Philosophy Now Forum

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 1:29 am
Bottom line [mine]: With immortality and salvation on the line, a God, the God will either make it abundantly clear that He does in fact exist or He will sit back and do nothing

I don’t see immortality and salvation as being essential to the existence of God, the God. Depending on how this entity is defined, there may or may not be immortality or salvation. Wouldn’t it be enough if God, the God, were only omniscient and omnipotent and were lacking of any power to grant salvation or immortality?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 am

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 9:01 am
What's the criteria for "observations that seem clearly to indicate the existence of God"? You don't have any, do you?

How about the Second Coming of Christ? That'll do it for me.

Of course. Your criteria is another miraculous occurrence.

Again, and again and again:

What Is At Stake Here?!

1] objective morality on this side of the grave
2] immortality and salvation on the other side

Stakes that, to me, could not possibly be higher. That's precisely why those like IC argue, "Wake up! Accept Jesus Christ as your own personal savior or your soul will be damned for all of eternity!!

That's why many of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...will tell you much the same thing.

"Okay, Mr. Moral Objectivist espousing one or another religious path", I ask, "what can you provide me with as evidence such that with so much at stake I'll know that I should choose your path?"

That's not a reasonable question?

Well, if you ever do come across anything truly extraordinary in the way of a demostrable argument for the existence of a God, the God, by all means, bring it to my attention.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 amSure. Look for the extraordinary and miss the ordinary.

Extraordinary, ordinary...take your pick. What evidence do you have that transcends the arguments I make regarding the existential relationship between value judgments and dasein and, instead, establishes that your own path is the right one?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 am They wrote that their self "transcends" dasein?

Yes, both gib and Maia accepted the arguments I made about how, had things been different in their life, they might be embracing just the opposite of what they believed about the trucker protest in Canada [gib] and Paganism [Maia].

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 amThat's not a "self transcending dasein". It's literally the exact opposite ... it's a "self conforming to dasein".

Transcend means :
- to go beyond or rise above a limit, or be greater than something ordinary - Cambridge
- to go beyond the limits of; overstep; exceed - Collins

A self which transcends dasein is not limited by dasein. In that case, had their lives been different they would still feel the same about truckers and Paganism. Their feelings would be unaltered by changing circumstances.

They did not embrace a self. They embraced a Self. For gib it revolved around his intuitive emotional reaction to the world around us. For Maia it revolved around her intuitive spiritual reaction. That she then "somehow" connected "in her head" to the Goddess and to Nature.

Look, with both of them our exchanges consisted of hundreds and hundreds posts. I'm not going wade through them all. But they are both still posting. Gib at ILP and Maia here. So, IM them yourself and try to clear it all up.

But both of them -- as I understood them -- agreed that had their day to day lives been different they might have ended up defending different -- even opposite -- value judgments there and here.

But, from my frame of mind, what allowed them to go "beyond" that in their lives is that they were in possession of this intuitive/spiritual "I just know" Intinsic Self that keeps them ever on the optimal path.

Because my arguments here are always aimed at the moral and political and spiritual objectivists. I challenge them [like you] to note how my understanding of dasein in my signature threads is not applicable to them given a particular context. They'll either go there or they won't.

And if they do go there we'll either be more or less successful in communicating our differences.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 amYeah. You're not actually talking to me.

Okay, if you say so.

But, from my end, with you, I'm never really sure exactly how you do connect the dots [even in your head] between objective morality and religion. Given particular sets of circumstances. Same with those here like AJ. Again at least with Immanuel Can and henry quirk it comes down to a particular God/religious path.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 amIf all it does is explain the reason for conflicts, then what's the problem?

Can you state the problem in one sentence?

Again, it's the manner in which the moral objectivists among us [God and No God] argue that dasein as I construe it is not applicable to them that enables them to insist that [God or No God] an objective morality is within our reach. Theologically, deontologically or ideological. And then those like Satyr who anchor it all to biological imperatives.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:01 amIn the clouds.

I can't extract any meaning out of this at all.

Okay, note an issue in which conflicting goods have been argued [God or No God, philosophically or otherwise] down through the ages.

Note how, in your view, an objective morality can be acquired in regard to it...as any number of objectivists here will argue.

I'll note how and why I am unable to come to the same conclusion. I'll note how, re my signature threads, "I" have, as a moral nihilist, become "fractured and fragmented" instead.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 9:37 pm
What Is At Stake Here?!

