Its a big statement to say history and politics don’t follow reason. Care to unpack that one? — kudos

Is there anything much to unpack here? Look at the trajectory of most political and historical decisions. This demonstrates that what dominates is not a free process of careful reasoning, but a variety of other factors that impose on decisions - power, vested interests, strategy, improvising, realpolitik, accident, etc. My point is the process isn't following some grand narrative of reason and discernment.

And why, do you think, they do take them? — kudos

Why do people go to movies, read novels, play sports, go to circuses, seek thrills, etc? The salient question is why do some people transcend recreational use and misuse substances, or become dependent? Usual explanations are situational difficulties and trauma. That's certainly what I have seen. Hence the term self-medication.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal drugs and are two of the most harmful substances available to people. It's clear that policies of interdiction and prohibition are historical and political and don't follow reason. I think the community will come to agreements about this and we will see more decriminalization - except where religions or other vested interest groups can influence public policy.

I mean, how many drug users do you know whom you would call satisfied and fulfilled individuals (… be honest)? — kudos

Quite a few, but they tend to be wealthier and therefore do not experience many ill effects of their substance use. Many of the ill effects of substance use are a byproduct of their illegality, not their properties. But most foods and substances can be abused - from Coca Cola to cocaine. The impact drugs have on people is often more about why they take them and how they take them.

Ok. Does it actually say that in the Bible or is this your interpretation? Any reason why we should take these myths more seriously than any other tradition's scriptures?

Sorry, I have no idea what you mean and how you arrived at that. Citations?

What is it about walking that is so great for thought, creativity, reflection? — Mikie

Don't know, I think repetitive activity and movement appeals to some people. English travel writer Bruce Chatwin described this phenomenon too - the notion walking away from illness and into new ideas features in Nicholas Shakespeare's excellent biography of Chatwin.

My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god.
- Bruce Chatwin

Personally, I don't find walking enjoyable or conducive to thought and I am virtually indifferent to nature. I walk a lot in the city and when I visit other cities and towns. If I can be distracted by interesting people and architecture, I don't notice that I am walking.

Perverse perhaps, but I find staff meetings and insufferable conferences a good place to zone out and start some creative thinking.

I’ve recently discovered this term “apolitical” and since political opinions are tied to values most of the time, I was wondering what an “apolitical” person without values would be like. — Skalidris

To me all apolitical means is someone who is not interested in politics. The fact that they hold values and beliefs is a separate matter. An apolitical person may be inclined to think that politics is not a vehicle where values can be successfully instantiated or fulfilled.

I wasn't aware I had given an actual argument. I simply made the observation that a bad person may produce good things, which can be bundled with a number of other statements made herein.

Ok. Well then I don't know what this debate is about. I thought the central focus was about whether H's work is contaminated or undermined by his Nazism. Since I have no expertise in Nazism or Heidegger's particular type of existential phenomenology, I should probably leave this to the cognoscenti. :wink:

Really? It seems implied in relation to Mr H.

And then this gets into ↪Fooloso4's point about "philosophical nihilism." It is easy to swallow the idea that a logician, for instance, can produce work unrelated to the moral sphere. But Heidegger is doing and purporting to do something much more fundamental ("metaphysics"), and there is much more at stake in considering whether that fundamental sphere is amoral. — Leontiskos

I don't hold to a view that because someone may be problematic that this bleeds into all their activities. But this is for a different thread.

I would be more sympathetic to atheism if science could explain consciousness. As it is, I think it's more likely we're aspects of a universal one-mind. — RogueAI

We're free to speculate and fantasize, why not? For me, atheism doesn't seek to explain anything. While it might posit that there are better explanations available than the god theory, atheism really only addresses one thing - whether you believe in gods or not. I am quite happy with 'I don't know' being the main go to answer for our complex questions like consciousness. The nature of consciousness is a subject for experts and perhaps only time will tell. Or maybe the mysterians are right and we'll never know the answer.

