What I meant was, for those who know, belief is no longer necessary, but that up until then, it has to be taken on faith. — Wayfarer
Churches have always been (and they still are) a place where people feel they belong to. — javi2541997
I am open to relativism, so this concern doesn't really bite for me.
The meta-ethics will assuredly heal your "spirit," but you are (respectfully) unwittingly using "spirit" when you mean Mind..
— ENOAH
The malaise you reference is a construct of the Mind. — ENOAH
The system works. It doesn't have to be religion. You feel bad. Fix it. Apologize and henceforth be honest. — ENOAH
It might be better to put it where some people feel they belong. There are probably just as many people (perhaps more?) who find churches cold, intimidating, unremittingly vulgar or simply unsafe on account of having been abused (or know people abused) by religious clerics and laypeople. Just saying. :wink: — Tom Storm
Sorry Astrophel, annihilation? Would you accept, a rest, vacation, respite? I think I know what you mean, but meditation is a simultaneous turning away from "existence" and turn toward Reality, or True Being. — ENOAH
I think, like Abraham's temporary suspension of the ethical ( specifically the law against infanticide, broadly, "existence," our world) meditation as we are using it here, is a temporary reprieve from our world, which removes its obstructions and allows brief glimpses of Truth. But the world has become the inescapable* default setting for humans in human existence.
*I think there might theoretically be a "meditative" process which might allow one to exist in a permanent state of Truth, hence "annihilating" existence; but, man, is that unlikely.
Have I misunderstood? Intruded? — ENOAH
However, it seems problematic to say that truth is completely relativized, even vis-á-vis introspection —that people cannot look back on past events and say "that was a bad decision," with any more validity than their thoughts at that given moment. It's not moral relativism that is at stake when practical reason is reduced to emotional claims, but a thoroughgoing relativism for all claims. — Count Timothy von Icarus
My view would be that conceptions of truth are prephilosophical. They show up when your mechanic fails to have fixed your car, or when your child claims they didn't throw a rock you just saw them throw, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Kierkegaard didn't want to be a philosopher in the literal sense, and he, in opposition to Hegel, didn't preach Christianity as an illusion. K also considered himself an undoubtedly Lutheran, etc. I personally think Kierkegaard felt more comfortable debating about theology, the Bible and Christian Ethics. He became a philosopher accidentally. I see him as one of the representatives of existentialism. I really like K and I always like to get deeper in his thoughts. I think this has already been discussed here but Kierkegaard, apart from other things, is dialect! He used specific words in Danish which are difficult to translate into our languages, like 'anfægtelse' which means 'spiritual trial'. Kierkegaard shows the anguish inherent to the authentic God-relationship and also the dangerous possibility of the individual imagination's. It is here that Kierkegaard's emphasis upon individual responsibility. — javi2541997
As far as I understand this, confessing only heals the spirit because the latter is sacred, religious, etc. I mean, they are different concepts with different results. Don't you think? — javi2541997
if the idea is simply to live a less stressful life, then fine. But this is not what Gautama Siddhartha had in mind so long ago. — Astrophel
f one assumes the concept of moral development, I would argue that the lack of progress towards an active moral conscience correlates to the lack of variation in one’s exposure to morality and ethics as practices and principles. In other words, it is the lack of variation in one’s life experience (ie. the trial and error of a moral dilemma, like whether it was right or wrong to lie to your parents), and a lack of variety in the consideration of other moral principles and practices as found in the record of moral literature, that inhibits the growth of the conscience. As a parable, how might the Buddha have come to suggest the middle way or reach enlightenment if he himself hadn't lived through a variety of extremes? — NOS4A2
But yes, K was very disturbed in his struggles with faith, his long nights of inner struggle. Good thing he didn't marry Regina Olsen. — Astrophel
I am certainly not against such a thing, but I think one has to rethink Kierkegaard as a model for spiritual guidance. The existential revolt against Hegel's rationalism puts all eyes on existence, one's personal existence. — Astrophel
as its annihilation is likely impossible. — ENOAH
not until you showed up — Astrophel
But still I think we are talking about healing one and the same thing. Whether we call it Mind or Spirit. It might be convenient for discourse to think of the Mind as, for e.g., the seat of reason, and the spirit, for e.g., as the seat of the sacred, and thus of guilt and despair. They are not divided, but the same thing. — ENOAH
You suggest that the Spirit alone can be healed by confession. Yet many forms of psychotherapy involve speaking out your mind's issues to a qualified other. As long as it needs healing by apologizing, — ENOAH
I choose to confess because I feel it is more personal. It is like a redemption with myself — javi2541997
I personally believe that every sin, lie or bad action has consequences — javi2541997
That is what it is about... Suffering from the anxiety of being aware that I had done terrible things. How can I heal this? — javi2541997
Because without God everything is permitted' as Dostovesky would say... Well, I would say: Without a spirit, everything is permitted. — javi2541997
If I lied to my parents is due to trying to flirt with a woman. Nature surpassed my innocent spirit. — javi2541997
An atheist background would affect me in the sense of denying the existence of a spirit. — javi2541997
This was the point of the reference to the drug addict. Not that "heroin is an objective bad," but rather that someone whose drug problem has ruined their life can claim, with good warrant, "it was not good for me to begin doing drugs." — Count Timothy von Icarus
There are some very good studies on the phenomenology of truth, the basic aspects of experience from which the notion emerges. Good metaphysical explanations of truth then need to explain this, to explain this adequately, which is easier said than done. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The Brothers Karamazov a character asks: “But what will become of men then?” I asked him, “without God and immortal life? All things are permitted then, they can do what they like?” — Tom Storm
But these entanglements conceal the nature of ethics itself for the question is not raised here if there is anything indefeasible about these affairs. — Astrophel
But the Real the underpins ethical entanglements and makes ethics what it IS, is value, and by value I mean the good and the bad that generates obligation outside of, logically prior to, the language constructs we use. — Astrophel
I am a little bewildered at how often I've heard versions of this in response to submissions that God either doesn't exist, or if It does, is beyond good and bad, right and wrong, (and all other dualisms arising only to a species like us who have constructed difference.) — ENOAH
I have no beef with entomology or evolution, but I refuse to admit that they teach me much about ethics. Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense. — Richard Polt
I am a little bewildered at how often I've heard versions of this in response to submissions that God either doesn't exist, or if It does, is beyond good and bad, right and wrong, (and all other dualisms arising only to a species like us who have constructed difference.) — ENOAH
And that difference is not only biological, it is also existential. — Wayfarer
viewing existence purely through the lens of Darwinian theory is inevitably reductionist, which is one of the unfortunate characteristics of today's culture. — Wayfarer
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