From where I stand, good faith philosophers pursue philosophy for its intrinsic worth and mostly if not wholly shun its potential instrumental values for the ego, such as those of becoming famous, becoming financially wealthy, or gaining greater powers over others within society. Socrates, the homeless bum wanderer, certainly fits this description. — javra

I think this is a misleading and false dichotomy. What you call instrumental values aren't inherently bad. Why should wealth and power be bad?

I don't. As for the book on dating I've mentioned, you seemed to have overlooked the beginning part of the paragraph from which you pulled out your quote:

Well, to start off, what I was saying is that there is philosophical fluff that drowns out the good quality non-fluff philosophy in today's connected world. Fluff, then, is not sophistic BS but merely superficial and in due degree inconsequential.
— javra

Nor do I understand the entailment between the book "If the Buddha Dated" and Buddhism per se as philosophy. The first is relative fluff, the second ain't.

Like I said, I didn't know the book (although I've looked it up in the meantime). What caught my attention was that your description of it was like a decent reference to Buddhist philosophy even when gathered from a fluffy book; which is why I thought the book was an ironic presentation of the Buddhist teachings, while you did away with the ironic part in the way you summarized it.

Conflict is the way of the world, a given, the natural state (also see agonism).
— baker

As is harmony and happiness. Or are these somehow unnatural?

They are less salient.

And who ever even once mentioned "overcoming", to not even mention "banishing", conflict per se in general??? This would be projecting things into what I've said that were never there.

I was working with the standard lotus imagery.

Here, to put it in Buddhist terms, not until Nirvana is actualized on a global scale for one and all--in other words, not till the literal end of cosmic time--will there ever be a time when we're not knee-deep in existential conflicts. And the end of time is nowhere on the horizon.
One swims/navigates the waters of life; one doesn't overcome them.

One crosses over the waters of life, on the raft that is the Dhamma. So, at least, goes the imagery.

But, that said, I would like to presume that, when it comes to "conflict", you too would rather that those conflicts which occur as aspects of rapes and murders don't proliferate but, instead, cease occurring sooner rather than later. Notice, this has nothing to do with a cessation of wars and such; it wouldn't be world peace. It would only entail a cessation of wars where rapes and murders occur, rampantly so, and are in no way punished. I mention this because I've talked to some who view rapes and murders, such as in times of war, as innately ordained into our human nature (either by genes, by God, or by both). And I'm now curious to know your own stance on the matter.

Conflict is the way of the world. The difference between war time and peace time is only in that there are formal declarations of the government that one or the other is taking place. But beyond that, the same thing is going on, the same existential struggle, regardless whether the country is formally at war or not. Just the legally permitted means are somewhat different.

(And, no, a solder killing an adversary solder in a time of war is not of itself murder, this since all stated parties acknowledge and partake in the conflict of war.)

Actually, no, not anymore, not universally.
The killer of the soldier Jean-Michel Nicolier is actually being pursued as a murderer.

Are you saying that the religious people themselves have a cynical view on what religion is supposed to be? — Janus

Not at all. I think they have a very instrumental, down-to-earth (sic!) understanding of the "transcendental".

It's the secularists and the liberals who have it all wrong, because they are trying to paint an image of religion/spirituality that is palatable to their secular and liberal goals and sensitivities. Which makes for a very rosy, naive image, grossly unrealistic, not something that a person could actually live by.

The secularists and the liberals seem to like to forget that money needs to be earned, the earth tilled, work get done.
Secularists and liberals seem to think that wealth and power are dirty, and can only be dirty. I think this is where they are wrong. (And let's not forget that they themselves seek wealth and power.)

A character in a Turkish soap opera (yes, I watch some of them) once made an excellent point: Only God can afford to give without demanding or expecting something in return. A human cannot do that, because humans have only limited resources that they need to use very carefully. One should be wary of a human who assumes to give without demanding or expecting something in return. Such a person will eventually become bitter, cruel, and revengeful. It simply isn't in the power of humans to give without demanding or expecting something in return. And it has nothing to do with being selfish or stingy or otherwise having a bad character.

In contrast, you can frequently see secularists and liberals, sometimes in the garbs of the religious/spiritual, who actually teach that one should be selfless, give selflessly. But this is simply not realistic, and I agree with the insight above.

Is it something like metaphysics-as-politics? Or, given that the political right is generally associated with the idea that individuals, their personal achievements and the merits and privilege that thereby accrue to them, are more important than social values which support looking after those individuals who "don't make the grade"; is that the kind of thing you have in mind?

That too. It's a kind of Social Darwinism, but with a religious/spiritual theme. I find that the religious, at least the traditionalists, are far more serious and realistic about life, about the daily struggle that is life. I appreciate that about them and about religion.

In my opinion, modern people have almost forgotten what it's like to "feel shame." Films, books, and philosophers merely document its absence. Perhaps the times are now inappropriate, and shame as a tool is no longer necessary, as it is irrational by nature. — Astorre

Shame is irrational? Perhaps once it is cut off from a traditional metaphysical framework.

I once had occasion to criticize Kohlberg. The ideas at the time were roughly as follows: the approach is "Western-centric," ignoring, for example, the ethic of care as the foundation of community. In Asia or the East, people may be at stages 3 or 4, while stages 5 or 6 would be completely unacceptable for these societies. Renouncing family for the sake of universal values ​​in Asia is far from ideal.

That's a strange thing to say, given that in much of Asia, there are Dharmic religions, in which renouncing family "for the sake of universal values" is regarded highly (such as becoming a monk in a Buddhist country) or normal (like the vanaprastha and sannyasa stages in the asrama system).

The second point is this attempt to objectify ethics (cognitivism and logic); its post-conventional level assumes that the highest morality is a cold calculation of universal principles.

