I agree about the "remembering".

Neil deGrasse Tyson — 'The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.'

It might seem odd that religion is bothered by whether we believe or not. However, that's not the case. Religion in general deals with the unknown - god, soul, death, etc. So, it is not surprising that there's so much debate on the issue. We're stymied by lack of critical evidence and that opens the door to endless speculation. Sometimes I feel like we should just wait - we'll die eventually and ''hopefully'' solve this ancient riddle.

Sometimes I feel like we should just wait - we'll die eventually and ''hopefully'' solve this ancient riddle. — TheMadFool

Yes, hopefully not go to hell, >:)

I appreciate the mutually interconnected and interdependent ontology vis-a-vis the virtue of existence and being a part of nature, but in the case of radical evil along with consciousness and free-will, I find myself drawn to the categorical imperative. How you live your life, your frame of mind and the decisions that you make reflect your overall clarity to become a part of this nature, but does it not also enable you to judge it? — TimeLine

I'm not sure I understand your point. But I think we've been ill-served by the belief we're apart from Nature rather than a part of it. I think that misapprehension or conceit has resulted in a great deal of harm. From it arises dualisms of all sorts, an unhealthy and even lunatic self-regard, self-righteousness (we're made in God's image), the view that nature exists for our benefit and use, etc. and, I suppose, the view that we stand in judgment of nature. For me, it's part of the attraction of Stoicism that it avoids these misunderstandings.

I think Stoicism is consistent with the more reasonable view that we're nothing more, or less, than inhabitants of a speck in an unimaginably large universe who are capable of thought and reason. The Stoic belief in God (I don't know that you have to believe in order to be a Stoic) also seems more reasonable. If a God of such a universe exists, it seems unreasonable to think God is particularly or peculiarly interested in us. If God is not of the universe, we can know nothing of God because we can know only the universe, or rather our small part of it. So if there be a God, God is immanent in the universe. I think Spinoza derived a great deal from the Stoics, though it seems he may not have thought so. In any case, I think they thought of God and what is good along the same lines.

The ancient Stoics accepted a kind of determinism. I personally think the question or "problem" of free will isn't worth much thought. It makes no difference to how we live; we'll continue to make choices and find that better choices result from being thoughtful. The problem of evil is, I think, is the result of our belief that the universe exists for us and should be responsive to our concerns. We came along long after the universe began, though, and we're rather responsive to it.

But I'm better off waiting for you to explain what you're point is. I do ramble on, once started.

I'm an atheist.

I have some fondness for Zen Buddhism, but purely as kind of a loose, pragmatic pop philosophy a la, say Joe Hyams' Zen in the Martial Arts or Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind/Beginner's Mind.

That latter book is the foundation text of the San Francisco Zen Centre which I think is fair to say has become a major cultural influence in contemporary culture.

Hippies die hard....

T'would be nice if it had, it's a great book, indeed! But I think it is more the case that it has become a major cultural influence in a minor area of contemporary culture.

I'm not sure I understand your point. But I think we've been ill-served by the belief we're apart from Nature rather than a part of it. — Ciceronianus the White

When one thinks of radical evil as being demonstrative of an innate condition, how does this reflect the interconnectedness of Nature? Whilst I appreciate your view particularly that humanity conceitedly have an unhealthy and even lunatic self-regard, self-righteousness (we're made in God's image) and I could not have said it better myself, this is not a dualism but rather a natural consequence of consciousness and free-will and thus Kant' categorical imperative is a moral alternative that sheds a more clear light than the stoics on overcoming radical evil. We stand in judgement of our nature to become one with Nature.

If a God of such a universe exists, it seems unreasonable to think God is particularly or peculiarly interested in us. If God is not of the universe, we can know nothing of God because we can know only the universe, or rather our small part of it. So if there be a God, God is immanent in the universe. I think Spinoza derived a great deal from the Stoics, though it seems he may not have thought so. In any case, I think they thought of God and what is good along the same lines. — Ciceronianus the White

There appears to be a necessity epistemically for people to conform to a system or belief, whether it is a particular religion, a culture, a philosophy, even other people like parents or girlfriends, and to categorise oneself as a 'stoic' or a 'catholic' enables a determined boundary that prevents feelings of separateness and angst that autonomy and free-will often engender. The last sentence you say reflects a Kantian moral necessity and you are precisely right, that by having 'faith' in God - what is Good or Perfect - though God is immanent, neither existing nor non-existent, we reflect the cyclic regularity between ourselves and the material world and become one with Nature through moral consciousness. Thus by epistemically conforming to God, we seek subjectively to improve ourselves independent of conformity to the imperfect or finite, or what is worldly. By becoming this rational, autonomous agent, we become aware of the reasonable illusions, human conceit and the narcissistic self-regard that conflicts with the ebb and flow of Nature.

