Also, "rationality brought to bear on ethics" goes back at least as far as the Aristotleans, Epicureans & Stoics ... and Spinoza predates Kant et al by at least a century. Ethics, like the rest of philosophy, is a performative exercise (reflection, contemplation) and not a propositional discourse (theoretical explanation), so it's inherently interminable, perhaps occasionally converging (by processes of eliminating patent nonsense and falsehoods) but never converging upon settled-once-and-for-all-positions. We're Sisyphusean rodeo clowns striving, at best, for better questions, Fool, not scientists with lab results or self-help gurus pimping fortune cookie (perennial) answers. Why ethics continues to preoccupy so many philosophers? Same reason "health" still preoccupies physicians & homeopaths. Both indicate horizons within which we humans exist together and that we are always approaching but never reaching, thus enabling us as they constrain us. — 180 Proof

Thanks for this paragraph it brought be considerable pleasure. :up:

In Marxist dictatorships, people were convicted of crimes with mock trials, others were executed without a fair trial despite the law required it." -- Not a verbatim quote, but I agree with it. — god must be atheist

Christianity did the same thing for ages. The heretic was appropriated from religion and placed in a political context. Islamic fundamentalism is still at it.

As it is, many do not believe in God, or any supernatural power. Humanity, in many ways, stands before a godless abyss, struggling to know what to do next, in order to survive... — Jack Cummins

That's a nice summary of what people often believe about humanity. Is there an abyss? I think only for people with a certain cast of mind. The abyss doesn't have to be godless. There is also the god abyss. Christ knows a lot of theists live tortured lives not knowing what god wants from them, being mocked by silence and emptiness and sometimes being kept awake at night with visions of hell fire, etc.

My own experience is that many secular people live calm, rational lives, with few concerns about metaphysics and epistemology and still manage to live deeply and thoughtfully, rarely being too concerned by questions of transcendent meaning.

Our post-human successors will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world. — David Pearce (Hedonistic Transhumanist)

But will you be able to get hold of a plumber on Sunday mornings?

hat's how I feel about people with awful judgment "weighing in" on anything -- whether it's physics, the election, the coronavirus, vaccines, 9/11, or anything else. — Xtrix

I don't disagree, but how does one determine the line between sound and awful judgement?

In Communist countries like Soviet Russia and the Communist Bloc, a country would have an official legal code, but the ruling Communist Party would take the law into its own hands as it pleased, for example, by ordering courts to sentence people to death without due process or simply arresting, jailing or executing them without any trial.

In other words, the law was there but wasn't applied. The state was "above the law". — Apollodorus

Of course, they are dictatorships. That's how they do things.

Buddha, once, was recorded for saying - "Even in Hell, I'll be well" ... Meditate upon this, friend ... — Anand-Haqq

Yes, but you missed the entire quote - "Even in Hell, I'll be well, but I'm really, really afraid."

Your posts are very familiar. J Kirshnamurti said very similar things.

I think the question of the nature of the wave-function is a metaphysical question, or even THE metaphysical question implied by modern physics. A lot of the controversies revolve around that point. — Wayfarer

Nice. That's pretty much what I've come to think and I can see how this model can kickstart many a speculative journey.

I´m multidimensional ... I'm a Life ... You cannot imprision a free being ... You cannot imprision Life ... Can you ? — Anand-Haqq

Yes. In a prison.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself is often seen as exemplifying the most critical essence of Christianity (after loving God) and is closely connected to the Golden Rule. But the question is - who is thy neighbour? This can, and has, taken on a more brutal in-group only orientation when, for instance, during periodic resentments Christians cheerfully murder other Christians in the Good Fight.

Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates this ideal rather dramatically, showing that one's neighbour includes people from the out-group. A Samaritan, no less, a foe of the Jews, is described as an exemplar of the ideal neighbor. A provocative notion even today when groups and cultures seem to be so divided and hateful of the other.

