Your accusation of "bad metaphysics" is clearly a projection and non sequitur. — 180 Proof

Oh. Really? Explain.

For example, Does the Bible have any prima facie authority at all on matters of philosophy? — Constance

No. It has no authority. It was brought up as an historical document to illustrate the human intuition regarding the conflict between Mind(knowing) and Body(being).

I say a "disembodied" pain is impossible, — Constance

I agree. Pain requires nerves. That organism with nerves is the agent of the pain. But the suffering we construct to displace pain, is all in the constructing and projecting of the Mind without agency.

A thing which suffers? Nobody argues this — Constance

That may be.

At any rate, if you think about the self, human dasein, as a thing, you are deep in scientific reductive territory. — Constance

I do not. I think about the self and human so called dasein (I'm not sure why that concept is treated as a given) as NO THING

As you bring up the very term: Religion. I automatically assume my default position, and ask: What, exactly. do you mean by religion? Unless 'religion' is very precisely defined, then we're talking in circles and over each other, thinking we're saying something that means something, when we're really talking and sahying nothing because we have failed to define exactly what we're talking about.

I'm a Christian. Am I therefore religious? The very question is meaningless. Why? Because 'religious' has not been defined in a concrete, understandable, verifiable manner. It's just a convenient word. A label that seems to suggest something, but it doesn't really say anything at all. Thus, much of what's put forth as answers concerning 'religion' partake of a similar ambiguity, an exercise in futile rhetoric simply for the sake of rhetoric. What's problematic here is that language is highly abstract; a construct of human intelligence that began with pictorial representations with particular meanings, but as this abstract form of representing reality grew ever more refined, ever more able to describe our world of experience, it became equally infused with all the potential to enter into endless conflicts and misunderstandings. That's why I assume my default position. I demand clarity whenever anyone dares mention the word religion. If clarity is not given, then confusion is the ruling Monarch of the day, and I find myself walking through the dark halls of that Monarch where i always find just what I expect. Confusion and meaninglessness and not only confusion and meaninglessness but the championing of confusion and meaninglessness.

Much of what goes by the name religion, for instance, in Christian circles, I find deplorable. Yet, here we see religion if so defined, yet I shy away from being associated in any way with so much of what passes as religion. I would rather be an atheist than a theist of the kind who preaches eternal damnation for finite beings who were never asked if they wished to be born. This Catholic dogma, popularized in so many offshoots of that supposed religion, I find truly demonic. Biut I'm caught in we might say, a duplcity. Am I guilty of advocating such a demonic dogma simply by reason of association? No. I believe I can very adequately justify myself as far as 'my religion' is concerned, empirically, and rationally and morally. But to whom should I ever care to justify myself? I haven't yet been brought before the thrown of the anti-christ to bare my sole and pledge my allegiance. When I do, it will be to Christ, and no other. Is that what it means to be relligious? Perhaps. But human reason and justification are issues for philosophical debate as much as anything else and people often seek by nature a very strong position, like demanding (as so popular in the arena of politics) a definite Yes or No answer. Are you religious? Yes or no, pick one or the other. So, yes. But I might add: and so are you, for I'm not the only one who can be imputed with what can be called a system of belief. I'm not the only one to whom guilt must be assigned. If you think otherwise I will defend myself by stating that you are religious also, for whatever it is you believe, that can be taken as your god. For this reason it's written in scripture that you shall have no other gods before Me.

If one contends that they are not religious, I object and claim that you are denying the state of your own reality; for were you not religious then you would be as a virgin, unstained by any association with another, that you have withstood rape and have not come to any conclusions of any kind--that you not only have no false gods before you but you reject also the one true God; and remain as an innocent babe--someone deserving of no condemnation for there is nothing in you deserving of judgment. This is why I assume my default position: what exactly do you mean by religion? Define it, or remain silent, else you enter a world of perhaps potentially meaningful dialogue, but much more likely, only meaninglessness masquerading as wisdom.

to be not religious means that you cannot think, that you do not believe in anything, and that you cannot reach any conclusions of any kind. — Ray Liikanen

Are you serious about this?

e often seek by nature a very strong position, like demanding (as so popular in the arena of politics) as d — Ray Liikanen

Yes I'm serious about this. Souds illogical, unless you read the entire reply, that asks for clarification of the term 'religion' or 'religious'. Using the term is easy. Defining it is an altogether different matter, and not easily accomplished.

Explain what? Your "bad metaphysics" post speaks for itself.

