Peace

I do not have to be a Buddhist to note that Buddhism can be an effective antidote for suffering.
When you speak of God you use the outdated description–omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. This is a caricature of God which many progressive Christians no longer believe , hence atavistic. Believing that God is almighty, like some Marvel Comics hero, prompts questions such as why does God not intervene in natural disasters? It implies an outdated concept of God as localized in Western theism. Your argument allows that type of concept. Many rational and virtuous people no longer buy those descriptions of God. A good study of why people hang onto such beliefs. including reasons for existential angst , can be found in Freud"s “The Future of an Illusion”.

Ierrellus

You mean the folks who are experiencing them? Ierrellus, If you lost your home, your belongings, in a flash, if you felt deeply uprooted and scared while experiencing these things, just how peaceful do you think you would feel, how deterred from experiencing peace?

Unless I am misunderstanding your question…I think that very often feeling “peaceful” is a subtle sense that all is right with one’s world. I would not have that sense if the above happened to me but then again I am only human.

Which folks? Those who have lost everything or those who see that others have lost everything and can empathize with them?
Perhaps those INDIVIDUALS who were compassionate and empathetic in the first place before they lost everything (remarkable people to me) and those who did not lose anything who are also compassionate and empathetic.

I think that your last quote is based more on who the individuals are.

Yes, that is true. But if you are asking someone to name a better cure for suffering than Buddhism, this would seem to suggest that, as far as you are concerned, Buddhism is the best cure out there. And, so, if ending human suffering is important to you, why would you not choose to be a Buddhist?

My guess: the overwhelming preponderence of religious folks still believe that, when you speak of God, you speak of these things.

So, what are you then suggesting here – that they are all wrong because you are right regarding the one true understanding of God?

But then you are basically back to demonstrating that in fact this God – your God – does exist. And exist as you say He does. And not just because, in believing this “in your head”, it continues to comfort and console you.

Does your understanding of God include or not include the part where He is the Creator of all there is. Including the natural disasters built right into planet Earth. To my knowledge, no comic book character is described in that manner.

Okay, note a few of these “rational virtuous people” for us. And why hasn’t this point of view percolated up into a wide circulation across the globe?

Can you note some places [on or offline] where a significant number of people are in fact arguing for a God understood in this manner?

Iambiguous,
I refer you to Daniel C. Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell” and “Caught in the Pulpit”. Also Bishop Spong’s “Christianity Must Change Or Die”.
I will not spoon feed you on these works, but assume you can learn about them on your own. Surely you have heard of progressive Christianity. Polls mentioned in the above books show that the majority of Americans surveyed on belief in God no longer support traditional concepts about who or what God is.
Way back in the early 19th century William Blake writes of God as Nobodaddy (Nobody’s daddy). This was well before the "death of God " meme came about.

Which folks? Those who have lost everything or those who see that others have lost everything and can empathize with them?
Perhaps those INDIVIDUALS who were compassionate and empathetic in the first place before they lost everything (remarkable people to me) and those who did not lose anything who are also compassionate and empathetic.

I think that your last quote is based more on who the individuals are.[/quote
Off topic. So these statements bear other interpretations. Is that all you get out of this thread? Should I waste time trying to clarify what can be said in different ways? I’ll leave that up to the the mind worshipers known as philosophers. Are you all out of koans?

Worshipers of Urizen–a koan cannot give its depth when translated literally.

Ierrellus,

Wow!

Well, if what I said was off topic, then this thread has been off topic for quite some time. The subject is Peace.

Are you saying that they do not? As an English teacher, did you also teach Literature? The way I look at it, many statements can bear other interpretations. Perhaps you just want everything in a tidy bunch as you would have it.

That is what I gleaned from your quotes which I responded to. Perhaps you ought not to “hug” this thread too tightly.

I do not have an answer to that except to do what you want to do.
Is this the way you spoke to your students?

That is a pretty disdainful statement to make. I do not worship mind but I do recognize and respect it and since I do have one, I try to utilize it, feed it, learn from it, perhaps not as well as others do but still… I do worship nature though.