Atheist, do you have conclusive proof that god doesn't exist? Certainly not! Why else would there be theists? — TheMadFool

Theists are atheists of a sort too - they disbelieve in the hundreds, thousands of gods that others do or have believed in, without being able to disprove them. They don't even try.

There are agnostic atheists - who are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.

I find it easy to say I don't believe in theism of any kind because I have no good reason to accept the proposition. Definitive disproof isn't relevant. Saying 'I don't know' is accurate too, but in practical terms kind of pointless since I have no belief. I am without god/s.

The reincarnation that can be told is not the eternal reincarnation; The transmigration that can be named is not the eternal transmigration. :yikes:

And sometimes they are, and sometimes they are not. — James Riley

Yep, and sometimes the ones who think they aren't, are and the ones who think they are, aren't.

Loving wisdom doesn't mean you have any. I've never been quite sure how to interpret this 'love of wisdom'. It sounds passive and slightly lackluster. It seems to miss something of the vigor attached to challenging one's assumptions and beliefs and actually fighting to comprehend something new and alien.

:up:

I don't quite understand how that makes us the measure of all things — James Riley

I hear you. I guess it depends on what 'the measure of all things' means. Protagaros aside, I am the measure of all things in my universe. As Gore Vidal used to say - 'When I die I'm going take all of you with me."

Beyond that, it makes sense to me that our understanding of the world, reality itself, is a function of our particular human nervous system and perceptual organs. I'm not ready to defend that position at this point. — T Clark

TC I have always held this as an intuitive belief. Humans think like humans for human reasons - the world and us is to some extent 'created' by our corporeal strengths and limitations.

That was a delightful romp, X. :cheer:

As you say, the devil is in the details. The personality side of this putative process intrigues me the most. I wonder in this scenario if you would retain the same traits and tastes and if these would evolve or change as they might in life. Or would this kind of 'synthetic hemi-brain' work to maintain a sense of consistency, remaining as it was when 'copied'. If that makes sense...

Read Plato, Plotinus, and other philosophers. — Apollodorus

OK, I see.

Evidence for what? — Apollodorus

The soul is a form of intelligent energy. An immaterial substance that has the power of knowledge and action, of being aware of itself and of other things and of acting upon or interacting with itself and other things.

The physical body (soma) contains the metaphysical soul (psyche) which contains the spirit (pneuma or nous).

The spirit has two two aspects, (1) one that always contemplates the Universal Intelligence and does not descend into the physical world, and (2) one that is connected to the soul and incarnates in a body in the physical world. — Apollodorus

That.

What reasons do you have for this belief? Universal Intelligence too...

I have been thinking about starting a discussion on how, sometimes, it makes more sense to pay attention to the questions people ask than to the answers they give. — T Clark

That resonates with me. A great way to make a statement is to disguise it with a question. And naturally, the presuppositions people reveal with their questions often means answering that question is impossible until a whole lot of other detritus is dealt with.

:100:

Nice response - common sense defended. The National Enquirer magazine's slogan used to be, 'Enquiring minds want to know.' Dressing up yellow journalism as a virtue. Having known a lot of folks who enjoy a conspiracy theory (and I think this the right verb), a lot of blarney is wrapped up in the old, "I'm just asking questions here."

From what I understood, philosophy is supposed to be about the way one thinks and talks about things, not about coming up with definitive narratives about "how things really are". — baker

That's a good point. Although hopefully one is getting closer to the best possible version of reality (whatever that might be), or why bother?

I would have thought that for every idea proposed there is always going to be an opposite statement made by someone at some time. I don't read anything into this.

I'm thinking about starting a thread to prove that force does not really equal mass times acceleration. — T Clark

I'm thinking of starting a threat that proves Yahweh/God is real because quantum mechanics was predicted in Bible prophesy - taking Genesis, you just need to use a higher power decoding equation I have developed based on Lurianic Kabbalah and the tree of life as a functional reorientation of the chart of Standard Model particle physics.

