I created this thread in order to bring zinnat’s philosophical speculations about God and religion “down to earth”. In other words, given the manner in which religious folks imagine their fate “there and then”, how is this pertinent to the behaviors that they choose “here and now”.
Which is fundamentally related to that which interest me most about philosophy: the extent to which philosophers are able to connect the dots between the technical discipline and the quandary that I keep coming back to over and over again: How ought one to live?
In other words, given that, both philosophically and existentially, I have become 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.
And God is certainly one possible means in which to extract myself from it.
Right?
Look, you make the claim that “God is a force to be experienced”. And that you have in fact had the requisite experience. And now [in your own way] you have the comfort and the consolation of believing what you do.
Yet you come into a philosophy venue and insist that one’s own personal experience with God is all that matters.
Or so it seems to me.
And, sure, okay, if that works for you, fine.
But that doesn’t disqualify me and others from probing into it. What particular experiences did you have? How can others experience the same in order to bring themselves closer to a God, the God, my God?
You’ll either go there or you won’t.
But if you expect others in a philosophy venue to just accept that anyone’s experiences [about anything] need be as far as they go in demonstrating its “wisdom”, well, let’s just say we think about philosophy in very different ways.
But, okay, from now I will refrain from bringing you into this thread.