable bastards out there would like nothing better than for that to happen. They simply rationalize it.
Oh, and what happens when the next “extinction event” occurs and, once again, most of life on earth is wiped out.
You just transferred the lack of standards to ‘assumptions’ … you’re saying that there are no good and bad assumptions, no better assumptions and no way to analyze assumptions.
Yeah, they’re miserable bastards and I will go out on a limb and say that there is something wrong with them, their attitude and their (potential) behavior. I know … now you will call me Mr. Objectivist.
What does that have to do with whether the miserable bastards are right or wrong?
My mother… her conversations were very transient… she sometimes settled on a point, but more often did not. I tend to do this often too… be transient in my conversations, but not on a debating forum… due to the point you raised on there being little room for discussion.
Then we are back again to square one. Or, rather, to my square one.
This one: The gap between that which you have come existentially to believe is true in your head [here and now] regarding God and religion, and the ability to actually demonstrate why essentially all reasonable/rational men and women ought to believe the same.
Let alone how you would then connect that frame of mind to the frame of mind that revolves around particular moral and political issues you opine about in the government and society forum.
And those are always the dots that I aim to connect.
Which is why, over and over and over again, I copy/paste 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.
That way, with respect to the existential relationship between my own value judgments and God and religion, I can articulate the actual sequence of events that, “out in my own particular world”, came to intertwine them.
All I am after here [from the objectivists] is something [anything] along this line with respect to the organic – “out in the world” – trajectory that their values [here and now] have evolved from.
And then, concomitantly, the manner in which, from their own perspective, this is farther removed from dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
As this relates to God and religion.
But, sure, if all you yourself can think of is that you “don’t know”, and that it’s “not your decision” and that it’s “beyond your control”, then we’re probably stymied in moving forward.
And yet you still insist that…
Right, others like Satyr/Lyssa and Turd and Jacob and James and Uccisore etc., have too.
Sorry, I forgot.
Well, at least no one is actually required to read/respond to me here.
And, again, what sort of “victory” have I achieved being utterly entangled in this:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
How do I even begin to explain how fractured and fragmented “I” becomes when immersed in this grim quandary.
And, in not being able to believe in God or in a religious agenda, I’m edging closer and closer to oblivion all the time. Some victory, my friend.
Cite an example of where, of when I have done this. I’m not sure what it is that you are actually accusing me of here.
But my very point is to speculate that, in order to concoct stability and consistency “in their heads”, the religious objectivists invent God.
But, in my view, this is far less a theological or philosophical frame of mind than it is a psychological defense mechanism. Embodied and manifested in one or another rendition of this:
[b][i]1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.[/i][/b]
Objectivists [sacred or secular] are then afforded the opportunity [by me] to describe for us how their own values are not an example of this at all.
For example, they can choose to actually demonstrate in some capacity why all rational/virtuous men and women are obligated to eschew “one of them” in order to become “one of us”.
We were discussing “oblivion” on the the other side of the grave - a subject which clearly seems to fall into the category of identity and value judgements and is therefore subjective, in my head, and separate from the stuff you consider as objective facts.
Here you are saying it’s not just subjective, only in your head. You’re saying that as death gets closer, the intellectual contraptions drop away.
I point this out:
You simply change the categories:
IOW, if you have an experience (such as the approach of death) which makes you think that an intellectual contraption is not really a contraption - that it’s actually “embedded in existence” … you take it out of the category of identity and judgement. Thus you can continue to say that identity and value judgments are always “in someone’s head” and that you have never had a demonstration of the objective nature of (some) of these thoughts. In fact, you have demonstrated it to yourself.
Not the lack of standards but the assumption that the standards deemed to reflect the optimal [or the only] ratonal frame of mine, reside on one side or the other.
Again, choose a particular moral conflagration and note the optimal [or the only] rational manner in which the assumptions can be analyzed.
I will call you Mr. Objectivist only to the extent that you insist that, if others don’t share your own frame of mind about them, then they are necessarily wrong.
As though it is absolutely impossible that things could ever get miserable enough for you to think like that. I call this my “Vietnam Syndrome”. As in there were many, many things that I was absolutely certain I could never think before I was sent over there.
For example, I was abolutely certain of my faith in the Protestant God. And in my very conservative political values.
Indeed, that is precisely what [in my opinion] motivates the objectivists: the need [emotionally and psychologically] to ground “I” in one or another objectivist font.
How miserable does God have to be in order to bring about the next extinction event.
On the other hand, if you believe in God, here’s an example of what He is capable of: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=192215
As for the miserable bastards above [the mere mortals], if they were to act out their misery by seeking to harm others, with God there is no not getting caught and no not getting punished.
On the other hand, if God is omniscient, how can any mere mortal not act out God’s will since nothing that any of them do is beyond the cognizance of God.
Or “in your head” does that all play out differently?