Kohlberg himself posited a possible seventh stage where he linked religion with moral reasoning.

Whereas a person can be characterized by "choice under uncertainty," for example, when you simply emotionally decide to act. For objectivists, this is a flaw (imperfection). Religion suggests that "bad" choices are not a human error, but part of its "sinful" nature that must be overcome.

And yet unless one is born and raised into a religion, one must calculate, most coldly, before one can join a religion. You're speaking from the privilege of someone who was born and raised into a religion.

you're not addressing the issue, beyond re-stating 'what is wrong with religion'. — Wayfarer

And this is your projection, that I'm stating 'what is wrong with religion'. You insist on reading that into my posts, and no matter how hard I try to explain otherwise, you won't desist. As if you are the authority over what the truth about my intentions is. You just bulldoze over me. You don't distinguish between my words and your interpretation of them. You have an extremely narrow-minded view of things. You regurgitate the same old notions, and you read other people's posts within the framework of those same old notions.
Ironically, with your particular approach to communication, you're making yourself an example of what you're criticising. It's hard to believe you're not seeing that, or that it isn't deliberate.
You're basically making sure that the discussion remains superficial and within the established framework of your old notions.

Talking to people like you, even I get the feeling that life is meaningless.

Sometimes, the only appropriate place for a particular person to ask about the things that concern them is the privacy of their diary.
— baker
But you are asking them. That's the point. — Philosophim

Like a good boy scout.

It's naive to think that one could talk about just anything with just anyone in just any situation.
— baker
Certainly. But you don't let other stop you from asking those questions on your own.

Aww. You remind me of my teachers from earlier phases of my education. They, too, would talk about the importance of questioning. But the further in education I went, the less we were encouraged to ask questions.

And sometimes you get answers that need to be spread to other people bravely and without cowardice.

And who decides that those answers "need to be spread", if not one's ego?

How so?

If anything, I think you are exemplifying the problem that the OP is seeking to explain. You are the one who is modern, not I.

If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isn’t anything beyond our reality? — an-salad

Who is "we"?
If you're referring to "mankind" and assuming it's somehow unified and uniform, then you're clearly wrong.

Secondly, there's no need to get all exotic and extraterrestrial. Let's rephrase your question to, "If the reality Tom experiences is the only thing that Tom has experienced, how does Tom know that there isn’t anything beyond Tom's reality?"
How about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Are they a reality for Tom? Does Tom care about the about the internal states of Dick and Harry? Does Tom even acknowledge the possibility that the internal states of Dick and Harry might be other than what Tom supposes?

I think that is just a tad cynical. — Wayfarer

Cynical is a word used by Pollyannas to denote an absence of the naiveté they so keenly exhibit.

Miss Sloane

Can you elaborate? It's not clear to me what is meant by "exactly what religion/ spirituality is supposed to be". Supposed by whom? — Janus

By the religious/spiritual people themselves.

For example, for a long time, violence against indigenous women was far less investigated than violence against women of other categories. Hence initiatives like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_and_Murdered_Indigenous_Women.
— baker

Today, rape, torture and murder are generally considered to be crimes even against the "enemy' in war. That indigenous people were once widely thought of as less than human, usually on account of religious attitudes, is not relevant.

Look at the dates in the statistics in the link. This is recent.

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are.
— baker
What does being "metaphysically street smart" look like to you?

For starters, overcoming the good boy scout mentality. I sometimes watch the livefeed from our parliament. The right-wing parties are the religious/spiritual people. The way they are is what it means to be "metaphysically street smart". I haven't quite figured it out yet completely, but I'm working on it.

To try to be more impartial about the subject, I’ll address non-Western cultures. In Indian religions there are people termed or else considered to be Yogi, practitioners of tantra, a very complex topic on its own but, why I bring this up:

From my learning so far in my life, I’ve seen in documentaries or else read of exemplars that, basically, live off the good-will of the cosmos (more precisely, of Brahman, in Hindu terms): nearly but-naked wanders that pretty much die (without much concern of dying to this world with a soul at peace) in absence of (what in the culture is always spiritually meaningful) handouts of food and drink from individuals in the communities they wander into. — javra

These yogis and swamis, ascetics, for short, are not living in a vacuum. They live in a culture that believes that giving to ascetics is a deed that brings the giver good karma, in this life and the next. Before they set on the path of asceticism, they knew they can rely on the piety of people. It's also why a similar culture of asceticism doesn't exist in the West: prospective "professional, full-time spiritual seekers" know they can't simply rely on the piety of ordinary folks to provide for them. It's just not part of the local culture to do so.

In Western understandings, a kind of perpetual beggar that does not in fact beg for anything.

Sure, like the ultimate precariat. Except that they live, like I said above, in a very specific culture, unlike the Western one.

These I consider to either be authentic yogi of the East or, at worst, authentic seekers of deeper understanding/knowledge. Basically, they don’t live for egotistic pleasures or interests but for spiritual awakening.

But they rely on other people not doing the same. These ascetics rely on other people _not_ becoming ascetics themselves.

And then … drum roll please ... I’ve also seen in documentaries self-labeled “truly enlightened” yogi dressed in as much bling-bling as you can imagine, rich as hell, charging exorbitant amounts of cash to “heal” others’ souls/being/karma/etc …

I know Buddhists (very educated monks, actually) who take no issue with monks wearing silk robes and having gold watches. They take such things simply as signs of having very generous supporters. And that's nothing to be frowned upon.

Even from a perfectly mundane and utterly nonspiritual point of view, it seems rather clear to me in the case I’ve just outlined who the ethical individuals (those at least aiming to be as ethical as possible) are and who are utterly unethical.

I think this is a rather rosy, naive view.

