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I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
Forgive me but this sounds like you need a therapist or priest and I don't think you'll find either here on TPF.I feel my soul is rotten — javi2541997 -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
I'm not sure I understand what you are asking, javi. As a moral naturalist, I believe the "affect" on me has been to help me daily to be a more effective moral agent who is also free of superstitions. :strong:I know those will affect my spirit because I believe I have one. But how would affect you 180 proof, if you reject spirituality? — javi2541997
The "aim or cause" is to develop habits of "moral judgment" (i.e. virtues) in order to help reduce your apparent anxiety at 'inconsistently choosing' to follow rules (i.e. "obey religious commandments"). I assumed I'd made this clear in my previous posts. :confused:What is the aim or cause of improving my moral judgment according to your beliefs and ideas? -
Existentialism
IIRC, an existentialist would say you're not committed if you remain able to "abandon" them afterwards.Am I free to abandon my commitments? — Ludwig V
They are not commitments in the existential (e.g. "leap-of-faith") sense.If so, how are they authentic and essential?
You are free to "leap" but not free of the consequences (i.e. falling).If not, how am I free?
This is called "passive nihilism" or "bad faith".I'm not even clear what is wrong with being inauthentic, if that's what I choose to be sometimes.
IIRC, one cannot "choose" bad faith since bad faith consists in the denial of free choice (i.e. commitment) such as "What can I do? Shit happens. I can't do anything about this" etc ... Bad faith means conformity, or banality, and passivity over agency – not a "reason" or "choice" but rationalization instead.The idea of bad faith suggests a reason, but a moral one, which means it can be a choice. -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
Yes. Consider the 'naturalistic morality' I've pointed out already ...... my intention is to see ethics objectively. Is there a universal principle of good and bad? — javi2541997
And furthermore:Reducing suffering is like reducing illness: though the local customs of morality (or public health) vary, the problem confronted is the same for every member of the human species. How can it not be? — 180 Proof
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/892545
From the perspective of a 'naturalistic moral agent' one judges whether "lying" or "honesty" reduces needless suffering (right) or fails to reduce needless suffering (wrong) and then one acts accordingly. Practice – learning by trial and error application of this principle (criterion) – gradually improves (habitualizes) moral judgment/conduct.What about lying and honesty? Etc. -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
:roll:We create our own values, therefore we are gods, although small. — bert1 -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
After all, "the Church" invented "Christian Ethics and Values" which, in effect, "kidnapped" pre-religious, naturalistic morality just like other cults had always done and still do. As Plato's Euthyphro implies: morality and laws cannot follow from the decrees of "God or gods", javi. What do you think makes Kierkegaard's "teleological suspension of the ethical" possible? Ethics (re: eusocial norms of judgment and conduct) and religion (re: cultic paths to salvation/liberation) are independent of each other, even though the latter usually "kidnaps" the former. However, Good is not dependent on "God or gods" and vice versa.It seems to me that 'Christian Ethics and Values' (or whatever we can call it) is kidnapped by the Church. — javi2541997
Maybe you have an emotional need for "faith" (i.e. magical thinking) but it's the unbelievability – hope for things too good to be true – that is in conflict with your reason and/or lived experience. Maybe you'd benefit from therapy rather than reading about the 'spiritual torments' of others and online discussions like this one ...This is why I struggle with religious faith. -
What happens when we die?
Well then, apparently, it's "inevitable" for me to "praise or blame" ... :mask:I realised that we are all doing inevitable things and are not worthy of praise or blame. — Truth Seeker -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
:up:My response to that has been to return to the source material, at which point, what is the point of religion? — Tzeentch -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith
In sum, 'churches' – organized/official cults – are confidence games (i.e. pyramid schemes) and 'heretics' make the grift harder to keep going and harder to keep the suckers in the game. Like any other racket, customers (victims) straying from the authorized script(ure) is bad for business. IMO, the more 'missionary' and corrupt a religion is, the less tolerant of 'heresy' it becomes. Read histories of (e.g.) Catholicism and Islam.Why do they do this? — javi2541997 -
Understanding ethics in the case of Artificial IntelligenceI've not drawn any "picture of morality". My point is that the 'AGI', not humans, will decide whether or not to impose on itself and abide by (some theory of) moral norms, or codes of conduct; besides, its 'sense of responsibility' may or may not be consistent with human responsibility. How or why 'AGI' decides whatever it decides will be done so for its own reasons which humans might or might not be intelligent enough to either grasp or accept.
