Religion is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence — Constance

Please explain this line as if I was a first-year ethics student.

Yes. The REAL ground is living bodies feel real pain. At that real level however, no one thinks of sticking a hand in boiling water because at that level no one thinks. Thinking and the moral prohibitions emerge out of these organic feelings, are effected by them; but there is no (ontological? metaphysical?) relationship. Pain feeling a certain way for triggering certain behavior is nothing like Morality. The trace relationship between REAL pain and any and all moral prohibitions is long long gone; so long gone that there is an unbridgeable gap between the REAL "reason" (I.e. REAL pain) and all of the multitudes of constructed ones. — ENOAH

Trace relationship? But there "is" no trace relationship, for such things are under erasure. What deconstruction does is deliver the purity of the world out of the grip of assumptions, at least, this is what it CAN do, for the reduction itself, the movement toward transcendence, is not simply an apophatic exercise, any more than meditation is this. Deconstruction and religion are method and manifestation, respectively. The former parallels The East's neti neti, which is simply a liberation from interpretative norms that generally define the world for a person. The latter is a change in the way the world is perceived in a default perceptual disposition. In other words, if one in earnest questions the world at the basic level of assumptions, those assumptions fall away simply by the weight of their own contingency. We live in a world of contingencies, or accidents, as the old language has it. Language is mostly this, save for the transcendental function of language: its openness. The question, as I frequently say, is the piety of thought (borrowed from Heidegger's Origin of the Work of Art). Look away from arguments and behold the world, and then proceed with the reductive, apophatic method of "discovery" (I think you said you've read Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. In this book, Rorty states up front that truth is made, not discovered. He had zero interest in the "where it takes one" of deconstructive thinking. I am sure this is because for Rorty, there is no where to be taken. See the footnote on p 123 where he argues with Caputo about the latter's claim about "the silence from which all language springs." This really is close to the Positivist Otto Neurath's response to Wittgenstein's "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" which was to say, yes, one must be silent, but not about anything! This silence is where Derrida takes us. You may find yourself on Rorty's side of this coin, but then, this would take a long interpretative excursion into Derrida that cannot be done here. All I can say is this: I have as a default predisposition toward the world, a "spiritual" bent, however, any standard religious term like "spiritual" is to be defined in the openness of the foundational indeterminacy of our existence. When I think spirituality, I first think of Heidegger's massive phenomenological exposition of our existence. But he was no transcendental spiritualist, but was entirely bound up in the finitude of language possibilities. He and I are intuitively antithetical in this matter.

I do note that you insist on the term "organic" as a kind of bottom line to thinking about our existence. I can't really address this, for it is a kind of "scientism" by which I mean it is a borrowing from empirical science's descriptive terms to think philosophically. But science is not philosophy. I argue that phenomenology is the nature of philosophy. Everything else is the "philosophy of" as in the philosophy of animal husbandry or one's philosophy of raising children. Phenomenology is where inquiry goes when the most basic questions are asked, and this is philosophy proper, you could say.

"Feeling pain is nothing like morality"? Well, this has to be unpacked. No one I know hs ever made such a claim that it IS morality as we deal and speak about moral issues. Of course, these are entangled affairs. I only argue that IN these affairs, when reduced to the ethical essence, that is, what makes them ethical, is found something apodictic. This is found "behind" the obvious variability of ethical cases, as a constant and irreducible. Here, we do not toy with terms as analytic philosophers do so well.

the foundational indeterminacy of our existence — Constance

Please explain this line to me like I am a first year phenomenology student.

Please explain this line to me like I am a first year phenomenology student. — AmadeusD

1. Make a qualified Cartesian move. One is not affirming the cogito as the ground for all possible affirmations. In fact, Descartes made a fundamentally bad move: there is no thinking unless there is thinking about something. So the indubitability of the cogito extends to the world of objects.

2. Think of the world as an event. Is perception a mirror of the world? One has to look very hard at this idea. When you see something, and do the basic science of what this is about, it is not even remotely possible that this in my head (and this is a physicalist's science, the kind of thing we are educated to understand) reaches out to apprehend that tree out there. I make this point frequently, simply because whenever I make it, I am greeted with doubt and disdain, something I find so absurd that it defies credulity. Epistemology is impossible with this physicalist model, for as Quine and the naturalists hold, this model's bottom line is causality, and there is nothing epistemic about causality.