If we say that a fat doctor advising his patients to lose weight is not wrong and shouldn't be dismissed, nor should his advice be questioned, then why not apply the same logic with the rich yogis? Why should they be considered unethical just because they are rich?

And all this can easily become complicated. Suppose, hypothetically, that there are some psychics in the world which are both authentic and ethical (not to be confused with omniscient). Why should they not charge modest amounts of cash for their services (which some claim can be taxing) so as to put bread on the table?

I think the problem is elsewhere. In the traditional Eastern conception of things, people are generally expected to feel grateful to receive any kind of religious/spiritual guidance, and let's say, for the purpose of the discussion, that they typically are. It's part of their culture. Their culture is, after all, one where the student is supposed to beg for religious/spiritual guidance. And then they show their gratitude in terms of monetary donations and favors. And so the system works: the commoners get their spiritual/religious guidance, and the ascetics their upkeep. After all, it all functions in the framework of karma and rebirth/reincarnation.

In contrast, in the West, religious/spiritual guidance is typically forced upon people, against their will, until recently, physically forced on them, under threat of eternal damnation or at least socio-economic ostracism. The Gospel is supposed to be "glad tidings", but how many people are actually glad about it, like, actually glad, not just pretend glad? In the West, people have to figure things out within the framework of one lifetime, and if they get it wrong, it's either all over, or worse, they live with the predicament of eternal torment, with no respite. It's no surprise that the Western approach to religion/spirituality is so gung-ho, and it's precisely because of the conviction of there being only one lifetime in which we can act. And the reason is not authoritarianism, as @Wayfarer likes to suppose; both East and West are authoritarian, but it all works out differently, depending on whether karma and rebirth/reincarnation are taken for granted, or not.

I, again, have no gripe against your apparent derision of both religions and spirituality in general.

It's not derision, though. I'm not being cynical about it. That's what some of you are reading into my posts. I'm angry with myself for not having figured it out earlier, but that's it.

IMO, one would have to be blind to not see all the wrongs that get done in their name. And it’s here that I say, to each their/our own convictions on the matter. My own previously mentioned post regarding “a cosmic ultimate telos as ‘the Good’” is, to be forthright, at pith strictly concerned with a rational means of establishing ethical oughts and distinguishing them from those that are not.

But why this insistence on a telos, an ethics that is at odds with how the world actually works??

I'm also confident that the Easterners have a quite different conception of the "Good" than the Westerners. To begin with, their idea of "selflessness" or "egolessness" is _not_ what Westerners tend to mean by it.

For that matter, if "a comic ultimate telos as the Good" happens to not make any sense to you, for my part, I’d only want that you/anyone not entertain the concept via any sort of blind faith. Basically, to preach to the choir, don’t believe things that don’t make sense to you. (So not believing, to me, is an important aspect of virtue.)

The real question is, what is that "Good"?
Is it really what some good boy scouts imagine it to be?

I don't doubt there is a "Good"; it seems to follow logically that such a thing exists. However, I question what that "Good" actually is.

No, I don't see it that way.

Does this mean you are anti-relgion? — Tom Storm

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are.

The main trick isn't glorifying evil, but removing shame. — Astorre

Shame-based morality has a limited scope and use. It's only natural that people at some point wish to transcend it and base their morality in some other principle.

When a person's morality is based mostly or exclusively on shame, their sense of right and wrong can collapse when they find themselves surrounded by people who don't feel shame. Which is another reason why it's important to base one's morality in something other than shame.

For reference, it can also help to view morality in terms of moral development, as per one of the main theories of moral development, Kohlberg's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

Arguably, some fictional characters sometimes exhibit stage 6 of moral development.

— Wayfarer

Why is this not a conversation, but an ex cathedra lecture?
— baker

Is it? I have not been aware of lecturing. I presented an argument, and am prepared to defend it, but only up to a point. The reference to Edward Conze's essay was intended to illustrate a point. But then, I suppose you take that as an 'appeal to authority', which naturally has to be shot down.

And you suppose wrongly, as usual. And as usual, you take your suppositions as facts about me. (Which you then hold against me.)

The manner in which you conduct yourself in these exchanges is part of your message, don't forget that. And it's also part of the religious/spiritual message.

At this point, appeals to Kant (deontology) and Aristotle (eudomonia) are considered philosophically acceptable, but if you bring an appeal to religion into the picture, then look out! (@baker) This is because scientific rationalism provides something like publicly-available normative standards, in a way that neither religious nor philosophical judgements seem to. — Wayfarer

You're barking up the wrong tree.

They need to be understood and re-integrated, rather than fought against due to the animus we’ve inherited from the religious conflicts of the past. — Wayfarer

Why should we be more papal than the pope?

f someone can come along and challenge me, why shouldn't I challenge them in return?
— baker
No reason. — Wayfarer

For no reason? If someone can come along and challenge me, I shouldn't I challenge them in return, end of story. How religious/spiritual.

"It is wrong to rape _my_ daughter, but why should I care about what happens to your daughter?!"
— baker

I don't believe that is characteristic of most people at all. People are outraged at the rape of other people's daughters or sons, are generally outraged by any rape at all. — Janus

You left out an important part of what I said:
"People tend to condemn an act as wrong when it happens to them or someone of the same category as they are, but are far more relaxed when the same act happens to someone whom they consider to be outside of their category."

For example, for a long time, violence against indigenous women was far less investigated than violence against women of other categories. Hence initiatives like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_and_Murdered_Indigenous_Women.

Might I suggest that this is an overly rosey picture? For instance, across the Roman Empire vast numbers of people were tortured to death, publicly executed, or enslaved because they wouldn't offer sacrifices to the state gods and worship the emperors. Likewise, the Seleucids engaged in similar practices. And of course, aside from the well known attempts to genocide Christians out of existence there is the suppression of the Bacchic cult, Egyptian cults being made illegal on pain of capital punishment for essentially being demonic, etc. This is hardly an analog for modern religious pluralism and secularism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is wrong to think, though, that the modern religious pluralism and secularism is "more tolerant" because of some profound insight into the inherent worth of all human beings or some such.

