… the same be said of politics, philosophy, sports, etc etc etc. — ENOAH
is kinship not an ego less drive? I get that quickly egos rush in; buy at its "essence."
I have read two/three of those books — AmadeusD
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. — ENOAH
If the former is sound, that shouldn't matter. — ENOAH
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. — ENOAH
Still a bit mystified by "organic," though. — Constance
The question is, is it possible for an idea or an experience or a disclosure of any kind to be both what it is, yet occurring to "no one" ? Not about occurring in some locality, which is trivially true (Locality?), but experience of any kind requires it to be an experience to, or of someone. There is no such thing as an unmoored experience. — Constance
Consider also: A babe in arms has no constructed agency, no historical self, neither personal nor cultural, yet her suffering and delight must have agency — Constance
I cannot see how that could be true. Religion does not tell us what good, evil, right, and wrong are. Does it? — MoK
To my knowledge, no religion describes good, evil, right, and wrong. It just gives a set of commands: what we ought to do (considered as good) and what we ought not to do (considered as evil).Well, it tries to. — Constance
There are two problems here even if we accept that ethics is apodictic: (1) Which religion is the correct one? and (2) What is the reason for religion being the only reliable source when it comes to ethics?But the point here is that when we are trying to understand something in the world, we look to a description of how that thing appears. So we "observe" religion much as we would, say, the law, or geology or anything we want to understand. I am saying religion is what we encounter when ethics meets metaphysics. So what is ethics and what is metaphysics? In ethics, there turns up something apodictic, which is really not the way philosophers prefer to think about ethics, because apodicticity is irreducible. I.e., nothing to talk about.
So what to do now? What if ethics were apodictic? I am claiming it is. — Constance
Still a bit mystified by "organic," though. — Constance
To my knowledge, no religion describes good, evil, right, and wrong. It just gives a set of commands: what we ought to do (considered as good) and what we ought not to do (considered as evil). — MoK
There are two problems here even if we accept that ethics is apodictic: (1) Which religion is the correct one? and (2) What is the reason for religion being the only reliable source when it comes to ethics?
(1) is important since there are conflicts in many religions and even there are conflicts within a single religion. (2) What if someone comes up with an apodictic idea regarding ethics such as each human has all rights when it comes to his or her life but she or he does not have any right when it comes to the life of others unless both individuals agree on terms and conditions? — MoK
You haven't. There would be evidence in your thoughts and there is none. I really did read all of your long post and found nothing, absolutely nothing of a working intellect. A lot of insults but nothing even remotely about anything these philosophers had to say. — Constance
This story (myth) is not "salvation" because, in fact, one's "suffering" (i.e. frustrations, fears, pains, losses, traumas, dysfunctions) ceases only with one's death. The world's oldest confidence game ritually over-promises and under-delivers: false hope. Besides, most historical religions preach that every person has an 'eternal soul' – imo, there isn't any notion that's more of an ego-fetish than this.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 su[ff]ering. — ENOAH
This story (myth) is not "salvation" because, in fact, one's "suffering" (i.e. frustrations, fears, pains, losses, traumas, dysfunctions) ceases only with one's death. The world's oldest confidence game ritually over-promises and under-delivers: false hope. Besides, most historical religions preach that every person has an 'eternal soul' – imo, there isn't any notion that's more of an ego-fetish than this. — 180 Proof
This story (myth) is not "salvation" because, in fact, one's "suffering" (i.e. frustrations, fears, pains, losses, traumas, dysfunctions) ceases only with one's death. — 180 Proof
Besides, most historical religions preach that every person has an 'eternal soul' – imo, there isn't any notion that's more of an ego-fetish than this. — 180 Proof
What is your religion and why did you choose it?But religions are about a dogmatic authority, and so the analytic of good and bad has no place. As for a description, this is what observation does. So what is there to observe? Just the arbitrary command (which may be a good idea or not. The point is that the determination about its goodness or badness is not based on justification and merit). — Constance
Not to a masochist.Pain is apodictically "bad". — Constance
To try simply, borrowing (not necessarily endorsing) an Abrahamic metaphor, so called "God" cares only about the living(ness) of "his" "creation" i.e., organic; and not the becoming, knowledge, that "he" actually warned humans against. Out of the latter, we invented a universe of our own, unreal, and not "precious" to "God." Now, yes, I am being "poetic" and do not necessarily hold to "God," and "precious." My point is, we have been clinging to knowledge at the direct expense of living. Living is not in our constructions, but in our being. The whole false spirit/body duality, is a direct result of that clinging. — ENOAH
The question is, is it possible for an idea or an experience or a disclosure of any kind to be both what it is, yet occurring to "no one" ? Not about occurring in some locality, which is trivially true (Locality?), but experience of any kind requires it to be an experience to, or of someone. There is no such thing as an unmoored experience.
— Constance
Is this the "tree falls in a forest" conundrum? I say it makes a sound. To humans only, the question matters, because of the illusion of separation between sound and perceiver/object and subject/cause and effect. EDIT: experience, by the way, I hold to be restricted to humans. So that is why "there is no such thing as an unmoored experience;" there is no real such thing as "experience" period. — ENOAH
I completely agree with you. That is where both religion, and, with respect, much philosophy, east and west, has gone astray. That is the exact point. Fetishization of the Subject, causes our awareness to focus on that illusion as a thing which suffers and ought not to. I'm wondering whether (like so many things which history corrupts) the essence of religion (to remind/warn against etc. this fetishizing of the ego) has been "lost." — ENOAH
But religions are about a dogmatic authority, and so the analytic of good and bad has no place. As for a description, this is what observation does. So what is there to observe? Just the arbitrary command (which may be a good idea or not. The point is that the determination about its goodness or badness is not based on justification and merit).
