on discussing god and religion

Just look down, or in the mirror… at yours. Please do not go off topic.

Yes, and I created this thread in order to explore the extent to which the test results can be communicated [demonstrated] to others.

That’s what you say. Though science [unlike most religions] is ever intent on going beyond the concepts of immortality and salvation. It demands that those who speak of them offer us the sort of evidence that can in fact be either verified or falsified. Evidence that can in fact be tested. Religion on the other hand revolves far more around faith. Believers embrace The Word. They try to embody The Word. And they do so because this is what is said to bring them immortality and salvation.

Again, this thread was created in order to explore any actual existential renditions of this.

Sure, in the broadest sense: nas.edu/evolution/Compatibility.html

But not in a manner in which flesh and blood human beings are able to connect the dots between virtuous behavior on this side of the grave and immortality, salvation and divine justice on the other side of it.

Can you cite particular examples from the world of science in which actual attempts were made?

Right. And you can find these “principled” Christians on both sides – on all sides – of those issues above. For example the liberal Christians and the conservative Christians.

With many on both sides convinced that those on the other side are headed straight for Hell.

But then that’s not “the right way” to think about God and religion is it?

I don’t understand why the gap between lofty principles [words] and actual human behaviors [worlds] is so challenging for you. After all, those on all sides of any number of moral and political divides will often claim to be “principled” when they go after each other.

And, in particular, the objectivists. And God help those who get in the way of any number of them, right?

You know, if there is one.

Note to others:

Is this true? Would you be so kind as to point out the particular results that these particular principles achieved.

You tell me: How are Christians to calculate, given any particular context [conflict], when to turn the other cheek or to take an eye for an eye?

More to the point, please cite some examples from your own life.

The answer to this question would seem to be embedded/embodied in “I”. “I” out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view. In the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein.

The “spiritual life” has never really been pinned down though. We come into this world with a set of biological imperatives. And these inherent, congenital capacities are then shaped and molded in a particular community shaped and molded in a particular historical and cultural context.

We invent a word like “spiritual” in order to encompass a frame of mind that revolves around all that comes after our basic needs are met.

We are, after all, that species of animal able to ask questions that delve into the very nature of “existence” and “reality” itself. Why does anything exist at all? Why this existence and not another? And, in asking these questions, our minds/brains are then able to produce emotional and psychological states that some call “spiritual”.

God and religion then are just right around the corner.

But: what does it really mean to say that because we are able to think and to feel these things then “for all practical purposes” we need to?

In other words, we can only construe these things as being worthy or as falling short in a particular set of circumstances. Circumstances that are then ever evolving over time in a world of contingency, chance and change.

Some embrace the spiritual as fundamentally important in their lives. Others scoff at such things. Some once embraced it but now scoff, others once scoffed but now embrace it.

Still, what has never been determined or demonstrated [at least to my knowledge] is which frame of mind all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share.

And then [re this thread] the extent to which our obligations as rational and virtuous human beings can be translated into behaviors on this side of the grave able to be translated in turn into a particular fate on the other side of it.

Iambiguous … I admire and relish your stamina, tenacity and insistence!

I have only scanned a few of your posts … got lost in the details … I’m a small town mind with a propensity for the big picture.

A few weeks ago the image of a 45 record … the ancient vinyl media … stuck on a particular place … unable to move forward … came to mind. At the time that’s how I saw you.

I still see you the same way … yet … perhaps I’m finally coming to understand why.

You have no choice but to stay in the same ‘place’ until somebody(s) finally gets it … you have demonstrated once again that humanity is an extremely stubborn lot! Only repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition seems to penetrate a constipated consciousness.

Reminds me of something I posted recently … addressing the question … "Why did feudalism survive for 2,000+ years in China while the rest of the world moved on … leaving China to ingest their dust? The only logical answer is the Chinese had to wait for the West to catch up spiritually.

Your post today is so elegant … a careful reading reveals the subtle profundities you express with simple words.