1] objective morality on this side of the grave
2] immortality and salvation on the other side

I have said elsewhere that I think that God, the God, can exist independently of salvation and immortality, and I don’t think it is too much of a stretch for God, the God, to exist, strictly speaking, without need for morality as we understand it.

So, please, lay out for me why 1] and 2] are at stake when the question is whether God, the God, exists.

As always, thank you for your comments.

commonsense wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:15 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:33 am

commonsense wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:39 pmJust as your knowledge of a perturbed condition of objectivists is based on extensive experience, couldn’t a theist state that his/her knowledge of the existence of God, the God, is founded on the extrapolation of many, many, many personal experiences?

Sure, someone could say that. But one way or another they can either translate their own personal encounters with God into the sort of proof that others can experience themselves or they can't.

OK, but let’s say that the theist is not only saying he’s had such experiences, but he/she firmly believes he/she has actually had these experiences in reality but just cannot find words that will describe these experiences.

Again: with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, someone had better find the words and offer demonstrable proof of their God's existence, or...or why on earth should I or anyone else believe them?

commonsense wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:15 pmHis/her perception of reality may differ from that of others, but that perception informs reality for this atheist. Of course for this perception to really be reality it would have to involve a shared perception of multiple observers.

To me, atheists are no exception. They may believe there is No God "in their head", but that's not the same as demonstrating that in fact there isn't one. It's just that the atheists are not the ones making the claim that something exists. And, from my frame of mind, it is far, far more the responsibility of those who make a claim to prove it than for those who don't accept the claim to disprove it. But that's just me.

commonsense wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:15 pmNonetheless, our theist is adamant that his/her perception is both reality and evidence, even if we disagree. The theist “knows” that God, the God, exists. Our theist insists that this is also true for anyone who thinks the same.

Then back to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

commonsense wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:15 pmIt seems to me that the theists claims can be defeated, but that there is no way to convince the theist that the claims are untenable.

I don't agree. How do I demonstrate to any of the above religionists that their claim is wrong. Going back, say, to all that I do not know about the existence of existence itself.

commonsense wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:39 pmCouldn’t the theist say that the experiences are the evidence? How should I deny those experiences, and wouldn’t I be obliged to say that for at least the theists who make that claim, God exists? Could the theist propose that if God exists for one then he/she exists for all? And could the theist assert that the many Gods are merely the many interpretations of the God?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:33 am Well, again, can he or she convey to me what those experiences were? Are they experiences that I might be able to embody myself? Is there any way the experiences can transcend a subjective/subjunctive frame of mind grasped by a particular individual so as to suggest something of far more profound importance that others can experience in turn?

commonsense wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:15 pmThe experiences do not transcend the subjective, but how can we deny them? Could it be, as the theist might claim, that agnostics and atheists are just blind to a real experience?

All I can note is the gap between what we claim to believe in our head and our capacity to actually demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe it in turn. Then the gap here between the either/or world and the is/ought world.

Then the part that, in my view, most disturbs the God and the No God moral objectivists among us: that how each of us comes to believe what we do about right and wrong and good and evil is rooted far more in the arguments I makes in 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

...than in anything I have come upon in philosophy forums that might convince me that, in using the tools of philosophy, an actual deontological ethics is within reach.

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 1:04 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 9:37 pm
What Is At Stake Here?!

1] objective morality on this side of the grave
2] immortality and salvation on the other side

I have said elsewhere that I think that God, the God, can exist independently of salvation and immortality, and I don’t think it is too much of a stretch for God, the God, to exist, strictly speaking, without need for morality as we understand it.

Sure, that may well be the case. But that is certainly not the frame of mind the overwhelming preconference of God World folks embrace. At least not regarding the hundreds and hundreds that I have known. For them religion is all about connecting the dots between God's moral Commandments here and now that the fate of "I" there and then.

A God that is not all about those things? Of what use is He to us then?

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 1:04 amSo, please, lay out for me why 1] and 2] are at stake when the question is whether God, the God, exists.

Why? Again, because the vast majority of a God, the God, my God men and women insist that it is.

Me? I'm an atheist/agnostic/nihilist. But, if there is a God, I'd expect Him to revolve around morality and immortality. What's the point of God and religion [to us] otherwise?