Yeah part of my argument is that if there some sort of meaning then it's unlikely that this meaning to be the biggest jerk you can be. — MysticMonist

Another way to view that would be that the concept of "jerk" only obtains within a moral environment where being mean to other people is not good. So, the very concept of "jerk" only obtains within a broader moral concept where kindness (for instance) is an important moral concept ("jerk" being averse to kindness, generally).

Cultivating virtue and treating others well and seeking solace in prayer/study would suit one well regardless. — MysticMonist

Ah...if only this wisdom was proclaimed from the rooftops of The Philosophy Forum Dot Com...

If we are going to be consistent in our projection of an absolute then we are projecting it as that which is beyond our understanding. — Janus

I'm having trouble parsing through this sentence; can you rephrase?

It would seem absurd to then turn around and criticize our projection because a problem whuch is beyond our understanding (the existence of evil) — Janus

Aside from your response to my above request, are you saying that evil is beyond our understanding? Maybe your enumeration of your point will help with this.

I'm not sure it's material in the way OP is describing. — antinatalautist

Yeah, I actually want to take it a step further and say that the past only exists in the present. I am an amalgamation of my past; my body is the food I've eaten, my beliefs are the ideas, experiences, and concepts that my mind has absorbed, my memories are an unreliable catalogue of my subjective experiences which are no longer the present. It's a view of reality that I would call generative.

I think that the past exists as more than just a footprint. — darthbarracuda

I'm not saying it's a footprint; it sounds like we're mostly on the same page. To expand on what I was saying, and to sort of go along with what you're saying, the past influences our current beliefs, and our beliefs determine how we perceive reality, which is to say that they determine reality. So past trauma might cause me to believe (subconsciously) that I'll never be professionally successful; the past exists not only in my present beliefs, but in my real, present circumstances, thanks to how belief mediates the past with the present. The belief maketh it so. Lemme know if that makes sense.

The past exists in the present. Your post, made an hour ago, exists for me now as I respond. The deed you did, posting the topic, exists in the present in the form it takes on the internet. Likewise the mass murder of Jews exists in the present in the form of family lines broken or altered, cultural values strengthened and weakened, generational suffering, immigration patterns, population numbers...

; our projections of human conceptions of value onto the absolute? — Janus

Isn't "the absolute" also a projection? I realize I've made similar arguments before, but ultimately arguments against projection break down unless we delineate what is reasonable projection and what is not. It also brings up a basic epistemic problem of whether we have knowledge of something like the absolute, or evil, or whatever, outside of experience, which includes projection. What's a different sort of epistemic tool other than experience? Divine revelation?

I largely agree with you. Glad to see another proponent of the all or nothing approach to nihilism/meaning.

I'll start a seperate thread tommorow. — MysticMonist

It doesn't necessarily need it's own thread; as mentioned, the question is fundamental to your question about suffering.

You haven't addressed the question of whether suffering is necessary for peace. But I do agree with Girand; I got at some of that in my first op on the forum. But you lost me with the appeal to Satan.

In Kabbalah, they teach the soul descends from perfection into suffering on purpose in order to reascend later in order to be united closer to God that pre-fall. You appreciate something more when it's gone sort of idea. Kabbalah is a lot harder to quote (or read). — MysticMonist

Interesting, that's similar to what I'm trying to get at here. I haven't studied Kabbalah at all, but I've always found it intriguing.

Because even in the deepest poverty, I still have the chance for virtue. — MysticMonist

Yes, I agree. I haven't successfully achieved much along those lines personally, but it's something I want to pursue. This inner virtue seems totally lacking in culture at large right now; there's a poverty of the spirit that manifests in how people's happiness and sense of well being are predicated purely on the external state of affairs; politically, technologically...

No, that's an underhanded way to say that peace requires violence, — Agustino

But peace almost always is a result of prior violence, politically speaking. Inner peace is a product of personal spiritual practice, which always involves suffering. Regardless of your interpretation of the book of Revelation, teleological peace requires some sort of spiritual and/or physical suffering, apparently.

They way you describe human freedom sounds familiar, what theologian or philosopher is that? — MysticMonist

Thanks; probably Nikolai Berdyaev.

It is not to be shunned or ignored but is an invitation to greater self-renouncation (letting go of the desire for the lacking thing) and to be light or to reflect God's light in the darkness of that situation. — MysticMonist

I haven't finished the Gita and have read through the major Upunishads once. I need to study both more to have a better response. Self-renounciation has never sat well with me, though, at least in the sense of full absorption into Brahman. But I do I appreciate the idea of seeing how you're connected with the rest of the universe; "you are the universe", that sort of concept. But I want to hold both ideas together; I'm connected to the world; the world is one organism of which I'm a member (as in arm, for instance), and yet I'm a conscious free agent moving towards divinity. The self needs to participate in that process, in my view, rather than become fully absorbed in The One, or the pleroma, or whatever.