Let me try to explain my claims:
The West employed a “Freeze-Frame” strategy for their concept of God.

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A long time ago … a very long time ago … the concept of a monotheistic God penetrated Western consciousness … at that time the West created a “Freeze-Frame” … ergo: the Bible … the Torah … and so on. No new revelations allowed … the concept of God was fixed in time and space once and for all.

Contrast this with the Chinese approach. Some say the oldest book on earth is the I-Ching … maybe and maybe not … nonetheless the book is very likely older than the Bible.

What is the I-Ching?

A literal translation is the “Book of Change”.

The Chinese realized the universe is in a constant state of flux … they embraced this truth and attempted to find the “pulse” of the universe and dance to this “pulse”.

Quelle Difference eh!

So, pertaining to God and religion, how is this not basically applicable to all of us here?

We all believe particular things are true “here and now”. Some for a short period of time, others for a much longer period. Some having always basically believed the same thing, others going through any number of transformations in their beliefs.

And, in my view, we come to acquire these frames of mind based in part on the particular historical and cultural context in which, as children, we were raised. Taught to believe a particular set of assumptions about God and religion.

Then, as we grow older, we come to embody particular sets of experiences, engage in particular sets of relationships and acquire a particular confluence of information and knowledge.

All of us, right?

And then some folks – let’s call them philosophers – stop and think about that. They wonder…

“Okay, these are all of the things that I have come to believe about God and religion over the course of the life that I have lived. Now, what am I then able to determine is actually true about God and religion such that I am able to demonstrate to others that they ought to believe the same thing?”

Really, when it comes to questions like this [and with so much at stake beyond the grave] what else is there?

And what else is there for both those in the East and those in the West? The manner in which I probed a possible explanation for the “spiritual” above is basically the same for all human beings.

The West migrated to the single God because science was able to offer explanations for the phenomena that had once been attributed to the many gods. But, with the advent of capitalism, the concept of God changed dramatically in the West. Instead of placing the focus for behavior on this side of the grave solely on the afterlife, things began to shift more to this side of it. The Protestants more or less synchronized God and capitalism.

Just as today in China, with a burgeoning state market economy, the No God of Mao’s Cultural Revolution has no doubt shifted over the years. Somehow [I suspect] Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and other “spiritual” agendas there have had to be reconciled more and more with increasing materialism.

Okay, what then does one who is more partial to the I-Ching, have to tell us about connecting the dots between behaviors on this side of the grave and one’s fate on the other side of it? The focus of this thread.

What might the “pulse of the universe” possibly be as this pertains to human interactions that do come into conflict over value-judgments?

Iambiguous … how does one express deep gratitude? Cliches seem so inadequate. OTH … silence speaks volumes.

My intuitive/gut reaction to your deeply thoughtful post.

  1. Humanity has been ‘herded’ into a coral … and the gate has been closed. Serious thinkers are trying to figure out what this unique status … perhaps unique in all of human history … means. No one has figured it out yet.

  2. We live in what you label the “hereafter” (“the beyond the grave”). At the moment we are simply “Being Within Form” … we are “Being” within a physical body. Our “Being” requires some kind of apparatus for transport in our physical world. Who cares what “Form” our “Being” takes on the other side of this physical reality we currently live in.

  3. I’m not more partial to the I-Ching … I remain RC … simply see the philosophy (for lack of a better word) embodied in the I-Ching at work in the RC religion …

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The RC dogma/doctrine has changed considerably in 2,000 years … just that the changes were awfully slow in coming … the RC ruling class has always been unable to find the “pulse” of the universe and “dance” to it in real time. Ditto for all human change/evolution.

Iambiguous … our e-discussion may be finished … in any event … it’s been a rare treat.

Is this true? Maybe. But in relationship to what particular human interactions in what particular context?

No, “here and now” we live in what almost everyone labels the “before the grave” existence. But we know that death is more or less around the corner. And many wonder what that entails. And they wonder about the relationship between before and after the grave. And some [many, most] invent Gods and religions in order that “I” can either be or not be in sync with what they hope and pray that relationship is.