4. This here has to be read and pondered, not simply read. When we observe the world and its objects, whether they be things, emotions, ideas, and so forth, that observation is part of the constitution of what is witnessed. This is a very old idea. It sounds like idealism, and it is, in part, and by this admission I simply reaffirm that perception is not a mirror image of the world. Show me the mirror. In fact, I simply cannot even imagine anything more opaque than a brain. But on the other hand, an honest account of what stands before me reveals the ordinary perceptual conditions of things being outside of myself, apart from me, at a distance over there, is not something that can be dismissed, Why? Because the whole point is to understand the world, and the the world is simply given to us with these divisions and differences.

So all this critical thought that undermines a physicalist's epistemology certainly does not violate the field of perception as it is given to us. It simply tells us that we need to think very differently about our selves as perceiving agents in a world. This opens the door to an entirely different approach to explaining what things are, ontology, and how we know them, epistemology, for we now have to look to the relation between ourselves and the world to understand the "what it is" that is there. This is the phenomenological approach. E.g, you see a brain and witness a patient undergoing a fully conscious surgical procedure so the scalpel does not remove important tissue. The probe touches a


5. So now in answer to your question: When inquiry turns towards the self that "partly" constructs the event of engaging with the world and generates a knowledge relation, things turn up that were entirely unseen. This is Heidegger's analysis of dasein, but beyond, into the paradox that occurs when language turns to an analysis of itself. If my faculties, call them, actually constitute the relation of a knowledge event, then what is the most visible feature if this? Language. I look at my cat, and all sorts of knowledge claims are implicit, "claims" not explicit in the looking, but are there, stabilizing the event, creating a general familiarity, and this stabilizing feature is time, and time's phenomenological analysis reveals issues about the present in the past-future dynamic of theevent of perceiving.

Long story short, the present SHOULD NOT exist, is one way to put this. Every time I look up and take on the world in this way or that, I am informed by "the potentiality of possiblities" that my enculturated self carries with it into various environments, as when I walk into someone's kitchen and already know everything about knives, sinks, cabinets, etc. THIS is what constitutes the knowing of the world, this potentiality of possibilities that spontaneously rises to identify the world! So the present is altogether lost, that is, the metaphysical present is lost, the intimation from the world as to what it is outside of the temporality that claims a thing in the simplest apprehension. This presence of the world is the foundation of our existence and that of all things, and yet the perceiving of this presence is impossible. One would have to literally stand outside of experience an announce what is witnessed! Yet there it is, in full color and intensity, and this goes to ethics and value. See Wittgenstein's Tractatus for the inspired insight that ethics and aesthetics is transcendental. Why does he say this? Because they reveal something in the events of the events of our lives that is outside of the knowledge grid of our existence. IT is there, the value-in-the-world, in the good and bad experiences we have, yet the good and bad has no real appearance as other thing do. Moore called the good a non natural property.

This is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence. It begins with the epistemic problem, and moves to ontology of all things (keeping in mind that ontology is now very much about the agency that knows), especially the good and the bad of ethics, and discovers that impossible presence of the world (the world is mystical, says Witt), and finds an abiding openness in the examination the phenomenal events.

Religion is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence, and in this, ethics is underscored. — Constance

Rather, religion is the foundational determinacy of our existence, and in this, ethics is prescribed.

Rather, religion is the foundational determinacy of our existence, and in this, ethics is prescribed. — praxis

Yes, religion as a determination is a body of what I lately like to call a bundle of churchy fetishes. A fetish is, after all, something that has a derivative existence, drawing on something more basic and singular. Like sex. Walk into a church and the feel of quiet stillness, the subtle and somber twilight of stained glass, then the rituals, the symbols and the group prayer, and so on. This is a mirror image of a mind in reverence, of meditative affirmation. And yes, the whole point is to lay out a determinacy, it could be said. Something that fills the metaphysical emptiness with positive assertions.

