on discussing god and religion

I don’t doubt that you think you have. Just as I had no doubt as a Christian, Marxist, Democratic Socialist etc., that I thought I knew all that was needed to be known in order to pass judgment on those who did not share my own frame of mind.

But then this part:

You leave me no choice but to note yet again that I have no clear understanding at all of what you are trying to convey here. As it relates to a particular context that most are familiar with in which human behaviors come to clash over conflicting value judgments.

Okay, what constitutes a “sufficient state of equanimity” in the arguments over abortion such that philosophers would be able to construct an argument that would most likely lead to what you construe to be “progressive” interactions – the Middle-Way – in the future.

What would that argument at least sound like?

Here I can only come back to the distinction that I always make.

If you are an automobile mechanic, you need to know all there is to know about what keeps a car running. If you don’t, there will be repairs that you cannot do.

But suppose the conversation shifts from that to an argument about whether or not we should do away with cars altogether – shift instead to mass transit systems.

There have been thousands of arguments about this over the decades. Pro cars, pro public transit. And, as with all conflicting goods, both sides are able to make reasonable arguments that the other side are not able to just make go away. Arguments that revolve around any number of things.

For example: library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher … 1963042400

How on earth would any one human being be able to ingest all the points made by all the conflicting parties so as to arrive at the optimal frame of mind here?

What would that argument at least sound like?

Indeed, that is precisely what all of the folks who construct arguments like yours tell me. That is what you all share in common. You’re all positive that a way can be found [philosophically or otherwise] to arrive at the most rational human interactions. I merely have to “note the points above”. Then, like you, my “I” can be “well anchored and stable” in turn. By becoming “one of us”.

And even though I point out to them there have been literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folks down through the ages all embracing one or another completely conflicting [or even contradictory] narrative/agenda like theirs, they still insist that theirs and only theirs is the real deal.

What else can this be called but the “psychology of objectivism”.

I once embodied it myself for years.

Note in this case I meant all materials [i.e. books, articles, etc.] not ALL that is to be known.

It is not what I “think” I have. This is very objective as supported by the books, articles I have read and discussions on the “I.” I am not claiming I have ALL knowledge of the “I” but have sufficient knowledge based on my research.

To confirm your own research on the subject of “I” just recall and prepare a list of philosophers, books and articles you have read and discuss, to assess whether the materials you have covered are reasonably sufficient or not. You can share if you want to.

What I meant was you need to read [in great depth and width] as many books and articles from philosophers and elsewhere on the subject of “what is I.” From what you have posted you do not seem to have covered much grounds on the subject of “I”.

Before you do the above, the psychological stability of your own “I-ness” i.e. equanimity, so to avoid being emotional over any issues you come across.

I thought the above point was simple.
Get it, if not, I’ll explain again.

Equanimity is not about any argument.
Note the definition above, it is about maintaining a state of psychological composure regardless of how bad or good the situation and conditions one if faced with.

To obtain a composure “sufficient state of equanimity” naturally one need to cultivate such a state over a long period of time. It is like developing a skill. Otherwise one can just psycho-analyse and imposed it upon oneself which is troublesome but necessary.

I had stated one has to venture into a sound philosophy of Morality and Ethics to get to the ‘Middle-Way’ on the issue of abortion or any other controversial issue. But it is not easy to get to a sound philosophy of Morality and Ethics unless one put in the effort and take care [suspend] of any habitual resistance that prevent one from gathering further knowledge on it.

As I had proposed the most effective way to get to the Middle-Way re abortion and other issues from the Philosophy of Morality and Ethics is the Kantian platform [not the one you are stuck with re the lying casuistry].

Note what you demand is 'ALL [100%] to be known of existence" which is one of the most complex philosophical topic.

You cannot compare that to a car mechanics. I agree a qualified mechanics must be very knowledgeable of the necessary knowledge and skills to repair a car or a specific type of car. But note, even the best professionals would NOT dare to claim they know 100% of the knowledge of their profession. Note for example a doctor would not dare to claim 100% knowledge of his medical specialty.