I-Ching, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Shintu and on and on and on. This is the thread where all of them can speculate on the part where they behave in particular ways on this side of the grave in order to attain the fate that they believe is in store for them on the other side of it.

Then this: What happens [for all practical purposes “out in the world”] when those narratives come into conflict out in a particular world?

Again and again and again…

These “general descriptions” of human interaction will either be brought down to earth or they won’t. What particular dogma/doctrine relating to what particular “pulse” as it impacts on what particular “change” in what particular context pertaining to what particular behaviors.

As that relates to any particular individual’s belief in God and religion.

It’s a metaphor … simple people understand … educated people … not so much … they demand objective(scientific) proof. Anyone who has observed the metaphor in life … not on TV … knows the cattle will placidly stand around in their own shit up to their knees. Seems humans are willing to do the same.

OK … I’m content with agreeing to disagree.

Read … watch the news … the answer is self evident.

The planet goes round and round. :smiley:

As I noted above, from my frame of mind this is what I call a “general description” of human interaction. And, relating to religion or not, my first reaction when confronting one is to ask “can you cite particular examples of this?”

Regarding this thread, who are the simple people and who are the [over] educated folks pertaining to the relationship between particular behaviors on this side of the grave and a perceived fate on the other side? And out in what particular corrals?

Can you provide examples from your own life?

And, again, given that there is so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – that which is being offered by the believers either revolves around faith [more or less blind] or arguments that, while embraced “in their head” as true, are not able to be demonstrated as that which all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

With science, however, the arguments and the evidence are almost always conveyed more substantively.

Here of course that is more the rule than the exception. Almost nothing relating to a belief in God and religion is ever really pinned down. My point is merely to suggest that with so very, very much at stake, many will settle for that frame of mind which allows them to experience the least discomforting conclusions: no, we don’t just die; yes, there is salvation; yes, God has a final explanation for everything.

Depending of course on the particular “self” that is reading and watching it. It seems self-evident to “me” that there are hundreds and hundreds of true believers out there all convinced that how they interpret the news [with or without a belief in God] reflects what is true for “one of us” and what is not true for “all of them”.

The rest as they say really is history. And in all the corrals.

At least so far.

A “general description” is inherently wrong?

The particulars of the French Presidential and South Korean Presidential elections.

Visit a church during service on Sunday … the distinctions are obvious … especially when observing behavior upon completion of the service.

About 25 years ago I was pushed … shoved … forced … off the “grid” … out of the corral. My exit was neither planned, voluntary, desirable, expected etc etc. Despite several later attempts to get back in the corral then existing circumstances prevailed and I remained on the outside … alone!

For the first 14 years or so I limped along on the crutches of faith … the RC flavor. About 11 years ago the crutches were knocked out from under me … I found myself in China with no church … no public RC rituals … including Christmas and Easter … and no RC community to hide among.

Begs the question … “Has my faith diminished?”

On the contrary … my RC faith has become even stronger … seems the dogma, doctrine, rituals and corral were all a hindrance to faith.

In the absence of the “decorations of faith” I’ve been able to transcend the “walls” of the RC religion and come to understand there is no contradiction between the (un)institutional religion (faith) of the Chinese people and other world religions.

For details:

thoughtsofamisfit.weebly.com/

pilgrimtom.weebly.com/

We don’t know … science can’t tell us … that there is anything at stake … we have no way of knowing that all persons will end up in the same place. :slight_smile:

Science has been a tremendous boost to humanity … single handedly debunking so many destructive superstitions.

When science is capable of answering all questions the notion of faith will quietly recede into the shadows … never to be seen again. :smiley:

I can only note this: Inherently wrong about what particular human interactions in what particular context?

And, in particular, when they come into conflict over value judgements. Either relating to or not relating to God.

The discussion will either go there or it will not.

How would the reactions of individual men and women here not be profoundly embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

And I suspect that the narratives of these individuals will be embedded in turn in all manner of conflicting renditions of God/No God.

