That is the bottom line. You can leave out all of your dasein crap.
My own reaction to this sort of deistic/spinozan narrative is always the same:
What “on earth” are we to make of it?!
“For all practical purposes”, as it relates to the behaviors that we choose on this side of the grave and our imagined fate on the other side of it, what’s the point?
From my frame of mind, it’s a “general description” of human interactions on steroids.
Instead, it seems by and large to be a psychological contraption that aims to comfort and console some by intertwining “I” in some cosmological entity. We are somehow “at one with the universe”. And somehow that makes the idea of an essentially absurd and meaningless existence that ends for all time to come in oblivion a little less daunting.
But, hey, if someone is able to actually think themselves into believing it — if it actually works for them — who am I to disillusion them.
If, in fact, it is a delusion at all.
For me though this has to be brought down to earth. It has to be intertwined/implicated in particular contexts in which those who embrace Eastern traditions are able to note how it is superior to a Western frame of mind. Knowing that those who embrace Western narratives are going to have their own set of assumptions. And then both perspectives have to be fitted into the nature of political economy; and into the manner in which I construe human interactions as the embodiment of dasein and conflicting goods.
My dilemma in other words.
Still: What on earth does this mean? What does it mean to take Buddhism seriously in a particular context, relating to particular human interactions?
Given a particular religious, moral, political etc., conflict, what does it mean to embody more “plasticity”? What particular “effective principles and practices” relating to what particular set of circumstances?
Down here pertaining to the nitty gritty day to day social, political and economic interactions of actual flesh and blood human beings.
Instead, many seem far more intent on embracing a beatific rendition of the forest, than in confronting “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty” that is often the day to day reality of the trees.
Unless of course they’re an objectivist.
Let’s be clear about one thing though…
We are talking about the philosophical studies of one particular species on one particular planet in one particular solar system in one particular galaxy in one particular sector of a universe that may well be but one particular universe in in a multitude of others.
In that context what does it mean to discuss the possibility or the impossibility of an existing God?!!
Sure, our brains are hard-wired to connect the dots between “in my head” and “out in the world”. And once you start in on asking questions here, it’s inevitable that eventually such a consciousness is going to get around to asking this: Why anything at all?
And: what brought this existence into existence?
And, perhaps, most crucially of all, is there a “reason” for it? Is there a purpose “behind” existence? Where do “I” fit into it?
And how can that not become entangled in the existence of God?
Now, if there is anyone here who is in fact able to provide definitive answers to questions of this sort, by all means, give it a go.
Just don’t expect all of us to accept that the manner in which you define the meaning of the words used in one or another scholastic intellectual contraption – argument, analysis – ends it all.
You know, other than “in your head”.
Exactly what point?
Note to others:
I’m willing to concede that James is making an important point regarding the manner in which our species is able to probe either the possibility or the impossibility of an existing God, and the extent to which our species either can or cannot demonstrate to the species we call cats that the internet is real.
I reacted to that above.
So, what am I missing?
Okay, note a particular context in which human value judgments clearly come into conflict. Note how the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here is no more applicable to human beings than to cats.
Afterwards, we’ll bring the discussion back around to how a technical/existential understanding of this is intertwined in the manner in which you construe the definition/meaning of the Real God:
The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = “The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is”.
What on earth does this mean, James? How is it manifested in your day to day interactions with others? And, in particular, when those interactions precipitate a conflict of some sort.
Why haven’t you asked that of me before now, rather than all of the years of ranting about how foolish I am?
It is because you are both presumptuous and biased.
Your claim is, ‘anything that has effects, exists’ is false.
An illusion [e.g. mirage] has effects on the mind but its referent do not exists as real.
God is an illusion that has effects on the mind but God do not exists within empirical-ration reality.
The point here is you cannot generalize on the issue of existence.
One need to qualify existence to a basis, e.g. empirical-rational reality, moral, psychiatric, etc., then prove it is real on a case to case basis.
So, Who is actually the shallow one here. 
You are very ignorant of what is going on within Western Philosophy.
If you review the various polls in google, in the majority of listings, Kant and Hume will appear in their top 10s. E.g.
list25.com/25-greatest-philosoph … ver-lived/
Appeal to authority??
I have never insisted my point is right because Kant or Hume said so.
What I have done is merely used the ideas from Kant and Hume to support various points in addition to the explanations and arguments I have provided together with various other sources.
Note the majority of Philosophical Books made references to various famous philosophers and others, are you accusing them of ‘argumentum ad verecundiam.’
