What it does is what it Is

[iambiguous]

I agree with Spinoza on pantheism.

Sure, if you are content to stop at what Spinoza believed about pantheism, fine. But what about the part where what he believed about pantheism, he was actually able to demonstrate is in fact true. The part that, with oblivion right around the corner, is of far more interest to me.

So, if we are all in this life together, there can be no room for conflicting goods. If we realize we are integral parts of an ecosystem, there will be no moral excuse for conflicting goods. If we love one another, the particular instances of conflict, which you would prefer to discuss, would be mere distractions from knowledge of the greater good.

Well, in the broadest sense -- birth, school, work, death -- we are all in this together. But there have been, are now and probably always will be conflicting goods galore! And while the evolution of life paved the way for those of our species to love, it also paved the way for an array of other mental, emotional and psychological states as well. Depending on the historical, cultural and experiential context. And who can count how many of them there have been. And just so far.

My opinion on abortion:
Since I have no uterus, I have really no right to tell anyone else what to do with theirs. I do have opinions that abortion might be a practical matter in cases of rape, incest or whether the mother's life is at stake. My main problem with anti- abortionists is that they would not claim and support the unwanted child. Only Mother Teresa said she would take the unwanted babies.
I think human life begins with a fertilized egg. So much for opinion.

Is this opinion of yours derived from your opinion of progressive Christianity? And isn't the opinion of progressive Christians derived from what they surmise Christ [God of the New Testament] would do?

Or is it all more "complicated": https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... st/590293/

Now, my own approach to this personal opinion of yours here would revolve instead around the arguments I make on this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

The OP in particular. Here I explore the evolution of my own views on abortion given the actual existential trajectory of my life.

[Ierrellus]

There will be no further opinions of things seen as conflicting goods. My opinion was twisted to fit some agenda. It is not derived from any other source. I won't play that game.
Conflicting goods is an attitude based on us and them. There is only us.

[iambiguous]

There will be no further opinions of things seen as conflicting goods. My opinion was twisted to fit some agenda. It is not derived from any other source. I won't play that game.

Again, as long as you keep your posts up in the stratosphere of "general descriptions", you can merely put words in a particular order and be sustained by the comfort and the consolation their meaning conveys to you.

But:

Of course there will be further conflicting opinions regarding the morality of abortion and homosexuality and gun ownership and animal rights and social justice and economic equality and gender norms and all the rest of those very, very real "conflicting goods" that have rent the species now since it first evolved into a species on this planet thousands and thousands of years ago.

And of course religious and secular objectivists will twist what they see out in the world into that which they claim to know about the right and the wrong thing to do.

And until you are willing to explore progressive Christianity with me in regard to those very real conflicting goods how will I ever really know what you mean by "playing that game"?

Conflicting goods is an attitude based on us and them. There is only us.

You think this. You believe this. But how do you explain more fully what you mean by it given a world in which "one of us" and "one of them" is an undisputable fact in regard to any number of human interactions.

And if there is only "us", what does that mean to a progressive Christian when confronted with someone who insists that the political rights of women to abort their unborn babies/clumps of cells takes moral precedent over the natural right of that unborn baby/clump of cells to live?

And "us" in regard to all of the other moral and political divides we confront everyday "on the news".

[Ierrellus]

I read "Irrational Man" in the early 1960s and found it a worthy introduction to the history of Existentialism as Barrett sees it; but, I was more influenced by the writings of William Blake. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", is, IMHO, a masterpiece and a real game changer for those stuck in left brain rationalism as I was in the early 60s.
Cooperation, with respect for the needs of the Other, defies the notion of conflicting goods. Even Dawkins admits that altruism is an adaptational plus.

[iambiguous]

I read "Irrational Man" in the early 1960s and found it a worthy introduction to the history of Existentialism as Barrett sees it; but, I was more influenced by the writings of William Blake. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", is, IMHO, a masterpiece and a real game changer for those stuck in left brain rationalism as I was in the early 60s.
Cooperation, with respect for the needs of the Other, defies the notion of conflicting goods. Even Dawkins admits that altruism is an adaptational plus.