Here you are demanding 100% of what is to known of “existence” philosophically and setting up yourself into running in a ‘mouse wheel’ in ruminating loops.

Note Russell on the Purpose of Philosophy;

It is not ‘all’ but at least one must cover as much materials and thinking as possible while maintaining a state of equanimity and composure within whatever the inevitable conflicting views.

I wonder where you get the idea that a suggestion to maintain a state of equanimity and calmness with composure is a ‘dogmatic view’.

It is very natural, almost everyone will claim theirs is the real deal, e.g. the theists, the Nazis, the fascists, communists, objectivism [not me], philosophical realism, etc. It is not up to them to convince you but the onus of on you to understand why they are bias and to gather what is available out there and do your homework, i.e. rationalize and philosophize on what is optimal for your own self.

Opposites and conflicting views are inevitable, e.g. dualism, Yin-Yang, Newton’s third law, antinomies, etc. The challenge is how to hold both opposites in mind and yet live to optimize one’s well being, that’s the Middle-Way.

Well, you still embody it. You function as if what you are doing it better. That is the implicit message in your interactions. Is it better if the message is not stated? Does that make it less real? Does not saying it directly, that your non-objectivism would make things better and more rational on earth, mean that you are not embodying it? No.

Novels can include all sorts of arguments about what is a good person, without stating the morality openly. The author is stating his or her sense of the truth as the truth.

This happens in discussions.

Couples have a millions ways to let the other person know they are a bad person or morally off on an issue, without openly saying it. This is often more effective.

The claim here is that you have moved from embodying objectivism to now embodying non-objectivism - with provisos for being a fallible person. But in fact it is ssytemic.

The overwhelming message here is that objectivists are worse than you morally.

This is what is embodied. And it wonderful that you used that verb, embodied. Believed would have been trickier. People can have all sorts of incorrect beliefs about what they are really doing when they relate to other people.

Are you actually suggesting that given all of the materials written by all the different men and women in all the different cultures throughout the entire length and breadth human history, you have ingested everything?

Then there are all of the potential materials written by all the potential lifeforms on all the different planets thoughout the universe.

The multiverse?

And then there will still be the gap between this and all that any conscious being would need to grasp in order to be in sync with all that possibly can be known about “I” — I “out in the world”.

No, what you have [in my opinion] is “sufficient” information/knowledge “in your head”. You have managed to convince yourself that it matters not that you have failed to ingest all of the countless additional speculations down through the ages [on planet Earth] regarding the existential fabrication/construction of “I” out in a particular world.

Meanwhile, I readily acknowledge that my own conjecture regarding “I” is just another existential contraption rooted in dasein.

Instead, I am waiting for you to integrate what you construe to be the nature of human identity [philosophically, technically] into a particular context that most here will be familiar with.

In other words, how do your analytic assessments above actually work when your own value judgments come into conflict with others out in a world bursting at the seams with those who enforce moral and political agendas in sync with a philosophy that basically revolves around “show me the money”.

But, in my view, you avoid this sort of substantiation like the plague:

How is this not just another “general description” of human interactions embedded intellectually in a world of words – words substantiated by yet more words still?

Note your own Middle-Way narrative/agenda regarding abortion or any other conflicting good of note. However tentative it might be “here and now”.

No, but the point is that an automobile is constructed out of parts that are put together in a particular way. And this is true for all of us. One can then imagine someone with a knowledge of this. And having this knowledge, could repair the car. It’s all encompassed in the either/or world. At least to the extent that science is able to grasp it here and now.

And while a mass transit system is itself able to be built [and then repaired] in the either/or world, there are any number of conflicted political agendas in the is/ought world that tug us closer to or further away from a world in which automobiles are replaced by them.

Indeed, doctors who performs abortions may well not grasp in its entirety the biological imperatives embedded in the evolution of life on Earth. But they either do or do not sucessfully abort the unborn.

But what of those who argue that this is either moral or immoral? Where is the precise distinction made here?

As well, what is the precise distinction between “a clump of cells” and a “human baby”?

And I’m not arguing that this cannot be known, only that no one has convinced me here and now that can be.