— Constance
What is your religion and why did you choose it?
Pain is apodictically "bad".
— Constance
Not to a masochist. — MoK
This story (myth) is not "salvation" because, in fact, one's "suffering" (i.e. frustrations, fears, pains, losses, traumas, dysfunctions) ceases only with one's death. The world's oldest confidence game ritually over-promises and under-delivers: false hope. Besides, most historical religions preach that every person has an 'eternal soul' – imo, there isn't any notion that's more of an ego-fetish than this. — 180 Proof
Well, that is quite the opposite of what you stated regarding religion. To you: "But religions are about a dogmatic authority, and so the analytic of good and bad has no place.".I am of the school that says if something hasn't been through the analytic grinder, then it is not worthy of belief. — Constance
Do you believe in God? If yes which kind of God It is?I no more take religion in any popular sense seriously at all. Such a thing is no longer a a living possibility. — Constance
I am a masochist myself so I can tell you that is the pain that I like.If a masochist likes X, then X isn't pain to the masochist. I take this as both analytically true as well as experientially. — Constance
Well, that is quite the opposite of what you stated regarding religion. To you: "But religions are about a dogmatic authority, and so the analytic of good and bad has no place.". — MoK
:roll:Its overpromising and underdelivering is itself metaphysics, that is, beyond verification and falsification. — Constance
All Christian sects preach that every person has an "eternal soul" (i.e. "I AM" = EGO sum (re: "imago dei")) that will be either "saved" or "damned", no? Iirc from my Jesuitical education, each follower of Christ seeks only the "eternal salvation" of his "eternal soul" ... in the world to come". Augustinian / Kierkeegardian subjectivity (i.e. "leap of faith") metaphysically screams "ME ME ME". :pray: :eyes:Christian metaphysics is not at all egoic ...
Humans' denial of death via myths / symbols of 'immortality' (e.g. scapegoating, redemption / propitiation sacrifice, martyrdom, "teleological suspension of the ethical", etc) as I've pointed out on this thread ...what is essentially religious about our existence
Ok, my apology. I read your OP a couple of times and now I know what you are arguing about. To me, the essence of religion is not about ethics at all but about spiritual and mystical experiences. Although there are religions with a set of commands, what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, but to my understanding there is no religion that provides reasons why an act, good or evil, is right or wrong. Therefore, religion is not about ethics.No. What is defended and discussed here is an analytic of religion, not religion as it is taken up in regular affairs. Read the OP. — Constance
I don't think that philosophy can resolve the problems regarding spirituality hence religion. You either have spiritual experience or not. You cannot tell whether a spiritual experience is an illusion created by the brain or it is real (by real I mean that there are spiritual agents in charge of causing the experience).God is a term that issues from the basic religious situation. It belongs to a basket of terms that create issues rather than resolve them. Say God is the greatest possible being, then I will give a hundred ways to entangle this into an entirely contrived issue generating concept. Wittgenstein was right: leave such things alone for, putting is simply, lack of grounding in the world. In other words, the world shows itself to us and our job in philosophy is to say what is there at the most basic level. — Constance
Glad to see that you agree that the pain is not bad for all agents.But you don't give the idea its due: take someone's masochism regards beatings as somehow delightful. The pain of the beatings is no longer, therefore bad, or another way to go would be to say that what is bad in the pain is entangled with something that makes if good (a fetish's very definition) and familiarity makes for a settled matter, psychologically. On this point I don't care about the variability of the way we experience the world. All that matters is the value in play when value is entangled (it almost always is). It can be clear as a bell, as when the flame is put beneath the palm of my hand--hard to fetishize this one. Not impossible, but then...well, I hard to even imagine. I can imagine Thích Quảng Đức did; he was the Buddhist monk who set himself ablaze in protest. But this is a different matter as he had trained himself to ignore the pain, not enjoy it. But the source of enjoyment is just not at issue. What is at issue is the nature of pain when one is feeling pain. Just that. You have a fetish such that burns and beatings are a good time, then I do not classify your beatings as painful, but delightful. — Constance
Well, ime, metaphysics – making sense in the most general way of the whole of reality – is conceptual (i.e. presuppositional > descriptive), not theoretical (i.e. propositoonal > explanatory). Besides, metaphysics does not entail the 'false hopes' which are the basis and motivators of religion. — 180 Proof
All Christian sects preach that every person has an "eternal soul" (i.e. "I AM" = EGO sum (re: "imago dei")) that will be either "saved" or "damned", no? Iirc from my Jesuitical education, each follower of Christ seeks only the "eternal salvation" of his "eternal soul" ... in the world to come". Augustinian / Kierkeegardian subjectivity (i.e. "leap of faith") metaphysically screams "ME ME ME". :pray: — 180 Proof
Humans' denial of death via myths / symbols of 'immortality' (e.g. scapegoating, redemption / propitiation sacrifice, martyrdom, "teleological suspension of the ethical", etc) as I've pointed out on this thread ... — 180 Proof
"Life after death.". "Resurrection." "Past lives." "Reincarnation." "Release from the Wheel of Rebirth." EtcAs to false hopes: one needs to go into this: false hopes about what? — Constance
Your accusation of "bad metaphysics" is clearly a projection and non sequitur.bad metaphysics. This is a straw person
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