I am unsure of whether Spinoza derived much from the Stoics but there are certainly a plethora of comparable themes that are worthy of discussion; even so, the categorical imperative functions as a synthesis between the passions and our will that he believes the Stoics failed to adequately command, as you yourself say the ancient Stoics accepted a kind of determinism. Whilst I am nonetheless open for you to ameliorate an alternative to this view, without transcending to a rational, autonomous being governing our own behaviour that mimics the ideal of Nature or God, we will continue to be responsive to choices that conform to people or concepts or things that lacks the free-will or consciousness necessary to become moral or to overcome radical evil.

But I'm better off waiting for you to explain what you're point is. I do ramble on, once started. — Ciceronianus the White

Ramble away; there is nothing more pleasurable for me than reading highly articulate ramblings about such subjects. The post is merely touching the surface as I am trying to explain a rather intense subject without the intensity.

I answered 'maybe' and 'other,' but I'll acknowledge my inability to articulate any definite position on the matter, other than to say that I do think any relevant addressing of the topic should start fresh, and by that I mean with a radical re-assessment of human existence.

I find many of the assumptions made about us and our world (e.g. subject/object split) and God (e.g. God as an extant being) to be questionable, and this debate almost always seems to move within a particular sphere of understanding in which guiding assumptions about our way of being are taken for granted, and these in turn frame the alternatives.

Tentatively, though, I'd classify myself as a pantheist--or even panentheist--if I had to categorize myself, and, if I'm not mistaken, these can be found among adherents of all the religions you offered as options, although typically as marginalized and persecuted minorities within them.

Wasn't it Schopenhauer who referred to pantheism as 'atheism with a happy face,' or something of that sort?

Actually that is much nearer to what I probably meant to say. It is that recognition, not of something you didn't know previously, but the meaning of something you knew already. Which, I think, is very near the meaning of Plato's 'anamnesis', 'un-forgetting' — Wayfarer

To avoid any misconstrual to the suggestion of memories of former or otherworldly cognitive states, what I was attempting to convey was that each of us have existential experiences and cognitive abilities that interact in ways that sometimes we are unable to articulate or express linguistically or semantically, particularly when we are young. We form emotional or subconscious patterns of experience and habitual behavioural responses that language articulates to a conscious state, which is why such 'aha' moments can be so relieving. So, sometimes we may have an intuitive feeling, emotions attempting to convey suggestions through anxiety or depression etc, these tend to disappear when one becomes capable of realising why it is there in the first place. This is why they say that philosophy is a language.

We form emotional or subconscious patterns of experience and habitual behavioural responses that language articulates to a conscious state, which is why such 'aha' moments can be so relieving. — TimeLine

Right - perfectly true. But, it's not so simple, because each of us are also instantiations of cultural and psychic archetypes, so are born with innate abilities and predispositions. I think, for that matter, a great deal of Plato can be interpreted, or re-interpreted, as his intuitive insights into the archetypical patterns within the mind. But, you're speaking to a Buddhist with Platonist leanings, and both Buddhists and Platonists accept the reality of re-birth, whereas in modern culture such ideas are highly non-PC.

Right - perfectly true. But, it's not so simple, because each of us are also instantiations of cultural and psychic archetypes, so are born with innate abilities and predispositions. I think, for that matter, a great deal of Plato can be interpreted, or re-interpreted, as his intuitive insights into the archetypical patterns within the mind. — Wayfarer

Indeed, even cognitive capacity refines our mental representations hence why each of us appreciate various interpretations of the world outside of ourselves and in a cyclic manner are able to objectively reflect or mirror ourselves back that epistemically elevates us to conscious beings. It is why I feel that belief-systems inhibit the capacity for an individual to refine this process. I think intuition is really the subjective key to autonomy that as we distinguish the properties of experience or representations, we demonstrate a type of trust in ourselves and that is the beginning of learning to rationalise independently. Only then can we really apply ourselves correctly, that is with moral consciousness (love) as we become aware of the inconsistencies and reduce the overall conflict with our instinctual passions. Whilst I am not in accordance with Buddhism or even Platonism, when saying I think I am attempting to elucidate this separation not as a display of the superiority of my own beliefs, but out of respect for the freedom we each have to believe in what we want, and I respect yours.

