phyllo wrote: I will go out on a limb and say that "historical facts" are whatever you say they are ... as are conflicts, values, reasonable statements, "connecting the dots". Since you have no standards for evaluating this stuff, your judgement is whatever pops into you head at any moment. You are certainly not prepared to agree to any shared standards.
Here we are
all "stuck". Why? Because we are all embedded in that ubiquitous gap between what we think we know about reality/existence and all that would need to be known in order to actually settle questions like this.
Does this or does this not seem reasonable to you?
In the interim, are we or are we not left with that which we either can demonstrate to be true for all of us [historically or otherwise] or that which may or may not be true for all of us but is in fact "here and now" true for any particular one of us "in our head".
Again, though, whatever that might actually
mean given an omniscient [ontological] understanding of Being itself. Which most religious folks attribute to God.
You and I on the other hand are left squabbling endlessly about things of this sort that neither one of us seem able to demonstrate much beyond believing something that either comforts and consoles us [and others] or, instead, disconcerts and discomfits us [and others].
I have absolutely no illusions regarding how folks will react to the things that [here and now] "I" happen to believe are true "in my head".
phyllo wrote: Therefore requests to "bring it down to earth" are laughable. You simply toss way any statement offered as not meeting your current demands. Just as you throw away anything that I say about "progress" or the clearing of "the soup".
Or perhaps you are making all of this much more convoluted than it need be.
I created this thread in order that those who do believe in one or another rendition of God can at least make the attempt to connect the dots [existentially] between 1] the behaviors that they choose on this side of the grave 2] their understanding of God and 3] how these things became intertwined here and now "in their head" when they try to imagine their fate on the other side of the grave.
What is it about "down to earth" here that you don't understand?
Better still, go ahead, give it a try.
phyllo wrote: Yet somehow you manage to convince yourself that you are doing philosophy and trumping all opponents.
Look, over and over again I note that I am entangled in my dilemma above. This precludes my being able embrace a moral/political narrative/agenda that allows me to believe that I am doing either the right or the wrong thing when my values -- deemed entirely existential contraptions -- clash with those of others.
And since I do not believe in God, the abyss -- oblivion -- looms ever more ominously on the horizon.
How on earth then does that enable me to "trump" or to "thump" all opponents?
What am I missing here?
And, with respect to the aim of this thread, how would
you construe "doing philosophy" in a more appropriate manner?