You asked the below question:

So I proceeded to answer it with a question of my own because I was not quite understanding it.
How would You have answered that quote, Ierrellus

Was I supposed to answer with a koan? You might have said from the very beginning of the thread “Respond with Koans Only”.

Are you saying that one need not use one’s mind when koans are around? No need to answer it.

Still, what does this really have to do with you responding to the points I raised above? How might you image William Blake responding to them? And, if you are in acquaintance with other progressive Christians, perhaps they might be more willing to explore the quandaries I posed above.

On, say, another thread. Sans koans. Although I do like the idea of discussing God [and peace on Earth] in the context of “paradoxes and riddles”. Or, for me, more in the way of ambiguities and the existential “I”.

Also, from my frame of mind [and that’s all it is], however one views God, it does not make my arguments above go away. God the Creator of planet Earth inundating us time and again with one or another natural disaster. Or, perhaps, Harold Kushner’s take on God comes closest here to encompassing an explanation. A loving, just and merciful God who set into motion a creation that He is no longer able to control. The God lacking in omnipotence.

And then the endless squabbles over what peace on Earth ought to look like from the perspective of any number of religious narratives confronting any number of conflicting goods.

Good post. Honest. IMHO the problem with conflicting goods is a belief in what is not. Any God worth his salt is a force not a person. The force is universal, unconditional love. That alone can save us from ourselves. Kushner is probably right. The three Os no longer apply to God which is why Bishop Spong compares the literalist Christian God to a comic book character like Superman.

Arc,
Mea Culpa. I was having a bad day and apparently took it out on you. No, you do not have to answer in koans. I was just saddened that the thread came to be about me.
Wm. Blake considered Wordsworth to be a pagan–not in a good sense.
Tennyson considered Nature “red in tooth and claw”.
Natural disasters, after all, are expressions of Nature.

Again, noting this among family or friends or folks you happen to bump into in which the subject of God comes up, will garner reactions that come with exchanges of this sort.

But, in a philosophy venue, what you think and feel about intertwining God and nature and peace on earth and love would seem to be open to a more rigorous examination. For me, this always revolves around configuring what you believe into demonstrations able to persuade others to believe it in turn. Otherwise we’re back in the bar or around the dinner table exchanging our “personal opinions”.

But, yeah, that’s just me.

If Harold Kushner – who is still around – were here, I would pose the same questions to him. Focusing not on what he believes about God but on how he is able to substantiate why others ought to believe the same thing.

Spong is deep. Consider this:
“Ethics must be freed from the tactic of controlling human behavior by imposing on it the will of some external deity. Christian ethics in the future must be directly linked to the right to explore selfhood, to the courage to live, to love, and to be simply for the sake of living, loving, and being.” (Spong 1998, p.165).
A new future for a religion that includes everyone in the here and now is not just bar talk or an evening’s chat. Spong is still a bishop although he is criticized by fellow church members as an atheist. His concept of God is that God be “understood not as a person, but as the depth and ground of life itself.” (166) His mentor is Tillich.

Neither Tillich nor Spong are shallow thinkers. Both could answer easily the questions and concerns you raise here. Both are read and studied by intelligent, rational, and virtuous searchers for truth.

Most of the criticisms of Christianity expressed in this forum come from rational people who find fundamentalist notions about God to be immoral. Yet not all want to give up religion. New works, such as Spong’s on Christian existentialism may help honest seekers of truth not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Clearly, some men and women dive down into the deep end of the pool here. They probe religion introspectively. And, no doubt about it, their examinations can be exhausting.

But, to do so, and then come to conclude that…

“Christian ethics in the future must be directly linked to the right to explore selfhood, to the courage to live, to love, and to be simply for the sake of living, loving, and being.”

…tells me nothing at all about any particular context in the future in which this courageous, loving, ethical Christian encounters “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty” embedded in any number of conflicting goods. At times, no doubt, even when in contact with other courageous, loving, ethical Christians.

This frame of mind is [to me] just another psychologism: “a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms, or to exaggerate the relevance of psychological factors.”

In other words, a psychological defense mechanism employed by some in order to ground “I” in one or another more or less comforting and consoling philosophy of life.