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Understanding ethics in the case of Artificial IntelligenceI should have written "I don't follow your thinking". And I still don't since it doesn't seem that you are responding to what I actually wrote.
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ExistentialismI don't quite follow you. As I read them, Kierkegaard and Sartre are existentialists (i.e. commitments which manifest an 'essence') and Camus is an absurdist (i.e. striving against both 'having an essence' (idealism) and 'not having an essence' (nihilism)) – none, however, are nihilists (i.e. 'not having an essence', (therefore) 'no commitments' (i.e. arbitrarily riot for the sake of rioting, obey for the sake of obeying, f*ck for the sake of f*cking, belief for the sake of believing, kill for the sake of killing, etc)).
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I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faith:up:
Not at all. I read their writings much later.I wonder to what extent Kierkegaard or Dostoviesky inspired you ... — javi2541997
No doubt. My claim, however, is that, applied or not, 'naturalistic morality' is always applicable wherever and whenever there is needless suffering.The code of conduct is not universally applied.
Reducing suffering is like reducing illness: though the local customs of morality (or public health) vary, the problem confronted is the same for every member of the human species. How can it not be?What we think, in the Western world, as norms and values can be very different in the East. The basic notion of how to act accordingly to ethical principles is still blurred.
:clap: :smirk:
:up: :up: Oh yes (decades ago for me, especially Paz).I find Ortega y Gasset an important counterpoint to Unamuno. A struggle to understand experience.
As an "American", Octavio Paz hits me hard with many of the same questions. — Paine
I don't because, in the following sense, I'm neither "spiritual" nor "religious":Do you feel the same? — javi2541997
"Spiritual" means to me haunted by ghosts (and "religious" belonging to a spiritual community). Th[ere] may be proof of feeling haunted, [but] not "proof of ghosts" (i.e. disembodied entities). — 180 Proof -
TPF Quote CabinetEaster? :sweat:
Forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today. — Lawrence Krauss -
If there was an omniscient and omnibenevolent person on earth what do you think would happen?
Junkies may opt out too, but ... :smirk:You may opt out. — Vera Mont -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faithI was raised Roman Catholic, educated for twelve years in strict, working class Catholic schools, served as an altar boy for almost ten years and was an "A" student in religious studies throughout. In the light of church history as I studied it, 'God, the bible & the catechism' stopped making sense to me by the age of 15 and I discovered I had no (emotional) need to trust in / hope for mysteries, miracles or magical beings.
As for morals, my intuition has always been that suffering is the universal problem for morality just as illness is the universal problem for medicine (I was raised by a single mother who was nurse). Moral norms, or codes, of conduct are customary rules-of-thumb and, while not "objective", they are universal in applicability – I'd more or less worked that out by the end of high school from taking my first philosophy class as a senior in which I became confident of 'the universality of the problem of suffering' from reading both Kǒngzǐ's and Hillel's negative^ versions of "The Golden Rule", and Buddha's "Four Noble Truths", and Epicurus' concept of good: "pleasure as absence of pain". It took several more years of study and lived experience before I understood that, in fact, ethics is naturalistic and therefore objective (though you, @Tom Storm & many others don't buy that). And then I began studying Spinoza ... Well, anyway, my modus vivendi after four decades remains:
striving to overcome my suffering by reducing the suffering of others — 180 Proof
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/philosophy/the-negative-and-positive-version-of-the-golden-rule-t16511.html ^ -
I am deeply spiritual, but I struggle with religious faithI'm an anti-supernaturalist. About forty-five years ago, while attending a Jesuit high school, I lost 'my religion'. Since then, for me 'spiritual' means celebrating (i.e. stomping) the blues both ¹aesthetically and ²ethically – ¹never separating joys & sorrows and ²striving to overcome my suffering by reducing the suffering of others. Ergo – to paraphrase Camus – stupidity³ is the only sin without god. :death: :flower:
³(i.e. harmful, and incorrigible misuse of judgment or refusal to think) -
If there was an omniscient and omnibenevolent person on earth what do you think would happen?I think you've made my 'totalitarian mindset' point (à la Brave New World ... Nozick's Experience Machine thought-experiment ... the android Norman's speech in "I, Mudd") for me, mam – I've no reason to doubt that this "all-knowing omnibenevolent entity" would coopt us into engineering a humanly inescapable menagerie ("Matrix") for our own good that optimally simulates "the illusion of agency".
