Okay, but with regard to God and religion and morality, I am most interested in reconfiguring our thoughts about these things into a discussion of how, given our interactions with others in which what we think precipitates actual conflicts, we are able to more or less demonstrate how and why what we think permits us to choose particular behaviors here and now that we think are most in sync with what we want for “I” there and then.
Again, it is this that, to me, “for all practical purposes” down through the ages, has been the most important function of religion. Sure, some take time to go further out on the metaphysical limb, but my aim is more existential. So, those who react to your focus here may well be interested in reacting to mine as well. I don’t sneer at people who are fascinated with the points you raise, I am just more inclined to focus instead on morality and mortality.
Also, it bears no real relevance to that which most preoccupies me here: the existential relationship between morality and mortality. Which, however one “thinks up” an explanation for the intertwining of the cosmos, human consciousness and religion, is surely the most fundamental explanation for why people practice religion down through the ages. With God you get a font from which to judge human behaviors here and now. And with God you gain access to immortality and salvation there and then.
Only with Buddhism, there does not appear to be a God. So what then accounts for and reconfigures mere mortals in the process of reincarnation? What set into motion and sustains Nirvana?
Paraphrasing a Buddhist (because I can’t find the book anymore), “Buddhism isn’t atheistic, it just doesn’t address the subject.” If there is karma there must be, as you asked, some sort of order installed. Does order come natural to the universe? Some say yes, but others point to entropy as the course of the universe.
Of course [for me] this just evokes the part where the cosmos and human consciousness and religion and everything else are actually “at one” only with the immutable laws of matter. Karma as determinism. Entropy as merely another manifestation of that too. Embedded in the psychological illusion that “I” am “free” to think it up in order to describe that which “I” was never able not to describe. God and religion then being just another inherent, necessary component of whatever brought into existence nature/reality itself.
You want an answer to the relationship between morality and mortality?
No, I am far more curious to determine if there is an fact an answer at all. Objectively, as it were.
Well, Bert Brecht once told a story:
A man asked Mr. K. whether there is a God. Mr. K. said: “I advise you to consider whether, depending on the answer, your behavior would change. If it would not change, then we can drop the question. If it would change, then I can at least be of help to the extent that I can say, you have already decided: you need a God.”
Yes, my point in turn revolves around the assumption that if there is no God, then He must be invented. Why? Because He is the necessary/inherent component of objective morality. And He is the necessary/inherent component of immortality/salvation.
Now, if someone here were able to demonstrate to me that beyond all doubt Christianity or Buddhism reflected the one true reality, I would still need to know which particular behavior in which particular context it would be obligatory for me to change given what could be demonstrated further to be the consequences for me on the other side if I choose not to change it.
Wouldn’t that be the same for you?
And yet given the history of inquisitions and crusades and jihads, another integral aspect of relgion seems to anything but love and devotion to our fellows. Or love and devotion only to those who are “one of us” in sync with a God, the God, our God. It’s easy enough to ascribe all the “good” things to God. But what about all the “bad”. And what about all the “natural disasters” and “extinction events” and things like, say, the coronavirus?
Of course, the old counter-argument which doesn’t change the integral message of Christianity, regardless of how many Christians failed to meet it. I think one problem you have is to focus on the bad, which, under circumstances we have at one time discussed, is probably understandable. However, this leads you in a vicious circle leaving you to disappear up your rear end if you’re not careful. The answer is to break the cycle and break out of the circle, with whatever means available.
Whether one chooses not to focus on the bad, doesn’t make it go away. And not “good” or “bad” in the manner in which mere mortals describe vice and virtue. Rather, it is good or bad embedded in the either/or world. God or whatever is “behind” Buddhism teleologically has brought the coronavirus into existence. It is pummeling the planet with all manner of ghastly pain and suffering for millions and millions.
But: What on earth does that have to do with, “this leads you in a vicious circle leaving you to disappear up your rear end if you’re not careful.”?
Instead, the faithful fall back on their own tried and true rationalizations: God’s mysterious ways, tests of faith, being “at one” with whatever is behind the universe.
After all, what else is there? Take away God and the tenets of religions like Buddhism, and one may well find himself confronted with the possibility that the covid-19 pandemic is but the embodiment of an essentially meaningless world that, for those who perish as a result of it, ends for all eternity in oblivion.
So, of course Gods and religions will be invented!
And what if it’s not? Again and again and again [for me]: with so much at stake – both here and now and there and then – how does any particular one of us go about actually pinning this down?
Through more or less blind leaps of faith it would seem.
Really, if you are honest about it, you are scared out of your wits and need proof to soothe your troubles. However, proof has never been available, however, people have broken the cycle with faith.
My guess: Few things are more the embodiment of dasein than thinking like this.
And, of course, like mine.