But otoh, religion as a reduced phenomenon is the confrontation we have with a world that is utterly transcendental, and its value-in-the-world puts to inquiry an extraordinary question. One has to understand this to understand the nature of religion just as one has to understand Wittgenstein did VERY well. What drove him to face death during the war? Or nearly memorize Tolstoy little bible book? The Tractatus is really about just this impossible dimension of our existence, the what cannot be said but only shown. He was wrong about this in the Tractatus, closer to being right in the Investigations, which made language into something fluid and open; but right about the importance of it. It is the importance of what it means for something to be important at all. This is the issue: how is it possible for anything at all to be important? The determinative body of a religious icons and affects, etc., begs this question as inquiry whittles down to basic assumptions. It finds indeterminacy where consummation and redemption should be. This, of course, is arguable.

I really appreciate you putting in the time and effort for this response!! Thorough, despite some of my views below. Good stuff Constance :)

Hmm, It feels like you have explained this as if you're talking to a fellow-Continental who already takes most of these premises (and the pedastal-ing of language above reality). If that is not the case, I apologise as some of this will seem dismissive (but that would make sense if the above is true!)
In that case, I would hazard a suggestion that it's possible your grasp on these things is less clear than you feel it is - being unable to clarify it for another. Please also note that the types of responses I am likely to pen here are not new. These ideas have been around a lot time, and people much, much smarter, better read, and better-spoken that I have made similar points. Rejecting these kinds of approaches is not new, and I am not in bad company doing so. I would appreciate some charity here. I will try my best to reply as I go through with reference, as best as I can keep it, to your actual writing here.

1. Make a qualified Cartesian move. One is not affirming the cogito as the ground for all possible affirmations. In fact, Descartes made a fundamentally bad move: there is no thinking unless there is thinking about something. So the indubitability of the cogito extends to the world of objects. — Constance

This doesn't bode well. You've opened what should be a fairly clear unpacking of a single phrase with a lot of theorizing (much of which appears to be linguistically muddled?) As an example, I asked you to explain an esoteric and apparently nonsensical line. You have returned the underlined. Which requires the same treatment i've asked for. I have bolded words you can swap out for something simpler, assuming you understand the concepts well enough to do so. As a result of however you've decided to answer this, it is completely opaque as to what I've asked you explain. Onward..

Think of the world as an event. Is perception a mirror of the world?(assume the rest of the point is included.. just don't want to clutter the reply) — Constance

I am sorry to say, but this entire paragraph comes through illogical, baseless and essentially just an assertion using words wrong (i will quote one passage at the end of this chunk to treat). "the basic science of what this is about" is a total misnomer, and leapfrogs several un-settled philosophical problems by hand-waving away the idea that the mind cannot apprehend objects in the world. This is clearly a jump-to-conclusion, because your preferred position requires it. I think you would need to be committed to a form of absolute idealism for that particular problem to obtain and be an obstacle in the science of perception.

it is not even remotely possible that this in my head (and this is a physicalist's science, the kind of thing we are educated to understand) reaches out to apprehend that tree out there. — Constance

This, ironically, embodies precisely the language games that result in intractable problems in philosophy. No, it is not "not even remotely possible" that "this in my head"(what are you even referring to here? Are you going homonculus? That'll need explaining) reaches out to apprehend X object. That is the nature of consciousness whether or not we understand how, that clearly is what is happening (unless you're Dennett and deny qualia). Even if we're in a simulation, that is what the consciousness code is doing - picking out items rom the environment for internal reflection, whether accurate or not (though, if we get into Noumena, we're fucked lmao).

that observation is part of the constitution of what is witnessed. This is a very old ide — Constance

Yes, this is empirically true. Not a philosophical point.

I simply cannot even imagine anything more opaque than a brai — Constance

Thats a ridiculous position that seems designed to make people laugh at you. I am sorry for that, but that's how it comes across. It's click-bait for philosophers.

an honest account of what stands before me reveals the ordinary perceptual conditions of things being outside of myself, apart from me, at a distance over there, is not something that can be dismissed — Constance

What? You seem to be using less clear and far more complex ideas to try to explain what was relatively simply, but unclear idea. I'm lost on how you're thinking here has worked...

