iambiguous wrote:But there are any number of factors embedded in the self that seem to be anything but illusions. The biological me. The world around me bursting at the seams with clearly demonstrable facts -- things -- that I [and you and everyone else here] take for granted as there objectively.
Bob wrote: The part in the funeral, where the Pastor says, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return”, is enough to show that the river metaphor applies, even when out of water. We came out of this planet, and our bodies will return, but the question is posed, what about the “breath of God” that made mankind a “living spirit?” What happens to that?
Yes. And those who believe in a God, the God, my God are able to concoct a "frame of mind", "a psychological bearing" enabling them to intertwine that in the life they live. Still, what doesn't go away for me is that distinction between what one is able to demonstrate is true about their own religious narrative and what can only be embodied in a leap of faith.
Thus:
As for becoming at one with existence [God or No God] that is still construed by me to be a psychological defense mechanism some are able to think themselves into believing because believing that is so much less disturbing than subscribing to the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless existence that ends in the obliteration of "I" for all time to come.
Bob wrote: However you call it, it is hope that helps us get up in the morning, do our jobs well and keep a positive approach to life. Given just the knowledge about life that we have today, and accepting it as fact, we don’t achieve anything but the loss of hope.
And, indeed, I truly do miss that in my own life. But: I am no longer able to believe in God. I believe instead that "I" am embedded in the profoundly problematic mystery that is existence itself. And, here and now, there is nothing that enables me to go beyond it as that "brute facticity", essentially meaningless and ending in oblivion.
That seems reasonable to me given the accumulation of actual experiences that I have had, coupled with the many, many hours I have spent groping and grappling with my own existence philosophically.
Yes, facts about you -- biologically and circumstantially -- do change over time. But they are still able to be demonstrated to others at any particular time and in any particular place to be what they are. As for the observing "I", that depends on any number of factors that may or may not be beyond ones control. The use of drugs or a mental illness or a brain tumor or diseases like Alzheimer and dementia, can reconfigure "I" into a frame of mind barely recognizable to yourself and to others.
With God, you may have once in fact defined Him one way, but then in fact came to define Him in another way instead. But either way that does not in fact enable you to demonstrate His actual existence.
Bob wrote: I think you choose the exception to the rule as though it were the rule. I agree, there are numerous things that can happen, which endanger the observing “I”, but the various examples you have given tell me nothing about how people in those circumstances experience their observing “I”.
In fact, I am the first to acknowledge that even regarding my own observing "I", there are simply too many variables in my actual lived life that were/are either beyond my control or understanding.
I just suggest that, in turn, this is applicable to you and to all others.
In fact, that is the whole point in my speculating about "I" here as an "existential contraption". And certainly in regard to value judgments that revolve around God. What's left then but that which we are in fact able to demonstrate is true in regard to this...and to all other aspects of our lives.
Bob wrote: Your insistence that one should demonstrate the existence of some thing called God fails to accept that God isn’t a “thing”. The Bible is clear on that, except when speaking metaphorically.
As with Ierrellus and others here, you have you own definition, your own understanding, your own take on God. I see this largely as an existential contraption rooted in the lives you've led...more so then in anything you are able to show us is true because there is evidence to substantiate it.
You can believe, say or claim to know anything about God. But then what? With immortality, salvation and divine justice itself on the line, that's just not enough for some folks.
This part:
In discussing God and religion in a philosophy venue what seems most relevant to me is the extent to which one can demonstrate to others that what is seen to be reasonable to them ought to be deemed reasonable in turn by all men and women who wish to be thought of as rational human beings.
Bob wrote: Demonstrably, over thousands of years, there has been faith. It is only since we try to apply rationality to religion that we find it doesn’t compute. But that is because it never should.
Look, if you are able to think yourself into believing this is a rational take on God and religion, fine, that works for you. It enables you to ground your own "I" in frame of mind that comforts and consoles you. And, sure, why not sustain this as the "bottom line" for you all the way to the grave.
I certainly once thought the same myself. But, over the course of our lived lives, each of us can come to think themselves into believing something they are not able to think themselves out of. Like me. But that's the part I root existentially in dasein.
Bob wrote: The truth of the Bible, for example, is the “true to life” truth. It is listening to a poem that takes us back to the past. It is singing a song that reminds us of the last time we were singing with loved ones who have departed. It is observing a painting and being caught up in its colours. It is listening to a symphony and flying in the clouds. It is being in everyday situations and feeling an inspiration overcome us. It is being in a loving community and feeling it with all our senses. It is being in flow modus.
This is a psychologism to me. It is a frame of mind that wraps itself around the way the words make you feel. And that need be as far as it goes. But it is not connected to the world as I know it to be. Not in the context of a God said to be "loving, just, and merciful".
Here [for me] there is only Harold Kushner's take on Him.
And my own "bottom line" here basically revolves around this:
But if philosophers [and scientists] don't fall back on reason and demonstrable proof to untangle all the conflicting assessments of God, then it simply comes down to what anyone claims to believe "personally" ...
Yes, many religious folks over the years have basically summed it up in that manner. After all, with objective morality, immortality, salvation, divine justice and all the rest of it on the line, all there really is are soul-fulfilling leaps of faith like that. And then all the terrible things are able to be subsumed in "God works in mysterious ways".
And, again, my own [at times] disgruntled reaction here is no doubt embedded in having to accept the fact that this sort of thing is no longer available to me.
Bob wrote: That is also my opinion, that if someone has a personal faith, the fruits will show it to be what it is.
Okay, but, from my frame of mind [in a philosophy venue], someone will either bring his or her own personal faith out into the world of [at times wrenching] subjective/subjunctive human interactions, or it remains largely bundled up "in their head" as what I construe to be just one more psychological defense mechanism.
Stuff like this...
Bob wrote: The terrible things are the boundaries that we come up against, and we realise that we are not in Eden, but have been metaphorically driven out by our consciousness. Our knowledge of Good and Evil makes us no longer innocent and this presents us with borders that we can’t cross. It is what the sages that wrote Genesis came up against and tried (quite well in my opinion) to come up with some way of understanding it.
...just doesn't connect with me anymore. It tells me little or nothing about God out in the world that I live in. Instead, it becomes what I have come to construe as the "mind's eye" God. And even then assuming some measure of human autonomy.
iambiguous wrote:As for this part...Bob wrote:...chaos, decay and degeneration are facts of life that we either choose to combat, or we align ourselves with a psychological entropy and let things go down the drain. Usually it is the attempt to delay or prevent degeneration that is active and aligning one’s self with decay is the passive approach.
...you are not now yourself burdened with the manner in which "I" construe human interactions given the points I raise in my three signature threads.
And this, in my view, is deeply embedded existentially in dasein.
Bob wrote: I’m still not really sure what you mean by this.
Basically, it revolves around the assumption that you don't think about these relationships as I do. For you the battle is intertwined in a considerably more substantial "self" grounded in a belief in God. Therefore it has a meaning far beyond anything I have access to now. For me, viewing human interactions in an essentially meaningless word that ends in oblivion deconstructs any battle as just another existential contraption rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and in the raw naked reality of political power.
Of course the answers are less complicated when all that matters is what you are able to convince yourself is true "in your head".
The part that, in my view, any number of objectivists [God or No God] will strive mightily to take with them to the grave.
Bob wrote: If you are attempting to overcome the contradictions you encounter in the world, there is no book with an objective explanation. There only the books with metaphor, allegory, fables, and myths.
Perhaps. But the points I raise above remain that which I have managed to think myself into believing is a reasonable assessment of the human condition in what I presume to be a No God world.