Yes, but this sort of parochialism ought to be seen for what it is: a rejection of the other. — Olivier5

Philosophy, ie. love of wisdom entails rejecting foolishness and lowliness.
Sometimes, this seems to work out in less than democratic ways ...

What is a Christian to do? Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. — god must be atheist

Well, and whose problem is that?

The presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are a factor in deciding whether to believe such a God exists. — Pfhorrest

??
That's a bit of strange religious epistemology ...

Why do you want to "decide whether God exists or not"?

This is a problem for those who want to advocate that god exists for sure. And an even bigger problem for those who want to convince others that their description of god is true, because no description of god exists, to date. — god must be atheist

And yet they don't consider it their problem.
You consider it their problem -- and that is your problem.

God, if exists, shows no qualities or attributes of himself. Those who proclaim they know god's attributes and qualities are merely liars, charlatans, dishonest persons, or at best, mislead persons.

And whose problem is that?

David, fictional or not, represents a person, someone who begged and cried to a higher power while he lost everything he knew and perhaps even more. If you experience a hardship or criminal offense toward your person today, or perhaps toward your nation, and you seek justice, you are no different. — Outlander

David believed that The Highest Power In The Universe was on his side. This is what makes him different than the ordinary person.

Are you claiming that it was a thought before it was painted
— Banno
Not before only, because. — Pantagruel

In that case, we're talking about symbols:
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences. All communication (and data processing) is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas, or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol


As in, you say "Mona Lisa", and you mean something like, "That painting that is so famous; the painting of a woman with a smile that has in Western modern culture become a synonym for "mysterious"". Ie., this is a thought.

↪baker But, if it can't be put into worlds*, then it's not a thought?

Why not? — Banno

Because that's how we define "thoughts". That's why we speak of "thoughts" and "feelings", two separate things.



*Nice typo there. :)

If you ask me, the Buddha had it right, and that was long ago, but he didn't have the theoretical tools to talk about it, to provide a phenomenological exposition on the actual descriptive features of enlightenment. — Constance

Of course he did:

paṭicca-samuppāda
Dependent co-arising; dependent origination. A map showing the way the aggregates (khandha) and sense media (āyatana) interact with ignorance (avijjā) and craving (taṇhā) to bring about stress and suffering (dukkha). As the interactions are complex, there are several versions of paṭicca-samuppāda given in the suttas. In the most common one, the map starts with ignorance. In another common one, the map starts with the interrelation between name (nāma) and form (rūpa) on the one hand, and sensory consciousness (viññāṇa) on the other. [MORE: SN 12.2, DN 15 ]

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#pa%E1%B9%ADicca-samupp%C4%81da

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html



But the problem is, rather, and I don't know how to say this to you nicely, is that you lack respect for the Buddha. Yet you nevertheless keep referring to him. You are determined that you already know what enlightenment is and isn't, and anyone who doesn't match those ideas of yours, is, per you, wrong or insufficient.
I wonder why you look to the Buddha, if you clearly have no intention to take his words seriously.

Augustine was a very odd person. There's something strange about his eagerness to confess his sins and misdeeds. He seems to revel in them in a bizarre way, rather like Rousseau does. But like Rousseau he appears to think he's better and wiser than others for having been a sinner and proclaiming his sins to the world. — Ciceronianus the White

But maybe the sins they confessed openly were just the tip of the iceberg, an effort to hide their graver sins?

To illustrate my disagreement, IF language is an integral part of the construction of Being, in my interpretation of this sentence, it would imply that a human being speaking several languages is a more complete being than one who speaks only one language. But this is not the conclusion Heidegger draws. Rather for him, who to my knowledge spoke only German, perhaps with a smattering of greek, learning another language such as English or French would have been closer to a compromission with lower forms of thought than those possible in German. — Olivier5

In defense of H., such linguistic supremacism and exclusivism has been a trend in many European nations. In the light of this, learning a living foreign language (or even just a different dialect of one's language) is seen as being beneath one's dignity.