We continue to be stuck in two very different exchanges. My own interest in religion and spirituality [as I noted on the first page] revolves around exploring them in the general vicinity of this:

Again, my own interest in religion and physics and metaphysics pertains to the part that, however any particular individual views them intertwined, they become crucial in regard to the behaviors that they choose on this side of the grave...as that pertains to the fate they imagine for "I" on the other side of the grave.

In other words, not nearly so much in "intellectual/spiritual contraptions" like yours above. My own concerns pertain to the lives that we live. Lives that often come into dispute over conflicting value judgments derived from all of the many different spiritual paths embraced by any number of different religious denominations.

Even within Christianity alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination

In fact, here -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian ... n#Taxonomy -- Progressive Christianity is not even mentioned.

Then the part where anyone who is trekking along any of these spiritual paths makes the attempt to move beyond their more or less blind faith to actually demonstrating instead why what they believe in their head is in fact true for all rational and virtuous human beings.

Short of that, I make the presumption that they believe what they do given what I construe to be the "psychology of objectivism" here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

Your post above is just another intellectual fabrication to me. Bring the views of Barrett and Blake and Dawkins out into the world of human interactions that revolve around understandings of an alleged human soul confronted with the actual reality of conflicting goods and all of the vast and varied philosophical and theological narratives that have come to us down through the ages offering normative "scripts" in regard to morality here and now and immortality there and then.

Or, if not interested in that, sure, by all means, move on to others.

[Ierrellus]

Nothing will satisfy a mind that's made up.
I'm open to new ideas.
Thus I will not adhere to limited agendas.
William Blake "woke me from my dogmatic slumber", regarding Reason.

[Ierrellus]

Many rational and virtuous human beings, not comforted by yesterday's philosophy and theology, embrace Progressive Christianity. Just google and see. The age of dominant left brain thinking is fast becoming a part of the past; it offers no hope for a future for the human race other than same old slavery to the game of ideas. It has little, anymore, to do with actual felt experiences, especially those of wholeness. If the new age thinking is a mental contraption, we have evolved into considering it. We don't have time for backward thinking.

[phyllo]

Where do you see this happening?

It looks like the same old stuff is going strong. I'm mostly thinking about the situation in the US ... politics and COVID for example.

[iambiguous]

Nothing will satisfy a mind that's made up.
I'm open to new ideas.
Thus I will not adhere to limited agendas.
William Blake "woke me from my dogmatic slumber", regarding Reason.

This is exactly the sort of thing that the moral, political and spiritual objectivists among us will point to when they divide up the world between "one of us" [those who understand everything] and "one of them" [those who understand nothing].

And, really, they shouldn't be addressing this to me until they first address it to each other.

Right?

[Ierrellus]

[quote="phyllo"]Where do you see this happening?

It looks like the same old stuff is going strong. I'm mostly thinking about the situation in the US ... politics and COVID for example.[/quote
Those are election year concerns. That, too shall pass. But the green revolution and the revolt against Christian fundamentalism will continue. It's about the future. I see this happening in the new age books currently gracing the net. I would suggest works by Spong and Dowd among many others. You can find those and more if you google progressive Christianity.
The political and Covid focus shows a U.S. in a painful transitional period in which the old dogmatic certainties must give way to hopes of a better destiny for human beings. New ideas are most welcome.

[Ierrellus]

Nothing will satisfy a mind that's made up.
I'm open to new ideas.
Thus I will not adhere to limited agendas.
William Blake "woke me from my dogmatic slumber", regarding Reason.

This is exactly the sort of thing that the moral, political and spiritual objectivists among us will point to when they divide up the world between "one of us" [those who understand everything] and "one of them" [those who understand nothing].

And, really, they shouldn't be addressing this to me until they first address it to each other.

Right?

It is your philosophy that divides us from them. It offers no hope for harmony among men, but continues to wallow in the conflicts we have with each other. It sees no remedy from its bleak perspective. Hence new ideas define your them.

