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Siddhartha Gautama & Euthyphro
Right.Necessity is the mother of invention i.e. God doesn't "exist" for no rhyme or reason — Agent Smith
I'm not sure if I get that right. Do you mean that Euthyphro is wrong --and hence there's no dilemma-- because God is neither a necessity nor desirable?Euthyphro's dilemma is designed to clarify that as far as ethics goes, God is neither necessary (ethics is independent of God) nor desirable (ethics is God's whim &fancy). — Agent Smith
Because "ethics is independent of God" and "ethics is God's whim &fancy" are contradictory or conflicting statements? (Since the second has no sense if the first is true.) -
Siddhartha Gautama & Euthyphro(
When, a few years ago, I heard for the first time the well known question "Has God created Man or has Man created God?" I found it cute, even if the answer was obvious to me. But I now find this question just silly. You see, well some established ideas take a long time to be faced openly and the truth about them --i.e. their nature-- get revealed.Well, this isn't about us to tell you the truth. It concerns God & ethics, whether the former is necessary/desirable. — Agent Smith
In most cultures, questioning --and even worse, the denial-- of the existence of God --as he is described by different religions and cultures-- was always and still is considered immoral or a sign of immorality. This view and belief was so strong in the past, that people were condemned to death if people manifested such a behavior.
The good news though are that eventually logic and truth prevails, and these tabbos and prejudices eventually fall down or apart. And the truth in our case is that "God is a concept created by us". And "it is about us to tell". And it concerns us and our ethics (also a concept that we have created), not God or ethics (as something outside us).
***
Important note: When we talk about the existence of God, we must always have in mind that we are talking about the God as he is described in a certain culture and religion. Because descriptions and beliefs about a "God" differ between cultures and religions. In our case, we refer of course to the Judeo-Christian God. And, if I say that "I don't believe in God", I mean specifically that God. Because I may well believe in the existence of some other Supreme Being or Supreme Power, which is very far from the humanized, anthropomorphic Judeo-Christian God, the concept of whom is based on human form, desires and needs. -
Siddhartha Gautama & Euthyphro
Right. Yet, don't forget this very important fact: It's we who have created the concept and characteristics of God. So, whether he is an "authority on ethics" on ethics or not, depends on our description of him.If god wishes what is good then god is not the authority on ethics. Unacceptable. — Agent Smith
That's why I like Buddhism! :smile:Siddhartha Guatama (founder of Buddhism) opts to remain tightlipped about God, neither affirming nor negating god's existence — Agent Smith
I can question the "essence of God", but this would be outside the point.but then he went on to, in a sense, extract the essence of God (ethics + system that tracks our moral trajectory, records sins & virtuous acts for later accounting purposes, karma). Karma as you can see is a fully-automated system that replaces God. — Agent Smith
And also, I can't see how karma can replace the concept of God.
Anyway, since the title of the topic is "Siddhartha Gautama & Euthyphro", I can say that what these two subjects have in common as it appears from your description, is that both God and Karma are concepts created by us, so there is no meaning to pose questions about what they really are, their characteristics, etc. We can only make comparisons between them. And, our definition/description of Karma has nothing in common with our definition/description of God. In the Christian world, karma is connected to "fate" & "destiny", paradise & hell, doomsday (Last Judgment) and similar things. -
Siddhartha Gautama & Euthyphro
I see that you got really involved with dilemmas! :smile:Is it that what god wishes is good OR is it that god wishes what is good? — Agent Smith
Now, this could be a dilemma, only that "God" is a concept with characteristics that we humans have created. It reminds of the "God omnipotence" paradox. These are what I like to call "paradoxes", and this is also a "dilemma" --the quotes indicating of course "supposed-to-be".
Your (Euthyphro's) question has a meaning only if we describe God as knowing what good is --actually, the "Absolute Good"-- and that he wishes that for us, right? But then, in order to formulate such a description, we must have previously formulated a concept of "good", isn't that so?
Therefore, on a first level, the answer to the question is "What God wishes is good, because in our [description of him, we want him to wish that."
Then, on a second level, if we also assume that God is omnipotent --which is usually the case-- he wouldn't need to wish anything, would he? It's only us who wish.
Thus, this is indeed a "dilemma", or better, there's no dilemma at all! :smile: -
Jesus as a great moral teacher?
It's only logical, isn't?Actually you were correct in your assessment that " ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’" is not what Jesus Himself believed and taught. — ThinkOfOne
Thank you. Well, at least one acknowledgment! :smile:
Anyway, it's silly to argue about things that are known to be plenty of inaccuracies, biases and question marks. That's why I have withdrawn myself from this subject. -
Jesus as a great moral teacher?
I'm no longer interrested in the subject since a few posts ago. Besides, I'm far from an expert on it. So, please sort it out yourself. Sorry.What should I believe? — Art48 -
Jesus as a great moral teacher?