... 'religious' has not been defined in a concrete, understandable, verifiable manner. — Ray Liikanen

Apparently, you've not read this thread from the beginning. A little more than semantic quibbles is going on here. Besides, definitions are not "verifiable" (unless they are tautologies). :roll:

I did read your whole post.

Okay, assuming that you’re actually serious, you seem to believe that being religious means thinking, believing, and concluding whatever is in accordance with your religion.

That is certainly part of it (though not to the extreme you claim) and why religion tends to be very dogmatic. You must think there’s more to it though, right?

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. — MoK

But of course religion "provides reasons why an act, good or evil, is right or wrong." Religion tells us that God is moral foundation of such "reasons".

But I would respond to the idea of religion being about spiritual and mystical experiences. Not that it is not about these, but that mysticism itself does not stand apart from our ordinary affairs: what is mystical lies with understanding that ordinary affairs themselves are entirely indeterminate at the basic level of assumptions, which undermines all knowledge claims, something altogether ignored as we are so absorbed in the usual matters. Just to say, that one should keep such the "mystical" within the bounds of what is IN the world vis a vis our existence, in order to keep the very idea available. If you read mystics like Meister Eckhart or pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite you find intimations that never really leave the perceptual event, but rather ackowledge something always already IN what is observed normally. A long discussion in this.

Why do I claim religion is all about ethics? You saw the point in the OP: Religion is metaphysics, specifically metaethics. Metaethics is inquiry about the essence of ethics, as is the question, what IS the good? It is a question for ontology, for the good and the bad in ethics, prior to discussions about the should's and shouldn'ts, rights and wrongs, refer to the actual affairs in the world that make ethics even possible. The basic idea lies here: what if ethics possessed in its essence something as apodictic as logic? I claim it does. Beneath the entanglements of our ethical lives, there is something that makes these matters' ethicality even possible. This is value, a category identified in Wittgenstein's Tractatus which he says is unspeakable, as it is IN the world and not merely in states of affairs. (It helps to read this brief if enigmatic book.)

Again, what if ethics possessed at its core something apodictic? If so, religious issues would be instantly resolved! No, I'm serious.

Glad to see that you agree that the pain is not bad for all agents. — MoK

I take pain and pleasure to be bad and good analytically. If one is enjoying X, then, heh, heh, one isn't in pain. Period. If something is standardly called pain, but is nonstandardly received as pleasure, I ask, why should standards hold up against reality? And I keep in mind that so much that we call painful or distasteful are conditioned pov's. I remember finding cigarette smoking so awful it made me sick. Then I was addicted for 16 years. The lack of objectivity in the goods and bads of the world was never due to their not being anything objective about the good or the bad. It was always about the variance in was brought the good and the bad into existence. Flames scorching living flesh? Hmmm, like I said, this one is tough to imagine being enjoyable. But who cares. It really isn't the point. If one is miserable then one is miserable.

Explain what? Your "bad metaphysics" post speaks for itself. — 180 Proof

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.

that you not only have no false gods before you but you reject also the one true God; and remain as an innocent babe--someone deserving of no condemnation for there is nothing in you deserving of judgment. This is why I assume my default position: what exactly do you mean by religion? Define it, or remain silent, else you enter a world of perhaps potentially meaningful dialogue, but much more likely, only meaninglessness masquerading as wisdom. — Ray Liikanen

This sounds like Kierkegaard in his Concept of Anxiety. See what he says:

Innocence is ignorance. In innocence the human being is not characterized as spirit but is psychically characterized in immediate unity with its natural condition. Spirit is dreaming in the human being. This view fully accords with that of the Bible which, by denying that the human being in its innocence has knowledge of the difference between good and evil,* condemns all Catholicism’s fantasies concerning [Adam’s] merit.15 In this state there is peace and repose, but at the same time there is something else, something that is not dissension and strife, for there is nothing against which to strive. What, then, is it? Nothing. But what effect does nothing have? It begets anxiety. This is the profound secret of innocence, that at the same time it is anxiety. Dreaming, spirit projects its own actuality, yet this actuality is nothing, but innocence always sees this nothing outside itself. Anxiety is an attribute of the dreaming spirit and belongs as such to psychology. Awake, the difference between myself and my other [mit Andet]16 is posited; sleeping, it is suspended; dreaming, it is a nothing hinted at. Spirit’s actuality appears constantly as a form that tempts its possibility but disappears as soon as it reaches out for it, and is a nothing that can only bring unease. More it cannot do as long as it merely appears.

