The glorious and liberating feeling of bathing in the soothing shining light of the eternal divine intelligences, who, in their great wisdom and in honest selfishness, have created the cosmos and all life in it, so it can continue their blissful heavenly play. — Hillary

Religions don't have that much in common either. Even within the one faith, they have often knocked off each other in endless vicious schism infighting about doctrine and dogma. As it turns out theists can't agree about god/s. Catholic versus Protestant, Evangelical versus Liberal, Christian versus Muslim, Hindu versus Sikh, Sunni versus Shite.... There is no such thing as theism per say - there are simply theists who hold a range of often incompatible and contradictory views from one another.

Thanks Enrique - so you come to this issue via lived experience? That can be a valuable lens.

Namely, would it not be circular reasoning to suggest "existence is preferable over nonexistence because x", with x being a reason that pertains to existence e.g., "you can only experience happiness when you exist"? Is this a logically valid argument for existence being preferable?
I'd love to hear about how you would approach this statement! — ratgambling

'It is better to live than to never exist' is a simple question of meaning - most young people find themselves exploring it at some point. What answer you settle on will depend upon experience, not logic - your personal situation, your value system and the status of your mental health. It's pretty easy to see how a personal situation can land you to accept one answer over another.

Fair point. :up:

What formal qualifications do you have in this area?

Trust me I don't believe in this goody-two shoes Christian all loving God. — Moses

:up:

Sorry, I had you for a run of the mill apologist... I disagree about the Bible being of any use today re morality, but I don't have the inclination to explore this again.

You're a good Stalinist, Moses.

One of the influences in my thinking is former Episcopalian Bishop Shelby Spong who, obviously, was not an atheist.

"Some parts of the Bible are dreadful. In fact, my working title for The Sins of Scripture was "The Terrible Text of The Bible." - Spong

If you are arguing that I think god is evil because I don't like god killing innocent men, women and children and because he condones slavery, then you must like mass murder and slavery because your god condones it. Good for you, Comrade.

Evil ought to be destroyed in its entirety. God makes it clear his view on these Canaanite tribes who occupied Canaan before the Hebrews in Leviticus 18:28. — Moses

Except that the god described in the Old Testament is evil, right? This creature has an enormous blind spot and is mafia boss and thug, running belief in him as a protection racket.

Numbers 31:17-18 - Vengeance over the Midianites - take the virgin women for yourselves and kill all the men. Exodus 21 - support of slavery and rules for buying/keeping slaves. 2 Samuel 24, god killing 70,000 people because David took a census without permission. Etc....

Now, those Christians who make justifications or attempt tricky interpretations of this and other awful material depicting this unjust and evil god are like the Stalinists of the 1950's, justifying Stalin's atrocities or pretending they did not happen.

This old paradox comes up a lot here. I have a few conceptual issues with it. How exactly do you imagine the Abrahamic god lifts anything? (There's the initial problem here of which god/s you are referring to.) Does god have a body with arms and is he six feet tall? Does it even mean anything to say that transcendent god lifts something up? Probably not unless you think god is corporeal in some way. I think the limitations in paradoxes are ones of language and conceptual clarity rather than god/s. And I say this as an atheist.

A slightly more intriguing one is - if god is omnipotent can he make a square circle? Again - you could argue god can't do what is logically impossible, so this is also a meaningless question. Can god make a married bachelor would be another... Some might argue that god can do it because he is omnipotent and of course we are left to imagine just how this could be done for eternity, given god isn't rushing to demonstrate anything to anyone...

If you're right that everyone is wrong, then not everyone is wrong because you were just right. — Hanover

That's my plan!

The content of the Bible should therefore not be read as an early humanist attack upon religion merely on the basis that it is, to modern observers, abhorrent. — BigThoughtDropper

So when god promotes slavery and genocide and rape in the Bible, how is humanism or religion supposed to understand this?

You seem to be saying that because it was common it was normalized and therefore... ok? Was rape morally wrong 2000 years ago? If not how does the observation assist us?

Then why do I see the evidence all around me and you don't? — Hillary

Maybe it's because people jump to conclusions about what they see and have different understandings for what passes as evidence. (This can support both theism or atheism)

Well, at least now one can get good coffee. — Banno

Yes - the anti-enlightenment dodge delivers us fluffy bearded baristas called Bryce...

The properties of God Christians teach are:
1. All powerful
2. All knowing
3. Creator of universe
4. Spirit rather than physical entity — Jackson

Those are superficial generalities. What differs is how we understand god's nature - what god wants from people, what behavior is moral, the extent of god's judgement. That's where the vast differences are located and the source of many conflicts between creeds.

I think it is pretty straight forward for Christians. God as described in the Bible and supported by theology. — Jackson

Not at all. Christians are all over the place on theology or the Bible. I grew up in the Baptist tradition in Australia. We were taught that the Bible is an allegory and most of the stories myths. We were pro abortion, pro gay rights, pro feminism, etc. Christianity takes many forms and some, like theologian Paul Tillich even hold that we can't know god and he doesn't exist because by definition god is outside of the category of existence which is reserved for corporeal creatures.

It's a joke Jackson (referencing my Kantian thread) hence the wink emoji.

1. Everybody is right

2. Everybody is wrong.

Which would you select and why? — Agent Smith

Everybody is wrong. Because all we ever know is tentative and defeasible and evanescent.

Ok. You're a Kantian... :wink:

:up: For some reason, I find myself being reminded of Hitler's 1937 Munich Exhibition of Degenerate Art...

The agnostic says knowledge about God is not possible. — Jackson

Only some say this. Many would say we don't know as things stand, but this may change. If god/s were to arrive in town, in full regalia, we would review our position, right? To make the claim knowledge of god is not possible is a rather extreme metaphysical position.