Haven't you read what I said? "So, you are right. It's not so simple!' Which means, I have acknowledged and accepted what you are repeating above.Again, it is not so simple. — Fooloso4
Haven't you also read "That's why I usually avoid getting involved in Christian scriptures!. But I did, most probably because I din't find something really interesting for me today Which means, I'm not actually interested. I have already spent too much time in this, including this --last-- reply.
It's not the first time that this happens. You are not "listening". -
Jesus as a great moral teacher?
The background here is Jesus vs Pharisees. I have made that clear. I gave two references on that.The background here is likely to be the dispute between Paul and Jesus' disciples regarding the Law. — Fooloso4
Yet, I couldn't find where does the statement "Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die" exactly refer to in the Old Testament. Maybe it is a problem of translation. Maybe it has naver been said.
So, you are right. It's not so simple! :smile:.
That's why I usually avoid getting involved in Christian scriptures! But I did, most probably because I din't find something really interesting for me today! :grin: -
What do these questions have in common?
Stiil, I can't see any considerable philosophical intuition or experience required to see what these questions have in common.I'm just trying to understand the intuition behind philosophical concepts. — Skalidris
But anyway, it's not important. My comment was rather a useless critique from my part. My bad. Sorry. -
Jesus as a great moral teacher?
This is not what Jesus himself believed and taught! This was his reply to Pharisees who asked him "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?", referring them to their own scriptures.• For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ Matthew 15:4 — Art48
How can Jesus ever say or think such a thing at the moment he was agains killing? (https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/MAT.15.1-20, https://biblehub.com/matthew/15-2.htm)
I was amazed by reading such a thing, esp. in here. And consider that I am not even a fan of Jesus. -
All That Exists
What does this have to do with philosophy? It's pure Math.
BTW, I just read a topic that reminds of quizes one can encounter in a college class. This one could be a test even in a high school Math class. -
What do these questions have in common?
I will go with @universeness: They are all anthropocentric questions.
Yet, I can't see the prupose of this topic. It could just be part of a quiz of a philosophy or even psychology college class. -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
[Re: Dillemas in Mythology]
I used the Web ro "refresh" my memory ... but I rather found new stuff! :grin:
The following might statisfy your curiosity ...
(Actually, I worked for you, because you could easily get all this info yourself! So, you owe me one! :wink:)
- Ethical Decision-Making in Greek Mythology
https://ut-flags.medium.com/ethical-decision-making-in-greek-mythology-162ec24b25b1
- Greek Mythology’s Double Standard- The Moral Dilemma of Revenge
https://www.academia.edu/29219286/Greek_Mythology_s_Double_Standard_The_Moral_Dilemma_of_Revenge
- Are there any examples of Greek myths where a character is faced with a moral dilemma and must make a decision?
https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-Greek-myths-where-a-character-is-faced-with-a-moral-dilemma-and-must-make-a-decision
The last ref I think is the best, since it actually refers to your own question and has a lot of answers in it.
BTW, referring to the expression "Between Scylla and Charybdis" that you brought up and the myth that lies behind it, and particularly "choosing the lesser of two evils", there's a good match with the position I formulated recenty on the Trolley problem, namely "Avoid major damage" .
Interessante, si.re the choices needn't necessarily be undesirable ... Too, quite notably, the logical OR is inclusive. Interesting, oui? — Agent Smith -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
I just read this definition of the word "dilemma" from a standard source (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dilemma): "A situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives." (Stress is mine.) How can such a totally unacceptable definition survive? I value and use dictionaries a lot, but sometimes they make me mad. My Greek dictionary says "desirable or undesirable". Which is actually the case and it is pragmatic.Can you point to any myths - culture irrelevant - that revolve around this subject? — Agent Smith
Now, if I undestand well, you want to know about some ancient myth that refers to or of which the central point is a dilemma or dilemmas. Is that right? Or is it just a rhetoric question? -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
Excellent topic and presentation, @javi! :up:
(I came to the source of the thread, well, after I have reacted to comments in it! :grin:) -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
You can also check this, besides @javi's excellent description of his topic: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/736855I want to try and figure out what definitions and explanations you have of the term ‘myth’ — I like sushi
(It's about the root of the word "myth".) -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
As I said to @Agent Smith, Mythology has never been degraded. It has kept is "status" and value, and that's why it is still taught in schools today (the Greek ones, at least). The word "myth" is what has been degraded.I will never understood the tendency to degrade both philosophy and Greek mythology. — javi2541997
This is unfortunately true! And esp. the clergy, with the Orthodox Church in the first place. Together with fascism and totalitarianism, religious dogmatism does its best to keep people in ignorance, by either hiding or falsifying facts and history in general. I read recently what is taught in the Russian schools today about the war in Ukraine. It makes you vomit!My only guess is that some powerful people who control the education don't want to have critical thinkers. — javi2541997 -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
I just looked up the Greek word "mythos" (= myth) in my dictionary of Ancient Greek Language --a huge one!. Both meanings are included, but with a slightly different description. The first meaning refers to speech, narration, story, independently of being true or false. The second one refers again to story but imaginary or ficticious. A known example is Aesop's fables.The literal-figurative distinction probably didn't exist in antiquity or didn't matter as much as it does today. — Agent Smith
At some point, the word "mythos", used with the first meaning, was replaced by "logos" (=- speech, etc.), so the second meaning only was kept in frequent use, which is also the case today. Note also that the word we use for "fiction" is "mythoplasia" (= creation, making up of a myth), based on the ancient Greek verb "mythopoiein" (= create a myth).