Or is it the opposite that as the Torah says and as Jesus shows in the gospel narrative that He cares for each one of us, knowing us by name, and sees the subjective suffering in our hearts even over small things? — MysticMonist

Again, I think both views can be held together. Both have truth to them. Actually, Christianity does hold both; "these present afflictions pale in comparison to the all-surpassing coming joy", and "God knows the number of hairs on your head."

I feel we are wired to be unhappy. — MysticMonist

It doesn't seem to the case to me that everyone is like that. I don't think everyone fixates on suffering.

But does peace require suffering?

I'm really discussing the problem of suffering. Suffering is not necessarily evil. In fact I would say they aren't the same. — MysticMonist

So to take your wording from your op, are you now asking "If God exists and He is all good and all powerful why does He allow suffering?"

To me, suffering is connected with free will. God being "all good" also necessarily requires freedom: goodness as it relates to our human sphere of existence is a property that's inseparable from divine freedom. To experience moral goodness in this life is predicated on a state of freedom; not that the individual who experiences goodness is necessarily in a state of freedom themselves, but when goodness manifests in the human world, it does so from a state of pure freedom, and that state of freedom is often glimpsed through the veil of the experience of that goodness. So that divine goodness is predicated on freedom, and they're experienced together as the same experience for us.

Human free will on the other hand, is an expression of that divine freedom on which goodness is predicated. But human free will is an upward movement from non-freedom to freedom, in contrast to the sort of primordial freedom of a good God. Human free will is a creative expression; the reaching up towards God's downward-stretched hand. That creative aspect of free will is the same creative will that's an aspect of the divine itself; the same creative will that brought about existence resides in us as well; creative free will is the divine element in humanity. Creative free will is essentially the mechanism of the deification of humanity; the human fulfilling its purpose through the spiritual evolution into participation with divinity. Not that man becomes God, but that man is fulfilled and perfected through creative free acts that pull him up into the divine life.

God requires creative free acts from man because God has need for man, just as man has need for God. A God who creates a universe, imbues it with conscious, feeling, reasoning humans who are imbued with divinity themselves, but has no need of this process and this creation, would not be a good God. Humanity is the vessel through which the divine creative will is moving.

Suffering, then, is also necessary within the context of free will. Suffering is a greater teacher than pleasure. Divine creative free will asks a lot from us; it's easier to shrink away from the call. The problem is that suffering is still truly senseless; it comes to whoever it will, regardless of whether someone is creatively striving with their free will. Suffering is ultimately predicated on the pure divine freedom, I think. Again, freedom and suffering are inseparable, even within the divine, if the gospels have any truth in them. A world in which freedom allows divine conscious choice, whether from the ultimate divine (God) or from his expression (us), is a world in which suffering is a natural outcome of conflicting choices. Suffering animates the world with life; a world without suffering would have no purpose, just as a world without freedom would have no meaning. So the question then becomes, what do we do with our suffering? Do we avoid it? Let it consume us? Or let it teach us?

The Agustino fallacy: >:O :s >:)

delete

If you want to debate in good faith sans insults I'm happy to, but otherwise this is pointless.

It is called context, — Jeremiah

What's called context?

Honestly, you don't even seem to know what the word subjective means. — Jeremiah

What, this?

Well go ask 100 random people what truth is and then ask 100 random people what relevance is, and I think you would have your answer. — Jeremiah

True, but I'm asking about the subjectivity of the concepts, because you seemed to assume that relevance was less subjective. Opinion isn't subjectivity; at least not as far as I can see. Subjectivity is just simple individual human perception; truth, realness, and relevance are all things that are perceived subjectively. So making a case for relevance vs. truth or realness or whatever, as you did, doesn't square with subjectivity.

Here's a question: How would you know if you even found "truth"? Just for argument, lets say you find a nugget of truth, the absolute truth but how would you even know that is truth and not just your typical estimation of truth? — Jeremiah

To even begin you need to delineate between forms of inquiry. You said earlier that science seems more equipped to define existence. To even begin an inquiry into "truth" you would need to back track from this assumption and re-evaluate your lines of inquiry, otherwise you'll always only be arguing from a position that automatically eliminates the concept of truth in the first place. The pursuit of truth is as ancient as anything in the human experience, and it shows no signs of stopping. Hey, maybe that would be a good place to start; an inquiry into the pursuit of truth over the course of history.

How is relevance less subjective than realness, existence and truth?

Can science be guided? (yes, I did read your post). By what, an ideology?

(Y)

What separates love from something like indifference or manipulation? — John Days

Love knows and acknowledges the worth of the person in question. "Worth" is actually inappropriate; this has been clear to me for a long while: Worth presupposes value, which presupposes levels of value. It's better to say that love transcends the concept of the worth of a person; love becomes a definition, rather than a measurement. Love defines the human person. How? By saying "You're a human! Love is for you!" That statement, regardless of how pithy, encompasses experience pretty nicely, regardless of how well you've experienced this idea of love.