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it.
— baker
But the proof is in the pudding, a conversation about doubt, moral realism and the rest. — Constance

Not at all. It is beneath the consequent moral realist's dignity to discuss such things.
The pudding proof of consequent moral realism is precisely in its authoritarian, inapproachable stance.
It's that "this is not up for discussion" that makes the consequent moral realist who he is.

Do you think the Buddha in his phenomenological prime, had doubts?

No.
Doubt (vicikiccha) is one of the hindrances, and the Buddha has overcome all hindrances.

Oh but God gave man free will. He didn't give that to women who must submit to men. However, in Heaven, there is no free will, because our free will does not go with perfection. — Athena

IOW, you have knowledge of God? First-hand, certain knowledge of God?

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.
— baker
What other terms are there? I would love to open up the discussion of God, and I am getting push back. — Athena

Presumably, there are God's terms.

I also get ignored. I say, "there is no discernible evidence of any of god's qualities or attributes. We know nothing about god. All we know is that it is possible for it to exist, but not necessary. So... what basis do those have who claim god is this or god is that. It exists but is not real or is real but it is super-existing. Transcends this and transcends that. These are all fantasies, based on an assumption that god must be this way or that way. Well, god does not give us any indication which way god is, so, again, WHY ARE SOME OF US SO PRESUMPTIOUS AS TO CLAIM KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUALITY OF GOD?

This is the third time I ask this question (paraphrased) and I get ignored deeply, soundly, and unanimously, by those who have made actual claims about god.

I guess the silence I encounter to my question is an answer in a way. A very telling answer. — god must be atheist

And whose problem is that?
Do you believe in God?

So the problem is that we are mistaken when we say that child sex slavery is bad, and from God’s perspective that’ must be perfectly fine, since he clearly allows it to happen? — Pfhorrest

No, the problem is that you're taking up a problem that is not yours to begin with.

If you don't believe in God, then the presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are none of your business and none of your concern.

Like I said:

The moment one introduces God to the discussion, in order to be consistent, one has to start off with taking for granted that God is omnimax and that God sets all the standards.

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.

And again:

The problem is that you're taking up a problem that is not yours to begin with.

If you don't believe in God, then the presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are none of your business and none of your concern.

If you nevertheless stick your nose into things that are none of your business, expect trouble.

Indeed. I'm asking - couldn't you be wrong here? Couldn't it be that you don't have a thought, for which you cannot find the words? — Banno

If it can be thought, it can be put into words.

I'm trying to establish what the motivation of the AN is. Because I suspect that this would be the quickest way to undercut absolute AN.

I was responding to the claim that because there is illness, sickness, death, evil, etc, then there could be no God, because if God is omniscient, benevolent, etc, then none of these could be allowed to exist. This is a popular argument in today’s world which rests on a misconception of what the purported goodness of God actually entails (and which I describe as ‘the hotel manager theodicy’). But as those who repeat it likely have no practical experience of what ‘goodness’ entails beyond and above ‘the pleasure principle’, then there’s little use trying to explain it, as it will only result in an interminable argument from incomprehension. — Wayfarer

It just goes to show that those people are judging everything by their own standards.

But the moment one introduces God to the discussion, in order to be consistent, one has to start off with taking for granted that God is omnimax and that God sets all the standards.

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.

These objections might all be pedantry on my part, but should philosophers try to avoid nominalizing verbs and adjectives lest they risk leading others astray? — NOS4A2

I'm not sure that changes anything.
My native language is very verb-centred. It's a language that allows for a great variety of word formation patterns; and pretty much anything can be said with a verb.

On the whole, I don't have the impression that this changes anything about the problem you talk about.
In the end, if one wishes to talk about something, one will have to use words for it -- whether it's nouns, verbs, or adjectives, or other categories of words.

How (unnecessarily) abstract or awkward a particular word (esp. a newly formed one) will seem seems to have more to do with how the particular word formation pattern by which the word was formed is experienced by fluent speakers of said language, rather than whether it's a noun, a verb, or an adjective.

For example, English, in comparison with Slavic languages, has a relatively poor fund of endings and other affixes for making new words out of existing ones. So making new words with affixes in English perhaps feels more awkward to English speakers than making new words with affixes in Slavic languages feels to Slavic speakers.


