Philosophy Now Forum

Anything which is not part of the natural environment is a biological extension, the means all structures, institutions, systems, methods, meanings and yes religions, and morality itself is a biological expression as surely as the beaver's dam is an expression of the biological nature of the beaver. So, forget about religion giving us morality, we gave religion morality and with changing times and knowledge morality needs to change. The desert religions we have inherited are incapable of change, they are written in stone which means they no longer serve people but the people serve these antiquated system/s. The source of all meaning, values, moralities, ideas, concepts, etc.., is our common biology. In order for humanity to be rational morality must be based upon the well-being of life, read our common biology anything else is missing the mark.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 11:30 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:03 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:39 pmWe seem to construe the meaning of "context" here differently.

From my end, it revolves around any particular assessment of God and religion in discussions that revolve in turn around these factors:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path

For you it might be something other than these aspects of human "spirituality".

How one might define or deduce God and religion into existence is only of interest to me when those definitions and deductions are taken out into the world that we live and interact in. In particular when those interactions result in conflict.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm I use context as it is defined in dictionaries.

Dictionary definitions are, up to a point, fine. But in regard to my own main interest in philosophy -- "how ought one to live in a world awash in both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?" -- I prefer that they be introduced to and intertwined in actual sets of circumstances.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 1) Will you demonstrate no god and define spiritual path?

I won't because I can't. And I can't because how would I go about it? I presume that somehow, if "a God, the God" does in fact exist, He is intertwined in the understanding of existence itself. And where would any of us start in grasping that?

But then back to the argument that it is incumbent upon those who argue that something does in fact exist to provide evidence to substantiate it. And not the obligation of others to demonstrate that it does not.

As for a spiritual path, let's first go to the dictionary there too:

Spiritual:
1. relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
2. relating to religion or religious belief.

The path then being one of hundreds and hundreds that have been proposed down through the ages by one or another God or No God religious denomination.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 2) My path has been full of experiences that I interpret. Is your path straight and narrow which doesn't get interpreted?

Interpretation is precisely my point. However, I root it subjectively/existentially/problematically in dasein. As encompassed in the OP of these threads:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And my own path "here and now" is "fractured and fragmented" in regard to religion and morality.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 3) Human existence is not profound. We exist.

Given what particular context? Are you arguing that "in general" this is applicable to all of us? If so, imagine traveling throughout Ukraine right now and arguing this.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm 4) You have certainties which I doubt.

Then note them. But note them in regard to a particular set of circumstances. Or, sure, stay up in "intellectual clouds" with all the others here inclined to discuss things as one of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

But if that is your preference, I'd steer clear of me.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:34 pm Questioning the existence of God does not make a person immoral.
Atheists know right from wrong and act accordingly.

I can accept atheists without conflict unless they challenge me.

Just another general description intellectual contraption to me. It might mean anything to anyone.

You are dodging your own answers to your own points.

You should just say to each of your points, "I don't know." because you don't.

How about this: we both move on to others.

Why are people calling Bitcoin a religion?
The Conversation website
by Joseph P. Laycock
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University

Critics highlight irrationality

With this in mind, why would anyone claim that Bitcoin is a religion?

Some commentators seem to be making this claim to steer investors away from Bitcoin. Emerging market fund manager Mark Mobius, in an attempt to tamp down enthusiasm about cryptocurrency, said that “crypto is a religion, not an investment.”

And, sure, that'll work with/for some. Those who connote religion with mumbo-jumbo supernatural gibberish for the weak-minded. On the other hand, to the extent that it does become a part of global economy there will be those who don't worship and adore it but are more than willing to pursue it if it means sustaining their true religion: the bottom line.

And then those who go here...

His statement, however, is an example of a false dichotomy fallacy, or the assumption that if something is one thing, it cannot be another. There is no reason that a religion cannot also be an investment, a political system or nearly anything else.

Religion can be practically anything under the sun if you choose to call something a religion. And for whatever personal reason you need to think of it as a religion. Religion by its very nature -- connecting the dots between "I" and "all there is" -- is going to be a profoundly subjective rendering of reality. How can mine possibly be the same as yours or his or hers? Overlapping perhaps but understood in precisely the same way?

Mobius’ point, though, is that “religion,” like cryptocurrency, is irrational. This criticism of religion has been around since the Enlightenment, when Voltaire wrote, “Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.”

In this case, labeling Bitcoin a “religion” suggests that bitcoin investors are fanatics and not making rational choices.