The pursuit and punishment of misfits depends on pragmatic considerations: how much effort and money it will take to pursue them and punish them, and whether such effort and money are available.

The difference between, say, a Scandinavian prison and a prison in some banana republic isn't that the first is incomparably more humane in nature than the latter; it's that the Scandinavians have the money and other means to treat their prisoners kind-of-nicely, as opposed to the poor folks in the banana republic. The motivation --pursue and punish-- is the same in both cases, one side just has far more money and other means.

If modern-day religious/spiritual people don't burn people at the stakes this isn't because they would think that all people have a right to live or some such; but because it would be tedious to burn people like that, given the modern circumstances. But the intention to destroy people who don't fit and who don't obey, the contempt for them is there all the same.

Institutionalized religion seems always to become politicized, and hence corrupted, coming to serve power instead of free inquiry and practice. — Janus

I can see why you’d say that, but as it says in Matthew, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” That sentiment applies equally to politics and religion. It’s a fair question to pose: if religion is a superior alternative to the secular, where might it be found operating in a way that appropriately demonstrates this? And I am open to the fact that this can be demonstrated. — Tom Storm

How about we follow the money and suggest that what is going on is not a politization of institutionalized religion, nor a corruption -- but a correct, exact, adequate presentation of religion/spirituality.

That when we look at religious/spiritual institutions and their practitioners, we see exactly what religion/spirituality is supposed to be.

this same cosmic ultimate telos can also, in my comprehension, be at pith deemed one and the same with what in Buddhism is termed “Nirvana without remainder” (or else certain Hindu interpretations of Moksha). As I previously mentioned, to me, these being different paths of different cultural and semantic scaffolding, each with its own unique understandings, toward the very same cosmic ultimate telos as absolute good: "The Good". — javra

From my dealings with religious/spiritual people, I surmise that the purpose of religion/spirituality is that it's a way to have power over other people and to live a comfortable life, without actually having to work for it or deserve it by virtue of one's high birth.

And of course, there are levels to this, not everyone has the same natural talent for it.

But then, in contrast, can it be soberly affirmed that Abrahamic religion does not at its core, at root, maintain intolerance for different and new religious perspectives? — javra

It naturally has to, or else it couldn't be a separate religion.

For example, we've seen bad faith accusations of "Christian nationalism" for a long time, and now we're getting bona fide Christian nationalists. — Leontiskos

What do you mean? Are you talking about the US? Are you talking about phenomena like national Catholicsm?

In several traditionally Catholic European countries, there is a type of national Catholicism. It's the belief that a particular nation has the right scope of Catholicism and is superior to other nations who are also under Catholicism. So there are Italian national Catolics who believe they are superior to all other Catholics; and Austrian national Catholics who believe they are superior to all other Catholics, and so on. This was especially popular in the 1920's and into WWII. Officially, the Vatican is against it, but some people persist in it anyway.

So one learns about virtue by recognizing particular people who are excellent and happy people, and who one naturally wishes to emulate. — Leontiskos

In other words, your description of "excellent and happy people" doesn't help to unequivocally identify particular examples of "excellent and happy people".

Any one-sentence OP is basically click bait.
— @Wayfarer
:up: — 180 Proof

An OP can't be clickbait; only a thread title can be, eager beavers.

If the reality we experience is the only thing that we have experienced, how do we know that there isn’t anything beyond our reality? — an-salad

When it strikes back.

What should we think about?[/quote]
Caries.
Adult diapers.
But mostly, caries.

I am not sure I understand. What exactly is it about appeals to eternity that make them different in kind — Count Timothy von Icarus

The scope, what is at stake. Eschatological and soteriological traditions have the most at stake, precisely because they claim to be eschatological and soteriological. They chose that themselves.

so that false/wicked/corrupt exemplars

It's not that they would be "false", "wicked", or "corrupted", it's that they are actually accurate, desired exemplars, the what-is-actually-intended.
It's that when they say one thing and do another, this discrepancy is actually deliberate, not a mistake, not a failing. That there is a talk to be talked, and a walk to be walked, but they are different things.

People often say one thing and do another. If they are ordinary, mostly unreligious people, one may write off such discrepancies as genuine mistakes or genuine failings. But not when it comes to people who hold a formal position in their religion, or who otherwise declare themselves to have the authority to judge others. With such people, the only reasonable assumption is that they have thought things through and that when there is a discrepancy between what they preach and what they do, it was intended.

Second, religions make many claims that aren't related to eternity, would these be invalidated to?

I'm not talking about invalidation, falsification, or dismissal. It's that so many religious/spiritual claims aren't actually intended to be taken seriously or at face value.

This seems to be the most accurate way to describe what religious/spiritual practitioners do.

For instance, would this be fatal to any sort of strong virtue epistemology?

Or would it apply to all traditions that put a heavy emphasis on praxis and contemplative knowledge (and so Platonism, the Peripatetics, Stoicism, etc.)?

People often say one thing and do another. If they are ordinary, mostly unphilosophical people, one may write off such discrepancies as genuine mistakes or genuine failings. But not when it comes to people who have a formal education in philosophy. With such people, the only reasonable assumption is that they have thought things through and that when there is a discrepancy between their words and deeds, it was intended.



There is an eagerness to absolve religious/spiritual people of all responsibility -- for what they teach, for what they say, what they do. We are supposed to let them get away with murder. We are supposed to trust them unconditionally, regardless of what they say and do. And where has this gotten us?
It's high time we turn this around.

