God and morality

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible certainly praises the having of certain traits of character, as does the Gita. And a few of them overlap pretty well.

This is a Red Letter Day! I am so proud of you! You acknowledged the point I made. Woo-hoo!

Ah, so dramatic. I give you credit when you deserve credit. No problem there.

[Immanuel Can]

You should already have found, and internalized, that I do not regard you as an authority in these matters.

I'm not concerned. Nor am I asking you that you should. We can stick to the text, and it will show us the truth, either way.

My concerns extend beyond, far beyond, a specific text from a specific tradition, expressed in a certain mood, at certain time in history.

Well, the text is the thing being believed. So regardless of you or me, the text will stay the text.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, the text is the thing being believed. So regardless of you or me, the text will stay the text.

Not quite. Here, the text is being examined. And it is being examined by a diverse cohort that has on the whole passed beyond a capability of even having *faith* (as you put it, as the text puts it).

The message in the text is eyed with suspicion and also with ridicule — generally. Since most of philosophical mind have been extruded into post-Christianity, your zealous presentation of it, without being capable of offering an explanation by way of philosophical concepts, influences and convinces no one. And if your audience is Gary whatever message you are trying to communicate is not received.

This is one reason why a far more developed metaphysical philosophy, with developed and linguistically scientific terminology, may better set up the possibility of illuminating the meaning in the text. Since — this is my view — the meaning in the Bhagavad Gita chapter 16 is about what happens to a soul in this world who turns from the metaphysical dimension of ‘higher things’ (and higher pleasures) down into sheer materialism and to use a conventional word, brutality. That “demonic appetite” can be understood by way of the language of addiction. Or sexual obsession. Or all the substitutes for love.

Similarly to the NT evangelists, the Vaishnava (Krishna worshipping) evangelists attempt to persuade people to recognize that there is a higher dimension. That is precisely what the early Christians offered. An alternative. And I can tell you for absolutely certain: the ‘preaching tools’ within these schools (their rhetoric, discourse, their communicated concepts) is infinitely more sophisticated than your blunt hammers.

You influence no one!

[Immanuel Can]

Well, the text is the thing being believed. So regardless of you or me, the text will stay the text.

Not quite. Here, the text is being examined.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Examine away.

Similarly to the NT evangelists, the Vaishnava (Krishna worshipping) evangelists attempt to persuade people to recognize that there is a higher dimension.

That's something so common as to be unremarkable. Most worldviews attempt to persuade people of "a higher dimension," but don't mean at all the same "higher dimension," nor anything close to the same terms of attaining contact with it.

You've said, essentially, nothing. Many religions also have books. Many religions have symbols. Many religions have followers. Many religions have ethics...all of these things are "similar," but at such a superficial level as to be utterly uninformative.

"Higher dimension."

Next you'll be telling us they're all the same, because all the participants have noses, "similarly to the NT evangelists."

[Walker]

Romans 2 may shed light on the truth quest …

14: Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15: So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them 16: on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus,b as proclaimed by my gospel.”

This sounds like mental illness is not a factor with heathens unless such condition causes deviation from particular inherent tendencies, that thanks to the divine intervention of The Holy Bible, have been kindly codified into the referenced law that only requires faith to follow even if one has been warped by biology or society. Therefore, for your truth quest it would be crucial for behooving to find this law and correlate one's nature to it until written on one's heart, if necessary, since The Holy Bible apparently holds a fascination.

[Fanman]

Did you spend two hours getting obsessive about this shit?

You can just scroll back through your own posts for the evidence. In fact I see that you have from the two more posts you wrote over the next hour or two to complain about me... but those are picking out the bits of posts that you feel personally insulted by, and skipping anything that criticises your rationale. Which is eaxctly the flaw I pointed to above. Thanks for underlining my point. It's a shame you won't understand it.

Stop trying to win an argument by digging yourself furhter into the same hole. Do some self-reflection please. I am busy today and bored of this anyway.

One thing I would like to know. You obviously went and asked an AI to agree with you about your claims regarding metaphysics not being metaphysical claims themselves. That's what you do. So the fact that you aren't printing the results of that enquiry suggests to me that you can't force an AI to agree with you on this. Is that why you are suddenly so much grumpier than before?

With someone like you, one has to be thorough when it comes to evidence and substantiation because you make a lot of things up. I'm just covering my bases for the record of the forum, to show that when asked, you were not capable, in any way, of substantiating your claims with evidence and instead tried to shift that burden to me. Now, if you believe what you're saying is real, that’s a you problem, but we both know it's not. And like I told you, as long as you continue to say negative things about me, I'm going to continue to defend myself as I see fit, whether you like it or not.

For the forum record, you started the abuse; I'm trying to put an end to it.

Do you understand?

I'm fairly sure I was correct that if you could get the AI to say that those claims weren't metaphysical you would have done so and declared that a victory. Is that what you are saying I made up? I tried asking an AI myself to double check and I got the expected response.

The forum record may as well show that in my early interractions with you I poked fun at you for writing stuff like:

Microsoft Copilot did not perceive any problems with my interpretations. AI output is epistemically significant when the prompt is neutral.

and

Why do you believe I would take your word, epistemology, and tone as having veracity? Rather than what I have worked on extensively and collaboratively with Microsoft Copilot for the past few days?

and that anybody who writes such pompous slop needs to have the piss taken out of them.

So I ask that pesky question again.... You obviously went and asked an AI to agree with you about your claims regarding metaphysics not being metaphysical claims themselves. That's what you do. So the fact that you aren't printing the results of that enquiry suggests to me that you can't force an AI to agree with you on this. Is that why you are suddenly so much grumpier than before?

Flash,

I don't see any issues with my statements; I believe they were proportional to our dialogue at the time. I don't see why one human being needs to defend their right to abuse another. Let's not sugarcoat how you have been speaking to me. It is abuse. I just decided to stand up to you directly.

You haven't stated what is specifically wrong with my statements in terms of cogency or coherence; you're just saying that I deserve to be abused for them. That's your personal preference, not the failing of an objective standard.

You don't have to agree with the statements you quoted from our earlier exchanges. You don't even have to like them. But if they're going to be criticised on a philosophy forum, then the criticism should be philosophical. By calling them flawed based on your personal preference, you are taking them out of context. That should be obvious to anyone who claims a superior understanding of philosophy.

Grumpy? I've never felt better. I explicitly informed you in a previous post that my use of AI is personal. That means it is my prerogative to share what information I see fit based on my work with it — that is fair and reasonable. Whether or not AI agreed with me is not the pertinent question. If you think you can coerce me into giving you information, you are living in an alternate reality. When I didn't respond to you asking me the first time, you should have understood that.

From my perspective, the real issue is that the question I posed initially (10 pages ago):

"However, I could be mistaken. If I am, can any of the interlocutors provide a sound example of a distinctly metaphysical conclusive answer?"

remains unanswered.

Whether AI agrees with me, disagrees with me, or was never consulted is secondary to that point. Your response to that question was to cite the SEP and a YouTube video, but without specifically showing where and why your objection was validated by those citations

So, there's no actual answer on the forum record. I responded to you in that context with my work on the omnipotence paradox, but my argument went unanswered.

That is what the record shows.

[FlashDangerpants]

lol