Because the whole point is to understand the world, and the the world is simply given to us with these divisions and differences. — Constance

The 'whole' point of what? If that is the 'whole point' of something, I have to say you're making it extremely difficult to even begin to get onto a reasonable train of thought about it. It seems like your premise is just "this shit is hard, to lets throw some big words into vaguely coherent sentences lifted from thinkers I admire aesthetically". Again, I apologise - that's what comes across. Not "How i read you". I really am trying to glean things from your writing - I appreciate the time an effort. I guess one problem is nothing you've said is new to me. It's slightly more 'garbled' versions of the writers you're aping - Witty, Heidegger, Schop etc..

So all this critical thought — Constance

I would disagree that's what it is (though, i realise it is intended, and acts, as a critique).

the relation between ourselves and the world to understand the "what it is" that is there — Constance

Again, you would need to explain this to me like i'm five, with no words above a .20c benchmark, tbh. As it's written, this is a non sequitur that I have to ignore to get through the para.

This is the phenomenological approach. E.g, you see a brain and witness a patient undergoing a fully conscious surgical procedure so the scalpel does not remove important tissue. — Constance

I realise you didn't finish this though, so charitably, this is three things that don't cohere into a point, though I can see a few ways they could.

things turn up that were entirely unseen — Constance

This is the case on the physicalist's understanding of perception also. Several obvious examples like shadow perception (real shadows, not internal ones).

If my faculties, call them, actually constitute the relation of a knowledge event, then what is the most visible feature if this? — Constance

As best I can tell, this is not a grammatically coherent question. Your 'faculties' are repped by what? "the relation of a knowledge event"... What? "a knowledge event" is? "relation of" that is??
You need to boil these things down about eight levels lower than you're currently talking about them to explain them to a five year old. I would reiterate not using constant expensive words, and using plain language instead. It feels like you're lifting half-understood phrases from those writers and then attempting to elaborate, and so losing whatever meager point was there to begin with as it is.

I look at my cat, and all sorts of knowledge claims are implicit, "claims" not explicit in the looking, but are there, stabilizing the event, creating a general familiarity, and this stabilizing feature is time, and time's phenomenological analysis reveals issues about the present in the past-future dynamic of theevent of perceiving. — Constance

This is the exact kind of meaningless word salad that I've been dismissive of. This does not explain anything at all other than to illustrate that perhaps you have trouble assimilating your thoughts when looking at your cat. There are claims on claims on claims on claims on claims that you seem to think are clear to others. They are not. I have asked for hte simplest possible version of these points (apologies if the "like i'm five" meme didn't land that way for you - that was what I wanted).

Long story short, the present SHOULD NOT exist, is one way to put this. — Constance

Seems a rather extreme non sequitur - might be the result of you barely touching what needed to be explained to me.

Every time I look up and take on the world in this way or that, I am informed by "the potentiality of possiblities" that my enculturated self carries with it into various environments, as when I walk into someone's kitchen and already know everything about knives, sinks, cabinets, etc. THIS is what constitutes the knowing of the world, this potentiality of possibilities that spontaneously rises to identify the world! — Constance

Wheres the heads, where's the tails? It's just circular word games. I can even understand exactly what's being gotten at here, and still note that its circular, only carries weight in and of itself, linguistically. It does nothing in terms of clarifying any other claims. Again, this may be a failure of simplicity on your part, making it very hard to connect this to earlier points.

This presence of the world is the foundation of our existence and that of all things, and yet the perceiving of this presence is impossible. — Constance

This is utter garbage, sorry. There is literally nothing that be done with this line that isn't pulling it apart.

Yet there it is, in full color and intensity, and this goes to ethics and value. See Wittgenstein's Tractatus for the inspired insight that ethics and aesthetics is transcendental. — Constance

Non sequitur. Reference to book that is horribly written, and worse-conceived (on my view) - and is in my bag right now. Just to be clear, I know where these things come from. The original was bad - I was hoping a clarification would ensure, but it seems you're just using reference to explain your references. Odd.

Because they reveal something in the events of the events of our lives that is outside of the knowledge grid of our existence. — Constance

Once again, not sufficiently clear or simple. I also thing they don't do a thing close to what Witty suggests. But that's another disagreement..

This is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence. — Constance

Suffice to say I am less clear now as to what you're referring to.