Of course, he has his own way of treating these terms, but pretty much, when you talk about an innocent babe deserving of no condemnation, you are aligned with the simple but profound insight that if a person never looks up, so to speak, from the stream of psychological events in her head, and never takes on the burden of the anxiety this imposes, a person cannot be guilty, but nor can a person make any progress toward .....God, or better, call it liberation and enlightenment (from the East. I find their metaphysics more explicit and useful than the vagaries of "faith"). Two things Jesus said that always ring true: forgive them for they know not what they do, and God, have you forsaken me? True not because they agree with the Bible, but because the Bible agrees with them. We are forsaken in this finitude of suffering (and delights, let's not forget. the OP is about this as well), and we are absolutely clueless as to why.

But then, there ARE clues. This is a theo-philosophical matter.

Favourite line of Kierkegaard, "If you label me, you negate me."

A favorite pastime especially today in politics (witness the backbitting back and forth between Democrats and Repulbicans) is this infantile labelling of the opponent. We never learn, seems to be an inherent thing in the human mind.

"Why have you forsaken me?" He became sin for us. Our transgressions, all of them, died with him on the cross; God the Father, turns His face away from evil (sin).

A favorite pastime especially today in politics (witness the backbitting back and forth between Democrats and Repulbicans) is this infantile labelling of the opponent. We never learn, seems to be an inherent thing in the human mind. — Ray Liikanen

Aren’t you negating everything else these infantile labelers might be?

I agree. Pain requires nerves. That organism with nerves is the agent of the pain. But the suffering we construct to displace pain, is all in the constructing and projecting of the Mind without agency. — ENOAH

No, no; that's not what I mean by disembodied. This is the phenomenologist's world and all bets are off re. physicality and its many sciences. The fact that nerves deliver signals to the brain belongs to a region of thinking that presupposes phenomenology, as all sciences do. Many ways to approach this but imagine Derrida is right, and he is, I say, and language is something that never can be even conceived as ontologically/epistemologically associated with the intended object of trees and clouds and nerve fibers and so on. Language you could say stands disembodied from the world of these nameless actualities. In everyday dealings, we treat them as one, you know, pass the salt and the bus being late, things like this make no discernment ontologically, and the epistemology is bound up with normal affairs.

Prior to the science there is the "immediate" givenness of the world. Here we see suffering and delight in their reduced givenness, which has no causal explanations linked to it. It is a stand alone giveness, this pain, that bliss. We think of them in the usual contexts when we are in them, as when I take a sip from this cup. But pull away from engagement and ontology makes its appearance, via the question. Derrida's trace is supposed to bring us to this very strange precipice where our encultured resources are suspended (the final suspension) and we face a "pure" world, your world, free of the distortions of language, andI have always agreed with you; and disagreed. I think this intimation of pure being you talk about is a very meaningful part of what it is to stand on this precipice. But I take issue with your (and Heidegger's) turn away from subjectivity (agency). Two things are behind this: One is the requirement that human dasein (meaning just our existence of thought, relations, feelings, "comportment," and what we generally refer to as experience) is a language construct (the house of Being), and the other hs to do with agency and value, what I mean when I talk about a disembodied agency: agency is experience, and experience is always a subjective (agential) and centered phenomenon. One cannot talk about experience belonging to no one, or about a pain that belongs to no one any more than one can talk about gravity without mass, say. the pain of this sprained ankle cannot be "hanging around," if you will, in space somewhere. The same with having a thought or a feeling. These issue from experience and cannot be conceived apart from it.

I do not. I think about the self and human so called dasein (I'm not sure why that concept is treated as a given) as NO THING — ENOAH

Yes, quite right.

But of course religion "provides reasons why an act, good or evil, is right or wrong." Religion tells us that God is moral foundation of such "reasons". — Constance

Well, if they say so. But that does not make God a moral foundation. The reason for that is the very diverse range of religions with different teachings. Most religions give teachings that contradict the teachings of others. There are even contradictions within a single religion. Not all religions are the same and all of them could not be possibly true. So even if accept the premise that God is the moral foundation then we still face a problem: Which religion is true?

