I have had enough. I’m not going to respond to your posts. Take that to mean whatever you want. I don’t care.
That’s your prerogative certainly.
But I should point out that you have chosen that particular path a number of times before. Only to come back into the fray.
Why?
God knows.
Stupidity.
Either that or the growing concern that my frame of mind may well be applicable to you. That, in other words, over time, I may well succeed in yanking you down into that fucking dilemma with me.
Now, any number of objectivists have managed to convince themselves that this does in fact reflect the entirety of my motivation here. But it is not. Polemics aside, I am motivated far, far more by the hope that someday I really might come upon a frame of mind that does facilitate me in yanking myself up out of this godawful hole I have dug myself into.
And that’s before the part about oblivion.
iambiguous, I read your first post on this read and it sounds like you had to grapple with the same things I had to deal with when I was “choosing a faith” all those years ago, when I was around 12-13 years of age. I wanted an objective religion, but upon searching the Internet all I found were subjective opinions. I spent many days and nights seeking a faith that would “find me”. I just got more confused as I studied the main religions. Then I came across skepticism, later on. There was something that rang true for me. “Not all religions can be right, but every religion can be wrong.” After I saw that I pondered for awhile. I decided to become agnostic for a long time and later a Unitarian Universalist. UUs have very similar positions to the positive, objective things you say someone could develop. Unfortunately though UUism is also an extremely liberal-bias. Being a Republican/conservative and also becoming Unitarian doesn’t really make any sense. So I left the church. I’ve developed my own theology based on what I considered subjective-objectivism (that is, looking at real things in a subjective way). I’m pretty happy with my own findings. If I wasn’t trying to develop and cultivate my own religion I’d say I’m “spiritual but not religious”. I have my beliefs. Beliefs that are supported by scientific inquiry.
Many years ago I saw a neat cartoon in which a large rat, holding the hand of a small rat, was walking down the street when the rats espied a huge picture of Mickey Mouse on a billboard on a wall. The small rat said, “Look, Ma, there’s God!”
All human problems with some deity amount problems with themselves. If there were no problems with human justice, there would be no concept of an unjust God.
Then these people should not think about God or worry about God at all. They should solve their own problems.
Yes, some years ago an old friend, Carol Mays, introduced me to the Unitarian Church here in Baltimore. And I agree: Republicans/conservatives were very, very few and very, very far between. Especially back then.
On the other hand, I left the church because I became immersed in radical politics on the left; and these folks basically clinched it for me: That, as Mac from our MACV at Song Be suggested, religion [and God] are just opiates for the masses. Among other things.
As for the beliefs that you hold now, I created this thread in order for those who do believe in one or another religion, to connect the dots between their religion on this side of the grave as it informs their understanding of religion on the other side of the grave.
In other words, when you choose to behave one way rather than another [with respect to one or another conflicting good], how is this intertwined [in your head] with what you imagine your fate to be on the other side of the grave?
And how do you then demonstrate that what you do believe in your head “here and now” is that which all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn?
Otherwise you are basically just saying “if you think about these things as I do then you are right, if not then you are wrong”.
And that’s objectivism.
On the other hand, I think that we can all agree that objectively rats don’t speak, and that Mickey Mouse is just a cartoon character. And not a God.
What of those problems that revolve around one of many possible “natural disasters” that have inflicted such cruelly brutal pain and suffering on millions upon millions upon millions of mere mortals [including children] over the years?
On insurance claims, they are called “acts of God”.
As for justice, says who? in what context? from what point of view?
Which is why I ask folks like you to describe an instance of justice – as this pertains to one or another conflicting good – and to note how their own behaviors in relationship to a particular context reflect the most [or the only] description of true justice.
As this pertains to their understanding of God and religion.
You missed the fun of the cartoon and its suggestion of anthropomorphism if applied to humans. I really don’t think a majority of rational people believe God is responsible for famine. flood, etc. “Act of God” is an insurance term used when no one can blame the disasters on humans.