(the world is mystical, says Witt — Constance

And this is exactly why his writings are confused, psychobabble. He doesn't understand much, and proceeds from there. "mystical" is a placeholder for "I don't get it". Hegel has this same problem.

This is utter garbage, sorry. There is literally nothing that be done with this line that isn't pulling it apart. — AmadeusD

Look, AmadeusD. I read your post top to bottom, and I understand your position. My fault for misleading you, for sometimes I make the mistake of thinking that everyone, if they would just attend to the ideas and their simplicity, should understand the basic thinking here. But this is wrong. You cannot walk through a door that you don't even know exists, and phenomenology is just this kind of door for you. All of this will forever seem nonsense to you...unless, that is, you read Being and Time, The Critique of Pure Reason, Derrida's Margins. and on and on.

So the best of luck to you.

I'm sorry, but at this stage I am pretty sure you are incapable of rational discourse with another person.

I have read two/three of those books. I have called your bluff on Tractatus, and I have treated your writing with dedicated time, patience and thorough analysis. If your only response is an appeal to the texts I have already read, with a view that I must not have read them if I do not agree with you is honestly pathetic. That is a clear indication you do not understand what you are talking about and do not respect the discursive process.

You clearly have a bent, and one you are unable to look beyond. I say you are trapped in a room. The door is waiting for you to walk through it. Perhaps reading some analytical philosophy will help (i am joking).

Go well.

I have called your bluff on Tractatus — AmadeusD

You have not made a single reference to anything in any text at all. And I am sorry you wasted your money on a vacuous education in a field that has all but been abandoned. Here is a book I recommend:

"The Fate of Analysis: Analytic Philosophy From Frege To The Ash-Heap of History" by Robert Hanna

And I am sorry you wasted your money on a vacuous education in a field that has all but been abandoned. — Constance

You seem to be ignorant to the entire world of philosophy. And a dick.

https://againstprofphil.org/author/z/
https://academic-sexual-misconduct-database.org/person/robert-hanna

This is the company you're keeping. Reflect.

But there "is" no trace — Constance

Yes. I'm good with that. I only refer to trace relationship as a courtesy, the final convenient fiction, imagined as "taking place" just as human existence leaves being and engages time, just as mind's perception displaces sensation with signifiers of the latter, and we lose our point of return. There is no trace because the gap between mind and being is untraceable. We cannot be being through the mediation of time; even the ego is of time and has no place in a True reduction beyond mind.

Deconstruction and religion are method and manifestation, respectively — Constance

Very nice. The latter, corruptible. If the former is sound, that shouldn't matter. Because method is the essence.

do note that you insist on the term "organic" as a kind of bottom line to thinking about our existence. I can't really address this, for it is a kind of "scientism" by which I mean it is a borrowing from empirical science's descriptive terms to think philosophically. But science is not philosophy — Constance

I get it entirely. But with respect, I am not using Organic from the perspective of a scientist and in my humble opinion, while I should employ the right terminology as best I can etc., in this case, being an unconventional viewpoint, there is no "better" word to describe the human qua being, than organic. And I sense the word is slightly offensive because of the implications for spirit which we have been so conditioned to favor. My rejection of spirit is not scientific, on the contrary, it is profoundly "religious" in the way you have been in my opinion properly referring.

religion as a reduced phenomenon is the confrontation we have with a world that is utterly transcendental, and its value-in-the-world puts to inquiry an extraordinary question. — Constance

The question a religion poses is whether you have faith in its *ultimate* authority.

The question a religion poses is whether you have faith in its *ultimate* authority. — praxis

Not necessarily, if you don't mind the weigh-in. It appears that way in religion's manifestation as institutions, I agree. Even so called atheistic/agnostic ones like Buddhism where the "authority" might be the Four Truths etc.

But in "essence" the question a religion poses is whether you prioritize the truth/reality/ultimate as the ego, or an Other.

You might say I just re-worded your point; that my "an Other" is your "Authority." But there is a significant difference. The "problem" religion emerged to "correct" is not so much a need to submit to some godly authority as it is a need to surrender our misguided love affair with our so called self.

It appears that way in religion's manifestation as institutions, I agree. — ENOAH

A religion is an institution or ideology.