All we ever get to in these sorts of threads are, 'Heidegger was a philosopher of genius with significant flaws.' Not such a remarkable observation. At least we are now broadly conceding that H had Nazi sympathies, I remember a time when Heidegger acolytes would deny this and get quite angry at the merest suggestion of it. I haven't read Heidegger - I've tasted bits of him, however the work is far too complex for me and I'm not interested enough to pursue it. But I am willing to accept his work as brilliant - I see no contradiction between flawed or 'bad' people (however this is measured) who also produce innovative, prodigious work. I suppose the obvious question we keep coming back to is: do his flaws contaminate his thinking? I'm sure one could make a case for anything in this space.

If God teaching ended then I think that God/god would not fade. The human mind "wants" explanations for the unknown, and meaning for events, and god provides these. — Agree-to-Disagree

But god doesn't explain anything. When we say god created the world, it's equivalent to saying, 'the magic man did it.' God as a (pseudo) explanation does not tell us how or why, it answers nothing. But you are right to say that people are drawn to magical answers - we often attribute phenomena to ghosts, demons, spirits, the evil eye, gods and no doubt this will continue even if Yahweh and Allah join the ranks of defunct gods like Thoth, Xipe Totec and Aegir.

I think simplyG is referring to aesthetics, and not subjectiveness. — javi2541997

Yes, but I think the point being made in response is that aesthetic appreciation is subjective. We don't all appreciate or like the same things and notions of the beautiful seem to vary across time and culture.

That would defeat the purpose of diversity and life itself, I think he just wanted to create knowing perfection would be boring so he chose imperfection instead, I don't really know. — simplyG

I generally hold the view that if there is a god they are either somewhat powerless or a cunt. But who are we to use puny human logic on such complex matters? :wink: The idea that god would be happy to factor in intense suffering as an inherent attribute of their creation (in order to prevent boredom) sounds sociopathic.

The real question should be not “is there a god” but do I have faith that there is no god. T — simplyG

Most atheists I have known would not say there is no god. They are more likely to say that they are unconvinced that there is. As an atheist, I am unconvinced that there are gods. I have yet to hear an account of theism that I find convincing. It may be as Calvin says that some people don't have a sensus divinitatis. Perhaps it is like sexual preferences, some people are attracted to the god narrative and others are not.

I think there is a bigger problem than this. If creation is the product of good god, then why did this god conceive of and build a system wherein bloody and abject suffering of innocent living things was written into the very act of survival? To a great extent, insects and animals torment, hunt and eat other insects and animals in order to stay alive. What kind of a cruel deity (when presumably anything might have been possible) would conceive of a vicious reality wherein predation of this kind is a foundational attribute?

I imagine I could believe in something I knew to be true. But I don't think I would be worshipping anything.

Good question. I should have said 'I don't know if there are no gods.'

Agree. I never really know what people mean when they refer to god/s - the idea seems incoherent and convoluted. And you're right, a significant problem is that god has no explanatory power. It's just a place where some people imagine the buck stops. I generally consider myself an agnostic atheist. We can't know there are no gods, but I find myself unable to believe in them.

:fire: :wink:

Father RIchard Rohr is interesting. Of course much of the church finds him boarding on the heretical.

My question would then become, does it, in your experienced opinion, remain at least possible, that anyone, can be turned, away from complete surrender to utter despair? — universeness

I don't know. I'd like to think so, but I imagine it's a combination of (not always available) protective factors that impacts upon a person's recovery - biological, situational, relational, etc, etc. I spoke to a guy who was about to kill himself and the thing that stopped him, he said, was seeing a happy Labrador running in the park as he was about to prepare the noose. It took him back to his own dog when he was a boy and the pleasant memory jolted him. Talk about timing and luck. I think there are a lot of people who never encounter that transformative moment.

Thanks for both responses. Will check out the podcast. The Black Notebooks were probably a game changer.

I guess there's a scientific counterpart to alternative facts going on.

Maybe a diversion, but do you have a strong sense why Nazism appealed to H? What do you think was in H's process that allowed Nazism to fit comfortably alongside his more complex thinking?