When one thinks of radical evil as being demonstrative of an innate condition, how does this reflect the interconnectedness of Nature? Whilst I appreciate your view particularly that humanity conceitedly have an unhealthy and even lunatic self-regard, self-righteousness (we're made in God's image) and I could not have said it better myself, this is not a dualism but rather a natural consequence of consciousness and free-will and thus Kant' categorical imperative is a moral alternative that sheds a more clear light than the stoics on overcoming radical evil. We stand in judgement of our nature to become one with Nature. — TimeLine

I don't think of it as "a natural consequence of consciousness and free-will" because I think it's decidedly unnatural. In living we're part of the world and as part of it we continually interact with other parts of the rest of the world; we wouldn't exist without it, we wouldn't think without it. I think we're aware of this and conduct ourselves in "ordinary day to day life" accordingly. Somehow, though, we've come to believe that there is some "us" distinct from the rest of the world, distinct even from our bodies some cases. I think it's as part of our unnatural tendency to make this distinction between "us" and the rest of the world, that we come to consider whether we're compelled to do what we do by the rest of the world or are able to do what we choose. But instead, I think, what we think and do is the result of a kind of transaction or interaction with other parts of the world of which we're a part. Because we have the capacity to reason (which the ancient Stoics thought to be characteristic of the divine aspect of the world) what we do can be the result of intelligent interaction.

The ancient Stoics tended towards determinism because (I think) they thought the Divine Reason permeates the world, and so all that takes place is in accordance with that reason, in which we share. So in living in accordance with nature we do what the Divine Reason as Providence or Fate "intends." At the end of the Enchiridion of Epictetus we find these quotes:

"Conduct me, Jove, and you, 0 Destiny,
Wherever your decrees have fixed my station."
Cleanthes

"I follow cheerfully; and, did I not,
Wicked and wretched, I must follow still
Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven."
Euripides, Frag. 965

I tend to think this is more in the nature of advice on how to live than anything else, ancient philosophy being more concerned with that than philosophy is at this time.

I'm not certain what you mean by "radical evil" but would guess is it involves conduct resulting from the extreme or excessive desire or urge to harm or exercise power over other people, possess certain things, self-indulgence, etc. Stoicism teaches certain things are beyond our control, and only that which is in our control should be our concern--what's beyond our control should be a matter of "indifference." So, a Stoic would have no desire or need to accumulate things, harm or control others, steal, lie; no desire or need to do evil of any kind.

Lifelong apostate of various sorts, sympathies with Gnosticism. Now a reforming Catholic.

Now a reforming Catholic. — The Great Whatever

Since when is that?

The best label I can find for myself is agnostic soft atheist...

I've been drifting that way for a while.

What made you drift that way?

A number of things, but the foremost was reading the scriptures.

Do you take the scriptures to be reliable?

The scriptures are revelatory. No outside decision as to their reliability needs to be made – reading them ingenuously on their own terms inclines one toward belief.

I think we're aware of this and conduct ourselves in "ordinary day to day life" accordingly. Somehow, though, we've come to believe that there is some "us" distinct from the rest of the world, distinct even from our bodies some cases. — Ciceronianus the White

We conduct ourselves in such a manner to nurture our fear that soon enough we become jaded in the monotony, dependent on its repetition to safeguard our feelings of security and take for granted the extraordinary opportunities available to us. The fact is that we are extraordinary and sometimes a whole lifetime can pass with nothing, no greatness or depth of feelings, no passionate love neither any risks, and for so many that horrible state of mind is adequate. Who cares who you marry, as long as the culture you belong with accepts it. Who cares about challenging yourself. It that even being alive? To transcend to experience this 'we' you speak of requires authenticity, an honesty to ourselves; we can tell lies to person after person in order to gain their approval or garner support that enables an adequate foundation to justify our fears, but therein lies the paradox. To authentically experience Nature, one must become autonomous first before consciously choosing to be a part of Nature. It is the way of consciousness itself, hence my original remarks on free-will. We need to acknowledge our distinction, our separateness, the fear of death and of being alone first before genuinely forming a bond with Nature where the experience of 'I' becomes absorbed into the 'we'.