I am not into Scientism, but I had given credit to Science for whatever it [as polished conjectures] is worth. There is no denying Science has a extensive utility for mankind and it is very objective. It is up to the individual and groups to use Science wisely for the progress of humanity.
The illusion of the referents is having affects (not “effects”). The “referents” as entities of their own, are not having affects. Thus the referents do not exist. Dreams exist. The characters within do not (except as dream figures).
[size=85]The exact shallow childlike response I figured you would give.[/size]
So try again.
[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?
Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]
This is the critical point!
What else [basis of reality] beside the empirical-rational reality.
The basis of what is real within empirical-rational reality is not based on what is “in her head” but rather based on experiences shared intersubjectively as objectively justified.
So I will ask again in general.
What other reality than empirical-rational reality can any one justify God is really real? - dream world? moral world? a psychiatric world?
The points I have raised traced the root causes of why humans believe in a God as real ontologically when in fact such a belief is illusory and God is an impossibility.
What is critical is we get to the truth, i.e. God is an impossibility and not falsehoold like the ontological God is real within empirical-rational reality.
I would remind you again, Kant’s system/model of Morality is not a deontological one.
It is a long story, Kant presented a very detailed argument on how categorically and imperatively – absolute moral laws – can be established. But in contrast to ‘theological absolutes’ such absolutes are only to be used as guides and not to be enforceable on people.
Kant’s morality is based on the System approach where the Categorical Imperatives are inputs and there is feedback and continual improvements process to achieve outputs as close as possible to the unachievable ideals. Herein is where all the conflicts [Moral Gaps] are resolved optimally.
Note a model of the System Approach in general;
First Kant isolated the idea of God as based on thoughts and reason only based on a detailed analysis of human activities and knowledge.
Since the idea of God is based on thoughts and reason, Kant relied to thoughts and reason to expose the illusory nature of the idea of God.
There is no need for empirical proofs to prove God do not exists. Like everything that is empirical, the onus is on the theists to prove God exists within empirical-rational reality.
Kant then did not have access to the knowledge of neurosciences, psychiatry and other advance knowledge. But now there is knowledge to support the idea and ‘experiences’ of God can arise from mental illness [temporal epilepsy], drugs, hallucinogens, brain damage, stress, etc. Such empirical basis that explain the existence of God is definitely more reliable than empty speculations that God exists.
This existential angst has nothing to do [directly] with ‘abortion’ or similar social, political, cultural, etc. issues.
This existential crisis is related to the cognitive dissonance that arise from one’s existential dilemma of inevitable mortality.
This cognitive dissonance is very subtle and subliminal that manifest deep in the brain are effect the human psyche in general.
It is such an ache of the psyche that is very difficult to point to, but nevertheless belief in a God will immediately resolve such a psychological angst/ache. Note many non-theist turned to drugs and opioids to drown those subtle aches. Others turn to various secular beliefs.
In Kant’s moral system/model as I had explained above, one [in accordance to one’ state of mind] may lie or do not lie to the murderer and the system will automatically process the input and output to ensure corrective actions are taken [where necessary].
Say, in the above case, suppose the person did not lie to the murderer and thus some innocent is killed. The system will pick out an output of net-evil, i.e. killing has a greater degree of evilness than lying. From this the system will process the consequences of net-evil and propose corrective actions but without changing the absolute categorical imperatives.
OTOH, someone lied and save an innocent person. In this case, s/he did not comply with the absolute rule, ‘lying is absolutely not permissible regardless’. Again in this case, the system will process the outputs and the person will have to rationalize his actions within the system. i.e. why the need for optimal good [the lesser evil is better than greater evil].
Why is killing another person is a greater evil than lying?
This rule will have to be deliberated in detail. It is a long story, I will not go into the details but the point is such a rule is not raised blindly from nowhere.
Note,
You cannot compare an illusion and a dream, as a dream is not an illusion per se.
(Shallow thinking and trying be receptive here)
An illusion can affect the person psychologically, but an illusion [as generally understood] is never real within an empirical-rational reality.
Note Your claim,
“anything that can affects, exists” is false.
Besides an illusion, I also claimed,
God is an illusion that has effects on the mind but God do not exists within empirical-ration reality or [setting aside the term illusion],
The idea of God can affects on the mind but God do not exists within empirical-rational reality. The onus in on you to prove your claim.
You know for somebody that doesn’t claim to be a theist you sure sound like one with your usage of unrealistic hypocritical vain moral or ethical imperatives.