The word "myth" indeed was very important for ancient Greeks and had --and still has-- a lot of derivatives.
Si ! :smile:Fact & fiction merged together, all in an attempt to make sense of the world which seems to have been priority #1. This anticipated science - reason (facts/observation) + imagination (fiction/hypotheses/theories) - in a sense, oui? — Agent Smith -
Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
I see your point, but I cannot say that people regard Mythology as a world of untruths. We all know what important role played and a revered place it had in antiquity throughout the world. And that's why it is still and will always be taught in schools.Those who view mythology as untruths probably miss the point of this large corpus of ancient wisdom. — Agent Smith
On the other hand, the word "myth" has today two main connotations, one literal --referring directly to mythology-- and one figurative --falsehood, as you mentioned. But yes, since we are too far from antiquity, the second one prevails. Unfortunately!
Man has the tendency to degrade things that were once very important but are not used any more to a considerable degree. And as I can see clearly, Philosophy is also included in them. Unfortunately! -
Pre-science and scientific mentality
Nice! :up:science has a rather disturbing down side which can be summed up in the quote below:
So we're just bags of chemistry?
— Neil deGrasse Tyson — Agent Smith -
Is space 4 dimensional?
Certainly!four dimensional Euclidean space is not the same as four dimensional spacetime. — jgill -
Is the harmfulness of death ante-mortem or post-mortem?
This is the view by the majority in the West and the minority in the East. There is so much said on the subject, that we cannot just ignore or reject the case that our non-physical part continuing to exist as such after the death of our body. That would be lack of wisdom. On the contrary, admitting that "I don't know" is a sign of wisdom.After death that person is no more and will endure no more harm. — jgill -
Artificial intelligence
I agree.Conscious I think means self-awareness, and if so machines will never be self-aware like us. — SpaceDweller
I don't agree. :smile:Machines may have reasoning far better and faster than us. — SpaceDweller
Reasoning involves thinking, and machines do not think. Machines execute instructions. Sometimes, in sophisticated programs and advanced AI cases, it might seem that the machines think, but behind this apparent thinking lies programming, i.e. instructions. Machines can be even programmed to create programs themselves, but this is still based on human programming.
Thinking, and with it reasoning, is an ability possessed exclusively by humans.
On the other hand, machines can surpass us, and in fact to a huge degree, in the fields of calculation, memory capacity and retrieval and timing. -
Artificial intelligence
There are a lot of devices that can recognize all sort of things. They are programmed to do that. So, if you program a device to recognize itself in a mirror, and then say (issue a sound) "Here I am!", it couuld do all that. But a machine could never do that by itself, i.e. w/o having been programmed amd instructed appropriately. Machines do not and can never have awareness.When a machine can recognize itself in a mirror it will have self-awareness. — Josh Alfred
Awareness is a characteristic of life. Humans, animals and plants have awareness, of a different kind. But self-awareness is an ability and characteristic that only humans have. -
The Standard(s) for the Foundation Of Knowledge
1) It's not a "seeming" (= apparent, appearing) inability. It's a logical statement and proposition. He said, "I cannot doubt of my existence while I doubt". Which is true, i.e. one cannot reject that.By using his seeming inability to doubt his own existence to support his proposal for a foundation of knowledge, Descartes effectively presents this inability as a standard to which any proposal for a foundation for knowledge must respect. But, if we don’t know the foundation for knowledge, how can we know whether the proposed standard must be accepted? — Hello Human
2) Descartes didn't use that statement "as a foundation of knowledge" or any kind of foundation for that matter. You and other people do. This statement became --I don't know when, but long after Descartes has made it-- "a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it purported to provide a certain foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt." (Wikipedia). See, it is thought of (by people) as a certain foundation for knowledge. So, all that are interpretations. (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not even talk about any kind of "foundation for knowledge".)
