Here on this thread we can only discuss these relationships in an exchange of words. But the words will either refer to actual experiences that we have had [with God and religion] and to actual behaviors that we have chosen [in sync with what we believe “in our heads” about God and religion] or they won’t.
For example, there was the experience I had with God and religion in my youth; then the experience I had in Vietnam that roundly reconfigured this frame of mind. There were the experiences I had with God and religion in the Unitarian church; then the experiences I had with No God/No Religion as a radical Marxist.
There is clearly a relationship between the behaviors that any particular individual will choose “here and now” and the manner in which she intertwines them in her thoughts and feelings about God and religion. As this pertains to her thoughts and her feelings about immortality, salvation and divine justice “on the other side”
And folks will either explore it existentially on this thread or they won’t. But: We can’t discuss the extent to which lines are being drawn and then moved until actual experiences are related.
That’s why I always insist that we explore “general descriptions” such as this “out in the world” of actual human interactions.
Over the years, many people have tried to take the discussion “out in the world”, only to be shot down by you as being “abstract” or “in the clouds”.
Cite an example of your own experience with me in this regard.
Let’s take Ierrellus’ ideas about “a hands on commitment for saving the planet”. It seems to spring from his thoughts about what God wants and expects from us which in turn come from his personal experiences of God. It seems to be translatable into concrete action “in the world” - things like persevering rain forests, reducing waste of natural resources, etc.
Yet, you seem to dismiss it as something which is entirely a construct in his head - a construct which simply makes him feel good. IOW, a construct not founded in anything real or concrete.
Again, with so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – he is either able to demonstrate to others that his own thoughts, feelings, and experiences with/about God and religion are in sync with what is in fact true or he is not.
His narrative is enough for him. And for you. It is not for me.
Sure, If he pursues it, then he will interact with people who want to burn down or cut down rain forests. But that’s separate from the basis of his ideas.
What counts [from my frame of mind] is the extent to which it can be shown that the “basis for his belief” is embedded in a God, the God, my God. Otherwise any and all behaviors can be rationalized just by evoking a belief in a God, the God, my God.
Indeed, he “solves” that problem by insisting that his God doesn’t give a damn [whatever that means] about which behaviors you choose on this side of the grave. Why? Because everyone has access to immortality, salvation and divine justice on the other side.
And who wouldn’t be consoled and comforted by that?!
You have from the start, rejected the ideas. Why? Because as a nihilist, you think all action and thought springs forth from nothing? Every action or thought is as reasonable as every other action or thought?
I certainly do not know what all action and thought springs from. I presume it is all derived from whatever the ontological explanation is for the existence of existence itself. And in whether the ontological truth also contains a teleological component: God.
And all I do is to suggest that thought and action entangled in the is/ought world is embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
Trust me: there’s not much in the way of comfort and consolation when “in your head” you believe this.
And, in turn, I suspect that your reaction to me [as with others] is entangled in the apprehension that revolves around this: What if he is right?
What does that say about your own rendition of “I” here? What if it, too, is largely just an “existential contraption” [dangling over the abyss] in an essentially absurd and meaningless world?
Or what if all of this is inextricably embedded in a universe that is wholly determine by the immutable laws of matter?