[iambiguous]

Nothing will satisfy a mind that's made up.
I'm open to new ideas.
Thus I will not adhere to limited agendas.
William Blake "woke me from my dogmatic slumber", regarding Reason.

This is exactly the sort of thing that the moral, political and spiritual objectivists among us will point to when they divide up the world between "one of us" [those who understand everything] and "one of them" [those who understand nothing].

And, really, they shouldn't be addressing this to me until they first address it to each other.

Right?

It is your philosophy that divides us from them. It offers no hope for harmony among men, but continues to wallow in the conflicts we have with each other. It sees no remedy from its bleak perspective. Hence new ideas define your them.

The billowing clouds of spiritual consolation. Your refuge. Once mine too. And my philosophy is something I have been trying to think myself out of now for years.

You want hope and so you think yourself into it having some. You want harmony among men and women so you offer it to us as a progressive Christian.

What would Jesus do? Do the same. And, if your not sure what Jesus would do, ask a progressive Christian. Or just do what they do.

[Ierrellus]

Iamb,
You will never regain your erstwhile consolation. You can't go home again.
Where you can go is out of the darkness of your current philosophy and into the light of spiritual awareness.
There is no WWJD? answerable by progressive Christians in word or deed.
There is only a new way of thinking that can change your life.
Hope comes from the experienced sense of belonging, of being a part of something greater than the Self.
Ethics depends on the sense of belonging.

[iambiguous]

Iamb,
You will never regain your erstwhile consolation. You can't go home again.
Where you can go is out of the darkness of your current philosophy and into the light of spiritual awareness.
There is no WWJD? answerable by progressive Christians in word or deed.
There is only a new way of thinking that can change your life.
Hope comes from the experienced sense of belonging, of being a part of something greater than the Self.
Ethics depends on the sense of belonging.

Once again, as though the task of philosophers was to conflate wisdom only with that which does console them. Nietzsche can't right about God because that is such a ghastly way to look at life. God must exist because without Him there is no transcending font that mere mortals can turn to for resolving conflicting goods. And no immortality and salvation.

So, somehow just will yourself into believing in Him. But not just any Him...Ierrellus's own assumptions about Him. The progressive Christian God that he refuses to bring down to Earth in regard to any actual conflicting goods.

[Ierrellus]

Iamb,
You will never regain your erstwhile consolation. You can't go home again.
Where you can go is out of the darkness of your current philosophy and into the light of spiritual awareness.
There is no WWJD? answerable by progressive Christians in word or deed.
There is only a new way of thinking that can change your life.
Hope comes from the experienced sense of belonging, of being a part of something greater than the Self.
Ethics depends on the sense of belonging.

Once again, as though the task of philosophers was to conflate wisdom only with that which does console them. Nietzsche can't right about God because that is such a ghastly way to look at life. God must exist because without Him there is no transcending font that mere mortals can turn to for resolving conflicting goods. And no immortality and salvation.

So, somehow just will yourself into believing in Him. But not just any Him...Ierrellus's own assumptions about Him. The progressive Christian God that he refuses to bring down to Earth in regard to any actual conflicting goods.

These are not my own assumptions. There is a definite movement on the rise. But you will not bother to observe it on the net because it's so much easier to contradict one person. All I hear from you is dead 20th century philosophy and personal denial of anything progressive.

[iambiguous]

These are not my own assumptions. There is a definite movement on the rise. But you will not bother to observe it on the net because it's so much easier to contradict one person. All I hear from you is dead 20th century philosophy and personal denial of anything progressive.

Okay, if you ever bump into those in the movement who might be willing to address the points I raise above, please invite them to the thread.

In a civil and respectful exchange, we can attempt to pin down the meaning of "dead 20th century philosophy". As that relates to what is important to me regarding any particular individual's value judgments: the existential juncture that is dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given sets of circumstances most here will be familiar with.

And I don't deny a distinction between regressive and progressive behavior. I suggest only that the meaning any particular man or women ascribes to them is rooted in the arguments I make in my signature threads.

And not in a God, the God...the progressive Christian God...that you have not made any substantive attempt to prove the actual existence of beyond what you think is true "in your head".