Believe me, I’d choose it myself if I could figure out a way to yank “I” up out of the hole I have thought myself into.

Thinkers. Deep thinkers. But what doesn’t change is their capacity to demonstrate to others that what they think is that which all rational men and women are obligated to think.

You claim they could easily answer my questions and concerns. Well, Tillich is long dead. And, while still around, it is unlikely Spong will show up here and attempt to.

On the other hand, these are men you greatly respect and admire. Yet, in my view, you do not yourself attempt to answer my questions and address my concerns [above]. So as to allow me at least some measure of understanding regarding their own attempts to bring “general descriptions” like the one above out into the world of conflicting goods.

A future peace, sure. But: on who’s terms? And, in regard to God, the part where what you choose on this side of the grave either is or is not judged by God in order to gain access to an immortal soul and salvation throughout all of eternity.

So my sources are bound up in psychological defense mechanisms whereas yours are not?
“Immortal soul” and " eternal salvation" are ideas from the old mythology of a dying religion. So is the notion of conflicting goods. Why not give religion a human voice devoid of external pressures?
Check out Freud’s ideas on the evolution of self-consciousness as it relates to religion.

Note where I have ever argued that. On the contrary, in regard to “I” in the is/ought world grappling to bring peace to the world that we live in [with or without God], one is either able to ground one’s self in a solid foundation [sacred or secular] or, like me, human existence is seen basically to be on an essentially meaningless trajectory to oblivion.

My self, your self and the selves all the rest of us here from my point of view.

But: that’s all it is: my very own existential contraption. Ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and access to new ideas.

Then the extent to which the religious minded are willing to concede that perhaps their faith in God is basically just a psychological defense mechanism. And, that, beyond faith itself, they are not able to go.

Again, more assertions on your part without a shred of evidence to back them up. And all the millions of religious folks around the globe still embracing the old mythologies about God and religion are, what, just plain wrong?!

And cite some examples relating to particular contexts in which value judgments do in fact come into conflict that illustrate your point about “religion with a human voice”.

From my perspective [which is the only one I’ve got], you think in general descriptions such as this precisely because the spiritually uplifting feeling they give you can only be sustained to the extent that they remain psychologisms.

Okay, but how about we just skip to the part where you imagine Freud responding to the points I raise above regarding perceptions of peace on Earth as the embodiment of dasein confronting conflicting goods in a world that is ultimately dominated by those with economic wealth and political power?

Peace will not be found in outdated concepts of religion and philosophy, For example, the notion of conflicting goods smacks of postmodern ethical relativism from which new and better ideas cannot emerge. Hopefully new and progressive ideas, as espoused by rational and virtuous people, will cause the old ideas to evolve or allow them to die. The new ideas are not based on wishful thinking but on refutation of erstwhile worldviews. It has respect for science as a legitimate pursuit of reality. It exonerates the physical from centuries of neglect or abuse.
In progressive thinking there are no conflicts of existential angst requiring external remedies. Being is becoming if it evolves at all. The “I” is not a static entity. The concept of the “I” as pleading for meaning is a given. The meaning, however, can be considered spiritual or totally secular. Being is the right to be and to evolve as what is fully human. Being is not to be defined by philosophical stances, religious myths or psychologisms.

^^^ that sounds like an existential contraption to me, biggs. what do you think? should we ask him for a particular context, or let him keep the generalizations?

What is an existential contraption? I"m only reporting on ideas that find being as belonging, not generalizations but evolving truths. Does Iambiguous really need your input to continue, ad nauseum, confirming his spurious claims for himself at least.
Is there no one here who can see beyond postmodern dead ends of thought about ethics?

anything anybody says at ilp, including biggs (who incidentally coined the neologism). similar to the irony we saw when marx said ‘i’m not a marxist’, derrida said ‘deconstruction is not a method’, and wittgenstein said ‘everything in the tractatus is nonsense.’

the beauty of the concept of the existential contraption is that any attempt to describe it, explain it, or refute it, is - contraption qua contraption - an existential contraption.

it is that which all things are, but not what all things are as that which are not what they are, which they’re not, as they are.