Then tell me: On the grounds of what should one still have faith and still trust them, against facts?
— baker

Well, consider you examples. Similar examples could be drawn up to undermine faith in the scientific establishment, modern medicine, the liberal state, Marxism, or Enlightenment rationalism itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Those are irrelevant in comparison to the scope of religion. Whether one is wrong or right about science, medicine, the liberal state, etc. has no bearing on one's eternal fate. But with religion, everything and eternity is at stake. Which is why the secular and the religious are not comparable.

Yet none of these traditions claim they are immune to corruption

When it comes to religion/spirituality, the possibility of "corruption" is either off the table, or it has got to be deliberate.
Genuine mistakes are not possible when it comes to religion/spirituality.

You can't go around killing people in the name of God, and then say, "Oops, looks like I was wrong after all."

You cannot seriously expect people to believe that a religion can preach, say, abstinence from alcohol (to give a less loaded example), and then their exponents get drunk -- and to then write this off as a genuine mistake. Doing so demotes religion to yet another expendable ideology, as opposed to being the source of (one's connection to) eternal life and happiness.

As it happens, I was in a bookshop in October looking at DB Hart’s translation of the New Testament when a couple of fellow browsers asked me about the text. They were young Christians and we got talking. And guess what? In their view, liberalism had failed, Nietzsche was right about the death of God, secular culture had collapsed, and people were flailing in contemporary culture because their lives lacked a spiritual dimension. The solution: Christianity and Trumpism. — Tom Storm

Trumpism is already happening anyway. Look at a forum like this: even his fierce critics are using the same methods he does.

Maybe. The quesion I keep asking is if there's a big hole in modernity, just who chooses what we fill it with? — Tom Storm

Again, Trumpism. Who chooses it? The hunger for power, for stability, for domination.

The problem is that religion asks people to believe things for which there is no evidence.
— Janus

So says A J Ayer. There is abundant evidence for the efficacy of religious beliefs and practices in the lives of the religiius. — Wayfarer

Of course there is abundant evidence of such efficacy. But what exactly is it that is efficacious, is another matter.

On the other hand, there are also many studies and reports of people saying how religion makes them miserable.

Moreover, it is questionable whether the positive effects of religion and spirituality can be replicated by people who first turn to religion as (young) adults, as opposed to people who were born and raised into religion.

David Bentley Hart says, in Atheist Delusions, that after the Roman Empire’s pagan social order collapsed, Christianity stepped in and changed things in ways that many moderns take for granted—human dignity, equality (in some form), charity, care for the vulnerable, the idea that the strong have moral obligations toward the weak, the notion that human beings are more than cogs in an imperial machine.

You have got to be kidding. Or your baseline for human interaction is very, very low.

Furthermore in religious epistemology, knowing is not merely an act of detached cognition based on third-party observervation, so much as participation in a transformative way of being. Truth is verified not only by correspondence between propositions and facts, but by a reorientation to the nature of existence towards that which is truly so in the holistic sense — the change in being that follows from insight. As Gregory of Nyssa or the Upaniṣads would say,
to know the divine is to become like it.

And so what?
So you know the divine. Then what? Are you beyond paying taxes? Beyond traffic laws?

Isn't it the case though, that almost everyone already agrees about what is morally right when it comes to the really significant moral issues such as murder, rape, theft, exploitation, torture and so on? — Janus

Not generally and not universally, though.
That is, people tend to be tribalistic in such matters: "It is wrong to rape _my_ daughter, but why should I care about what happens to your daughter?!"
People tend to condemn an act as wrong when it happens to them or someone of the same category as they are, but are far more relaxed when the same act happens to someone whom they consider to be outside of their category.

For Ayn Rand, for example, and don't underestimate her influence, lower class people should just endure oppression and exploitation by the upper class. Something she would never approve of for the upper class.

Or look at the concept of tragedy: historically, in ancient Greece, tragedy was reserved for the royal family. Whatever happened to commoners could not qualify for "tragedy", even if it was nominally the same action.

As to how many people change their minds, have you ever heard an argument to support the position that murder, rape, theft, exploitation or torture are morally permissible?

It goes along the lines of, "It's morally permissible when they deserve it". And they "deserve it" when they are the wrong skin color, the wrong socioeconomic status, the wrong age, the wrong whatever.

The problem is that religion asks people to believe things for which there is no evidence. — Janus

No. I think the "problem" with religion is that it requires a level of street smarts that few people naturally have.
In order to successfully navigate religion, one has to have a refined sense of what to take seriously and what not, how to read between the lines, how to have a private life that is completely detached from one's religious life.

I think the pushback is the natural reaction to test someone's claims to authority. Especially religious people seem to think that they can go forth into the world, make claims to authority, and the world then owes them submissiveness.
— baker

That is how quite a few here will inevitably categorise any discussion of what they consider religion. As I said upthread, I think much of this stems from the oppressive, indeed authoritarian, role of ecclesiastical religion in historical Western culture. After all, religious authoritarianism is what Enlightenment humanism so painfully liberated itself from.

But on the other hand, that requires an implicit acceptance of that this is all that religion or spirituality can mean or amount to. — Wayfarer

No, it doesn't necessarily operate out of such acceptance.

I'm talking about this: If someone can come along and challenge me, why shouldn't I challenge them in return?

Can you answer that?

Why is it that when religious/spiritual people make claims, especially when they claim to be the authorities for making claims about our inner lives, why must we bow our heads and be at least silent?

Why is this not a conversation, but an ex cathedra lecture??

Consider this passage from Edward Conze, a Buddhologist who was active in the mid 20th c in his essay on Buddhist Philosophy and it’s European Parallels.