Do you agree with these definitions?
Are you an agnostic/Agnostic? — ArmChairPhilosopher

Definitions have usage not meaning. I think it's often a rookie philosophy mistake to get too concrete about definitions.

I am an agnostic atheist - (atheism goes to belief, agnosticism goes to knowledge) none of the claims made about god/s are convincing to me, but I don't know. This would be similar to claims about Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. We can't know that they do not exist, but we are not convinced by the claims which have been made.

Atheism is not a doctrine, it is a position on a single claim. These days atheists are often likely to say I don't accept the claim that god/s exist. They do not say there is no god (unless they are dogmatists).

I can go on and on but l feel the enlightenment movement has created a monster 400 years later. This Judeo-Christian western civilization isn't my inheritance, perhaps this gives rise to my bias but l have tried my very best to remain impartial. — Eskander

I've heard people make this and similar arguments for decades - I can't imagine anyone but a modern person, who is bathed in sentimental understanding of the past and a particularly slanted representation of the present, make it. It's the old 'back to Eden' trope. There was a book called Humanism The Wreck of Western Culture by sociologist John Carroll that provided a similar academic version of this thesis.

Prosperous modern people have often moved to the country or joined communes, or decided to live off the grid as a 'remedy' for the present era. I understand the power of this idea and acknowledge that it might provide some peace, if not boredom. I suspect that the recent and enduring cult of authenticity and hipster artisanal products is another expression of this impulse. As was Transcendentalism in the 19th century.

n the modern world, with a lot more science at our disposal than Kant ever had in small-town Köningsberg, it's hard to remain Kantian. — Hillary

Sure. Hence my initial question, can it be a slight - a reference to a superseded and rigid epistemologically constrained ontology?

When I say "Kantian" I usually mean either 'brain-in-a-vat deontology' (narrowly) or 'epistemology-constrained ontology' (broadly). edit: Also, any deductively proposed 'solution in search of (a) problem(s)'. — 180 Proof

Just getting back to this - would you mind providing an example of 'epistemology-constrained ontology' and a deductively proposed solution in search of problems?

The point is that, searching more about such philosophical topics through the internet, our conclusion is that actually it is not Gods, supernatural beings, and not even science or technologies that we must seek to solve our problems or "save us". It is actually the "powers" that such things have. (But only if they really have such powers, of course).

And when we say about "power", we are talking about a "skill", "possibility", "ability" that a thing has, to do something. — Individualist Possibilist

I'm not sure I understand what your argument is. Do you mean that humans with specific skills that are evidence based will have the capacity to resolve most of our problems? Is this not just a complex way to privilege a scientific approach? The use of the word 'power' doesn't really fit as I see it. There are too many resonances of super powers or magic powers. And from a more post-modern angle, it sounds like a cribbed version of Foucault.

Got ya. Thanks.

Recognizing that thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. This is a realization you will not find in Descartes through Hume. — Joshs

Thanks Joshs. Not sure I recognise the significance of these two ideas. Are you able to briefly describe how this Kantian stage actually plays out in art with an example?

:up:

Wow... thanks for this rich response. I am particularly intrigued by this:

his recognition that epistemic relation to the world is no different to the epistemic relation to one's own self (I am as much a 'noumenon' as things 'out there') — StreetlightX

If you don't mind me asking, how does that play out in ordinary life?

When I say "Kantian" I usually mean 'brain-in-a-vat deontology' (narrowly) or 'epistemology-constrained ontology' (broadly). — 180 Proof

Cool, so it's rigidity and method.

When a philosopher says, I am using Kant's theory of art to explain this artwork, they are a Kantian. — Jackson

Indeed, but some may not use such overt language, right? We then have to infer it from the critical perspective they bring, which is? (You've already partly answered this on the other thread).

Thanks.

Yes, familiar. I have met Kantian art critics. — Jackson

What are the attributes of a Kantian art critic?

I understand those arguments and you put them well.

but I'm going to say that societies that don't value human life and normalize suicide are just objectively terrible societies. — Moses

Sure, but no one has said this is a matter for society. The question is, what are an individual's philosophical beliefs. It is unlikely there will ever be enough advocates of this approach to change the fundamental dynamic of an entire culture. Do you know of a society that has 'normalized' suicide (by this I am assuming you mean have made it a part of the culture) and what the effects of this have been? Or are you making a guess here?

Aesthetics to counteract rationalization in society, essentially. — praxis

How would this work? Does Netflix count? :groan:

Nietzsche famously proclaimed that “only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified.” — praxis

How do you think Nietzsche intended this?

I don't know why anyone would want to live in a society where suicide was insanely normalized and human life was valueless. — Moses

Yes, you don't know why, but people don't share value systems and often construct totally different worlds from each other.

Then go be extinct. Don't procreate. — Moses

Well, antinatalism is a significant school of thought and there are many threads on this on the TPF.

By the way - I do not share these views, just pointing them out.

I disagree with this. Your culture and ideals are at risk if you don't procreate. — Moses

So? You make that sound like a bad thing. Extinction sounds perfectly reasonable to many folk.

Why can't I just kill myself under your system if I have good reason to suspect that the rest of my life will be painful and I don't have much to live for? Doesn't suicide become dangerously reasonable? — Moses

I hate to tell you this but entire philosophies have been based on this premise that (e.g.,Camus) “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

I think there is merit in what you say about the more liberal traditions and I have sometimes argued this point myself, particularly after reading Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong on the subject of literalism three decades ago in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. But it remains the case that fundamentalist outlooks provide political and philosophical underpinning in powerful places in the USA, in India, in the Middle East and in Russia. And are not always Christian.