~~~ continued from previous ~~~
Jack Cummins: "In response to your query about how it is possible to convince someone to act in a way which is 'good' without the idea of God, I think that it is about appealing to the person's better nature. In many ways it is just about removing all the fear involved in religion based on divine wrath and punishment. In some ways it may be simpler to explain according to reason, as well as to emotive and intuitive aspects of the picture." He recommends petty matters not be focussed on.
NOS4A2: "I think one can appeal to the conscience no matter the content of one’s beliefs. I seem to carry around this unseen witness to keeps tabs on my own behavior."
Tom Storm: "I have learned to understand morality as performative ... not many care what a 'god wants' ... no one knows what God wants - it's subjective interpretation" and then "The decision is made via personal choice. God itself remains silent"
You then noted the point about conscience but don't seem to understand it is about their self respect. My best French teacher (when we were 16) sometimes talked to us about that (we still learned a lot of French) and it calmed down some of the hooligans a lot because he was appealing to their self respect. No mafia. No tanks.
This is when the shadow of the mafia looms and you haven't heard that 140 years ago it was the Kaiser Bill groupies themselves that told Nietzsche that God was dead (simultaneously paying lip service with forked tongue)
How would you debate the Weinberg quote (if at all) with Weinberg? Truth can be conveyed in all sorts of formats - whether he was a militant the rest of the time or not (I hadn't heard of him till that post)
Tom Storm: "The problem is religion as practiced ... the key point, religion is interpretation. How do you know which one is wrong? That itself requires interpretation." Big extra - and extraneous - hermeneutic, semiotic and phenomenological jobs on your hands not to mention quasi indexicality in mind reading.
Jorndoe: "Reality? Truth? Learning? We can pass moral judgment on religious texts, they therefore do not define morals."
The MadFool: "Epistemic/Innate Chance.
Ergo, Chance has replaced God in the mind of atheists.
:point: God does not play dice" (thread title)
The relevance of this is that we have to appeal to contingency. S J Gould was a great believer in contingency.
180 Proof: "contingent interplay, or transformations, of 'something into not-something into something-else' ad infinitum ... therefore, a derivative effect and not a cause of (chance) itself" This is the real environment that sustains us ever day. I for one am "grateful"
TheMadFool: "anekantavada - different strokes for different folks"
You: "Didn't know there were any wrong questions." Aha, I've got just the quote for you: "Only correct questioning allows things to speak" attributed to Droysen on p 201 of Geniusas and Fairfield eds. 2018
Note Droysen and 180 Proof are attentive to context.
Hanover highlights paradoxes evoked around Biblical literalism (or not)
I discussed moralising and the concept of a god as lawgiver which doesn't apply to all peoples so explicitly. I also said: "Epicurus warned most poignantly against superstition" and touched on trauma and triggers. I then said:
"What and who is, calls me to respect it / them: my own original version of is = ought ...
Virtues = going equipped.
Morals are to do with morale (Julian Baggini says)"
Then I argued against intensity and pressure from agitators like mafia with tanks.
I argued the sociological snags of identifying morals and morale with anything god-tinged. I went on:
"I find it fascinating to ponder the many usages of the term "square":
- in logic - "it squares" (is consistent)
- in aesthetics - geometry, which assists calculations and illustrates relationships
- in epistemology - stemming from the above, and consistency again
- in ethics of relationships, "have you squared it with the boss" and such like.
Imposing zero sum terms is bad interhuman arithmetic.
The opposite of a right is a wrong."
I tried to alert you against needless binaries / excluded middled / false dichotomies / all or nothing thinking, in interpretiung the course of history, which has always been very varied.
Banno: "Children match their behaviour to the adults around them. There is a vast literature regarding managing their behaviour and growing them into adults. None of it says that you can only do this by frightening them with supernatural parents."
Banno: "the notion that punishment is the only, or the best, or even one of, the ways to create kind, just, open, thoughtful people is untenable"
You: "Worldwide theists are still the vast majority and with that "moral guide"" - that is actually non-morals based solely on tribal power wielding - ugh. I can't believe you don't know what you are saying. I think you do know.
Me: "sound premises are essential. Learning is open to everyone, not specific tribes with foibles" however big a "majority rule" over my personal conscience they can enforce with their tanks and their mafia.
Banno: "there have been ethical, well-behaved, productive atheists for hundreds of years" - did you observe the oblique allusion to your "useful"?
You: "most people (even nowadays) have that need though" no they don't because there aren't gods / soundly interpreted religions - which by the way are a private affair and not yours to comment any more
You: "only thing that should be examined is if someone is good (social useful) or bad (social useless)" which the individual themselves must interpret individually for themselves and not you, nor your mafia, nor your tanks.
To Gregory's mention of gnostic dualism you say: "For sure It would make more sense" but not more sense than what. Some of us will think it will make our morals worse not better, for all that there's no problem with Gregory's mentioning it. Your thread, your question we respected: so show how things fit in.
"God's name" is too variable in senses and connotations to make real sense, was my next point.
I'll come back to the interesting debate about empty concepts which I haven't input my responses to yet. Hanover's subtle middle of the road points here (citing Nietzsche) are none the weaker in themselves, if we see their place properly.
180 proof has a terrific description of science - I must respond.
Praxis draws the meaning out from Tom's point for us.
You said people should be lied to.

Interesting! Maybe during the Middle Ages? — Alkis Piskas

John Eriugena brought texts to Aachen in the nick of time before the Vikings (who were "berserk" at the time) destroyed most Irish records.

Ethics coming from Logic and rationality could be a possible "solution". Though I still have doubts that it could be enough — dimosthenis9

Of course it's enough because if you apply it in your own relationships with others you will be able to convey it by example, especially if you point them to resources outside yourself that we've mentioned and linked to. Your not spending enough time reading when we answered and putting too many uninformative replies too fast without real acknowledgement of ourss, led some of us to lose interest and others like me to fall behind, get nervous, etc. I told you to deal with 180 Proof later.

This is just "sketch"! — Alkis Piskas

Aha! Moral Rearmament! :wink: Let's hope it works better this time.

metaphysics — praxis

Real metaphysics is the property of all the public (Meinong deals with the optional religious module to this for which you need sound phenomenology, semiotics and hermeneutics, again public property). I for one am not interested in the special kinds on offer from eccentric tribes.

I do the same too — dimosthenis9

But you're out of your depth among agnostics.

ignoring background knowledge of all kinds — Fine Doubter

Thus, Mr Dimosthenis9, we have had the fact that most people replaced "god" already. Some people, with better substitutes than the Kaiser Bill supporters did. Particular arguments kindly offered include:

Jack Cummins who said people can use their imagination (I think they can do this without your "animating")
Tom Storm: "People still have to decide for themselves regardless of theism"
Apollodorus: "Upbringing, education, and a legal system would be quite adequate to enforce proper conduct."
Tom Storm: "Atheists and theists share the same basis for morality. ... Your wider question about convincing people to be good I didn't answer since you made assumptions along the way which needed clarification. You can't convince people to be good"
Banno flagged up dishonest bases in religion (I would call what he is referring to a form of fundamentalism)
You then said "And who needs that dishonesty at the very end as to maintain it? Aren't people who actually need that "dishonesty" as to follow some rules?" and bad syntax is against site rules and I forgot to query it - my bad.
Then you say "theists get moral rules from some God and atheists don't? I don't think it's same base here" without offering any substance when it's the opposite of what we've all pointed out and showing no deep understanding of the role some gods had in some morals sometimes. It's as if you are just out to cynically take unfair advantage of some people's naivety by keeping them where they are at.
Banno: "Suppose there is a "fundamental base"; it remains that one must chose to follow it, or no.
On what basis could one make the choice, without already having made that choice?
Hence, as I suppose you might agree, the point is not to follow some fundamental moral system, but to become a better person.
Hence, Virtue Ethics.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/
What can replace god? Silence."
Apollodorus: "personally, when I judge the ethical value of a particular action, I decide whether that action is "good" or "bad" on the basis of upbringing. This tends to be my primary motivation in avoiding a particular action, for example, not the thought that I may be punished by God, though I can't rule out that possibility should I choose to take a different course of action.
I think children are quite good at learning what is right and what is wrong if they have parents who are themselves good role models.
It would need to start with basic things such as discipline, self-control, and cleanliness which is something that even animals can learn without any fear of God.
In those cases where upbringing and education fail to have the desired effect, there would be fear of the law or social disapproval." Note emphasis and limited scope of that.
~~~ Continued in next post ~~~