Here, regarding this "religion" "I" -- rooted almost entirely in dasein -- am at a loss. I know practically nothing about either Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. So I can only leave it to others who do to squabble over that. As for religion, fanaticism and rationality, it depends [for me] on the extent to which someone insists that their own religion is the One True Path to morality on this side of the grave and/or immortality and salvation on the other. Insistence without actual demonstrable proof.

That's everywhere here. And, when confronted with it, I'm more inclined towards the "psychology of objectivism". A belief in God and/or religion because it comforts and consoles you to believe it...and because it provides one with an anchor for the One True Self. Or the Soul.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

Why are people calling Bitcoin a religion?
The Conversation website
by Joseph P. Laycock
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University

Bitcoin as good and wholesome

On the other hand, some Bitcoin proponents have leaned into the religion label. McCook’s articles use the language of religion to highlight certain aspects of Bitcoin culture and to normalize them.

For example, “stacking sats” – the practice of regularly buying small fractions of bitcoins – sounds weird. But McCook refers to this practice as a religious ritual, and more specifically as “tithing.” Many churches practice tithing, in which members make regular donations to support their church. So this comparison makes sat stacking seem more familiar.

You tell me.

My own main concern with religion revolves around connecting the dots between morality on this side of the grave and immortality on the other side. To the extent that some here might construe Bitcoin as a religion they are really talking about what I would call objectivism. And here it could be Bitcoin, it could be anything.

Objectivists are those who think that they are in touch with the "real me" -- the soul? -- and that this real me is in sync with the only rational manner in which to think about something. And in thinking about it that way you are driven to behave so as to sustain this belief. Zealously at times.

What does one use Bitcoin for? To become wealthy. Why does one want to become wealthy? To be able purchase anything and everything you and your loved ones desire. Consumption [mindless or otherwise] then becoming the true religion. Bitcoin is just the means to that end.

While for some people religion may be associated with the irrational, it is also associated with what religion scholar Doug Cowan calls “the good, moral and decent fallacy.” That is, some people often assume if something is really a religion, it must represent something good. People who “stack sats” might sound weird. But people who “tithe” could sound principled and wholesome.

Okay, you stack sats. That may or may not over time earn you money. But how likely is it to bring you immortality? And as a moral issue doesn't it basically revolve around sustaining your own selfish interests. So, how might any particular individual might construe all of this in terms of how they have come to understand religion?

You tell me.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

“God is dead”: What Nietzsche really meant
The death of God didn’t strike Nietzsche as an entirely good thing. Without a God, the basic belief system of Western Europe was in jeopardy.

Scotty Hendricks at Big Think website

It has been more than 130 years since the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared: “God is Dead” (or Gott ist tot, in German), giving philosophy students a collective headache that’s lasted from the 19th century until today. It is, perhaps, one of the best known statements in all of philosophy, well known even to those who have never picked up a copy of The Gay Science, the book from which it originates. But do we know exactly what he meant — or, perhaps more importantly, what it means for us?

Is this a headache for you? Or are you convinced that not only do you know what Nietzsche meant by this but how close he came to grasping the most rational manner in which to encompass the death of God?

Your own understanding of it of course.

My understanding of it starts with the assumption that by "God" we must go all the way back to an understanding of existence itself. After all, aren't Gods invented as a way in which to zero in on the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions:

1] why does something exists and not nothing?
2] why this something and not something else?

Then the part beyond the ontological itself...coming up with an actual teleological purpose for something instead of nothing.

Finally, it all coming down to your own individual purpose on this side of the grave. A purpose that can only be relevant given the assumption that "I" continues on the other side of the grave as well.

Nietzsche was an atheist for his adult life and so he didn’t mean that there was a God who had actually died, but rather that our idea of one had.

Though of course that is no trivial pursuit. After all, your idea of God or No God [God dead or alive] can go a long way toward motivating your behaviors with and around others. And that's the part where actual consequences emerge.

After the Enlightenment, the idea of a universe that was governed by physical laws and not by divine providence had become mainstream. Philosophy had shown that governments no longer needed to be organized around the idea of divine right to be legitimate, but rather by the consent or rationality of the governed — that large and consistent moral theories could exist without reference to God.

And what brought this on? Two things in particular:

1] the explosion of scientific discovery able to explain so much that was once attributed to God
2] the advent of capitalism and the shift from an "other worldly" religious orientation to one that focused more on how you fared on this side of the grave. Morality and the market?