Another thing that comes to mind is that English is such a mixture of many languages with so many words that have been borrowed from other languages that words that talk about the same theme aren't necessarily also etymologically related.
Pairs such as this come to mind: Slovene "hrana - hranljiv" vs. English "food - nutritious" (as opposed to "foody" or some such). For some foreign learners, this is an awkward feature of English, and I imagine that English natives have some difficulty with that too.

What I sought validation for, was the claim that ‘if God is good, then there could be no suffering’. I call this the ‘hotel manager theodicy’ - the expectation, that if God is the ‘ideal CEO’ the nothing bad ought ever to happen. — Wayfarer

"Nothing bad" by whose standards of nothing bad?
Man's or God's?

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it.

Yes, you make a good point. I was reading again the other day of the atrocious story of the murder and dismemberment of Hypatia of Alexandria at the hands of 'Christian mobs'. That 'mob mentality', no matter what ideology clothes it, is a dreadful thing. And I agree that Christian history has been marked by many such episodes. But as I see it, the fact that religion is misunderstood so as to cause such atrocities is attributable to the ignorance of its followers, and also to the greed of those who get themselves into positions of power because of it. — Wayfarer

Shall we revisit the Psalms, wade knee-deep in the blood of David's enemies, to see that there is plenty of justification for hostility and violence in the Bible that believers in Jehovah can draw on?

It would be awesome if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being existed, because then nothing bad would ever happen.
— Pfhorrest

I'd be interested to know which Biblical or other religious texts validate this claim.
/.../
The conception of 'God' as any kind of super-director, intelligent designer, or cosmic potentate, which is how he's most often depicted by current atheism, is a 'straw god' argument, comprising an attack on what David Bentley Hart describes as the God of 'monopolytheism'. — Wayfarer

Hindu monotheism or polytheism with one major god validate such claims. But since those theisms don't threaten with eternal damnation for making the wrong religious choice, they seem to have little traction in Western philosophy or culture at large.

Right. So in your perfect world, ruled by aforesaid perfect deity, there would no birth, death, or illness, right? Because all of those entail suffering, and according to this model, no suffering could exist, so nobody could ever be born, right? — Wayfarer

No. The Hindus would say that in that perfect world, people would understand the role of illusion, maya, and so wouldn't suffer, even though there would birth, death, old age, and disease. (But no New Age.)

The question I would put to the Epiucureans is that, Socrates was accused of atheism, but he denied it. He didn’t profess any belief in the Athenian pantheon - that was one of the causes of his condemnation - but he also said he wasn’t atheist. Of course, it is legendarily difficult to pin down what he did believe in, but he denied being atheist. So is that complaint of the Epicureans directed at whatever deity Socrates did believe in? — Wayfarer

The we can surmise that he was the kind of atheist who genuinely lacks belief in God or gods.
If I ask you whether you are an atheist in regard to Altjira (and I assume that you genuinely lack all belief in this deity, and that without googling it, you wouldn't even know what that word refers to -- apologies in advance if I underestimated your erudition), the question will be unintelligible to you. You can't say you are an atheist in regard to Altjira.

Because of this, I reckon the atheist would need to account more generally, if that makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

Would need to?
Why?
Who or what are theists that atheists would need to justify themselves to them?


Other than that, I'm an atheist, and I have one desire in reference to God: Would the right God please stand up?!

Further, it's tempting to think there is something you mean, but you can't quite find the words... but if you cannot say it, how can you mean it? — Banno

This is what it is like when you think you mean something, but you can't quite find the words.
And you can put it into words!

Effanineffable!


The Naming of Cats
T. S. Eliot


The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names,
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name.

"does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure?"

It would seem to be the goal of a philosopher who prizes truth and knowledge above all things. The philosopher would be one who sacrifices pleasure in pursuit of the experience of truth.

Do such people exist anymore? Why bother with the need for truth when a person has easy access to pleasure.

Kant sked three essential questions: “What can I know?” “What must I do?” and “What may I hope?”

Is the sacrifice of pleasure worth becoming able to try to answer such questions? — Nikolas

I can't imagine anything more pleasurable than the truth.
I can't imagine that other people could be different in this regard.