Again, there are any number of folks attending any number of church services – religious corrals – who will embrace completely conflicting and contradictory sets of behaviors that they insist will be the price of admission on Judgment Day.

How on earth then is this pertinent to the point that I raise, if not basically to reinforce it all the more?

Yes, this is a reflection of the particular existential trajectory that your life took. You were embedded in a unique set of experiences and relationships that none of us here is ever likely to have a true understanding of.

What then could we really know about the things that predisposed you to go in one particular direction rather than another? What could you know about ours?

And none of us can possibly fathom what we might be predisposed to instead had those experiences [choices] been very different.

My point then is this:

Over the course of human history there have been thousands upon thousands of human cummunities invested in thousands upon thousands of religious narratives regarding that crucial relationship between before and after the grave.

But here we are, you and I, having had own own unique agglomeration of experiences, of interactions. We both know that death is galloping towards us and our thoughts will necessarily revolve around the question of “what then”?

This: You have your assumptions, I have mine.

My point then is this: that seems to be about as far as it goes. It’s all profoundly subjective/subjunctive in that no one is able to actually establish what does in fact happen then. But, in the interim, we are still ever embedded in these ghastly confrontations that revolve around conflicting goods. Around conflicting Gods. Around conflicting renditions of the same God.

Bottom line: As with Phyllo and others, you are able to sustain a frame of mind that [up to a point] comforts and consoles you; I am not.

And then this:

That’s what you are left with. The rest would seem to revolve around one or another Kierkegaardian leap of faith…or one or another Pascalian wager.

different strokes for different folks … ain’t life grand! :smiley:

Some folks are able to think themselves into believing that there is a God, some folks are not.

Some folks are able to think themselves into believing there is a way to properly [even philosophically] distinguish moral from immoral behaviors, some folks are not.

Some folks are able to think themselves into believing that there is a way to connect these dots so as to accumulate some measure of comfort and consolation, some folks are not.

Are the folks able to better off?

Sure. And I know this in part because one way or another I was one of them.

And all I can do now then is to come into places like this one and start discussions to see if these folks might yet be able to yank me up out of my own rather abysmal hole. The one that I have thought myself into believing.

This one:

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.

And then [of course] the part that comes after the grave: oblivion.

ambiguous … I just read your post … went for a smoke and the following thoughts popped into my consciousness.

  1. I hope you will read your post. Writing a post and reading a post are really quite different tasks … even when one believes himself/herself to be the author of what is written.

  2. I’m ‘dead’ serious … ‘dead’ as in figuratively and literally. It is only when one becomes ‘dead’ to oneself that one starts to live. Confucius said … paraphrasing … “If I hear Dao in the morning I’m content to die in the evening.”

  3. You … like almost all people … are already in the ‘grave’ … why concern yourself about the part that comes after the grave.

  4. You yearn for resurrection … in this life.
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  1. Asking for help is halfway home. Accepting help is the other half. The unborn chick must make an effort to break the egg shell in order to hatch and join the world of the living.

  2. Clinging to someone else’s history is futile and frustrating … whether that ‘history’ be philosophical concepts … religious dogma … political shit etc.

  3. Each of us is making history every day … whether we are aware of it or not … whether we like it or not. We are conditioned to spend our life trying to catch the big fish … what a waste. Big fish … small fish makes no difference. Often enough what appears on the surface to be very small fish often turns out to be very big fish. For example, in my Fatima OP … 3 peasant children … 2 of which died in early childhood … turned out to be big fish in the landscape of human history.

:sunglasses: The future is today … you are part of some ‘story’ … get on the stage and play your part … with all the muster you can garner.

Weve got some video discourses going on here.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=188756&start=750

Not unthinkable to debate a Christian. He must have something to offer philosophically.

i just see my post was added to this thread an not the one I posted it in… bizarre

All of this may well be perceptive. But it does not change the fact that some choose to behave as they do on this side of the grave in order to bring about that which they imagine their fate to be on the other side of the grave. With or without God. But mostly [by far] with.