Perhaps that in addition to his rampant Germanophilia accounts for his reference to the "inner truth and greatness" of National Socialism, even in the 1953 publication of An Introduction to Metaphysics. — Ciceronianus

Is this an answer to my question above? A form of elevated Volksgesinnung?

The Bible is not a 100% faithful recording of what really happened, what people really said and thought. — Angelo Cannata

What percentage is faithful then? 60%, 40%, 2%? And the percentage that is not faithful - how does this reinterpret or efface the percentage which is? What is a Christian to do?

I'd also agree about Jesus and the Bible. A literal reading kills the message and makes a mockery of it. — FrancisRay

Amen to that.

One of my favourite Christian writers, Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong (deseased) puts it like this:

“Unless biblical literalism is challenged overtly in the Christian church itself, it will, in my opinion, kill the Christian faith. It is not just a benign nuisance that afflicts Christianity at its edges; it is a mentality that renders the Christian faith unbelievable to an increasing number of the citizens of our world.

- John Shelby Spong Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy:

But let it be clearly stated, the Gospels are not in any literal sense holy, they are not accurate, and they are not to be confused with reality. They are rather beautiful portraits painted by first-century Jewish artists, designed to point the reader toward that which is in fact holy, accurate, and real. The Gospels represent that stage in the development of the faith story in which ecstatic exclamation begins to be placed into narrative form.”

― John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile

I think part of the problem is that people sometimes write putative soul-searching OP's along these lines without us having the benefit of knowing whether they write in good faith or merely for effect. So, I am not sure whether a response is just going to fuel the fires of depression or narcissism. Or indeed both.

I have never really understood questions about the meaning of life. There's a more pertinent question. Is life worth living? To a significant extent, as you say, this is up to us and what we make of it. But some people do live a hellish life for any number of reasons - chemical or situational. It may make sense to hate every moment and not see a way out.

I suspect that those of us who 'make choices' to find our own meaning through work and social connection have the inner resources, in short the wherewithal, to take charge of things. I think it's the case that not everyone can do this.

Ironcially @niki wonoto has written an OP drenched in meaning and strong principles. I just think they are the wrong principles.

Here is an article about "depressive realism" -- a term I just found out about: — L'éléphant

Interesting. In my experience people with depression are just as likely to get things wrong but the tendency is towards catastrophic underestimation and negative inferences rather than Panglossian overestimation.

Sounds right. I was involved with various groups affiliated with the Theosophical Society for about ten years. Pretty much what I saw. Interesting too how the farmer in Sicily never has a vision of Krishna, nor does the shepherd in the Punjab ever see the Virgin Mary...

What do you make of the syllogistic proof above?

Here is my briefest proof I can manage. .

1. It is demonstrable that all positive metaphysical theories are logically indefensible/ .
2. It is demonstrable that a neutral theory is logically defensible
3. The nondual doctrine of the Perennial philosophy translates into metaphysics as a neutral metaphysical theory.
4. Ergo. the Perennial philosophy is the only fundamental theory that survives analysis. — FrancisRay

I don't see how these premises stack up and besides I would need more than an eccentric syllogism to establish non-dualism as a fact. I suspect we're not going to get anywhere but I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks.

Interesting 180. I've never fully appreciated Spinoza's natura naturans but I am assuming (and forgive the crude summary) this monist view is an account of a kind of boundless, dynamic 'substance' from which all expressions of life/physicalism originate. I'm also assuming this notion does away with the age old debate 'why something rather than nothing'? The natura naturans being eternal. Is this a solution to the old theist argument from contingency?

Hmm, is it the Blessed Virgin, or a shepherdess playing the panpipes?

I am just pointing out that concepts like certainty and knowledge, as products of discursively formed social practices, differ in their meaning from era to era and culture to culture. Foucault performed an archeological analysis of such notions over the past millennium in the West to demonstrate that the very sense , value and use of terms like certainty and knowledge changed significantly from the Classical to the Modern period, across all modes of culture. So claiming that the desire for certainty is ancient is like saying that the desire for Romantic love is ancient, which is to confuse what is universal and transparent with what is culturally and historically contingent.