And I’m not “demanding” 100% of anything. I’m merely speculating [on this thread] that if an omniscient God does in fact exist then He does know 100% of everything.

What then gets nearly unfathomably is in imagining a Godless universe. How would we even realistically begin to discuss 100% knowledge? Suppose, for example, Earthlings were the only intelligent life form in the universe. Next year the planet is struck by the Big One. A gigantic asteroid that obliterates all human life.

There is then no conscious/self-conscious life forms anywhere at all.

How does that change things?

All I suggest is that if you are convinced that your own philosophical/moral/political narrative sustains some measure of equanimity/calmness/composure then, great, that works for you.

It’s just that when you bring this narrative to a philosophy venue expect that folks like me are likely to challenge it. If only in imagining that you might be able to yank them up out of holes like mine in order to share it with you.

The “dogmatism” [as I construe it] revolves more around the extent to which one defends his or her own narrative as the optimal or the only rational manner in which to understand, among other things, the “human condition”.

Then the narrative becomes attached to this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

In other words, you are either one of us and think like us or you are one of them and don’t. And if you don’t you are necessarily wrong. Why? Because we are necessarily right.

You just have to ask them.

Okay, but there are still two ways to interpret this:

1] my own Middle-Way reflects the optimal frame of mind prompting the optimal human behaviors
2] I am right given my Middle-Way and you are right given your Middle-Way

And that [in my view] is where democracy and rule of law comes to reflect the “best of all possible worlds”.

Just not excluding the historical imperatives embedded in political economy.

I embody it “here and now” in the present. In the past – “there and then” – I did not. And “there and then” in the future when I’m dead and gone…?

There is the fact of what is true here. But what does it even mean to speak of this in a world without God?

And what is real of course is what you believe here and now. Why? Because that is what will motivate your behaviors. Precipitating consequences for others. Which may then result in them challenging what you believe here and now.

Indeed. And then I would note for the novelist the manner in which I construe human interaction [in or out of books] as the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

In other words, is there or is there not a philosophical – scientific? – truth that all reasonable/rational men and women can have access to?

That way if human autonomy is not in itself a self-delusion you can at least freely choose to be either good or evil.

True, but in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that ends in oblivion, effectiveness itself is basically just another existential contraption.

Or, rather, so it seems to me.

What I am embodying however is still construed to be an existential contraption. Any so-called “systemic” narrative is still no less constrained by [subsumed in] the manner in which I construe the existential interactions of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view.

Then you are either able or unable to demonstrate that what you believe [or claim to know] is in sync “for all practical purposes” with that which is is in fact true for all of us.

On the contrary, I note the historical consequence of both narratives. Between those authoritarians who have the power to enforce their own moral narrative [religious dogmas or political ideologies] and those nihilists who reject such wholistic contraptions and, instead, embody the idea that morality revolves basically around “what’s in it for me?”

He’s, like, totally amazing. :happy-cheerleaderkid:

You’re too pedantic in this case and making a meal out of it.

Note I have been discussing with you 'ALL that is to be known …" is an impossibility. Thus in this case when I stated ‘all’ it does not mean absolutely. Note the contexts I have used it,

In addition I stated;
I am not claiming I have ALL knowledge of the “I” but have sufficient knowledge based on my research.

The principle is ‘all’ but in practice is to cover as much as possible.

What is critical is what have you done to understand the Philosophy of the Self and if so, it is reasonable sufficient?

Note my “what is “sufficient” information/knowledge “in your head”” is at least supported objectively by the materials I have covered. I am asking you for evidence on the same objective basis.

Btw, have you ever done a formal thesis and do you understand the process of ‘literature review’ in writing a thesis?

Note the above is a very critical requirement to maintain one’s intellectual integrity.

Your seemingly sole reliance on “dasein” [the corrupted version] is definitely not sufficient.

The above basis is objective.

Whether I understand and practice what I have read or know, is a different issue.
However my principle is what is knowing must always be accompanied by ‘doing’ as much as possible in accordance to relevance.

Nope.
I see the main subject of this thread is ‘how to yank you out the hole you have dug for yourself.’
I have suggested you must first reframe your questions, adopt the generic problem solving technique for life and understand the ‘self’.

