Some people explain the Universe as a universe based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. Matter alone has no value. We can say that the Universe is constructed with matter, but we must also say that matter works for some purpose. So in our understanding of the Universe we should recognize the existence of something other than matter. We can call that something spirit, but if we do we should remember that in Buddhism, the word 'spirit' is a figurative expression for value or meaning. We do not say that spirit exists in reality; we use the concept only figuratively. — Nishijima Roshi, Three Philosophies, One Reality
Maintaining that God cannot be expressed as a being seems to remove him from the discussion of different 'modes' or levels of 'being' rather than provide the means for such. — Paine
Religion as longing. Why not? — Banno
I don't understand the incessant need to put labels on people and their ideas. I find the ideas or the definitions much more interesting than the labels or terms we use to identify them.And this is responsive to why you aren't a mereological nihilist how? Facts are socially constructed whether about social relations or relations of atoms. The states of affairs, however, are what "is" independent of society. The question is to what extent the states of affairs are primitive (only the whole exists, e.g. atoms) or composite (wholes can have parts, e.g. people). If you believe that the states of affair are composite, I am saying that you are already acknowledging that the relationships of parts to one another cause things to exist or not. The question is why you privilege certain sorts of relations (things that are closer like people) over others (things that are further like countries) especially when you are likely to call things very far away from one another existent (like planets and solar systems). — Ennui Elucidator
I still don't understand how you are using the term, or its relevance. Maybe we should just stick with "states-of-affairs". I agree that there are states-of-affairs that exist independently of how we think about them. I'm a realist. I also think that how we think about things is also a state-of-affairs. That is to say that minds and what they do are just as much a part of, and exist in a causal relation with, the rest of the world. Another way of saying it is that our thoughts about things are just as natural as the things themselves.That is because you are not understanding metaphysical in the way that I am using it. It is something that is true of the states of affairs independent of how we think about them. Perhaps "ontic" would sit better with you? — Ennui Elucidator
Oh no. It's the complete opposite. I sincerely appreciate definitions. Definitions are something that I am constantly requesting of others so that I may understand the terms they are using. As I said before, the definitions are more interesting than the terms being used, and my point that you are replying to was that definitions that are not influenced by the need to control or dehumanize others, like some religious fundamentalists and politically biased people do, are the more useful (objective) definitions.You don't seem to appreciate what a definition is - it is inherently emblematic of intersubjective agreement, i.e. not objective (existent independent of minds). — Ennui Elucidator
Hehe, yes, well Banno does like his word-games. But that is the difference between he and I in that I don't see language as a game. I see it as a means of sharing individual "facts" (knowledge and beliefs).This is exactly the problem that the "anchor" in polythetic approaches is intended to address. The problem with Banno's post is that he plays fast and lose with words. He references a word ("religion") which is discussed in conceptual terms, highlights an approach which is intended to incorporate essentialism into a non-essentialist analysis of concepts, and then asks whether there is an essence to it. (It doesn't help that he vacillates between "concepts" and "definitions".) — Ennui Elucidator
:clap: Hence the links that have been discerned between Pyrrho (ancient Skepticism), and Buddhism, which has emerged in the last couple of decades (e.g. see Everard Flintoff 'Pyrrho and India'). From this you can discern a 'family resemblance' between Husserl's ‘epoché’ and the Buddhist ‘śūnyatā, between the Skeptic 'ataraxia' (tranquility) and the Buddhist 'nirodha' (cessation) which connotes 'suspension of judgement'. e.g. from an OP on 'emptiness — Wayfarer
A second difficulty is that Buddhism's aims were soteriological (i.e. concerned with salvation or liberation), but in our minds such philosophies must necessarily depend on the acceptance of dogma (which is what we equate with 'faith'). So here we're presented with something that seems paradoxically like a 'skeptical faith'. — Wayfarer
Actually, if you think about it, this 'using the concept of spirit only figuratively' is not a million miles from Aquinas' analogical language. — Wayfarer
Never tried that. Sounds like a bold approach. "Air hunger" - that's got to focus the mind — ZzzoneiroCosm