Because we have the capacity to reason (which the ancient Stoics thought to be characteristic of the divine aspect of the world) what we do can be the result of intelligent interaction. — Ciceronianus the White

Reason is a tool and its divine characteristic is its capacity to precipitate moral consciousness; intelligent interaction enables a mirroring that elicits epistemic progress that our jaded ordinary fail to experience. When we set aside belief-systems - thus form reason without the illusions - and focus on God, Good, Nature, this interaction wholly becomes about the development of moral consciousness and as God is the omnipresent, the universe, the infinite, we thus become a part of this 'we' that the unnatural, radical evil no longer evokes its mindless influence. Reason thus becomes superior to our instinctual nature.

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.” Kant.

This is grounded in the categorical imperative, wille and wilkur.

I'm not certain what you mean by "radical evil" but would guess is it involves conduct resulting from the extreme or excessive desire or urge to harm or exercise power over other people, possess certain things, self-indulgence, etc. — Ciceronianus the White

You speak of the golden mean and certainly a balance between such extremes is a necessity to influence control over the passions, but radical evil is a corrupted moral disposition that ignores the duty to empower our moral constitution. A human condition that neglects in preference to a mindlessness that subordinates moral agency into the powers of our instinctual drives. To a degree, Stoicism has the same strict regulatory behaviour necessary to defeat this subjective influence, but again, clarity is somewhat wayward in that it must be uncompromising as the categorical imperative is to our obligation and duty to morality and is against this psychic determinism that the Stoics trust. This is why choice - free-will - and authenticity - autonomy - is absolute if one is to take genuine responsibility on the commitment to love.

The scriptures are revelatory. No outside decision as to their reliability needs to be made – reading them ingenuously on their own terms inclines one toward belief. — The Great Whatever

Has philosophy impacted your view / interaction with the Scriptures in any way? For example has reading a particular philosopher / philosophy inclined you towards the Scriptures or got you interested in God?

I'm asking this because recently I've become more convinced that philosophy isn't needed to come to understand the Scriptures, in fact quite the contrary, that philosophy can lead some on to blind alleys. So I'm curious how others stand on this issue.

The scriptures are revelatory. No outside decision as to their reliability needs to be made – reading them ingenuously on their own terms inclines one toward belief. — The Great Whatever

This is a critical insight. Ingenuously* is the way they were intended to be read. The narrative of scripture is compelling.

The "trick" for secular educated people who are disinclined to take anything on faith is to hold on to the noble, generous reading while at the same time understanding that the history of the texts and the faith is not simple and straightforward. Fundamentalists are people who can not tolerate the cognitive dissonance required to hold these two ideas together.

*"The original sense was ‘noble, generous'"

The scriptures are revelatory. No outside decision as to their reliability needs to be made – reading them ingenuously on their own terms inclines one toward belief. — The Great Whatever

Is this only true of texts that purport to explain how the world came to be and what any creator(s) want(s) us to do?

Has your general outlook on life and existence changed after reading the Scriptures? Just curious.

The quote from Kant reminds me of what the devotees of the Orphic mystery cult were told to say when asked who they were by the guardians of the afterlife: "I am a child of the Earth and the starry heavens." It seems we can accurately be called such children. It strikes me as a wonderful thing to be.

It may be that some of us must go through what you describe in order to accept that we're a part of nature, but I hope it's not necessary that we do so, as I think this can occur to us simply by acknowledging what is the case. That should be easier now that it's been well established that there are billions of galaxies in the universe. The ancients can be forgiven for thinking we're the most important part of the universe, but I don't see how that can reasonably be maintained--or believed--now.

For me, there's nothing diminishing about being "a child of the Earth and the starry heavens." And while the Stoics and other ancient philosophers may have felt that humans were distinctive, and separate, as being endowed with reason, I don't think they suffered from the fear of death and of being alone as it seems many do now and have done for quite some time, but managed nonetheless to possess wisdom and formulate high standards of morality which I think remain unrivaled.