I managed to give up smoking before it killed me. Still probably drink more than is good for me. Nothing philosophical or wise about it, I’m like any other of the hoi polloi. — Wayfarer

My point is that many pleasures are actually learned, they don't come naturally, contrary to your earlier claim. You, too, probably had to learn to enjoy smoking and drinking. That first puff or sip couldn't have been enjoyable.


(The hoi polloi? /blush/)

Intelligence is refective and intepretive, where sense-pleasures are essentially physical and habitual. — Wayfarer

And yet there are so many sense pleasures we need to learn to enjoy. Think about enjoying to drink coffee or smoking: those "pleasures" are learned.
And so many others the enjoyment of which is culturally conditioned.

You're just playing coy.

All that matters is that moral authority comes from a source that cannot be corrupted by man's intellectualism. — synthesis

And everyone needs to figure out on their own what that authority is, right.

However, you have probably heard my idea of catharsis by now, right? There is a catharsis in antinatalism for us already born who can't escape the existential situation. There is something to the idea that we can communally recognize the negatives, and then are deciding to do something about it on an existential level (not just at the everyday micro level). It's more an aesthetic of understanding. — schopenhauer1

Aww, you mean other people should sacrifice themselves for you?

No not at all. There is a distinction between a life worth STARTING and CONTINUTING. Different considerations, mainly involving the fact that in one case, no one exists with fears, goals, interests, and dignity. The other one does. — schopenhauer1

Early Buddhism, which in effect also promotes AN, has a context to its AN and an alternative to "life as it is usually lived".

Your AN has no such thing. The context and the motivation for your AN amount to "I'll have a measure of contentment if noone else ever gets born".

You've capitulated before the problem of suffering. And even seem to think that such a capitulation deserves respect.

So you're saying without that, conversation without politics is always divisive and negative? — FlaccidDoor

How did you get to that from what I was saying?

So you're asserting that only the philosophy forum is an exception to the divisive effects of political conversations?

No, but it seems to be one of the few venues where the divisive effects of political conversations seem to have minimum effect on the social coherence between the people. But again, a philosophy discussion forum is a very specific kind of community, one that is specifically intended to accomodate those divisive effects. Whereas other communities normally aren't.

Before I set out to bake something, I need to think it though. As such, thinking is instrumental.

In any case, Aristotelian ethics, or virtue ethics, aren't predicated on the idea that we have a pre-made destiny that we ought to fulfill. In that understanding, 'virtue is its own reward', because it instills habits, which become character, which become destiny. — Wayfarer

Do you think that the Nazis didn't feel good about themselves and their ideas of what counts as virtue? That they didn't feel rewarded by what they considered virtuous behavior?

If virtue would somehow be something that is baked into the fabric of the universe, so that it would operate by laws similar to those in physics, then there'd be no problem. So, for example, if you did X, you'd feel good, and if you did Y, you'd feel crappy. But it doesn't work that way.
People can kill, rape, and pillage, and feel good about it. Or they can kill, rape, and pillage, and not feel good about it.

There nevertheless must be an element that discerns the meaning of dharma and elects to pursue it.
— Wayfarer
It's not clear how this is the case.
— baker

If it were not the case, Buddhism would never have come into existence. Recall the story of the ascetic that walked past the Buddha after the enlightenment and more or less shrugged it off, saying 'it could be' that he had realised the goal. Then at the Deer Park sermon in Benares, five other ascetics took the Buddha at his word and so the Sangha was formed.

It's one's kamma that makes one attracted to the Buddha's teachings. -- So goes the Buddhist reasoning for conversion.
There are extra-Buddhist/non-Buddhist conceptualizations for religious conversion to Buddhism (usually inspired by Western secular anthropology and religiology, or inspired by Christianity somehow). And then there are Buddhism-internal explanations for why a person takes to the Buddha's teachings.

The notion that a person "discerns the meaning of dharma and elects to pursue it" is incompatible with Buddhist doctrine, at least as far as persons with less than stream entry are concerned.

I think we are indoctrinated by empiricism, that only knowledge based on sensation is for real. That is why it seems so awfully difficult to differentiate rational knowledge and sensation when really the difference ought to be obvious.