According to the instruction manual, Right View (twelve link chain of dependent origination, karma, rebirth, etc.) is doggedly claimed to be essential to liberation. — praxis
Language is delimiting, pulls things down to its own terms. — Constance
The four noble truths, Hindu metaphysics, and all we can think of is a just there as a "method" of grasping the world, a utility that serves one end: the security of well being. — Constance
I have read, and pondered, the Prajnaparamita, and, of course, one can easily see why thinking like this is all but absent from our culture and thinking. It calls for the annihilation of the world, if taken to its conclusion. — Constance
Some people explain the Universe as a universe based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. — Nishijima Roshi, Three Philosophies, One Reality
Language, to put it in a familiar way, never "touches" the world, for reference is impossible in the familiar way this is thought of. — Constance
The universe is not merely matter; matter means nothing, can be nothing, unless it takes form. Meaning is inherent within form. How could there be form without meaning? — Janus
All this to say that one must convince oneself of one's religion; kid yourself into it, so to speak. — Banno
Ok, so we have ritual, transcendent hierarchies and longing. — Banno
Rites don't purify the heart; skillful actions do: AN 10.176
Rituals alone can't take one beyond aging and death: Sn 5.3
Rites and protective charms should be avoided by lay followers: AN 5.175
The best protection comes not from rituals but from generous, moral, and wise actions: Khp 5
Water ablutions cannot wash away one's past bad kamma: Thig 12.1
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-subject.html#r
There are more things than there are words! The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao! The named are things that are critical to our well-being and I mean those things that are both harmful and/or beneficial; that which is neither, our minds ignore for a good reason in my humble opinion viz. to nip information overload in the bud. We've evolved to sense only mates, prey and predators and anything else that gets caught in this sensory net, being the right size in a manner of speaking. — Agent Smith
Does it make sense to say one knows how things seem? Isn't it just that they seem? Any ratiocination is excessive. — Banno
There are non-religious approaches to that end. I think the utility is in binding tribes, which can offer well-being, but if well-being were essential then I think religions would be better at the task. There is no reason they couldn’t be better at it. — praxis
There is no "principle of evolution" in the world moving things forward. — Constance
What is the ape to man? A laughingstock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the superman. — Zarathustra
It seems to me that we evolved to sense the passage of time - of cause and effect - so that we may learn to predict when and where predators, prey and mates will be. It also seems to me survival is the perfect catalyst to learn more about the environment we live in and that we may migrate to (like space) to improve our chances at surviving in any environment. Natural seems to favor those species that can adapt to any environment.We've evolved to sense only mates, prey and predators and anything else that gets caught in this sensory net, being the right size in a manner of speaking. — Agent Smith
No. Evolution is happening now. As long as environments with organisms change, there will be selective pressures to adapt in some way to those changes. For things to happen by accident implies that there was a goal or purpose in things being a certain way that somehow wasn't - as if the universe has a goal or purpose as existing without the existence of opposable thumbs, yet it still happened anyway. It also implies that you know how the universe was suppose to be (without the existence of opposable thumbs) yet they exist despite how you know it was suppose to be. Nothing happens by accident. What happens now is dependent on what has happened before.Evolution and its ideas and theories taken as a given. We have to understand that evolution is not a theory about what is. It is a theory about how it got here and has nothing to say about the qualitative conditions of our existence. That the hand has an opposable thumb is entirely an "accident". There is no "principle of evolution" in the world moving things forward. — Constance
If you're using language to report that things seem, then you've already engaged in some kind of ratiocination. How language seems to the individual seems to include how that it is just more than scribbles on a page or sounds in the air - that they can be used - but only after careful ratiocination.Does it make sense to say one knows how things seem? Isn't it just that they seem? Any ratiocination is excessive. — Banno
So the candidates for an anchor that seem most promising are ritual, transcendent hierarchies and longing.
The question which for me is central to the thread is now why science does not count as a religion, given these anchors. — Banno
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