[

Why have you forsaken me?" He became sin for us. Our transgressions, all of them, died with him on the cross; God the Father, turns His face away from evil (sin). — Ray Liikanen

What transgressions? Not to say that we are all so perfect, but the issue goes to responsibility: the behavior, the thought,these can be transgressive, meaning they bring into the world an alienation from our true nature which is a "spark" of the divine (without putting too fine a point on it), toward all of the cultural affairs that draw us away from this. Original sin, K held, was, for us (not Adam, whose situation is quite different, though it has to be kept in mind that K was not giving credence to a myth. He uses this myth to explain "original sin" which is, by all accounts, just weird and senseless. He criticizes Luther's generally held position that we, somehow have committed the most egregious offense to God imaginable, and so on) the sin of the "race" which means it is the historical generation of a very bloated and distracting culture, filled with what you could call worldly fetishes: the institutions, the personality identities, the endless "idle talk" and in general the bringing the eternal down to be absorbed into the finite in those churchy settings, thereby losing original religious insight which is subjective and not public at all.
But though one can find fault with this alienation, the transgression lies with the condition, and are not "ours" because we were merely thrown into a world into which this occurs. I think this is important to understand, because Christianity seems fixated on the individual's accountability in the usual sense of being accountable, as with the many rules of society; but to take this model and apply it to religious sin is absurd, for the context in which responsibility rise up are metaphysical.

Well, if they say so. But that does not make God a moral foundation. The reason for that is the very diverse range of religions with different teachings. Most religions give teachings that contradict the teachings of others. There are even contradictions within a single religion. Not all religions are the same and all of them could not be possibly true. So even if accept the premise that God is the moral foundation then we still face a problem: Which religion is true? — MoK

If you approach religion like that, you will find no solution to the question at all. Ask, why doesn't science have this problem? It is the consistency of results: put nitroglycerin in the same experimental context, the results will be the same. If you treat religion like a culture, like you seem to be doing, then all you get is cultural differences, but if you look for the essence of religion to see if there is something just as unwavering, and you look "through" the narratives, the churchy fetishes, the bad metaphysics, and so forth, to what survives after all of these contingencies are suspended, and you find the metaethical indeterminacy of our existence. This is what religion is all about.

Very long story short: a determinate ethics is simple to understand. We see it in our laws, rules, principles, explicit or implicit, and so on. The ethical normativity of our existence. Indeterminacy is what we run into when we ask for basic rationality on which these are founded: why pay taxes? Because we need money to run a society. What is the point of that? See contract theory: it's better than the state of nature; much better, because people are safer from harm. What is wrong with harm? Errrr, What do you mean? This is an indeterminacy that runs through all of our affairs, hidden beneath the veneer of conversation. The prima facie moral call not to cause harm really has NO justification beyond it being stand alone bad, which is weird for anyone who likes explanations.

But take those ethical complaints that intrinsically deal with harm, and there you are stricken with plague or burning to death in a car somewhere, and there are no laws to protect you, no authority to redress the wrongs, that is, the intrinsic wrong of it being there AT ALL. Take the broad context of our ethical issues in the world, and see that ultimately, no redress is forthcoming at the foundational level! THIS is where religion has its essence, why, that is, societies "came up with" religion, and why religion is in all cultures. We are all "thrown into" a world of unredeemed suffering and unconsummated desire. This is the essence of religion: to bring these to their completion.

the transgression lies with the condition, and are not "ours" because we were merely thrown into a world into which this occurs. I think this is important to understand, because Christianity seems fixated on the individual's accountability in the usual sense of being accountable,

True that Christian religions, of whatever stripe (I belong to none of them), but I claim to be a Christian; focus on our accountability--it's ubiquitious. My understanding of transgression is simply a violation of the 10 directives (commandments, is an inferior or less accurate interpretation of the Hebrew text); as state in the New Testament there's the line: "not the hearers of the law but the doers of the law will be justified." However, I agree, how could I not, that we were thrown into this world. None of us signed a contract offering us life, we were not informed, not given a choice, so what responsibility should we bare for a life that we did not ask for. And, if such a contract had been presented, if I could foresee all that life had to offer, I would have vehemently rejected it, especiallly given that death ensues, and so proves the contract fraudulent, and worthless. There is a out here however. Christ paid the penalty of death demanded from a failure to perfectly adhere to every single aspect of those 10 directives; and it is God's grace, not anything I do of my own will, that spares me from condemnation. This is the essence of what it means to be a Christian and it's explained repeatedly by Paul in his letters. I myself will always measure up as coming up short where accountability is concerned because of my condition. There's more to all this however.

Well, if they say so. But that does not make God a moral foundation. The reason for that is the very diverse range of religions with different teachings. Most religions give teachings that contradict the teachings of others. There are even contradictions within a single religion. Not all religions are the same and all of them could not be possibly true. So even if accept the premise that God is the moral foundation then we still face a problem: Which religion is true? — MoK

If you approach religion like that, you will find no solution to the question at all. Ask, why doesn't science have this problem? Well, it does, but we don't notice because variances are these historical events that happen within a world that is assumed to be stable because of the way science is able to quantify consistently. You've seen one DNA molecule, you've seen them all, and every time you see it, it's the same. Science has changed over the centuries because new models arise our of enhanced ways of perceiving the world that bring about unseen ways to quantify. But results in each historical paradigmatic setting (Kuhn) are always consistent. No consistency, no science.