This was a tremendous event. Europe no longer needed God as the source for all morality, value, or order in the universe; philosophy and science were capable of doing that for us. This increasing secularization of thought in the West led the philosopher to realize that not only was God dead but also that human beings had killed him with their scientific revolution, their desire to better understand the world.

Yes, if approached from the perspective of a general understanding of historical events. But each of us as individuals is still going to have "personal experiences" that can result in many far more truly unique trajectories.

The part I attribute to dasein.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

"is this a headache for you?"

Me, no. My official position on 'immortality' of some kind is rather open... but if I had to bet, I'd say it's curtains when you die. But I can't prove it, obviously, and however small there is still the chance that I'm wrong. Hey, I don't pretend to know, pal.

But I'll tell ya what I do know. I do know I don't, and can't, believe that if there is something to 'immortality', it is something in the way of and for the purposes of the abrahamic monotheism branch of religions.

Now the reason I'm experiencing no existential crisis here is because I've ruled out the christian concepts of redemption, sin, and damnation, in any interpretation or idea I might have about the nature of this alleged 'immortality'. That is to say, nothing of the real reality, the real truth that there is immortality and souls - if indeed all true - would be related to, and accurately described by, the Bible or the Koran.

But the point is that there is nothing at stake in believing or not believing in any of this because nothing is gained or lost by it. It's just part of reality. I wouldn't believe in anything like karma. Certainly not 'sin'. No heavens and hells. Just some kind of seamless transition into some other mode of experience, whatever that might mean.

And all this happens no matter what you do or did in any life you have lived or will live.

But again, I reeely think it's curtains, bro. I'm just being generous here.

“God is dead”: What Nietzsche really meant
The death of God didn’t strike Nietzsche as an entirely good thing. Without a God, the basic belief system of Western Europe was in jeopardy.
Scotty Hendricks at Big Think website

The death of God didn’t strike Nietzsche as an entirely good thing. Without a God, the basic belief system of Western Europe was in jeopardy, as he put it in Twilight of the Idols: “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.”

And, in a sense, that is playing out now in America. What is the Blue State/Red State conflagration about if not [in part] the fear of millions that the Godless liberals are hell bent on deconstructing Christianity and taking America further in the direction of a postmodern hell. Killing the unborn, gay marriage, gender benders, foreigners invading the borders, an anything goes culture that takes us further and further away from Father Knows Best and the Cleavers.

One way or another, they fear the consequences of living in a world where, in the absence of a Christian foundation, America becomes increasingly more this alien landscape far, far removed the Word of God.

Nietzsche thought this could be a good thing for some people, saying: “… at hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead’, we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel illuminated by a new dawn.” A bright morning had arrived. With the old system of meaning gone, a new one could be created. But it came with risks — ones that could bring out the worst in human nature. Nietzsche believed that the removal of this system put most people at the risk of despair or meaninglessness. What could the point of life be without a God?

Indeed, what did Nietzsche then proceed to do? This: to replace the old religion with a new one. What is the Übermensch with his will to power but a new point of view regarding meaning and purpose in one's life. You can be among the masters rather than among the sheep...the slaves. You can forge a life that is superior to the Last Men.

A demigod admired and respected by those who recognize each other as above the herd.

True, no immortality and salvation on the other side. But [perhaps] through eternal return, eternal recurrence, you can repeat a life over and over again that is at least a superior one.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

what did Nietzsche then proceed to do?

Go nuts (if he wasn't off his bean to begin with) and try to make love to a horse.

From ILP:

felix dakat wrote: I accept Kant’s reasoning about why proofs of God and metaphysics in general don’t work. Reason is limited to phenomena which are products of the mind. For some of us that fact rolls over into an intuition that there is undefinable something more, e.g. Kant’s thing in itself.

In other words, Kant takes his own existential "leap of faith" to God. But, as well, given his own "private and personal" assumptions: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/ ... -christian

What's crucial for me regarding him is my own existential assumption that he recognized the need for a "transcending font" in order to make human morality...enforceable? No God, no Judgment Day. No Judgment Day and it all comes down to mere mortals -- lacking both omniscience and omnipotence -- squabbling over Good and Evil.

For example, the actual world that we live in today.

felix dakat wrote: Why? There is no object without a knower. But the knower is known only through the object known. In this instance the object is the text you are reading. Who are you the knower who is reading it? Or, in other words, what is consciousness? How does it arise ? How do you make intelligibility happen for yourself?