How about the denial of basic human right to life by those who have no regard for the lives of others and refuse to follow simple safety precautions and wear a mask? — Fooloso4

Yes, this one simple statement encapsulates a key problem. What hope for a shared notion of common good when agreement on first principles seems unachievable.

In fairness to atheists, the more sophisticated kind do not make a positive claim about God's non-existence. That would require proof.

The more nuanced positioned held by most atheists I have read is that they have no good reason to accept the proposition that a god or gods exist. This form of atheist would probably say something like - the time to believe in a proposition is when there is good evidence for it.

In other words, the traditional arguments in defence of some kind of deity can be dealt with and are unconvincing. The matter of which a particular deity (Deist/Christian/Muslim) to assert belongs to an entirely different series of arguments.

It would also be fair to point out that many modern Christians reject traditional arguments for God's existence too. Some of them prefer to use pre-suppositionalist apologetics (Alvin Plantinga), which are pretty fun.

There's the category of 'atheist agnostic' - they are atheist regarding belief in God and agnostic on the idea of God as being incoherent or unknowable. Some people find this position unacceptable. I personally find pure agnosticism a bit wishy washy and I suspect that most pure agnostics have one foot in a 'higher power' belief system but know they can't yet justify this.

Agree. A succinct, no bullshit view.

It's just a question. — Apollodorus

Your whole paragraph is typed in bold - this is not 'just a question' for you. You are VERY preoccupied by totalitarianism. Why is that?

While re-thinking is the exchange of conceptual validity, which is an entailed judgement alone, re-thinking is not necessarily conceptual substitution, which is a separated cognition incorporating its own conditions. — Mww

I have no idea what this means but it looks great.

My favourite ism is antidisestablishmentarianism.

I get that. In the 1970's people heavily into pacifism would often say, without irony, 'I'm not into ism's, Man,... peace.' They thought isms were bad beliefs and all other beliefs were ism free.

It's funny how 'ism' has long had such totemic power . But if most isms are beliefs would we bother to say there is no escape from beliefs or worry about this in the same way?

Why is it so hard to admit that communism isn't any better? Why can't we just reject all forms of totalitarianism? Where exactly is the problem? And what is the explanation, psychological or whatever? — Apollodorus

Huh? Sounds like I missed an exciting debate on here about totalitarianism. I looked, vainly trying to find what you were referring to but it seems to have gone. Oh, there was some Jordan Peterson neophyte making a Peterson comment on this earlier but no one except me took issue.

Something that people should be reminded when their views of Marxism-Leninism become too rosy, I should add. — ssu

Reminded of what specifically? That some prefer Nazism to Communism based on that childish nugget? Or that Communism kills people? Surely this is the most obnoxious cliché people reach for when discussing this subject and is rarely not reached for by some 'incisive' thinker....

doesn't it logically follow that a man made discipline would be child's play in comparison? — Hanover

How so?

I understand scientism to be metaphysical naturalism, not methodological naturalism; the latter is just science. Are you wanting to make a distinction between metaphysical and ontological naturalism?
— Janus

Now that I read your distinction and question, I have to think about it again. — spirit-salamander

This may need tidying up, but Scientism (philosophical naturalism) should be separated from that which says methodological naturalism is the most reliable way of understanding reality, which is unable to comment on that which is yet to be identified.

:cool:

Methodological naturalists maintain, roughly, that well-established science is our touchstone for identifying the denizens of causal reality: we have no reason to believe in causal entities and causal powers beyond those recognised by science." — spirit-salamander

That works for me.

Any explanations? — Banno

While the devotees of higher awareness often disparage the limited vision of science, they seem to be the first to reach for science (through speculative quantum theories) when it can be positioned to 'prove' or embolden their positions. Everyone thinks they are Paul Davies.

And communism killed more people than the nazi’s. — Caleb Mercado

This is not a helpful observation; it provides almost no insight. Firstly - was it a competition? Secondly, Communism lasted decades, Nazism just over one decade.