If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. We have always striven to make sense of each other and our world, and we do this by constructing through joint action shared systems of intelligibility. At a number of points in the course of cultural history, certain senses of the concept ( or family of concepts) of certainty were co-constructed. It was a means to an end; the means was the use of the term certainty and the end was the aim of making the world intelligible.

I think Wittgenstein’s focus on the desire for certainty resonates best in the context of the still-dominant influence of Enlightenment tropes of Truth. In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility. — Joshs

That's beautifully expressed. Probably belongs in the Certainty thread too.

The basic point is that mysticism is not about believing but about knowing. Hence no knowledge claim made by mysticism has ever been refuted or falsified. These claims are made with 100% certainty. . — FrancisRay

Lots of people make claims with 100% certainty - like many ordinary Christians or Muslims - they may also be 100% wrong. How would we know? There are many fundamentalists out there who also say things like, "I know that I know that I know that Jesus is Lord.' They 'feel' this as truth and certain knowledge. I wonder if mysticism isn't just a more sophisticated version of this very human desire to encounter certainty. I have no doubt that many mystics are certain about their experiences, what I do doubt is any need to accept their subjective experience of certainty.

This is true for untestable and unfalsifiable claims, but I did not say the nondual doctrine is untestable or unfalsifiable. It is testable and falsifiable but as yet unfalsified because it passes the tests. It is really quite easy to test a neutral or nondual metaphysical theory. . . . . . — FrancisRay

I think there may be a Noble Prize waiting for the person who can demonstrate nondulaism. Can you tell us how this can be done? You can't just say it is 'easy' and breezily move on. While it might be child's play to point to omissions and flaws in scientific knowledge, this doesn't give us license to fill the gaps with what some might call 'woo'.

Then there is the empirical fact that nobody is able to falsify or refute the nondual doctrine which, after two millennia of trying, might be counted as suggestive.empirical evidence. — FrancisRay

If you are referring to unfalsifiable propositions then we can include all manner of claims: ghosts, alien abduction stories, and most variations of conspiracy theories. None of which are falsifiable. The fact that a claim is unfalsifiable is problematic, not a strength. If we can't test a proposition then I don't see how we can assume that it must be true. How would we determine nondualism is an accurate account?

No mystic who ever lived claimed that they rely on beliefs rather than knowledge. To do so would make them a laughing stock. In one of his German sermons Meister Eckhart openly and explicitly pledges his soul on the truth of his teachings, and nobody would do this on the basis of beliefs that might be mistaken. , . — FrancisRay

Not sure what you are thinking of here. The fact that a person believes something deeply and sincerely does not make it any more true. How do we know when a mystic holds a true belief?

here is the fact that on television the creatures appear to be made of clay. — jgill

Perhaps they are golems and someone has removed their 'shem'. :wink:

Nice. Agree about this being a fixed thread or sticky.

So let's say that for many god is experience and metaphysical speculation, what of it?

Is it this?

God is an expression of what we think is most important. What we believe is important drives how we feel about things, and how we feel about things drives what we think about, and what we think about drives what we do. Finding God, in a sense, is the same thing as finding yourself. If you can decide for yourself what is most important to you, and get a good-enough working theory of how the world works, then everything else will sort itself out. God is an expression of what we think is most-important, and nothing is more important than that. — Brendan Golledge

This seems to come direct from Peterson country. I'm not trying to be rude but this paragraph seems to be a bundle of not very illuminating Californian style pop-psychology statements. 'Finding god is finding yourself' is a bit of a 1970's cliché. But what does it actually mean? What are you finding when you are finding self/god and what is the significance?

So are you an atheist in the slightly slippery Peterson mode, and have you also felt the need to redefine god in order make the idea more palatable to a modern sensibility and make god a psychological journey rather than a set of facts?