Prompting me, of course, to bring speculation of this sort all the way back to...
1] the gap
2] Rummy's Rule

felix dakat wrote: Your points 2 and 4 seem to have to do with objectifying phenomena and ideas. God is never a perception. The fact that I try to deal with this stuff at all is why you accuse me of “staying in the clouds” or whatever. How do you avoid it?

Note to others:

Of course: Yet more "up in the clouds" conjecture. You tell me what his point regarding "objectifying phenomena and ideas" means for all practical purposes. What he does, in my view, is avoid altogether taking his own beliefs about God to task, given point 2 and 4.

Those who believe in religion either acknowledge that their own spiritual path is but one of many -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... opulations -- or they don't think about it at all and simply fall back on a more or less blind leap of faith.

And I have no problem with that. A leap of faith to God is by no means necessarily irrational. Of course a God, the God might exist. Bringing us back around to point one.

As for theodicy, take your own God/spiritual path here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... t=theodicy

Let's discuss it.

felix dakat wrote: If your point 3 prevails then communication about metaphysics may be impossible. Even if we were to think we understand each other we may not. Dialogue is an exercise in futility.

No, the communication comes down to that which you believe is true about God or Existence "in your head" and that which you are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe is true in turn.

Taking into account of course the possibly of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds and Matrix realities. Then back to "the Gap" and "Rummy's Rule".

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 6:55 pm

what did Nietzsche then proceed to do?

Go nuts (if he wasn't off his bean to begin with) and try to make love to a horse.

Back to his "snippet" philosophy again!!

Pick one:

Pick one:

already did...

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 6:55 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 6:55 pm

what did Nietzsche then proceed to do?

Go nuts (if he wasn't off his bean to begin with) and try to make love to a horse.

Perhaps we should boot this one over to IC.

In creating humankind, the Christian God created minds that are in fact able to "go nuts". Among other things. For example: https://www.verywellmind.com/a-list-of- ... rs-2794776

So, beyond His "mysterious ways", why on Earth does IC suppose He brought all of these terrible afflictions into existence?


Now, Henry, let's move on to your deist God. He created Reality. And this Reality here on Earth includes all of these ghastly mental afflictions. Not to mention all of the hundreds and hundreds of what can be truly gruesome somatic conditions.

Then He just skedaddles from the scene and leaves us mere mortals behind to clean up after Him.

Give it your best Rational and Natural shot here: Why?

Why?

Why is there evil and disease and disaster?

Well, let me consult The Big Book of Deism...damn, it's all blank pages!

Guess I'll just go with I don't know.

I have my theories, of course, but I won't waste my time layin' 'em out for the likes of you.

Now, Henry, let's move on to your deist God. He created Reality. And this Reality here on Earth includes all of these ghastly mental afflictions. Not to mention all of the hundreds and hundreds of what can be truly gruesome somatic conditions.

Then He just skedaddles from the scene and leaves us mere mortals behind to clean up after Him. Give it your best Rational and Natural shot here: Why?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed May 11, 2022 6:33 pmWhy is there evil and disease and disaster?

Well, let me consult The Big Book of Deism...damn, it's all blank pages!

Guess I'll just go with I don't know.

Again, that's what makes Deism all the more preposterous as a religion. There is no Scripture to fall back on. There is no received Word. God is simply a "thought up" explanation for Reality. And then taking the general dictum that this God created humankind in order that each of us "own" ourselves and "follow the dictates of Reason and Nature", any and all Deists can then claim that however they think and feel about any of the moral conflagrations that continue to beset us, it is, what, interchangeable with any other?

Unless you count this:

"Thomas Paine is especially noteworthy both for his contributions to the cause of the American Revolution and for his writings in defense of Deism alongside the criticism of Abrahamic religions. In The Age of Reason (1793 – 1794) and other writings, he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. The Age of Reason was short, readable, and probably the only Deistic treatise that continues to be read and influential today." wiki

Maybe Deists ought to fall back on WWPD: What Would Paine Do?

On the other hand, there are any number of things that you seem absolutely adamant about knowing. For example, everything under the Sun when it comes to conflicting moral and political value judgments. You are absolutely certain that if others don't think as you do they wrong, dumb and diseased.

But, come on, what is the connection between that and God's Reality? Well, you don't know. But fuck God Himself if His own Rational and Natural value judgments aren't wholly in sync with yours.

It's not that He has a Judgment Day for you, but that you have a Judgment Day for Him.

Something like that?