Until about 1450, as branches of the… "perennial philosophy,” Indian and European philosophers disagreed less among themselves, than with many of the later developments of European philosophy. The "perennial philosophy" is in this context defined as a doctrine which holds [1] that as far as worthwhile knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted, than others; and [3] that the sages have found a wisdom which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct insight into the nature of the Real --through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the Sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and [4] that true teaching is

based on an authority which legitimizes itself by

the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents.

Ah yes.
If only religion/spirituality wouldn't be so much about coming up with excuses for why its exponents don't live up to the standards they themselves preach and claim to have attained ...
For example, just look at how the local authorities and the Buddhist community interpreted the recent sex + extortion scandal in the Buddhist monastic sangha.

Of course, this is highly politically incorrect and I wouldn’t expect many here would accept it - but I still believe that there are such degrees of insight and understanding, and that not everyone has them by default, as it were.

Sure, I'm not disagreeing. But I question the value and relevance of such "insight and understanding". In short, what if someone's "profound spiritual insight and understanding" is actually simply what it's like when one lives a comfortable life where one doesn't have to work for a living, as is the case with many religious/spiritual people? If a person gets to spend all their waking hours thinking about things and writing them down, yes, they better come up with something "profound".

Of course it is also true that spiritual hierarchies have often been the source of egregious abuses of power, but they’re not only that, even if that is the only thing that some will see when they look at them.

Then tell me: On the grounds of what should one still have faith and still trust them, against facts?
I've been around religion/spirituality for over twenty five years now. I just got tired of inventing excuses and going along with the pretenses as to why the teachers and the "spiritually advanced" don't and don't have to live up the standards that they preach.

But I think there are disciplined structures, methods, and practices in these traditions that do traverse and replicate recognised states and stages in a way that popular devotional religions do not. Agree that these practices are not scientific in the third-person sense but I don’t know whether that makes them automatically and only doxastic (matters of belief).

They are matters of education. Practicing a religion/spirituality works in the exact same way as going to school or taking up some other course of education or training. It's supposed to transform the student, and in a standardized, predictable way.

I asked this because I face this question daily, even in my everyday life. The point is that any assessment of a system you find yourself in from the inside is very difficult. I even have a rule – not to provide legal services to my relatives (even though I'm a lawyer myself). Why? Because it's incredibly difficult to distance yourself from your own reflections on a legal issue when it affects your own life. With ordinary clients, it's easier – you can simply be honest, presenting the picture as objectively as possible, and then leave the solution to them. I think I'm not alone in facing this problem. — Astorre

This depends on the local laws; some legal systems have laws or regulations for state officials and lawyers to exempt themselves from a particular case.

Returning to the topic of the thread. For example, when we find ourselves in state X, is it possible to challenge its dominant approach to understanding reality, while essentially being an element of that state X? As you indicated above, it's possible (using the method of comparison with other states or history), but is it possible to purely compare, and are you capable of immersing yourself in a different paradigm just as purely?

The question is whether one should do that in the first place. How much (philosophical) sophistication is really necessary?

I wasn’t just talking about religion; — Tom Storm

Notice I begun that part of my comment with "For example" and concluded it with, "And similarly with so many other things."

I know so many people who drifted from socialism to Buddhism, to Hinduism, to cultural Christianity, to New Age, to hitchhiking, to fruit picking, to unemployment, to drug use, to university, to sexuality, to military service, to music, etc, etc, and none of these things provided any real satisfaction. They were always looking to see what else they could explore what other beliefs were open to them. In the modern world (here at least), in the absence of certainty and clear pathways of tradition everything is "open". Even for those less wealthy, the cities are full of poor country folk who left their towns to experiment with different lifestyles and options.

The theme was whether the apparent multitude of options are in fact realistic options.
You can buy yourself a nice pair of shoes, but which don't fit you, they are too small. You can have them in your hallway along with all your other shoes, and have them for ten, twenty, fifty years, but they still don't fit. In other words, physical proximity does not automatically make for a realistic option. In the same way, people can approach religions or careers or marriages etc., stick around for decades, be miserable, but still fail to realize that they weren't ever a realistic option for them. I'm again referring to William James' heuristic for deciding what makes for a realistic option as he presents it in his essay "The Will to Believe", already mentioned here.

The case can be made that it is precisely this failure to realize what is a realistic option for a person or not is the "predicament of modernity".

And in the realm of feelings, in the deepest interpretations of this event by the viewer — Astorre

I'm really curious if this was the creators' intention. — Astorre

I agree with you. In "Lolita," the aestheticization of evil (page after page of beautiful descriptions) doesn't lead to "redemption" or normalization, as in BB, but rather emphasizes its emptiness. — Astorre

I actually majored in literature, but I never understood such formulations.

Speaking of the audience as "we", or how "a viewer" understands or interprets this or that. Or claims about the author's intention (without actually asking the author anything). Or what a text does or doesn't do.

Can you, for example, cite an actual passage from "Lolita" that emphasizes the emptiness of the aestheticization of evil?
And where is the "redemption" or normalization of evil in "Breaking Bad"? Can you quote an actual text from there to this effect?


I find that often, when people interpret a text, they often externalize their feelings and ideas in regard to the text, and assume a type of supremacy over the text and objectivity. As in, "This isn't just how I see the text, this is how it really is, this is what it really says." An often, they cannot actually support their interpretation with actual citations from the text.

In the end, so much of what counts for "reading literature" actually has to do with internalizing and strengthening a particular ideology and value system. The individual books or films etc. are just means for that.

For example, many books or films are characterized by critics and intellectuals as being "anti-war". And yet in the book itself, there may not be a single sentence to that effect. Yet culturally, we are often expected to read it that way.

After watching such films or TV series, it feels like morality has been completely sidelined in decision-making today. — Astorre

It's been an ongoing trend to demote morality to the domain of mere "feelings" or "emotions". Psychology has a lot to do with it, with its emphasis on "dealing with emotions". For such psychology, the problem isn't that you were wrongfully terminated from your job; it's that you feel sad or angry about it.