I’m an atheistic cynic of course but the only thing I dislike more than theists are atheistic humanists. You all claim to want to build a more better equitable humane world but fail miserably in all your endeavors. The atheistic cynic on the other hand is under no delusions by comparison. Also, atheistic humanists simply supplant God for government and it is their undying belief in government that becomes their God here on earth. The atheistic cynic not only rejects the divine right of God but also rejects the profanity of government as well. Ah, to be a minority of a minority!
I am not interested in making a better world as it is entirely beyond my ability. I therefore only focus on changing what I can which is
myself as I am a pragmatist rather than an idealist. Trying to change what I cannot change is just wasting mental and physical energy
It would appear you are insisting I prove my point on an empirically-rationally basis…
What I am trying to show you is the ‘idea of God’ is based purely on thoughts and [crude] reason ONLY, and never empirical. Otherwise theists would have resorted to empirical-rational to justify ‘God exists.’
Thus using the same basis, i.e. thoughts and higher reasoning, I have proven the idea of God is an impossibility, i.e. a non-starter. This is sufficient enough to stop theist raising the question of whether God exists or not on a empirically-rational basis.
I am not saying, theists cannot believe in a God, they can but they must understand this does not has an intellectual basis but rather such a belief is useful for only psychological reasons.
The origin of this human psychology is that existential crisis/malaise arising from the cognitive dissonance of inevitable mortality.
The theistic Abrahamic religions are malignantly evil as proven by the evil laden elements in their holy texts [especially Islam] and the evidence of a critical SOME Muslims who are evil prone who are inspired to commit terrible terrors, violence and evils in the name of God. The evidence for this is glaring.
OTOH, the non-theistic religions who realize the detrimental association of a God is benign in the sense there are no LEADING evil laden verses in their texts to inspire their believers to kill in the name of a God nor the founder.
Note my argument in the OP and the subsequent detail explanation I have given.
So far there are no convincing counters to my argument in the OP.
As I had explained in most cases, a theist will feel a psychological comfort with his belief in a God and sense a terrible psychological threat when such a belief is questioned to the extent of killing those who critique their theistic beliefs. The evidence for this is so glaring.
You merely supplant what is religious for what is political which is also glaringly hypocritical. You trade in the morality of God for the morality of the state which you worship as a God.
Precisely.
Note before we get things down to Earth.
You will note that most of the scientific, knowledge and technological realities realized at present were once speculated and encased in a hypothesis in thoughts only and played around in the minds of people.
This why Einstein stated “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
What I have proposed above is not exactly imagination but based on empirical possibilities.
Whatever benefits from Buddhism at the higher levels are supported by empirical evidences, it is just that these are confined to a small number of people. So the task is to deliver these benefits to a majority of people.
There are many research done on Buddhist monks who had done extensive meditations and other self-development programs; Here are a few links;
buddhistdoor.net/news/scien … hist-monks
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944261/
There are also benefits from other non-theistic Eastern practices.
The above benefits are only reinforced in monks who has done many serious works and years of meditation.
The question is how to translate these benefits to the masses without the required slogging for it.
I am optimistic we can do it [with foolproof methods and voluntary] in the future given the trend of the present exponential expansion of knowledge and technology, e.g. in the neurosciences, genomics, and other advance fields of knowledge.
(just in case, this has nothing to do with the ‘Frankenstein’ method]
You don’t understand my points.
You are creating your own straw-men and shooting poison arrows on your own creations.
500 years ago, it was impossible to change the views of the oppression of the Church, but yet there are people who dare to oppose the church with their own views and put their life at risk.
It the same for slavery, >200 ago, years slaves and many would not have any hope slavery will be banned by all countries in the world. To them it is ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ given the power held by the slave owners. But at present in 2017, all Nations has laws that ban slavery aside from many who will attempt to practice slavery illegally.
I understand humanity cannot expect theists to give up theism [despite God is an impossibility] because it is very critical psychological necessity. But the fact that there are non-theistic spiritual practices which can deal with the same psychological problem more efficiently without the related evil baggage, make it possible for theism and it’s negative to disappear in the future [not now].
Discussion of such problems and possibility of solutions in a forum like this do not entail much mental [if one has done reasonable homework], physical energy and great risks.
Knowledge is known but imagination is needed to discover what is unknown
I understand your points all too well, more than you actually.
Solutions still have come from the outside for they are not something I can bring about myself and so I leave that to others
I am also relatively detached from society so see myself as being on the edge of it which makes me less connected to it all