In other words, not unlike the hundreds and hundreds of adherents of all the other denominations out there.

And, getting closer and closer to oblivion myself, I'm looking for more substantial arguments.

[Ierrellus]

These are not my own assumptions. There is a definite movement on the rise. But you will not bother to observe it on the net because it's so much easier to contradict one person. All I hear from you is dead 20th century philosophy and personal denial of anything progressive.

Okay, if you ever bump into those in the movement who might be willing to address the points I raise above, please invite them to the thread.

In a civil and respectful exchange, we can attempt to pin down the meaning of "dead 20th century philosophy". As that relates to what is important to me regarding any particular individual's value judgments: the existential juncture that is dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given sets of circumstances most here will be familiar with.

And I don't deny a distinction between regressive and progressive behavior. I suggest only that the meaning any particular man or women ascribes to them is rooted in the arguments I make in my signature threads.

And not in a God, the God...the progressive Christian God...that you have not made any substantive attempt to prove the actual existence of beyond what you think is true "in your head".

In other words, not unlike the hundreds and hundreds of adherents of all the other denominations out there.

And, getting closer and closer to oblivion myself, I'm looking for more substantial arguments.

No one can show you what you refuse to see or hear. No "substantial argument" can possibly refute your opinions on Dasein, conflicting goods, etc, opinions that beg for oblivion and defy all hope.

[Meno_]

These are not my own assumptions. There is a definite movement on the rise. But you will not bother to observe it on the net because it's so much easier to contradict one person. All I hear from you is dead 20th century philosophy and personal denial of anything progressive.

Okay, if you ever bump into those in the movement who might be willing to address the points I raise above, please invite them to the thread.

In a civil and respectful exchange, we can attempt to pin down the meaning of "dead 20th century philosophy". As that relates to what is important to me regarding any particular individual's value judgments: the existential juncture that is dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given sets of circumstances most here will be familiar with.

And I don't deny a distinction between regressive and progressive behavior. I suggest only that the meaning any particular man or women ascribes to them is rooted in the arguments I make in my signature threads.

And not in a God, the God...the progressive Christian God...that you have not made any substantive attempt to prove the actual existence of beyond what you think is true "in your head".

In other words, not unlike the hundreds and hundreds of adherents of all the other denominations out there.

And, getting closer and closer to oblivion myself, I'm looking for more substantial arguments.

No one can show you what you refuse to see or hear. No "substantial argument" can possibly refute your opinions on Dasein, conflicting goods, etc, opinions that beg for oblivion and defy all hope.

yes.


I have given Heidegger's intended meaning of Dasein, and he considers it important enough to designate it's difference.

So it's not like we are ruminating batlike in the dark!

[iambiguous]

These are not my own assumptions. There is a definite movement on the rise. But you will not bother to observe it on the net because it's so much easier to contradict one person. All I hear from you is dead 20th century philosophy and personal denial of anything progressive.

Okay, if you ever bump into those in the movement who might be willing to address the points I raise above, please invite them to the thread.

In a civil and respectful exchange, we can attempt to pin down the meaning of "dead 20th century philosophy". As that relates to what is important to me regarding any particular individual's value judgments: the existential juncture that is dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given sets of circumstances most here will be familiar with.

And I don't deny a distinction between regressive and progressive behavior. I suggest only that the meaning any particular man or women ascribes to them is rooted in the arguments I make in my signature threads.

And not in a God, the God...the progressive Christian God...that you have not made any substantive attempt to prove the actual existence of beyond what you think is true "in your head".

In other words, not unlike the hundreds and hundreds of adherents of all the other denominations out there.

And, getting closer and closer to oblivion myself, I'm looking for more substantial arguments.

No one can show you what you refuse to see or hear. No "substantial argument" can possibly refute your opinions on Dasein, conflicting goods, etc, opinions that beg for oblivion and defy all hope.

Let's get this straight: He will make this applicable to that which he is trying to tell me, but it's never applicable to what I am trying to tell him.