Perhaps @Count Timothy von Icarus can say something more about this.

The troll in many cases sees themselves (not without justification perhaps) as a victim, either of society or of metaphysical realities (of truth, the truth of valuelessness oftentimes) themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not without justification perhaps?

Imagine you become the one who gets scapegoated, a witch hunted. How do you cope with that?

What is a healthy way for coping with being scapegoated?

There is a sort of spiritual and emotional constipation at work here.

Have you noticed that accusations of trolling often occur in communities that are highly politically correct (lots of spiritual and emotional constipation at work there)?

It seems to me that when the President of the United States posts a video of himself on X defecating on his opponents, then our culture has crossed over some kind of event horizon.

We might say in fact that this is the first Trolling President in our history. — Colo Millz

Trump can't be accused of trolling, simply because he's not a minority, not an outsider. For something to be considered trolling, it has to be done by someone who doesn't belong, an outsider. Trump is definitely not that, for he was democratically elected by vote. Possibly the majority of people admire him, and are like him, even if they don't necessarily express themselves in the same way (and even if they officially oppose him).

You can see that even at a philosophy forum, the prominent members, even though they are officially against Trump, nevertheless use the same methods he does: the same patronizing, the same contempt, the same misrepresentation, the same demand for one-way respect (others need to respect them, they shouldn't have to respect others), the same dismissiveness, the same ease with which they interpret the words and actions of others in such a way as to make those others look like idiots or evil.

It's difficult to insist that that Trump is somehow rare in his ways or that he has crossed the line, when his critics are often actually doing the same things as he.

So yes, trolling, whether it is a symptom or a cause of the culture, is very much central to my cynicism.

But you don't have a problem when people profess to hold a particular standard, and yet demand to be respected all the same when they don't live up to that standard?

Maybe it is like a feedback loop, to use a favorite concept from cognitive science. I.e. the environment shapes the behavior, the subsequent behavior feeds back into the environment. — Colo Millz

If you loook at online forums, the way an accusation of trolling comes about, it's a pattern like this:

A community professes to hold to a particular standard, usually codified in the form of its terms of service.
The leadership of the community and the core members routinely fall short of the ToS themselves; deliberately or as a genuine failing.
Someone who is not part of the leadership or of the core members of the community points out this failing. (This could be for a number of reasons, from naivete, to having been on the receiving end of injustice by the leadership or core members.)
The leadership and/or the core members accuse this person of trolling and punish them.


It's the same process as with scapegoating. People feel the need to externalize their failing to live up to the very standards that they profess to uphold. People normally expect that they can profess a particular standard and yet not live up to it -- and that everyone needs to be okay with this, especially those to whom injustice was done in the course of others not living up to those professed standards.

Namely, a critical examination of a paradigm would require stepping out of that paradigm; but such stepping out would be in conflict with one's committment to said paradigm.
— baker

Yes, that's exactly how I put the question. And moreover, what needs to be done to "go beyond the boundaries," to see from the outside? Is it possible? — Astorre

I'm not sure why you're asking about this; in reference to what are you asking this?


The problem can be formalized in the emic-etic distinction:

Emic (/ˈiːmɪk/) and etic (/ˈɛtɪk/) refer to two kinds of field research done in anthropology, folkloristics, linguistics, and the social and behavioral sciences, and viewpoints obtained from them.[1]

The emic approach is an insider's perspective, which looks at the beliefs, values, and practices of a particular culture from the perspective of the people who live within it. This approach aims to understand the cultural meaning and significance of a particular behavior or practice, as it is understood by the people who engage in it.[2]

The etic approach is an outsider's perspective, which looks at a culture from the perspective of an outside observer or researcher. This approach tends to focus on the observable behaviors and practices of a culture, and aims to understand them in terms of their functional or evolutionary significance. The etic approach often involves the use of standardized measures and frameworks to compare different cultures and may involve the use of concepts and theories from other disciplines, such as psychology or sociology.[2]

The emic and etic approaches each have their own strengths and limitations, and each can be useful in understanding different aspects of culture and behavior. Some anthropologists argue that a combination of both approaches is necessary for a complete understanding of a culture, while others argue that one approach may be more appropriate depending on the specific research question being addressed.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic

Even if the origin of trolling is not malicious, it results in a breakdown in trust and in cynicism. — Colo Millz

Rather, it's the other way around. The breakdown of trust and the cynicism can lead to various socially unacceptable behaviors. Tellingly, the breakdown of trust and the cynicism are not considered socially unacceptable, but reacting to them in a negative way is.

OK, why not, as well as references to common sense decency where some semblance of humility holds. (You wann'a go all Western religion/tradition about it, it's also what JC seems to have meant by "meekness" ... as in "the meek shall inherit the earth"... kind of like those small, warmblooded and furry rodent-like creatures did after the last great extinction of them oversized, pompous dinosaurs — javra

I don't know the Buddhist book about dating that you mentioned earlier, but from what you said, it seems to be a humorous approach to explaining Buddhist teachings.

You said earlier:

The sophistic BS part was a separate issue to me: pivoting on the issue of ego and its desires for fame, fortune, power, etc. by mimicking (but not emulating) what good faith philosophers do

I'm not sure what you mean here.
What do good faith philosophers do in regard to the ego and its desires for fame, fortune, etc.?

In what way do you think that Buddhism is sophistic here?
Here is a scriptural reference to the eight worldy conditions: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.006.than.html

I really want to understand this; I want to know how an outsider sees this Buddhist teaching.