I think the fear of death and feeling of being alone is something that developed fairly late in our history and has its basis at least in part in the glorification of the self which found its most extreme expression in Romanticism, subsequent "isms" like Existentialism and Nihilism being something akin to symptoms of the resulting "hangover."

That's a one-sided description of what the Bible is.

Has philosophy impacted your view / interaction with the Scriptures in any way? For example has reading a particular philosopher / philosophy inclined you towards the Scriptures or got you interested in God? — Agustino

No. Generally scripture has made secular philosophy look weak by comparison. I'd been losing interest in philosophy for some time before, though.

A lot of changed assumptions, I guess. New respect for the value of tradition, less respect for the ideological fashions of the present. A wider scope that makes one's own problems seem less interesting and more surmountable.

For me, there's nothing diminishing about being "a child of the Earth and the starry heavens." And while the Stoics and other ancient philosophers may have felt that humans were distinctive, and separate, as being endowed with reason, I don't think they suffered from the fear of death and of being alone as it seems many do now and have done for quite some time, but managed nonetheless to possess wisdom and formulate high standards of morality which I think remain unrivaled. — Ciceronianus the White

I was so fearless as a child that my plans to runaway from home always ended up 100 meters away at the local park, eating all the food I prepared to sustain the energy required for the so-called long hike toward somewhere else as I spent hours just staring up at the stars and milky way. I would end up walking home weary eyed early in the morning when the silence became frightfully deafening and I began to sense reality was not as comfortable as my desires.

The moment we feel this angst we are automated in our response to alleviate the negative sensation and these responses can be highly irrational to a point where self-deception inappropriately orchestrates the decision-making process. The more people you have supporting your delusions - if one can be self-deceptive, one can be deceptive to others - the more likely it will solidify as reality and the angst falsely dissipates because you assume these deceptions are truth.

Rousseau claimed that our state of nature is good, but it is civilisation that corrupts this innocence, that society is artificial and unnatural and indeed, when you observe the contradictions in society today such as the capitalist delusions marketing concepts of beauty and popularity that reinforce the illusion that pleasure can be derived in becoming the very image that they create, it is not difficult to see the point Rousseau was trying to make. People blindly believe that if they follow an image and look a certain way, than they will be happy even if they give or do absolutely nothing; they find satisfaction and fulfilment when others approve of them, others caught in the exact same delusion. In that, people start to lose their dignity and no amount of hedonism can heal the sickness. As Fromm says: "It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.”

So it is not necessarily the physical fear of death but rather a way of overcoming narcissism by recognising our finitude of existence that in turn liberates the process towards authenticity. Fromm speaks of this angst as being the fear of our separateness, of our very autonomy and that we end up forming false symbiotic attachments to avoid confronting the detachment necessary to form and apply a genuine and mature love. Love is moral consciousness, it is happiness, it is the very core of our existence and yet if everyone wants love but no one gives it, what exactly happens? It would be wholly naive to believe that there is nothing wrong with this world and if you cared for Nature, the 'we', you would be wholly righteous, disgusted at injustice and at all things morally deplorable. This is where I have some trouble with the Stoics.

It may be that some of us must go through what you describe in order to accept that we're a part of nature, but I hope it's not necessary that we do so, as I think this can occur to us simply by acknowledging what is the case. That should be easier now that it's been well established that there are billions of galaxies in the universe. The ancients can be forgiven for thinking we're the most important part of the universe, but I don't see how that can reasonably be maintained--or believed--now. — Ciceronianus the White

There may be exceptions, but the danger lies in the authenticity behind this acknowledgement that render those exceptions comparatively irrelevant. There are a plethora of examples that exemplify the simplicity of self-deception and the capacity to alter facts to suit a personal agenda and solidify delusions of grandeur. Even with the accessibility of knowledge, our understanding of the vastness of the universe, there continues the same cyclic repetition century after century. “Ignorance is the root and stem of all evil."

I think the fear of death and feeling of being alone is something that developed fairly late in our history and has its basis at least in part in the glorification of the self which found its most extreme expression in Romanticism, subsequent "isms" like Existentialism and Nihilism being something akin to symptoms of the resulting "hangover." — Ciceronianus the White

Aside from the scale, the technology and variations in cultural subtleties, I see no differences in time whether now or historically. We appear to be consistently repeating ourselves in different ways and no amount of knowledge changes the condition of human stupidity.