Also while searching for info on him, I found an article on philosophical counselling. — Wayfarer

Are you familiar with Alain de Botton?
His Consolations of Philosophy was quite famous.

I personally don't know God's mind. But threatening others on the account that that one knows God's mind can be a very powerful tool in social interactions, in order to subject the other person, or get some leverage over them, or at least to gain psychological distance from them. (For this, it is actually irrelevant whether the threatener knows God's mind or not.)

What do you think has driven monotheistic conquerors to kill, rape, and pillage, if not the conviction that they have God on their side?

I'm trying to make sense of the God idea.
— baker

And in doing so you renege on your responsibility to decide right from wrong. — Banno

If there is objective morality, my decision about morality is moot.
If there is no objective morality, my decision about morality is irrelevant.

You're simply taking your brand of morality for granted, as if it was objective, absolute.

A benevolent parent does not spoil their child, does not wrap them in cotton-wool but pushes them towards independence and responsibility. — unenlightened

Exactly, which is the justification for a Social Darwinist monotheism.

I agree but since we don't (can't?) know God's mind, how could anyone assume to know if God's standards based on the information available? — Tom Storm

Maybe you in particular don't know God's mind, but who's to say nobody else does either?

The power of God belief, as far as it concerns interpersonal interactions, is precisely in one party having more uncertainty about God than the other person.

By the way, what is a humanist standard of good? Isn't this largely Christianity without Jesus?

No.
Humanism.

I was thinking more in terms of this forum, but yes. — Banno

Oh, the irony!

Philosophy is overrated anyway. At the end of the day, philosophers, too, are "just people". And forum moderators at a philosophy forum don't even wait for the end of the day!

The horror, suffering, and anguish of a situation is all the more reason to invoke anekantavada. One party involved has failed to give the other's point of view the attention it deserves. — TheMadFool

It deserves such attention? "Deserves" by whose standards?

Waiting for others only makes one a victim, and if persisted in, eventually, a martyr.

The BIV scenario takes for granted that there is an outside and an inside.
— baker

Does it? — Constance

Of course, which is evidenced by asking questions such as, "How do the scientists know they are not brains in vats, themselves, being controlled and experimented on by other scientists who could also be brains in vats?" You wouldn't be asking this if you wouldn't think that inside vs. outside is a meaningful distinction.

This makes the BIV a metaphysical problem, for there is nothing foundational presented.

No, it makes it a poorly conceived one.

There are, despite the ubiquitous, absurd pop philosophy to the contrary, very many things that we know. — Banno

List 3.

Many people are interested in the ancient texts be it bible or literature, because they are interesting in many ways. — Corvus

Interesting how?

Unless we're talking about a simple curiosity (or more like: attempts to relieve one's existential boredom), the pull one feels toward an acient text surely has something to do with the historical reception and influence of said text.

IOW, you're someone who wants to read and understand the Bible on his own terms, quite cut off from the religious tradition it is part of.

Why on earth would anyone want to do that??

Take the No True Scottsman fallacy, for example. In most cases of it, which concern terms that denote national, racial, political, ideological, or religious identity, what is actually going in is an equivocation, because terms that denote national, racial, political, ideological, or religious identity are complex, multilayered, thus, internally incoherent.

Without the basic knowledge of the literal meanings, one cannot progress to the other levels, be it faith or spirit. — Corvus

I am confident that actual religious people will say it's the other way around.

This, I suppose, is the Buddha's madhyamaka/the middle path. — TheMadFool

The Middleness of the Path

Anyway, there's a right perspective i.e. though everyone is entitled to an opinion, we can still get to what might be called an objective truth (see addendum 2 in my OP) which no one in faer right mind can/would deny. This however doesn't imply that two parties in a dispute, philosophical or otherwise, are wrong though. All it means is the real (?), the whole truth is more intricate, thus more beautiful even if also exasperating, than we imagine it to be. — TheMadFool

This is a romanticism that someone living in the real world wouldn't indulge in.

You've, I'm afraid, missed the point of anekantavada which is to point out that there are no real contradictions but only apparent contradictions. Your whole argument is predicated on the former. In true anekantavada spirit, my response would be you're right but, for better or worse, I'm not wrong. Let's just leave it at that. Feel free to disagree though. — TheMadFool

No. What you're failing to acknowledge is that in your quuest for egalitarianism, you're bulldozing over the opposition, or at least trying to do so.

Underneath your optimism, idealism, egalitarianism burns a fire of supremacism
— baker

From a certain perspective that could be true and I feel sorry that I could be read that way:

After all your speeches and posturing you're nothing but a common thief.
— (Die Hard)

All I can say is I'm just an African ape, like Richard Dawkins takes great pains to point out when referring to h. sapiens, trying to make sense of faer world.

Hey, false humility makes for false pride!

It would be difficult to imagine that one can understand the Bible without knowing the rich meanings of the old, exotic or even plain words in it, when it even says that God has given the language, so that men could study with it their way to know him. — Corvus

It is vital to read the Bible in the right spirit, with faith and humility.