Your entire thread is based on concepts of God as human. It is based on an untenable description of a God of the universe and does not reflect any such universal condition of love which could include God and Man. It reflects fear. which underscores man’s interpretations of justice.
Oh, I get the joke. And the part where we too are made in God’s image. But there is still the part [mine] where distinctions must be drawn between whatever particular references we make to God “in our head” [ironic or otherwise] and the extent to which we can demonstrate to others that what we believe or contend to know as true is that which all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe/know as true in turn.
Thus whether a majority of rational people believe that God is or is not responsible for creating a planet that manifests itself in any number of “natural disasters” [even extinction events], is something they can either show to be true objectively or they can’t. Is it all just what they happen to believe “here and now” is true “in their heads”.
Again, in a philosophy venue, the bottom line regarding substantive proof of what we do believe to be true must be considerably more rigorous than in other less exacting venues.
Or so it seems to me.
No, the entirety of this thread is aimed at providing those who do have a belief in one or another rendition of God and religion, to connect the dots between the behaviors they choose on this side of the grave and their imagined fate on the other side of it [re immortality and salvation] as it relates to their particular belief in God and religion.
Your argument here is [as always] hopelessly theoretical, conceptual, abstract. What on earth [with respect to love and justice and God] are you talking about?
As for “fear”, sure, with oblivion right around the corner, there is plenty of that. But then that’s the point of the thread. To draw out perspectives from others that might actually succeed in allaying that fear. Maybe even make it go away.
I’m just not able to do what you do: create all of these assumptions in your head about God and religion that do in fact manage to comfort and console you. Based on experiences that you are not able to convey to me.
Thus your assumptions are not realistic to me. All I know is that you believe them in your head and I don’t believe them in mine.
So, for all practical purposes here and now – God or No God – you win.
Then another comes along and says…
And, then, as with all the others Gods, we are left groping about for some way in which to resolve the conflict.
In other words, aside from how one comes to conclude “in their head” that a God either does or does not exist, how on earth can they successfully convince others to conclude the same?
It’s just that [as always] it seems far more reasonable that the obligation here rest on the shoulders of those who claim that a God does exist.
But even then [on this thread] I am willing to accept the existennce of God and skip right to the part where the dots are connected between God on this side of the grave and God on the other side of it.
My local Unitarian church had meetings with a socialist who wanted to run for my county executive’s position. He lost. Baltimore is so liberal that if I went to a Unitarian church there I would probably start evaporating. (joke)
The radical left are not pragmatic nor do they have any moral principles, save for egalitarianism. They are idealistic and don’t really see reality for what it is, only for what it could be.
“This side of the grave”? That is so archaic. What you mean to ask is based on behavior. You are asking people how someone’s religion affects their beliefs for their afterlife.
And don’t you mean subjectivism? Subjective means that is how someone sees something - from their subjective view points. Objectivism is the opposite - they see things the way they objectively are. Of course, pure-objectivism nor pure-subjectivism fully exists anywhere.
There’s billions of people with their own subjective opinions on ethics, beliefs, and rituals. There probably isn’t two people in the world who would think exactly the same on every religious viewpoint. There aren’t billions of religions, instead there are a few thousand, because when you start caring only about the central issue - nothing else really matters. For Christians it is, “do you believe in Christ”? For atheists it is, “do you believe in God?” And so on. Not everybody has to agree with one another on everything. If I even find one person who believes in my trinity of panendeism, henotheism, and theosis I would be very, very surprised.
Okay, choose a particular political conflict to illustrate your point. And, as for the radical right, their own idealism is almost always rooted in one or another denominational God, isn’t it?
Either God or, for many Libertarians and Objectivists, one or another intellectual contraption – political ideology – rooted in Reason.
You either believe in a God, the God, my God or you don’t. And, if you do, you are going to predicate the behaviors that you choose “here and now” on the manner in which you imagine God will judge them in order to maximize your chances of immortality and salvation “there and then”.
If that isn’t the fundamental function of religion “out in the world” what is it then?