And you will either intertwine the points that you raise here into that discussion or you won’t.

In other words, my “story” revolves around the manner in which [here and now] I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy as this relates to the manner in which [here and now] I have come to understand the meaning of God and religion.

But the “part” that “I” play here is fractured and fragmented by the manner in which I have come to understand the “self” as an existential contraption evolving over time in a world of contingency, chance and change. At least with respect to these particular relationships.

Why don’t you focus your observations on a particular context in which “stories” come to clash. Your own “story” for example. Your own actual behaviors – challenged by others.

Illustrate your observations by bringing them down to earth. Because, until you do, I am not likely to garner a substantive sense of what you are trying to tell me above.

From my frame of mind it is analogous to a New Age assessment. A psychologism in which the emphasis is entirely too much on subjective/subjunctive reactions. It’s all “up there” in a world of words that I am unable to make relevant to my own actual lived life.

How then do you make it relevant to your lived life.

But, again, as that pertains to the thrust of the thread.

ambiguous … this thread is about you … your thoughts … your beliefs … your values

All else is simply ‘fuel’ that empowers … energizes … your pontificating. I try to help where I can but I refuse to be anyone’s door mat.

Not sure if the above comment is a threat or an invitation. I feel no compunction to intertwine … integrate … my thoughts with another person’s thoughts. I’m quite content to remain a ‘flock of one’.

There is no “here and now” … by the time you write the words the universe has moved on … and changed. There is no “there” … whether it be before the grave or after.

There is no “I” … ego is our worst enemy.

The above comment summarizes my life for the past 25 years … I am the loser … sticking to my story has rendered me “alone in the desert” … a price I’m willing to pay.

Have you read the personal experiences I shared in the Fatima OP?

You are the master of your own “frame of mind”. Words … regardless of the source … or the potency … have any impact. OTH … your personal experience(s) … the trivial … seemingly insignificant … experiences of daily life are key.

I live spontaneously … responding daily, hourly, momentarily … to what happens around me.

I suspect however that just because you have come to conclude that I am using you here as a doormat, it doesn’t make it so.

Whatever that even means.

And I invite the thoughts, the beliefs and the values of others here. As they relate to a discussion of God and religion.

You are just like all the rest of us. You are alive “here and now” and you choose particular behaviors in the course of interacting with others from day to day. Behaviors that you would deem to be the right ones. Behaviors that you sift more or less reasonably through a philosophical sieve.

And you either construe right and wrong behaviors here as it pertains to your fate on the other side of the grave or you do not. Most religious folks do tend to connect the dots here. It’s a fundamental component of their life…of religion itself. One or another historical and cultural rendition of What Would Jesus Do?

That’s just a fact.

That’s your prerogative.

The thread, however, was created for those who have a belief in God and religion. A belief such that their religious values are integrated into their moral values are integrated into the lives that they live on this side of the grave.

Again, whatever that means “for all practical purposes”.

Right. When we talk about living our lives among others from day to day “here and now” that is “technically” incorrect. And though we know that we are going to die and that “I” either is or is not sustained afterward, it’s not correct to talk about what might happen to “I” “there and then”.

I’m sorry but what on earth are you talking about?

Cite some examples of this from your own life. You live your life and then [existentially] you come to embody a particular set of values. Re dasein from my point of view. Now, from time to time in the course of interacting with others, those values come into conflict. So, in those particular contexts what specifically do you mean by "there is no “I”; and that “the ego is our worst enemy”?

And how is that related to your belief in God?

How then does that relate to my own rather precarious situation? I have no way in which to differeniate right from wrong behaviors in my interactions with othes from day to day. Other than as the embodiment of particular shifting political prejudices embedded in the existential contraption that is “I”. “I” am entangled instead in my dilemma above. And as death approaches I have no belief in anything other than oblivion.

That’s the price I seem unable not to pay.

No. Everything here revolves around the time I am able to allot to any particular post. Bring some of them here and integrate them into the thrust of the thread.