But: Once you acknowledge this, in my view, you are then acknowledging that had your experiences been different for other reasons, you may well have come to reject God and religion altogether. As I did. In fact my point here revolves precisely around this:
“That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my ‘self’ is, what can ‘I’ do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we ‘anchor’ our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.”
Here, of course, in relation to God. And how we come to define him. And that in relation to our moral narratives. And that in relation to the behaviors we choose.
Which then make the stakes here much, much higher:
If you are among the living and wish to remain so, the hurricane becomes an existential threat from God.
Are you arguing here that hurricane Dorian might be construed as an object lesson from God? An actual golden opportunity enabling the people down there to learn how to better deal with confrontation?
And that God then steered it out to sea because there and then He figured the people in Florida did not need this objective lesson?
Bottom line [mine]: How does a particular definition of God take into account these actual events themselves?
But this in my view is just another “general description”. Each individual embedded in their own unique set of circumstances will interpret and then act out their own understanding of what they think you mean here.
Yes, this is a “frame of mind” that some are able to find comfort in. But one way or another they have to come to grips with how the manner in which they define God is able to be reconciled with a man-made world “caught up in decay and degeneration”. And this is embedded in the manner in which I have come to construe the meaning of dasein above as a existential contraption.
And, then, on top of all that, they have to deal with what the folks in the insurance industry call “acts of God”.
Okay, but: How does this make it easier to close the gap between what you believe about God and what you are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn? After all, however one takes the stories in the Bible, there is still the part where substantial proof exists to confirm that in fact they are true or there is not.
And the baby and the bathwater still needs to be grappled with in a particular context.
Yes, that’s one way to look at it. Another way is to suggest that once “I” is no longer anchored to the will of God, this allows for considerably more freedom of choice in an autonomous universe. Purpose can be construed in ways that allow individuals to flourish in a manner that the religious are advised never to even imagine.
It cuts both ways.
True enough. But then others insist that this is embedded far more in the capitalist dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fattest political economy.
That the solution here is actually more a political struggle to uproot it. Again each individual embodying his or her own unique set of experiences will come to understand this differently. Sure, with God, “I” is anchored. As it is anchored to any number of ideological scriptures.
But the components of my own argument never go away.
But for any number of religious folks this is basically blasphemous. It is precisely the behaviors that we choose here and now that connects us to God for all of eternity on the other side. But here again my own argument is that these inclinations are rooted in “I” as an existential contraption. Some embody a set of experiences that take them in one direction here while others are predisposed to go in other directions. That there does not appear to be a way [theologically, philosophically, spiritually etc.] to take that into account and then to “think through” to the optimal frame of mind is my point.
And how is this world view not just another manifestation of dasein? Again, take your “general description” of how the world could be if others thought like you do out into the world and configure it into a specific context where degenerated conditions need to be improved. For example, the plight of immigrants in America. Or in Europe. In the age of Trump and Brexit. What might be done here if others thought like you do about God and religion?