A religion is an institution or ideology. — praxis

Sure. Or a mechanism humanity developed--is still developing--to address a real problem. In my databank, it appears that religion addresses the problem of human suffering. Hence, liberation, salvation, atonement. Religion's answer: know that your ego is nothing. There is a Reality that is/does without your ego. And that's your salvation from sufdering. Out of this ever evolving mechanism came countless manifestations--your institutions and ideologies.

Can't we say the sake about most if not all uniquely human developments: we make shit up to address real problems. Romance/Matrimony etc addresses mating--it doesn't mean mating, the essence, is not Real. Philosophy, not far from Religion, just as pompous about its method, addresses the aware-ing that the shit we make up isn't real; no one has yet succeeded, nor will they, at this, the "institutional/ideological" level, that doesn't mean the aware-ing that it is made up is not Real.

The essence of religion addresses a real human problem. I personally don't care how people want to express it or even mess it up. I can focus on the essence. Which I'm sure you are capable of too; conventional thinking can be a block. And, this is what behind all of the complex and compelling constructions the OP has generated, the protestations as much as the engagements, the OP is getting at--at least from my perception. The essence of religion is actually an attempt to address "Philosophy's" Biggest problem: Reality.

You seem to be ignorant to the entire world of philosophy. And a dick. — AmadeusD

Might I remind you of your juvenile intrusion into this thread?:

Weirdly, this response is the kind of outlandish, comedic set of assumptions that has most trained philosophers rejecting continental philosophy as fart-sniffing.

There is no argument here, no mention of anything remotely related to the OP, not even a single thoughtful construction. Just pure insult (Did you not mention later that I was committing a non sequitur? After this blunder of sequence??) yet your pour you off hand opinions freely into the cup. You got no more than your deserve, you inelegant ass.

Might I remind you of your juvenile intrusion into this thread?: — Constance

I have provided several hundred words of analysis of your writing. You have addressed absolutely none of it - you've preened, ignored, and now devolved into pure ad hominem. That has nothing at all to do with me and my comportment. You are behaving like an angry 14 year old who has had their playstation taken away.

Did you not mention later that I was committing a non sequitur — Constance

Because you did. You did it constantly, and it gets called what it is. This isn't insulting in any way. It is a comment on your (terrible) writing style. If you cannot handle having your incoherence called out, perhaps don't write confused, incoherent posts on a philosophy forum inviting comment?

There is no argument here, no mention of anything remotely related to the OP, not even a single thoughtful construction. — Constance

Is it possible you are just not being honest? Not only possible - clearly true.

You got no more than your deserve, you inelegant ass. — Constance

You are now just being a dick. If this is how you respond to analyses of your bad writing, well... All i can do is laugh. You had the chance to engage with some ideas (thoroughly connected to your own writing, in direct response to it). You, instead, shied away from doing any thinking and just started insulting me. I've made some off hand comments about Continental philosophy and your writing being bad. If you identify so strongly with either thing you take them as personal insults, triggering your emotional outbursts, please get some help.

Religion's answer: know that your ego is nothing. — ENOAH

Religions have all sorts of answers to all sorts of questions. It is rather presumptuous of you to try speaking for all religions.

Out of this ever evolving mechanism came countless manifestations--your institutions and ideologies. — ENOAH

Out of religion came countless religions??? That doesn’t make any sense.

Religions have all sorts of answers to all sorts of questions. — praxis

It appears you linger at the "institutional" notion of religion. I (presumably...or presumptiously) / this is discussing the vaguely* singular "essence" out of which the institutions emerged. I am not sure we can surpass this difference and reach any mutual understanding.

I'm fine. If I too was discussing religions, as you seem to be, I would likely agree with your points ("all sorts of answers" etc).

Out of religion came countless religions??? That doesn’t make any sense. — praxis

Ditto my response above.

*I use "vaguely" singular because at the level of essence, quantity is not relevant. However, I would think that a reasonable objection might be, there is no singular essence to religion. If that is what you are saying, ok. But I would ask, what makes you proclaim, as you seem to (admittedly, free of the word "essence") that the essence of religions is faith in a given ultimate authority?