Re your issue of conflicting good is off topic to the above and I have suggested such conflicting good must be dealt within Philosophy of Morality and Ethics.

I have mentioned the above MANY times. Btw, do you have a memory problem? This is a serious question because not remembering the critical points I have posted is not reasonable to the other party within an intellectual discussion, i.e. wasting someone’s effort and time.

How can this be merely an intellectual world of words?
A state of equanimity is a critical ‘prescription’ for anyone’s well being at the highest level.
Equanimity is an essential psychological state to deal with conflicting goods in general.
This must be accompanied by real ‘doing’ to rewire one’s brain to enable a state of equanimity not merely intellectualizing it.

If you don’t like the intellectual and philosophical bit, you can take short-cuts to a state of equanimity via drugs, e.g. prozacs, various tranquilizers, hallucinogens. The short-cut way has potential side effects.

The above are the practicals I have proposed. So don’t keep accusing me of being a intellectual maniac.
Actually you are the one who is caught in the intellectual maniac trap and loop. You keep arguing within yourself and cannot act to get yourself out of the hole you have dug for yourself. I give you good grades for this self-deception.

You cannot compare the make up with human inventions [< 200 years] to a human being which has evolved from 4 billion years ago.
Note the difference between parts a car and the 100 billion of neurons each with up to 10,000 synapses in only the brain and other complicated parts of the human body.
It is ridiculous to compare them in this case.

I noted you yourself is not demanding 100% of anything.

The first thing you need to establish is;

  1. God is an impossibility - as argued
  2. All [100%] to be known is an impossibility.
    If God is an impossibility there is no such thing as God knowing 100%. It is a non-starter.
    If God is a non-starter there is no need for you to bother about 'ALL there is to be known" at all.

The point is you are intellectually entrapping yourself if you cannot get over with 1, i.e. God is an impossibility.
If you can understand and accept this thesis, God is an impossibility, you will not be bothered with guilt over the issue of abortion so emotionally. Rather you can then view the issue rationally, morally and ethically with the human collective wisdom rather than being threatened [subliminally] by God’s commands and wrath.

I believe the state of equanimity is a very generic prescription for the well being of an individual.

I believe there is something wrong with the person and out of one’s mind if they reject the idea of ‘equanimity’ and not wanting to cultivate such a state.

Note the opposite of equanimity;
agitation excitement distrust doubt fear frustration uncertainty alarm anxiety discomposure excitableness upset worry.

Are you implying you ignore equanimity and prefer the above tuburlences of the mind which you are acting out at present.

I believe any rational wiser person will spontaneously agree ‘equanimity’ is a prerequisite state that everyone should strive for.

You are challenging my views [not bothering to review it rationally] merely for a deliberate ‘challenge’ sake regardless it is helpful or not.

There you go challenging merely for ‘challenge’ sake.
There is no your Middle-Way or my Middle-Way. It is a general principle of life not to be stuck to one extreme all the time.
Your approach is definitely not the Middle-Way especially when you deliberately ignore and not wanting to know the other-way.

Dualism and opposites are inevitable and inescapable in life and one must embrace and toggle between both sides where necessary but stick mainly to the Middle-Way.

The point being missed here is that people don’t discuss religion; they do religion.

Prismatic 567

Otherwise known as balance to you ~~ or not?

People discuss religion all of the time. What do you think occurs in here?

Do religion? Can you define do here.

This is rather preposterous.

No, not the part about the link between the unknown begetting spiritualism begetting souls begetting religions begetting Gods.

That is clearly rooted historically in the evolution of the human species.

To wit:

Why does something exist at all?
Why this something?
How ought we to live?
What happens after we die?

The answers can then revolve around one or another Scripture.

No, the absudity revolves more around equating the Abrahamic religion with Nihilism.

Consider:

Nihilism:

“the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.”

Or, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.”

Yes, we know there are folks able to twist the meaning of nihilism into any number of self-serving configurations. The point being to define it so as to further their own philosophical or political agenda.