That's the positive side to how love is different from indifference or manipulation. From there, any other distinctions seem pretty obvious from experience, but...indifference can manifest as presence without content: Being available without actually being available. Manipulation...the previous is a form of it, but more generally, manipulation tends to cut the deepest. A person who manipulates the basic desire for love is someone who can sense basic emotional instincts and plays to those instincts, without regard for the actual individuality or well-being of the person they're exploiting. Manipulation is maybe the worst offense to love of all: ironically, emotional manipulation is one of the clearest indicators of the importance of love for us humans...

Other conditions for love include a willingness to forgive, kindness, patience, and, as is the case with the concept of "tough love", it also includes justice. If we practice injustice toward one another, it cannot be said that we love them. — John Days

No complaints here. So, re: "conditions"...

you say that "a willingness to forgive, kindness, patience, [...] 'tough love'" are conditions of love? Or are you just saying that other people here said they were?

In any case, I'll respond with my own opinion. Yes, forgiveness, kindness, patience, and justice are just a few of the "conditions" of love. But these "conditions" are different than the "conditions" that define love as either "conditional" or "unconditional". The basic word "condition" here means patently different things, just by nature of the English language. Within philosophy, various given "conditions" of love, as you describe it, are conditions in the legal sense, but if you're going to post here, you need to remember that this is a philosophy forum. "Unconditional" doesn't mean the same thing; within the context of love (via Christianity) the concept means a love that doesn't waver under any circumstance. So no given condition alters the state of that love. The fact that that unalterable state might be itself a "condition" has no content as concept because it doesn't avail itself to what conditionality means with regards to love.

Bit rotten if it turns out that the process of our ultimate education inescapably requires that first we must endure malign experience! — Robert Lockhart

To endure suffering requires a will. That will endures through belief in something better beyond that suffering. The experience of suffering seems to actually be the catalyst that propulses us forward through that experience, and the willful avoidance of suffering often leads to deeper suffering.

I was annoyed because I admitted to being pedantic there, and then you just kept criticizing. I basically handed your argument to you, and you continued. I've been taking a break here, and then jumped back in on this thread in good faith with an idea I thought was relevant, and then within 30 minutes or so, we're here already. Good to be back! Don't bow out on my sake.

How is that at all relevant. — Wosret

No idea; you responded to my question posed to someone other than you.

Guess I was being pedantic; sight -> perception -> interpretation -> knowledge, or something along those lines, but it all happens quickly.

My point was that seeing is perception, which isn't knowledge, but that's off topic...

Even "love at first sight" is conditional upon actually knowing that they exist at bar minimum. — Wosret

Is seeing an attractive person knowledge?

Issues of biological parents/vs not, and how that affects the care given to those children is absolutely something to be discussed, but what I was mentioning to JD is just a basic starting point; since he's just pointing out "conditions" that various people bring up in their arguments for unconditional love, why not start with the assumption of "conditional love" in order to surmise whether or not unconditional love exists? As to love requiring knowledge...it looks like your concept there is based on your remarks about parental situations? Correct me if I'm wrong. Do you have more to add about that idea?

So how about the opposite approach, since your main line of arguing here is pointing out various conditions through which people arrive at concepts of love, concepts of how love happens, how people experience it, etc? So, let's start with love as conditional. What are the conditions in which love occurs in our experience?

Admittedly my mental health lately has led to these sorts of occasional pithy posts. But glad you found it worthwhile; that quote has stuck with me for years, and I find myself turning the idea over and over in my head ad absurdum.

This sounds true, but some people who seem primed to go off at the first use of even prejudicial terms, let alone slurs quite often seem pretty proud of themselves and their group--race, sex, country of origin, belief system, bank account size, etc. — Bitter Crank

"Pride is shame's cloak." - William Blake

I'm not sure; you'd have to unpack that.

I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is.

If anyone else finds the question interesting I'd like to know what you think. — praxis

Existence.

His concept of the creative act is admittedly hard to understand, but I get a sense of it on an intuitive level, which is why I'm a proponent of it. The arts are only one aspect of creativity for him. The creative act is a fundamentally spiritual action; it's a component of man's relationship with God. Philosophy, for instance, should be a creative act. Happy reading!

I probably already said this, but The Meaning of the Creative Act is a good place to start, if you can make it through the more esoteric elements. Divine and the Human is also good for later work, and more explicitly existentially Christian in scope.

Anon, did you ever delve into Berdyaev?

It looks like you read the word "cynic" in the quote and based your entire argument from there. If you re-read the quote, "well-informed cynicism" was just one briefly mentioned aspect of the type of person Horkheimer was describing, not the basis of that type of person's views.