Understanding specific old words like "ephah" is, for the most part, irrelevant.

Without the right spirit, one can be a scholar in ancient languages, and still miss the point of the ancient text.

Reading the Bible has never really been a question of understanding a literal account, it is embedded in a 'community of discourse, faith and practice', within which it is meaningful. — Wayfarer

Exactly. Which is why outsiders who are not thusly embedded cannot hope to have a meaningful experience with the Bible. Similar goes for other ancient texts.

In original Christianity, those who heard that were never expected to understand it. They were expected to believe it. There was no question of ‘interpretation’. Interpretation was having an opinion, which is what ‘heresy’ means.

We live in a different world now. We wonder about what it means. But in the original setting, it was simply recited by the priests, and you simply listened to it. — Wayfarer

Exactly. The fact that at the time, the majority of the population was illiterate actually helped this state of affairs and probably made the whole experience of listening to sermons more meaningful for the people. (Note that the Roman Catholic Church was not in favor of simple people reading the Bible because the probability of misunderstanding was too great.)

Why should I read them if we don't know what they say? — Gregory

Indeed. So why do you feel pressured to read them? Can you tell?

No, it wasn't obvious. God is a Social Darwinist and so somehow evades responsibility for his actions. — Banno

No. The reason why God cannot be held accountable is because he is God, not because he is a Social Darwinist.
God couldn't be held accountable even if he was a humanist.

...and your subservient pandering to a tyrant god is not at all idiosyncratic.

Ah. I'm trying to make sense of the God idea. This doesn't automatically include that I take for granted that God is on my side or that he will be or could be. Quite the contrary, actually.

So the suffering and cruelty of 'creation' is reflective of a cruel God who behaves like a Mafia boss in scripture? I think a lot of humanists have identified this scenario. It certainly makes sense that if there is a god he is either non-interventionist or 'evil' as far as human morality is concerned. — Tom Storm

Not by human morality, but by humanist morality.

Nevertheless, the intrinsic goodness of God is central to most traditions I am aware of and human beings are supposed to please god by being good also.

Sure. But again, it's not supposed to be goodness by humanist standards, but by God's standards.

You are welcome. And you can have this for after dinner — Apollodorus

Thank you, but I have to unplug the computer and all electronic devices now, because we have a storm coming.

There cannot be demonstrated to be any such higher knowledge, though. — Janus

So? There is no need for such demonstration.

Even the person who purportedly has such knowledge cannot be sure (as opposed to feeling sure) that it is true knowledge.

How can you possibly know that??

It's a conviction that things are a certain way; if things turned out to be that way it just means that the conviction would have turned out to be in accordance with reality.

How can you possibly know it's merely a conviction?

The problem is that no one could ever be sure of that being the case. Knowledge as it is normally understood is always uncertain, and consists in there being found no good reason to doubt, and that what we believe is also true. But the latter is what is always rationally uncertain.

If you wanted to be strictly accurate there is no possibility of certain knowledge that anything is the case, so really humans don't have propositional knowledge at all, they just have beliefs. That said of course within limited contexts we can be said to know things for certain, like I know I am sitting here typing on a laptop, or I know it is raining because I can see the rain falling and things getting wet.

You're taking for granted a measure of uncertainty and human incapacity for knowledge. You could be overstating the case, taking for granted that humans are necessarily thusly incapable. All in all, you are making definite claims about things you yourself admit to not having certainty of.

It's not like there is an actual need to decide about such things! Nobody is putting a gun to your head or a knife to your throat forcing you to decide one way or another.
Whence this need to decide about whether there is consciousness after death??
— baker

That's a silly comment, given what Ive been arguing.

Perhaps I need to adjust my style and be less colloquial.

I've been using that as an example; I'm not claiming the individual should decide one way or another. That's a matter of faith, of personal conviction, and up to the individual. I sometimes doubt you even read what I've written. I'm not even saying someone should not follow what some purported sage has to say; just that doing that is not an example of thinking for yourself, but rather of allowing someone else to do your thinking for you.

My point is that you're presenting the matter in either-or terms, while I think that the decision as you put it forward is not even necessary. It's avoidable, much if not most of the time. For the most part, we do not actually need to decide whether what someone claims is the truth or not.

It seems that most people, when they hear a claim, have the impulse to decide whether it is true or not, to decide whether the person is lying or not, or trying to deceive them or not. I contend that much if not most of the time, this is not necessary at all, and it would be a waste of energy and time to investigate each and every claim. Many, if not most claims that one hears in one's life, can be put aside without deciding about them, without this having any negative consequences for oneself.

Thank you, this will take some processing.

When people believe experts and authorities in various fields it is because they trust that those expert's expertise has been rigorously tested and demonstrated, and could be retested and redemonstrated if needs be. — Janus

It's not clear this is the case. Ideally, it should be the case, but I don't think it is, or only rarely. It seems that most people who believe experts and authorities in various fields don't even have a concept of "rigorously testing and demonstrating". Instead, their believing the experts and authorities is, essentially, a fallacious argumentum ab auctoritate.