With respect to God, each of us as subjects hold particular beliefs. In our heads. Now, to what extent are we able to demonstrate that what we do believe subjectively – as “I” – is in sync with the way the world is objectively. In other words, if another does not share your own beliefs about God you are able to demonstrate that he or she is not thinking rationally.
Okay, but what does this really have to do with the point of the thread?
Your “trinity” is either intertwined in the behaviors that you choose here and now or it is not. And the behaviors that you choose here and now are either intertwined with the part about after you die – there and then – or they are not.
And you are either willing to discuss this with respect to that which I construe existentially to be conflicting goods or you are not.
After all there are plenty of threads at ILP where you can discuss God and religion…epistemologically?
Moderates, center-left, center-right, minarchists, populists. They are less idealistic, more pragmatic, and they do have principles to stand by.
For me, religion is like guessing. I happen to make a very educated guess. I don’t believe you will be saved through your faith or beliefs but instead through human-intervention. The reason why people do the things they do is to build extropy. We are able to record audio and visual, and impending technology will allow us to record more things. It is only a matter of time before the conscious part of humanity can be transported into the digital realm. And that is how we, along with everything else, will be saved.
Sorry, I can get riled up pretty easily. I like talking about my theology, beliefs, etc etc etc.
Again, let’s choose a particular conflicting good in order to explore this assessment “out in the world”. Which specific principles pertaining to which specific behaviors pertaining to which specific religious narrative as this relates to the choices that one makes in confronting the reality of death.
What principles here do you hold dear?
Existentially as it were.
Again, no doubt that “in your head” you believe this. But how exactly would you go about demonstrating that all rational men and women are obligated to believe the same? And what does any of this have to do with the behaviors that you choose here and now in order to be “saved”? What on earth are you trying to convey to me here?
Also, why are the “educated guesses” of the conservatives more in sync with being saved [if that is the case] than the educated guesses of the liberals? In what particular context pertaining to what particular conflicting values/ideals?
In other words, sooner or later your analysis here is going to bump into the analyses of those who embrace conflicting moral, political and/or religious agendas. Then what? How are we to determine empirically who is more in sync with the actual objective world?
I understand that. But this thread was created in order to bring those beliefs down out of the “theoretical” clouds and to explore the extent to which as a “world of words” they can be integrated into the actual behaviors that we choose relating to the parts before and after the grave relating to the parts about God and religion.
When it comes to death, and seeing to it that one has a “good” afterlife, what I value the most from an outcome is how it will be played in the distant future. What most people don’t realize is what they do or don’t do today has bigger implications in the future than it does currently. My idea of the afterlife stems from the belief that the more freedom, benevolence, and wisdom someone has in their lifetime the less they will have to be modified to reach the same level of such three behaviors for the afterlife.
As far as showing empirically which side is correct and which is false, that is like trying to guess the future. My idea for humanity is to achieve deification with The Omniverse through a process known as Divine Selection. It is a very real possibility (nothing supernatural) that has a broad approach with the greatest number of goods possible. It could be impossible. I’m not saying it is, and if we are all meant to a slow heat decay and death then that will be my fate. But the difference between Heaven and my reality is that it can be shown empirically. The United Nations does world surveys every year and every year things continuously keep getting better for humans.
I think the point your trying to make at the start of this thread is that people can either be objective, open-minded and worldly about their view points or they can follow subjective, dogmatic, rigid-thinking. And to that means, what I’m trying to say is that my mind has been so open to the possibilities of the future and tomorrow that I’ve developed kind-of dogmatic thinking from that. I mean, I based all my opinions over a series of just two epiphanies. These epiphanies changed my life… To the point which I’ve developed my own system of subjective thinking based on it. But don’t get me wrong, I never followed the crowd. I think it is possible to be both things at the same time, and by doing so not only do you speak what’s on your mind but you speak for yourself as well.
Again, I don’t doubt that you believe this is true. About the afterlife. About the part leading up to it.
Here and now. In your head.