But, come on, the Abrahamic religion, like most other denominations, is hardly intent on arguing that human existence – human interaction – is essentially meaningless and absurd. On the contrary, the whole point of creating these generally doctrinaire and dogmatic litrugies, is to argue that the soul is sacred only to the extent that it follows the One True Part to immortality and salvation.

That way our behaviors can be judged on this side of the grave is either virtuous or sinful.

And that way the is/ought world is able to be conveyed as the embodiment of the either/or world. Either you do the right things or you burn.

But, again, if you wish to reconfigure Nihilism into that, so be it.

Yes, it is ‘balanced,’ grounded, anchored on a strong center of gravity, etc.
A state of psychological composure [equanimity] is necessary for one to be ‘balanced’ in whatever the conflicting situations.

I was talking about the broad here and now. What you do when you interact with objectivists. The moral stance you take in relation to them.

I seem to have triggered a lecture, but it is unclear to me how this relates to the moral superiority you implicitly claim to objectivists.

My point was that even if you identify with non-objectivism and argue that you find no ground to make moral claims YOU MAKE MORAL CLAIMS just as objectivist novelists do EVEN WHEN they do not directly state those moral beliefs in the novels. One can deduce the novelists moral objectivism just as your is present if not stated directly.

And again, just pointing out how you are acting in a couple with any discussion partner. These posts reek of moral superiority, not simply epistemological superiority.

Which I notice you do not do. You do not demonstate this, that the moral superiority you constantly implicitly claim relates to objective facts that are true for all of us.

Doing that does not preclude being an objectivist. One can claim to be a feminist, call out support for victims of rape, and then hit women. This happens and Metoo seems to have found a number of such men.

So what is in it for you feeling morally superior to objectivists?

Systematic presentation of moral superiority, not instances of fallible dasein influenced slips. That the relationship dynamic has that as a rule.
Ask outsiders, via the net, socially, to read the threads and see if they have the same experience. Try to get an outsider’s impression. Humans are notoriously poor judges of these kinds of things.

Surprisingly, you’re not that far off from where I see things, P-man. The moral compass endues the atheist and theist alike because its value dynamic [truth] is woven into the fabric of existence. The true-true union [what we call “correspondence”] of the information of minds with propositions (e.g., the mind uniting with the proposition “moral laws possess truth”), because it senses or intuits (or abstracts, as Prismatic suggests) that same true-true relation in everything from the unifying nature of mathematics’ relationship to the function and operation of existents with the physical laws to the good feeling one experiences upon helping a less fortunate, etc. These are all t-t connections, and this dynamic of connection is why true beliefs are available to reason for the religious and non-religious alike. Truth is a universal quality that permeates reality; it doesn’t discriminate, a point my more fundamentalist brethren don’t seem to grasp.

What if you get “good feelings” from abusing the less fortunate? Or if you get “good feelings” from being indifferent to the less fortunate?

That happens a lot.

The first is pretty common, but good feelings specifically from being indifferent to the less fortunate doesn’t make sense…indifference suggests a neutral state of mind.

But to the first, actions that damage or deny the well being of others is a prescriptive falsification. Those who give in repeatedly to wrong–true-false propositions, i.e., knowing that to cause detriment is wrong, as in inventing justifications (hiding the truth) because the abuse is found to be pleasurable] eventually create a false-false state where the false (abusing the less fortunate is good) is accepted as true. Thus, abuse is the act of a significantly falsified mind. In Christian theology this is called “spiritual death”, the acceptance of false religious belief as true. The principle works across the spectrum of moral behaviors, from religious belief to pedophilia to genocide, etc.

Indifference allows you to focus on something else and to get “good feelings” there instead of through some interaction with the less fortunate. Sure, children are starving in Africa, but you have profitable YouTube videos, a big house, a pool and steaks sizzling on the barbecue. It’s all good.

How do they know that? How do they know what detriment is?

That’s really the issue. You seem to treat it as obvious.

But this takes the equation outside the realm of common sense. Any person, no matter his wealth or lack thereof can reasonably be culpable for the less fortunate worldwide. And the good feelings you mention have no association with the suffering of others, it’s (as you describe it) merely pleasure gained from the fruits of one’s labor. Those fruits may or may not have included unethical behavior against one or more persons to get there, but that’s a different matter. I think it prudent to suggest that if one is morally responsible for the less fortunate, that responsibility can only reasonably extend to the those in one’s immediate sphere of existence.