The same does not apply with sages and gurus. There is no way to rigorously and without bias test their purported expertise, even in principle, let alone practice.

You cannot "rigorously and without bias test the purported expertise" of scientists either. You don't have the resources, you don't have the data, you don't have the access, and they sure as hell aren't going to do it for you.

But I know what kinds of cultures of gullible mythologizing actually arise around cult leaders and gurus of all kinds; the same kinds of lamentable human dynamics play out everywhere. People happily relinquishing their capacities to think for themselves; listening to the oracular voice of the "master" and believing every word; it's just sad in my view.

There's no guarantee that "thinking for yourself" will make you happy and successful either.

If we don't know what is literal in *religious texts* how can they have a "meaning" anymore? — Gregory

Whose problem is that?

Why should we try to have a certain understanding of what ancient texts say?

You're lucky that you're a moderator, so I can't report you for misrepresenting or anything like that.
You should be ashamed of yourself.


But just vote for Trump, honey, just vote for Trump.

The Talibans are taking life seriously and they don't fool around. This is what makes them so different from many, if not most people.

While all along, you get to be the arbiter of truth, eh?
— baker

Where did you get that from? — TheMadFool

Your words.

Anekantavada takes into account all parties involved, favoring none over the other. My views are the same as anyone elses, including yours.

That is your view. Surely you're aware that other people don't think this way. It's safe to say that most people don't believe that your views are the same as theirs, and certainly not as relevant as theirs.

However, that we disagree, a contradiction threatening to rear its ugly head unless it hasn't already, suggests a higher truth who's projections are the two of us. Don't you wanna what that truth is? I want to.

Underneath your optimism, idealism, egalitarianism burns a fire of supremacism. :blush:

...a Darwinist perspective (mainly in the sense of "life is a struggle for survival" and "might makes right")
— baker

This is a very narrow understanding of Darwinism. — Banno

Oh, and I obviously mean Social Darwinism. When your buddies talk of this or that being "Darwinist" or "Darwin" this, "Darwin" that, you correctly understand it in terms of Social Darwinism.

we can't make any comment about God at all (good or bad) since it transcends human experience and understanding. We can't know anything about it and it would be better to remain silent about the subject. — Tom Storm

No, such a claim of the total incapacity of humans to comment on God could be overreaching. Perhaps some humans in fact do have the proper knowledge of God, perhaps God did reveal himself to them, so they can speak with certainty.

I'm pointing toward an option that is repugnant to humanists: namely, the possibility that God is pretty much like major monotheistic religions describe him, and that the state of the world (with all its strife and suffering) is an argument precisely in favor of God's existence.

If they want the truth, they should care but, — TheMadFool

While all along, you get to be the arbiter of truth, eh?

doesn't explain why god is not culpable. — Banno

God cannot be held accountable to us.
Because God, by definition, precedes us, contextualizes us, and makes us possible in the first place.

My point is that judging God by human standards is in conflict with the basic definition of God. One cannot hold, even if just for the purposes of argument, that God is omnimax, and then judge God, and still think one is being consistent. Either one ditches the standard definition of God, or one abstains from judgment of God. But one cannot retain both, and still be consistent.

IOW, atheists and other critics of God operate with their own idiosyncratic definitions of God, thus making their criticism of God a strawman.

Right, Jains. People who make a point of eventually slowly dying of starvation.
— baker

Any hard evidence for this? — TheMadFool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallekhana#:~:text=It%20is%20the%20religious%20practice,all%20physical%20and%20mental%20activities.

Your reason for taking up arms might then be gone, indeed, but not your enemy's.
— baker

That's because they haven't looked at our differences from all sides - anekantavada failure. — TheMadFool

Why should they?? They are your enemies. Why should they care about seeing things the way you see them?

Boredom is terrible, isn't it. People should be sent to manually work in crop fields again, manually digging and pulling weeds.

Right, Jains. People who make a point of eventually slowly dying of starvation.

Once you realize that disagreements, the seedbed of all violence, including wars, arise from looking at issues from only one side and not from all sides, including your enemy's your reason to take up arms will be gone. — TheMadFool

Your reason for taking up arms might then be gone, indeed, but not your enemy's.

In everyday use, I notice that many people operate poorly with if clauses; ie. they tend to omit the if altogether. So that to the above question, they reply, "Tom must buy new socks."
It's not clear that this is what the OP has in mind.

What do you think the relationships between "if statements" and human intentions are? Most who have some basic understanding of logic know that if conditionals can be stated as if x then y. How can we utilize that logic when relating it to agency or human intentions? — Josh Alfred

You'll need to say more.


If Tom has holes in all his socks, he needs to buy new socks.
What must Tom do now?

But the truth is that Afghan tribalism and factionalism have always attracted foreign meddling. — Olivier5

But why?

Why not just leave them to their own devices?