It’s your “idea” of the way things are now, of the things to come.
But why should it also be the idea of others too?
How can you take what you believe “in your head” “here and now” and demonstrate to all rational men and women why they too are obligated to believe the same? If they wish to be thought of as reasonable men and women.
Yes, you “guess” what the future will be pertaining to the afterlife because your conclusions are based solely on a set of “theoretical”, “conceptual” assumptions/premises that go around and around in circles. The conclusion must be true because the premises are “thought out” to be true. But where is the empirical/material/phenomenal evidence to substantiate it?
How is this really different from folks who claim to have had personal experiences with more traditional Gods but are unable to convey to folks like me what that experience actually consisted of—beyond what they believe about it "in their head?
Or those folks who argue that God must exist because it says so in the Bible; and it says so in the Bible because it is the word of God?
Until you are able to connect this particular assumption to the life that you actually live – the behaviors that you choose as it relates to conflicting goods – I have no idea what “on earth” you are trying to tell me.
And whatever the UN might profess about the world we live in there is still this part: globalissues.org/article/26/ … -and-stats
So, tell me: how is your own understanding of God and religion intertwined in all of this?
All I can note here is this: that I have no clear[er] understanding at all as to how this is related to the thrust of the thread: an exploration into the existential relationship between the behaviors that you choose [and the moral narrative they are derived from] on this side of the grave, and what you imagine your fate to be on the other side of the grave given the manner in which [here and now] you perceive God and religion.
I’m not arguing that you are wrong, only that you have failed to convince me that you are right.
That folks are able to “think” themselves into believing something like this is not at all surprising. After all, how can it not but console them in this day and age. That “above all else” this is true.
And then it is a simple task “in your head” to link this to one or another religious font.
But, really, what does it mean here to “believe in your self” if your self revolves around, say, anarchy or fascism or communism or nihilism?
Ultimately this sort of thing – this sort of thinking – seems to be anchored in the assumption [the reassurance] that what you believe in is the embodiment of goodness. And if others would just think like you this would be a better world.
Along with the next world.
Why should my view be the view of others too? It’s the perfect balance between silly superstitions and utter nihilism. It doesn’t place emphasis on a spiritual world, it places the emphasis on what you do here and now. Even if there really is no afterlife, striving to become a better person and doing better things because you sincerely believe that you will ultimately be affected by the outcome is a hell of a strong argument to make. Benevolence, wisdom, and freedom are three things that humans can obtain that nature cannot obtain by itself. If we try to change the world - and ourselves to fit those three things together, I know that regardless of the afterlife or not, we will be the ancestors to much greater things.
I also want to note, that if you believe that you will go to Heaven if are a good person and Hell if you are a bad person, you really have no stake in how things might turn out. Someone that believes that they are coming back to form one day will be much more focused on ‘making Heaven on Earth’ then ‘Earth going to Heaven’.
Aren’t things that are benevolent, wise, and demonstrate a degree of freedom things that most people strive for? Most people want to be kind to other people - they go out of their way to be nice. Wisdom comes with age. Typically older people make better decisions. As well as freedom - the people with the most freedom tend to be the ones with the most money. Wealth is also a good measure of how successful someone is. I might have a lot of free time to do what I want because I’m disabled, but that doesn’t make me actually free to do what I want … I am extremely hindered by my lack of money.
Everything you experience comes from your head. Every religion, every person that lacks religion, made their choice of what is by their own mind. Why are you harping me on something so silly as, “well, nobody can take it seriously since it just comes from your head”? So did Christianity. So did Islam. So did every other religion. It all comes from your head.
There’s no accurate way to measure those three things I laid out. What could be seen as benevolent in the past, like leucotomies, are now viewed as draconian, and medication, now viewed as benevolent will probably be viewed as draconian too once gene therapy accelerates. There isn’t a single test to prove how “God-like” something is, yet there could be. My measure of divinity is not the only measure someone could give it. Someone might think their parents have divine powers, and someone might think that a star is just a star.