It appears you didn’t fully understand my previous post. Wrongdoing is very often not obvious to the wrongdoer. I suggest knowledge of wrongdoing and its accompanying culpability are available to the mind of the wrongdoer in degrees. In the part you’re referencing I mention the starting point for blameworthiness in previous post:

" Those who give in repeatedly to wrong–true-false propositions, i.e., knowing that to cause detriment is wrong, as in inventing justifications (hiding the truth) because the abuse is found to be pleasurable] eventually create a false-false state where the false (abusing the less fortunate is good) is accepted as true. Thus, abuse is the act of a significantly falsified mind."

It was late at night, probably didn’t word this clearly. I’m suggesting that all wrongdoing begins with some knowledge, on some level, that the decision being contemplated is wrong by virtue of at least one [probably many] t-f relation in the decision-making process.

A t-f relation denotes the truth value of those elements of the mind’s information involved in the decision to do desired wrong in connection with the false, wrong or immoral information of a proposition used to contemplate a desire to perform that wrong. The discord this relation causes in intellectual operation can probably be mapped to the sense of ‘guilty conscience’ we’re sometimes said to feel in recognition of a false, illegal or immoral desire.

The important thing about this relation is that it causes tension and resistance (the secular version is called ‘cognitive dissonance’) in the mind; moral responsibility affixes by degrees to one’s reactions to tension/resistance raised in contemplating the pursuit of a desired wrong. My mention of the truth being hidden from the contemplator but eventually resulting in a f-f condition refers to the increase of self-falsification of the essence—and causally, the mind—of the desirer by recurrent pursuit of paths to justification for wrong desire. We falsify our own essence by repeatedly ignoring the dissonance and contemplating the wrong action we desire. In other words, this position is that we falsify our own essence or stain our souls by bad or unsound choices.

In a sufficiently falsified state, a f-f connection (or collection of connections) is achieved by the contemplator. In other words the contemplator comes to hold the false proposition (I am justified in performing x) as true. At each successive level of falsification, the contemplator becomes less culpable for the wrong he desires because he has, by inventing justifications for why he is not morally/ethically responsible for committing the wrong he desires, falsified (convinced) himself to believe that wrong does not exist for him in the equation. Another way to express this is that quantitatively sufficient f-f connections between intellect and propositions to justify the commitment of a wrong are established so that the motives and grounds for doing wrong [false] are held as acceptable [true]. The f-f connection translates to the holding of a false proposition or belief as true: Joe deems himself justified to p because q and r, where p is wrongdoing (by reasonable external standards) and q and r (as elements of a set) are false reasons Joe uses for justification. Joe eventually accepts the false as true, or the wrong as not-wrong, or possibly even as good.

Culpability doesn’t lie in libertarian certainty, it almost always attaches by decreasing degrees to the wrongdoer and is stronger in the early stages of contemplation of a wrong desire than late. This explains why, when accosted for his crime, the criminal often has trouble explaining why he did it…he knows intuitively that he “knew” on some level (though almost certainly doesn’t recognize and can’t articulate the process involved) his desire was wrong. Sorry about going on and on, I feel I’m not explaining sufficiently.

But you’re the one who is suggesting that there is some kind of truth embedded within the fabric of existence. So if you are right to get good feelings from helping the less fortunate, wrong to get good feelings from abusing them, then isn’t being indifferent also a wrong (although a lesser wrong than outright abuse)?

Being indifferent doesn’t count?

Sure. It’s obviously wrong to you. But he doesn’t think that it is wrong. Why are you right in your evaluation and why is he wrong?

That’s the thing. You’re saying that he knows it’s wrong. But maybe he doesn’t know it “on any level” at all. Maybe he does it because he thinks it’s absolutely right.

To show that it’s right or wrong, you would have to extract the truth out of wherever you think it resides. And it seems impossible to do this. He is either extracting another truth or there is no truth to extract.