But: what I am trying to tell him about the components of my own moral philosophy, I am more than willing to explore "out in a particular context", whereas what he is trying to tell me about the components of his moral philosophy embedded in progressive Christianity he sustains only in his "general description spiritual contraptions".

And, further, in my view, he doesn't even possess the intellectual integrity to acknowledge this. Instead, he has this "world of words" religion that he exchanges with others who keep everything up in the clouds in turn. Just look at the exchange going on being Karpel Tunnel and Felix dakat on the Buddhism thread. It almost never touches the ground regarding that which interest me about religion: the existential relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

Thus almost ever and always with the "I am not a religionist" religionists of his ilk discussions of God revolve only around that which does give them and then sustains hope. And, hopefully, all the way to the grave.

The irony here being my own longing to figure out a way to think like that again myself.

[Ierrellus]

How does one communicate an experience? It can only be done intersubjectively when both of those who would communicate agree that there is something in each which is like the other. Iamb's Dasein, etc. formula reminds me of my former fundamentalist religious ideas, ideas that crippled my youth. Yet this idea of afterlife and quid pro quo salvation sustain Iamb's chosen view of life in conflict. I could care less about what happens to me in an afterlife. If Iamb were serious about wanting a belief that offers hope, he could have it. But the hope needs to be down to Earth, a hope for a better future for all living beings, not of some pie in the sky, after death reward--an idea which Nietzsche well refutes in "Zarathustra".

[Ierrellus]

Hello Meno,
Rumor has it that the only thing done to Custer's body when he was killed at Little Big Horn was the puncturing of his eardrums. The natives said, "Maybe now he will hear".
I keep being reminded by Iamb that I'm too dumb to offer him an argument that is not some mental contraption, some in my head fiction designed to give me hope. But what of his persistent argument?
For me Dasein means presence, the isness of being. I believe Dasein includes the existential awareness of becoming and of belonging, and that the latter is the root cause of all ethics. I could be wrong. What's your definition of Dasein?

[Ierrellus]

On the matter of teleology as applied to human evolution, Pinker offers "soft" teleology, while Dowd offers "hard" teleology. Apparently the literature on the subject swings between these two extremes. I'm with Dowd on the subject, seeing purpose in evolution as a spiritual matter, as evidence of the activity of a God. Creative evolution makes sense. Attributing it to a God makes it purposeful and personal.

[Ierrellus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogenesis
Also see Julian Huxley on "natural religion."

[Meno_]

Hello Meno,
Rumor has it that the only thing done to Custer's body when he was killed at Little Big Horn was the puncturing of his eardrums. The natives said, "Maybe now he will hear".
I keep being reminded by Iamb that I'm too dumb to offer him an argument that is not some mental contraption, some in my head fiction designed to give me hope. But what of his persistent argument?
For me Dasein means presence, the isness of being. I believe Dasein includes the existential awareness of becoming and of belonging, and that the latter is the root cause of all ethics. I could be wrong. What's your definition of Dasein?

Irrelus:


That is a problem. I lost my glasses and that is the reason. for my late awareness into it. Will wait with filling a new prescription until then will think about this in the interim

[iambiguous]

How does one communicate an experience? It can only be done intersubjectively when both of those who would communicate agree that there is something in each which is like the other. Iamb's Dasein, etc. formula reminds me of my former fundamentalist religious ideas, ideas that crippled my youth. Yet this idea of afterlife and quid pro quo salvation sustain Iamb's chosen view of life in conflict. I could care less about what happens to me in an afterlife. If Iamb were serious about wanting a belief that offers hope, he could have it. But the hope needs to be down to Earth, a hope for a better future for all living beings, not of some pie in the sky, after death reward--an idea which Nietzsche well refutes in "Zarathustra".

What iambiguous is serious about is discussing general description intellectual contraptions of this sort given a particular set of circumstances involving conflicting goods that progressive Christians react to in connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

Also, a serious discussion regarding the manner in which you came to acquire the things that you do believe are true "in your head" about God and religion in the manner in which I explored that here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

It's not about you being "dumb" but about you're refusal to bring progressive Christianity down to earth.