One critical point. On finer consideration, there is a difference between imagination, conception and idealization.
What can be imagined must be empirical possible.
Something that is purely in thoughts only or contradictory like a square-circle is impossible to be imagined.
God is purely a thought and based on pure primal reason without any empirical possibility at all, i.e. impossible.
That is why the consideration of the possibility of whether God exists is moot and a non-starter as far as empirical-rational reality is concern.
The hope of the theists is only in thought and pure primal reason, and as far as thought-only is concern, anything goes.
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.
All I can do here [yet again] is to note this as a “general description”. What particular contexts in which Buddhists make claims of benefits. And you can bet there will be any number of folks lining up to argue that, on the contrary, we will benefit all the more if we think like they do, feel like they do, behave like they do.
If Buddhism “works” for someone, fine. But [from my frame of mind] it doesn’t make dasein, conflicting goods and political economy go away. And mere mortals of either the Eastern or the Western persuasion are still confronted with connecting the dots between the behaviors that they choose on this side of the grave and their imagined fate on the other side of it.
That doesn’t go away either. And we know for a fact there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of contexts in which those behaviors come into conflict.
And all the self-development and meditation in the world doesn’t seem to putting much of a dent into that.
One critical point, again [I have explained in detail above], my proposals re Buddhist philosophies is NOT for application in our present state, but only when certain conditions are met in the future.
It is not the case of ‘Buddhism “works” for someone.’
What I stated was, the core principles and the more refined levels of practices Buddhism has great potential to contribute to World Peace.
As I had stated, many of the claims are already justified by empirical research by various scientists in tons of research and findings. Example;
Brains of Buddhist monks scanned in meditation study
bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12661646
The Buddhist and the Neuroscientist, What compassion does to the brain
theatlantic.com/health/arch … on/397706/
Note I am only using Buddhism as an example, there are benefits and potentials from other non-theistic Eastern philosophies.
What is needed to be done is for humanity to look into the above potentials in great details and extract whatever for adoption [voluntarily] towards progress in whatever problems [say X*] you raised above.
it doesn’t make dasein, conflicting goods and political economy go away.
Frankly I am not clear on what you mean by ‘dasein’ in this case.
*But let say your ‘dasein’ represent whatever potential problem to the individual and mankind, i.e. we label this ‘X’
Note the core principles of Buddhism, i.e. the Four Noble Truths and Noble 8-Fold Paths.
- The truth of suffering (dukkha)
- The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
- The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
- The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)
Thus whatever problems you intend your ‘dasein’ to involve, we can label it as ‘X.’
Input ‘X’ into the above 4NT model [see link below] and the problem will be solved subject to the required conditions.
Buddha’s 4NT-8FP -A Life Problem Solving Technique
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=187395&p=2516030&hilit=4NT#p2516030