Finding what is consistent in religion makes a move from all of the religious culture, to an exclusion of all of this (all the sermons and symbols and singing) to find what is there essentially, not unlike the way science excludes the messiness of our affairs to do just this (Kant did this with reason); you cannot do astronomy if you're thinking about astrology! The next part of this argument deals with value and ethics. Religion has its foundation in the pure valuative dimension of our normal everydayness. This can be discussed if you are interested.

You are perhaps a qualified Heideggerian. NOT that he thinks language occludes our real being, he is not like this at all, but he does argue that subjectivity is a concept that needs to be removed from the analysis of our existence. I am listening to Herbert Dreyfus lecture on youtube, "Hubert Dreyfus - Heidegger's Being and Time (Part 1)" and at 26:30 or so you will find things like Marilu Ponty's "empty heads turned toward the world" in the rejection, the radical rejection, of subjectivity. Sometimes things are put just so and make the point so poignantly. I, of course, disagree. I think when you get to that rarified "space" of a phenomenologically reduced world and thought is free of the clutter or habituated assumptions, THERE you discover the transcendental self. Husserl was too bound to the analysis of experience. But the real telos of the reduction takes one beyond this. But keeping with what analysis shows: so there you are, an empty head turned toward the world, but the center of this is the illumination and the ecstasy (nirvana). Heidegger and Marilu Ponty were too much fixated on description and analysis that they could never simply put this down, as the Buddhist does. It is unthinkable for someone like Heidegger NOT to think, in other words. This is why Husserl could not move forward: too much the philosopher.

If you approach religion like that, you will find no solution to the question at all. — Constance

Yes, I know. The problem is if there is one God then why are religions so diverse and inconsistent?

Ask, why doesn't science have this problem? It is the consistency of results: put nitroglycerin in the same experimental context, the results will be the same. — Constance

Yes, science is consistent, religions are not.

If you treat religion like a culture, like you seem to be doing, then all you get is cultural differences, but if you look for the essence of religion to see if there is something just as unwavering, and you look "through" the narratives, the churchy fetishes, the bad metaphysics, and so forth, to what survives after all of these contingencies are suspended, and you find the metaethical indeterminacy of our existence. This is what religion is all about. — Constance

There are many reasons why people believe in religion, such as fear of death, fear of punishment, the promised rewards, and the like. Why do religions survive? Because of the mentioned reasons. Because people do not realize the conflict between religions and the conflict within a single religion.

Very long story short: a determinate ethics is simple to understand. We see it in our laws, rules, principles, explicit or implicit, and so on. The ethical normativity of our existence. Indeterminacy is what we run into when we ask for basic rationality on which these are founded: why pay taxes? Because we need money to run a society. What is the point of that? See contract theory: it's better than the state of nature; much better, because people are safer from harm. What is wrong with harm? Errrr, What do you mean? This is an indeterminacy that runs through all of our affairs, hidden beneath the veneer of conversation. The prima facie moral call not to cause harm really has NO justification beyond it being stand alone bad, which is weird for anyone who likes explanations.

But take those ethical complaints that intrinsically deal with harm, and there you are stricken with plague or burning to death in a car somewhere, and there are no laws to protect you, no authority to redress the wrongs, that is, the intrinsic wrong of it being there AT ALL. Take the broad context of our ethical issues in the world, and see that ultimately, no redress is forthcoming at the foundational level! THIS is where religion has its essence, why, that is, societies "came up with" religion, and why religion is in all cultures. We are all "thrown into" a world of unredeemed suffering and unconsummated desire. This is the essence of religion: to bring these to their completion. — Constance

We have a common conscience and we can establish a stable society based on that. Moreover, harming others is a very common concept within different religions, like stoning to death, cutting hands or fingers, and killing those who do not believe in God.

. I think when you get to that rarified "space" of a phenomenologically reduced world and thought is free of the clutter or habituated assumptions, THERE you discover the transcendental self. — Constance

The strange thing I have found myself saying, here again, I totally agree. I'm just saying, as it appears from this last post is at least vaguely in line with what others have said that that so called transcendental self is not the I conventional brought to mind as ourself; it is utterly not that I. It is necessarily "transcendent" as in utterly other. And unless we want to adopt a tri-ism, that utterly other can't be the spirit, must be the conscious body