The question a religion poses is whether you have faith in its *ultimate* authority — praxis

It appears you linger at the "institutional" notion of religion. — ENOAH

To used Constance’s simile, you’re saying that it’s like I linger at the fetish notion of sex. The thing is that anything can be fetishized and sex doesn’t necessarily lead to fetishes. Sex can be fully realized without fetishes, indeed more fully realized I might argue.

It’s as though you and Constance insist that sex is a fetish. It is not.

It’s as though you and Constance insist that sex is a fetish. It is not. — praxis

I did not notice that simile. But, at the risk of further alienating you, I agree with Constance. There is mating. Presumably, a seconds long process. There is sex, a human construction and projection displacing it. I don't know about C., but I'm not judging sex when I make that observation. I'm recognizing that "even" a matrimonial based exchange between a so called man and a so-called woman, even limited to a so called missionary style, even if it's drive is human bonding and procreation, cannot but be a construction and projection of what I am calling mating.

I cannot provide a detailed argument here; just as I cannot provide one for why I think at its essence religion is the recognition of the emptiness of ego.

If you disagree, great (unfacetiously). You may be right, and I certainly may be wrong

note that we cannot escape sex as a fetish while being human; just as we cannot escape the ego. I am suggesting, only that we recognize them and carry on F----ing, so to speak.

note that we cannot escape sex as a fetish while being human; just as we cannot escape the ego. — ENOAH

You seem to be suggesting that humans are inherently corrupt or inescapably fetishizing everything. I can agree with this because it means that the essence of religion is fetishism.

I wouldn't say corrupt with any connotation that word delivers; nor would I say inherently. I'd say (without enough attention paid to wording) we are a species divided between our natures and our constructions, Mind; and that the latter has displaced the former, a thing neither "good" nor "bad" but having aspects of both. To re-use the sex analogy, love making, good; rape, bad. Both are unnatural expressions of the mating/bonding drive.

As for religion is fetishism--the way we have discussed it most recently, sure. Even the essence is a "fetish" constructed, like love making, to address a real drive.

in fairness, I do not speak for Constance. In fact, I do not think he agrees with me that the Subject/Ego is--to stick to your term--also a "fetish."

It’s not my term, it’s Constance’s term. As I’ve said from the beginning, I think the essence of religion is binding. If you look at the etymology, it’s in the very name: Latin religare ‘to bind’.

Anyway, to be clear, you admit that your adulation of egolessness is like a fetish?

you admit that your adulation of egolessness is like a fetish — praxis

Well, words are never successful at precisely capturing truth. "adulation" not sure, observation (insofar as observation can even be relied upon) of the reality of egolessness, ...like a fetish? Hmm, that's tricky, and helpful to point out again (I have admited this "problem" several times in my efforts to gain a better understanding). Ego is like a fetish, in that we ascribe a truth to it that is not real (in nature). So, yes, so too my "adulation" of egolessness. And your "hidden" point is significant. Ultimately, everything I say or do regarding this topic is a "fetish" in the sense that I am ascribing a truth to a constructed fiction. But, just as in the case of sex (I cannot imagine mating in the way I described), I am bound to participate in the fetishized version.

That is why I have been suggesting that I cannot know egolessness; I cannot define it; doing so requires the ego. I need not do anything to be the real organic being that I am without "I". Because I already am that being. I am simply pointing to that truth; and, I think religion, at its essence, also points to that truth.

I am flowing on a synthetic river, seeing the real land on both sides of me. I am not saying I can get off the river. I just think it is functional knowing that. Religion(s) does not resolve the problem, it simply reminds us of the problem. Out of that "knowledge" we can flow more functionally. (Sorry for the metaphor. I hope it captures the gist.

I am flowing on a synthetic river, seeing the real land on both sides of me. I am not saying I can get off the river. I just think it is functional knowing that. — ENOAH

It’s functional in its binding effect with those who also believe as you do, believe in the duality of real lands and phony rivers. You feel kinship with those who see the world as you do, don’t you?

ou feel like kinship with those who see the world as you do, don’t you — praxis

No, but likely because I do not belong to any community of such believers. I suppose, if you told me you understood and agreed with my (let's be clear:) hypothesis, I might feel something akin to kinship. I'm not sure.