Well, as far as poetic metaphors go, add some Hindu context to the expression and, yea, that's kind of part of the main point. Wouldn't it be swell if a nice lotus were to emerge from the swamps of filth so as to benefit all of humanity without exception, hence each human within their own perfectly individual contexts of existence (such that their own individual wants and needs get optimally satisfied),this rather than having humans suffer the swamps of filth (wherein nothing pleasing to anyone ever takes place) ad nauseam?

Put differently, is philosophy writ large about every ego perpetually being at odds with all other egos such that only filth results from the endeavor and interactions, as per in a mad house where everybody whats out? ... Or is it about best arriving at a communally-endorsed understanding of the world, of being itself even, which is accordant to all known facts while assisting all sapient beings in actualizing their individual purposes? This such that the filth no longer occurs due to this new understanding's growth. Yes, yes, the latter can all to easily easily be misinterpreted as endorsing and requiring authoritarianism; but, then, this would not only be contradictory to what was just explicitly stated in this paragraph but also to the aforementioned notion of common sense decency in the face of the first quote within this post. And yes, we all at times have our cockish authoritarian turns (some a hell of a lot more than others), but this too speaks to the same ideal of philosophy to me.

One of the Eastern ideas about lotuses is that they need filth, mud in order to grow; lotuses don't grow in the neat conditions that many other flowering plants do. What is more, the lotus plant has such a surface that the filth and mud it grows in doesn't stick to it.

Of course, feel free to disagree. But, if so, I am curious to learn on what grounds.

On the grounds of the lotus analogy above, I'm inclined to disagree. Conflict is the way of the world, a given, the natural state (also see agonism). The solution isn't to overcome conflict, or to banish it; but rather, not to be affected by it. Like a lotus, which grows in the mud, but mud doesn't stick to it.

What I see are people faced with a smorgasbord of choices: religious, political, and social, with almost no barriers to access because, for the most part, everything is permitted. That abundance of choice seems to make people freeze: what do I do in a world where culture is so varied? How do I focus my life when there’s a multiplicity of choices, faiths, and lifestyles all available to me? All potentially true or rewarding or superior. — Tom Storm

I think what makes them freeze is that they still haven't realized that they don't actually have all that many choices, realistically.

For example, we have a constitutionally granted "freedom of religion". But this has no bearing on whether one will actually be accepted into a particular religious community, or whether one will be able to understand a particular religion; it also doesn't obligate the various religions to explains themselves to outsiders in a way those outsiders can understand. It doesn't obligate the state to force a religious community to accept a particular person. For all practical intents and purposes, "freedom of religion" is about such things as employers not being legally allowed to discriminate against (prospective) employees on religious grounds.

What is actually available to one in terms of "freedom of religion" is extremely limited; often, it's actually zero. And similarly with so many other things.

The multitude of options is illusory.

When traditions speak of “higher knowledge,” the term “higher” need not imply rank or authority - something that seems to push a lot of buttons! - but rather a difference in mode, scope, or reflexive awareness. — Wayfarer

Sure, but the socio-economic structure of religion is still hierarchical, and it is all about rank and authority. Even if the people involved are all loathe to openly admit it.

However it has to be acknowledged that Buddhist (and in general, Indian) philosophy has a soteriological dimension (aimed at liberation or ‘salvation’), which is mainly absent in Western philosophy. And this is one of the reasons that any mention of ‘higher knowledge’ produces such a lot of pushback. ‘Ah, you mean religious’ And we all know that religious authority is something to be disdained. Why, it’s dogmatic!

On the contrary. I think the pushback is the natural reaction to test someone's claims to authority. Especially religious people seem to think that they can go forth into the world, make claims to authority, and the world then owes them submissiveness. Just like that. "I am king and you owe me!" Of course at least some people are going to be skeptical about this.

It’s my view that for the most part the “meaning crisis” is a case of too much freedom. For some, that freedom is crippling. — Tom Storm

I think it's not about "too much freedom" or freedom being "crippling". It's that the institutions that we are expected to trust and rely on don't care about us -- and yet we're supposed to pretend that they do. It's this latter part that seems to be modern. That the institutions that we are expected to trust and rely on don't care about us is nothing new; what seems to be new is the expectation of the pretense that they do care. This is what adds the insult to the injury, and this is a source of a crisis of meaning.

Freedom becomes crippling when acting on it cripples one. For example, one has the "freedom" not to have health insurance. But what kind of freedom is that?

I found embodied cognitive science, and later phenomenology, to be very helpful here, since they deal both with questions of how one should live and what is the case. — Joshs

Actually, it seems it was/is your general hopeful/positive disposition that is the most helpful factor for you.
The cognitive science and phenomenology are just tools in your particular case, while for someone else with a similar general hopeful/positive disposition, other tools might be relevant. (And I do so hate to use "tools" in this context ...)

Still, there are many like Vervaeke who grew up relying on a rigid belief system and found themselves in existential crisis when they abandoned that faith and had nothing to replace it with. The craving to replace one totalizing purpose with another is one explanation for the attraction of cults, and Verveake’s project does have some cult-like characteristics.

It can also explain the particular shape/structure of one's existential crisis. That is, an existential crisis is not the same for everyone who describes themselves as having an "existential crisis". For example, an existential crisis will look different for someone with a Christian background, as opposed to someone with a Hindu background; and their respective solutions to those crises are going to be shaped differently as well. (For example, one can recognize whether a self-described atheist has a Christian or a Hindu background, even without mentioning anything about them having such a background.)

"Ultimately your brain is not static, it is adaptive.
But it only adapts when its predictions are challenged.
And those challenges cannot come from within your own preferences.
They must come from participation.
From otherness."[/quote]

But he fails to point out that the baseline for most human interactions is hostility, or in the best case scenario, indifference. The move to individualism (that he criticizes) is actually a defense against the indifference and hostility of others, especially when it comes to religious/spiritual others.