For Descartes "cogito ergo sum" was a fundamental principle, which was based mainly on his irrefutable --not "seeming"-- truth that I cannot doubt my own existence and hence I think therefore I am. That's why, he expressed it elsewhere as "I doubt, therefore I am".
In his Discourse on the Method: "And as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Skeptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search." [The stress is mine.]
As for standards for a "foundation of knowledge" that you are looking for, I think that this subject can cover volumes, and cannot be covered in here. Except for some thoughts on the subject. I have never given it much thought, but I have a slight idea that it would be a useless quest, because the burden is too heavy to carry. Here's a characteristic passage from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"A foundation of knowledge and justified belief restricted to infallible beliefs (as defined above) would arguably be far too thin to support any sort of substantial epistemic edifice." -
Could we be living in a simulation?
A logical question arises: If we live in a simulation, how can we never know it?
Do we know in our dreams that we are dreaming? And wed do think, for a brief moment, that indeed we are, this would be part of the dream and only because we know what a dream is and what a conscious, awake state is.
In an awake state on the other hand, we don't know any other kinds of conscious states so that we can recognize and call the existing one as a simulation.
However, there are different kinds of conscious states and awareness. But they do not make someone lieve and have some other kind of existence. E.g., in a state of expanded consciousness, we would still be living in a simulation, and the whole Universe, as we know it, would be part of it.
Bottom line is that there's no much meaning or use in thinking and talking about living in a simultation. Well, except if we are writing a science-fiction scenario or book. :smile: -
Quantitative Ethics?
I agree, but what has math to do in here? Because we speak about quantitative stuff? Well, I love Math and I was alwyas very good at it, so I don't want demote it to the level of simple arithmetic, in fact lower than that as far as this topic is concerned! :smile:Math helps in differentiating what was once undifferentiable. Oui monsieur? — Agent Smith
BTW, I don't think it is correct to say that Math has been "discovered". So, I'll keep the "invented" part only. :smile: (Re: "Before we discovered/invented math") -
Most Important Problem Facing Humanity, Revisited
Does it present an imminent threat for the people in Colorado? I hope not! :pray:Living in Colorado I think about this occasionally: Yellowstone Caldera — jgill
Anyway, this is a local problem. Here, we are talking about the whole humanity. -
Most Important Problem Facing Humanity, Revisited
I think it has to be looked for in the human mind and ethics.what is the root disease? — Xtrix
The human mind --rationality, intelligence, understanding, acquisition of knowledge, etc.-- because it is based on this that situations are analyzed, future is predicted, good or bad (not ethics-wise) solutions are found and actions (not ethics-wise) are taken.
Ethics, because it is based on this that right or wrong actions are taken that are for the benefit of a minority or the majority (at every level in the society), that responsibility is assumed or waived, that important/vital matters (for life as well as the environment) are handled or ignored and, in general, whatever concerns the survival of this planet and the people that live on it.
Indeed, the initial 3 problems that you mentioned: overpopulation, climate Change and political corruption --as well as the epidemics that you have added later, and also pollution, shortage of fuel and energy sources, etc. -- depend completely on the above two elements. Don't they?
There may be other important problems that humanity is faced with at this moment or it will be faced with tomorrow. Their root will always be the human mind and ethics.
We have to exclude of course known natural phenomena and potential dangers for which Man is not and will not be responsible. Of which, I can't think any at this moment. -
What a genuine word of God would look like
Right. And when we are talking about the concept of God, must also take into consideration that he is conceived differently among different religions.One take away from the lack of a scripture (as described in the OP) is that God as often conceived may not exist. — Art48 -
Quantitative Ethics?
I know. That's why I asked if your referred to it. I needed a point of reference.I never said that "avoid major damage or harm" is flawed. — Agent Smith
This doesn't help much to chose a place for my vacations! :grin:the choices presented to us isn't good or bad but bad or worse. :snicker: — Agent Smith
Well, ask him! :smile:What is "the true nature of ethics"?
— Alkis Piskas
God knows! — Agent Smith
Right. We can't know about the nature of ethics, as we can't regarding freedom, mind, consciousness and a lot of other concepts. -
What a genuine word of God would look like
All these points are plausible and make sense. But they refer to 1) a "rational" God and 2) a God that think as humans think. Yet, such a God may not exist. We must never forget that God is created by Man and not the other way around. What God does and can do is based on what we have imagined for him that he does and can do. We cannot ask later, if he can or should do things that are not expected from him to do.If a God ever did reveal himself/herself to humanity, the revelation would:
Be clearly, lucidly written; no conflicting interpretations, no confusion as to what is intended
Have no internal contradictions ... — Art48
I create a superhero, say Superman. I give him cartain powers and abilities (super strength and speed, enhanced leaping, super senses etc.). It makes no sense to ask whether he can also become invisible or expect such a thing from him.
Alkis Piskas
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