Spirituality is almost entirely subjective. It really all comes back to what you are thinking. To say that you know more than that is just a lie.
We can record audio, video, there’s even holograms of dead people now. Look at our progress. Every single time we say something isn’t possible, it happens. Look at human history, of everything we have now. Where are you from? How I’m I communicating with someone who probably doesn’t live near me?
This progress is just a step towards unifying with the Omniverse. We manipulate nature to give it a purpose, to give it a cause. To sustain and make life comfortable for us. Humans have taken nature is in the process to replace with a noosphere.
Benevolence, wisdom, and freedom. The people that have the most of these qualities tend to live the most successful lives. Rich people get rich because they hired people to make the things they didn’t have the time to make themselves. They are benevolent because they give an earning to people that might not have gotten a job. Many of these people are wiser than the rest of us, too. And they have freedom. But it is worth noting that technology accelerates to the point that what was expensive before is cheap now, and the standard of living is always increasing.
BTW, in two days someone making $2.50 a day could afford a smartphone.
youtube.com/watch?v=utRww8-QuBw
Also, benevolence, wisdom, and freedom is the three things that deities and man share. A deity would be seen as omnibenevolent, omniscience, and have ultimate freedom at the same time. Although theoretically it could be noted that freedom and benevolence cannot co-exist with each other. By freedom I mean the ability to do what someone wants that is neither good or bad, that doesn’t harm or help anyone. Things like picking which car to choose (that you own) and driving it.
Fair enough. Truth be told, my seven characteristics might be wrong. People might value other things instead. Who knows? I’ve asked people before “if you were a God, would you do ultimately what is right for life, or would you do whatever you want?” Most people chose the later. Which I happen to disagree with! That to me is apathy, something that was originally a ‘seven deadly sin’ (replaced by sloth) and something that I do not see a real God to possess. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not gnostic, I am very well an agnostic. I don’t know any of things, but I believe in all my heart that it is true.
As far as what you have said in your original topic, I’m going to pose to you two scenarios - one true and one false.
Scenario 1 - Roe vs Wade is passed. Abortions are legal.
At least 600,000 people are scarified to this procedure. Yes, many of them would have ended up dead at one point anyway, and many more would have suffered if they were allowed to live.
Scenario 2 - Roe vs Wade doesn’t happen. Abortions are illegal.
Many more people would have been born. Some of them would be highly successful people, some might have stood out from the crowd, went to college, got a full time job for most of their lives, paid taxes, raised families and would have carried out meaningful existences. Oh, and some clothes hangers might have gotten bloody.
So, do we sacrifice the good for the suffering of the misguided? I can tell you right now, that if there were no abortions in America, we would be in a better place right now. Locke’s moral philosophy was championed by liberals at the time, and now liberals want to abort fetuses. I don’t understand them.
Anyways, my point is, is that unless you have some magic eight ball that can tell you the truth about everything, you’ll never truly know what is right and what is wrong. I’ll made it a lot easier to understand with this analogy.
Before the US election you bet on predictit that Hillary is going to win against Trump. You bet 100 dollars.
The election occurs, and you lose 100 dollars you could have spent.
REVERSE scenario. You see the odds for Trump and see how much you can win if you bet on him, and you bid for Trump as President with the same 100 dollars.
The election still occurs, and you win much more than 100 dollars and go out to party with your friends with that. You go to Buffalo Wild Wings and order a lot of food with that money. Everybody around you is happy for a short time.
Unless you can always accurately predict the future, you’ll never be able to be ethically/morally surprior to anyone else. Of course, there are people who are naturally bad and they choose to do bad things to produce the worst outcome, but I would have to say that this is in the minority, and most people live to survive and to help others.
I even have a mug that says, “SURVIVING AND HELPING PEOPLE DOES NOT REQUIRE AN AGENDA OR IDEOLOGY”. I made it over four years ago and I still drink from it to this day; it’s my favorite mug.
Of course, that mug completely negates my first argument that I made in this post…