I don't understand what you mean here.

In Buddhist ethical theory, the aspirant is presumed to be able to validate the teachings by first-hand insight, through their attaining of that insight in the living of the principles. The key term is 'ehi-passiko', 'seeing for oneself'. In practice there are obstacles to that, first and foremost the difficulties of realising such goals, but you can't say that in principle nobody it able to do so.

This is a westernized verificationist approach. A cradle Buddhist would never set out to "validate the teachings" or to "verify" them.

(See this verse for discussion of the difference between 'taking on conviction' and 'direct discernment'.)

It doesn't make your point. Look what Sariputta says:
And as for me, I have known, seen, penetrated, realized, & attained it by means of discernment. I have no doubt or uncertainty that the faculty of conviction... persistence... mindfulness... concentration... discernment, when developed & pursued, gains a footing in the Deathless, has the Deathless as its goal & consummation."
He started off with conviction (!!), and then he did this and that, and then he came to certainty. It's a circular, self-referential, self-fulfilling, self-proving activity. No wonder "it works".

And there are, or there have been in the past, similar kinds of insights in Western philosophy.

The holy grail -- epistemic autonomy.

According to Pierre Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, wasto cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. 1

IOW, it's about training oneself, developing oneself, cultivating oneself into becoming a particular type of person. This is how one "sees for oneself". It's not about verifying whether some claims are true or not. It's about making oneself be such that one comes to see those claims as true, as good.

It's similar to vocational training. One doesn't engage in vocational training in order to test the claims made by the specific field of expertise. One does it to learn, to earn expertise, a vocation.
You don't test if baking "works". You do it to become a baker.

So the results 'can be checked for yourself' although if such possibilities are rejected out of hand, then it remains a practical impossibility. In other words, it requires a certain kind of openness to those modes of discourse. (Maybe it's the case that we've been inoculated against any idea of 'higher truth' by dogmatic religion, specifically Protestantism.)

I think the problem is, rather, that the matter is approached in a pseudoscientific manner of "experimenting, testing, and verifying claims for yourself". Such experimenting etc. is impossible, at least as long as one doesn't have epistemic autonomy. And if one had it, one wouldn't need to test etc. anything anyway.

But why in this place? Artistic license isn't a matter of whim.

Most ANs recognize the distinction of what it means to prevent someone from coming into existence in the first place and ending an existence that is already here. — schopenhauer1

A distinction that is close to trivial. If life isn't worth living, it's not worth living, full stop, with nukes.

Physical science is universalist about reality in that if someone doesn't experience the same phenomena that everyone else does, even after completely controlling for the objects of said experience (the environment / experiment / etc), we go figure out what's different about the subject (the person) such that they experience the same object differently, and adjust our theories to correctly predict what that kind of subject will experience as well. An ethical science would have to do likewise. — Pfhorrest

And in the process of doing so, the person gets designated as "abnormal". "Wrong". "Defective". "Inferior".

Once such qualifiers are introduced, we're back to might makes right.

The point of logic* is to make sure that we're on the right side of the line dividing truths and lies. — TheMadFool

And how can you know what is true and what is a lie, given that you, too, are, as a human, emotionally attached to your beliefs and resent it if other people contradict them?


*And no, this isn't what logic is about. Go back to that couple of introductory books on logic.

Some ancient peoples thought of it as an element, not further analyzable, e.g. here from Pali:

dhātu:
Element; property, impersonal condition. The four physical elements or properties are earth (solidity), water (liquidity), wind (motion), and fire (heat). The six elements include the above four plus space and consciousness.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html

One of the most important things about forgiveness is that when you forgive others, you forgive yourself, as well. — synthesis

But is it really forgiveness, or is it superiority and contempt?

I find that often, when people say they have forgiven, what they actually did is that they found a way to feel superior to the other person or to despise them and feel good about it.

I'm sorry about that comment. I apologise to you, the mods, and the site. I was drunk, and as you said, despairing. That's not an excuse, but rather to say I recognise this isn't the place to be when drunk! No more drunk philosophy from me! Sorry. — counterpunch

Holding you to it!