“Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”-- Blake
One of the propositions of postmodern, post Wittgenstein philosophy is that there are no ethical absolutes.
Is Blake right, or are some rules of ethical behavior necessary? Peter Hitchens, among the new atheists turned Christian, laments the loss of ethical standards,
which he sees as responsible for most of society’s ills.
The Blake koans, or aphorisms, Are from “The Portable Blake,” (1946—Kazin introduction.)
For anyone interested in Blake Kazin’s introduction is a work of scholarly excellence.
Not as long as we’re around!
So there is no hope for us?
“Blake is against all theological casuistry that excuses pain and admits evil; against sanctimonious apologies for injustice and the attempt to buy bliss in another world with self-deprivation in this one.”( Kazin 1946)
That would be my point as well.
The sky father and the earth mother encompass mindless matter such that peace on Earth is embodied wholly in the laws of matter.
Being conscious matter however human beings either do or do not have the autonomy to construe peace on Earth in very different ways. If in possession of free will, some want it to revolve around one set of moral and political values while others insist on entirely conflicting sets instead. Some with God in the picture, others with No God at all.
Then what?
And that hasn’t changed yet for thousands of years.
There’s always hope. But why should we even need to hope that the consequences of our stupidity, greed and plunder will be less severe than anticipated? If we were less defective, hope wouldn’t be necessary at all in that regard. There’s also a big difference, I think, to hoping based on what nature does completely on its own, against which we have little or no power, and what we do to ourselves and every other creature on the planet.
For me it’s a blunt case of observing and recognizing what’s really happening for which any god or free will inclusion is completely redundant. It adds nothing serving only to distort a very serious problem from its proper recognition.
Your right when you say it hasn’t changed for thousands of years that’s why I believe - seemingly contrary to logic or our ingrained sensibilities - that an escalating sense of nihilism is the most potent force to annul all the old ineffective paradigms still residual in our belief systems. That, however is a separate subject…the potential power of nihilism to save by neutralizing old toxins.
“Expect poison from the standing water.”–Blake
This thread is about the hope for peace despite the nihilistic trolling.
Nihilism is always seen by me to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be used to rationalize any behavior…however ghastly the consequences may be for others. On the other hand, any number of objectivist “kingdom of ends” – secular or sacred – have historically been employed to rationalize any behavior…however ghastly the consequences may be for others.
To be a nihilist allows you to jettison moral and political narratives that reconfigure the is/ought world into just another facet of the either/or world. You’re either one of us or one of them.
But no doubt about it: nihilism can be equally ghastly. I often point to those who own and operate the global economy only in order to sustain their entirely selfish interests.
How is not “show me the money” but one of the most nihilstic agendas around?
If Blake were still around I’d ask him to reconfigure this into an analysis of a particular context in which we could explore particular human behaviors as reflecting “poison from the standing water”.
But my whole point is that those who reject nihilism and insist that peace on Earth can be attained [and then sustained] only if everyone thinks about it as progressive Christians do, then have to deal with those other than progressive Christians who insist that, on the contrary, peace on Earth is only within reach if everyone subscribes to their own religious and moral and political agendas.
All I then do is to ask these conflicted parties to bring their own assessments of peace out into the world of actual human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments. Godly or otherwise.
Call that trolling if you must, sure. But I suspect that reflects more on you than it does on me.
Nihilism, though not thoroughly exempt from any human activities especially when pertaining to war and peace, is still a separate subject from the OP especially since there is not simply one type of nihilism. A complex subject worthy of its own OP.
Even so Sky Father and Earth Mother have always been wed. But sometimes they were close to divorce. These caused some of its most creative events even though it may not have seemed so at the time.They aren’t always friendly to each other and even when there is a symbiotic relationship creating stability the likes of us even before we were completely human caused devastation to any megafauna they encountered. Humans have been the most deadly distruptors from day one.
Not least, in all of our historical annals peace has been the exception to the rule. It begs the question whether conflict and not peace is essential to the development of our type of species.
Sure, from the perspective of some that is clearly a reasonable assumption to make. But when peace on Earth is broached in the religion and spirituality forum and the sky father and earth mother are not being spoken of from the perspective of the scientific community, I can only react to it as value judgment. And I subsume them in moral nihilism.
Again, from the perspective of science, the forces that prevail in the sky become intertwined with the forces that prevail on earth in order to create such things as hurricanes and tornados and prolonged rain events that precipitate devastating floods.
And then when you include such earthly events as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as well as things from the skies like asteroids and comets, nature is clearly a match for man-made calamities.
But, again, in a religion forum, God is almost always going to be invoked as factor in explaining these things. Especially among those who insist that their own God is both omniscient and omnipotent.
It’s hard to imagine that somehow conflict is not hard-wired into us…genetically? A biological imperative that, particularly in regard to the male of the species, is never not going to be a part of human interactions.
Still, when God becomes part of the discusion, it can go on almost any direction. Same with nihilism.
duplicate post
Iambiguous,
For the second time, please tend to your own thread and leave mine alone. You have nothing to offer toward a better future for mankind. I ask you nicely to leave my thread alone.
CASE #19: One Small Candle
Shakyamuni taught: “As the light of a small candle will spread from one to another in succession, so the light of the Buddha’s compassion will pass from one mind to another endlessly.”
Okay, just as I once agreed not to use anything you post here in my God and religion thread, I will cease and desist from contributing anything to this thread in turn. And I promise not to respond to any other thread you begin here.
Note to monad:
If you wish to continue our own discussion we will need to take it to another thread.
I’m not certain whether the wording of the OP can even be considered a value judgment. Its terseness strikes me more as an allusion to the times when gods were created for any and all reasons. It makes sense that at some late point nihilism, in one form or another, ensues as a necessary consequence.
When all the reasons which caused a single god or a multiplicity that people once implored, worshiped and prayed to no-longer exist then a slow-moving fog sets in growing ever more dense with each generation, its former beliefs less visible though some of its traditions may still persist for purposes of identity and social cohesion. In that sense, traditions are the ghosts of former beliefs.
I don’t believe peace is possible. Even if not overtly genetic, conflict is inherent in the human psyche where habits can be as powerful as instincts. Propensities to violence can be diminished but never eradicated and likely not desirable if they could be. Everything in our past alludes to violence…a tendency which requires discipline and thought to be constructive, not annulment.
God in all this should have no mention. It’s a completely useless entity since it’s humans who have trained the gods to train us, a long affair which only served to make conflicts worse and more violent…a stupid way to do business on planet Earth!
So love will not save us from ourselves?
Can you give an example of what you mean here? Paint a picture.