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US Election 2024 (All general discussion)Here's (a link to post with youtube discussing) why an explosion of terroristic political violence is more likely than not after Biden is reelected this fall (or even sooner in June/July when Criminal Defendent-1 is convicted of dozens of felonies in Manhattan) ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/892493 -
If there was an omniscient and omnibenevolent person on earth what do you think would happen?
:up:[If] we were handed every solution, many would feel they had their autonomy of knowledge acquisition stolen from them. — Benj96
If this entity is omniscient, then it not only knows more that what any of us can know but it also knows better than all of us what is good for all us. No room left for 'human agency' which would be contrary to the entity's all-knowing omnibenevolence. How can such an entity not be the Keeper (caretaker, game warden) of 'the human zoo'?I don't understand how "to improve everyone's welfare" is a totalitarian mindset. — Vera Mont
"We shall take care of them."
"Eminently practical."
"And we shall serve them. And you will be happy. And controlled."
\\//_ :nerd: -
Understanding ethics in the case of Artificial IntelligenceI suspect we will probably have to wait for 'AGI' to decide for itself whether or not to self-impose moral norms and/or legal constraints and what kind of ethics and/or laws it may create for itself – superceding human ethics & legal theories? – if it decides it needs them in order to 'optimally function' within (or without) human civilization.
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Christianity - an influence for good?
As Freddy Zarathustra saysIf we wish to understand the thought processes of the Islamic State or the Taliban [or Christian Fundamentalisms], we need only read the Old Testament [& NT Pauline Letters]. — alan1000
In truth, there was only one christian and he died on the cross.
The Abrahamic doctrine of 'vicarious redemption via human sacrifice' (i.e. martyrdom, scapegoat violence) is evil .. à la "theodicy" (e.g. otherworldly ends justify all suffering means in this world). IMO, even a casual reading of the last fifteen or so centuries of history shows that 'Western Civilization' has developed inspite of Christianity and not because of it. -
ExistentialismWhat I mean is that the difference between "arbitrary" (as you put it) and "subjective", IMO, is the difference between nihilism and existentialism, respectively.
:up: -
What happens when we die?"Clinical death" is not irreversible brain decomposition in the case of "NDE / RED" and therefore only a medical status and not a biological terminus.
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US Election 2024 (All general discussion):clap: :lol:
Here's the "real world", kid –
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/890076
– a historically-informed US voter's perspective on the pending US presidential election of 2024. -
Existentialism
How about 'subjective commitment' instead?An existential(arbitrary)commitment doesn't seem very satisfactory. — Ludwig V -
What happens when we die?:fire:
:100:
:up: :up:
Resuscitation is not resurrection (or reincarnation). Death is irreversible brain decomposition. Unless 'dis-embodied subjectivity' (i.e. flat earth) is the case, "NDE" or "RED" cannot be anything but a false memory illusion. And yes, during my twenties while tripping on various hallucinogens, I had occasionally "recalled being dead" like the song says
:victory: :cool:She said
I know what it's like to be dead
...
And you're making me feel like
I've never been born
Or maybe, as Freddy suggests, you "keep coming back" unable to do anything else but watch ourselves make the same good and bad decisions again and again and again ... unless you learn while still alive here and now to be happy – to affirm – eternally reliving every moment of this life: the only life you will ever have.You keep coming back until you learn that chasing idols (e.g., money, fame, power, etc.) won't make you happy. — RogueAI
Amor fati, no?! :death: :flower: -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
:rofl:Again, you state that Trump is losing support, I go check the polls to inform myself whether this is really true or not, and turns out he's not losing support. — boethius -
Counter Argument for The Combination Problem for PanpsychismYou can rely on wikipedia for information and I will keep on thinking through the presuppositions and implications of philosophical topics (e.g. 'panpsychism = animism').
Explain how you/we know, or have compelling reasons to assume, that "consciousness is not physical" (or consistent with – subject to – physical laws).
You quote me but do not address the points I raise and yet expect me to reply to your non sequiturs. :roll:
Agreed, but that's not my assumption. That's a strawman.It is an unfounded assumption that the only things that exist in our reality are things we can find with our physical senses and science. — Patterner
180 Proof
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