basic recipe for faith — praxis

But only institutional faith, which is so often a distraction from the real thing, as both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche lamented

at which level of "goodiness" or "badiness" I'm at the end — dimosthenis9

You have to live in dread of becoming useless :gasp:

Cyril of Alexandria ... the western — Alkis Piskas

He is a "Doctor" of it no less.

what's your final point — dimosthenis9

that morals and morale are what's important to God and not religion.

no idea what this is — dimosthenis9

a jagganauth is your vaunted "tank" and material dialectic is what Gramsci was into and gets bigger all the time.

No, but you might on your own patch.

tried to destroy whatever remained from the ancient Greek Civilization, with everything that this entails. (Fortunately, the Catholic Church, in the Western Roman Empire, preserved a big part of the history and wisdom of that civilization and even gave it a new birth in the Renaissance. Considering these facts and also the masterpieces created during Renaissance and thereof, show the huge difference in intelligence and spriritual levels between these two Churches and faiths, although they are both Christian! There are no bad religions. There are only bad people who are representing it (Churches, power) and using it for wrong purposes.) — Alkis Piskas

Thank you, I was underestimating the impact of the events around Justinian and the iconoclasts. There was big evil around Cyril of Alexandria (involving equivocity in ontology) but I suppose he is just as much eastern as western. The earlier Irish preserved Greek learning (alongside a few elements outside christendom). I'm particularly worried by the last (up to) 100 yrs. of Irish and Americans (as to religion) among others. Creating a new "expression" or "emergence" or "shaping", or envisaging an "armada" is a way of entrenching dumbing-down and ramping up intensity. Some long standing western traditions seemed to stay the same and radically destroyed their basis at the same time. Almost all the western traditions are distorted by ingrained fundamentalism. Small details of theology which are easier to promulgate now, are resulting in huge abuse. Some (eastern adherents) I know of are rediscovering relative authenticity vis-a-vis eastern orthodox and some of them aren't.

That's what they are supposed to be - along with everything else.

[presumably 'creation ex nihilo']

I see the phrase as similar to the frugal mother who whips up a meal "out of nothing" i.e what didn't look like much.

admonished the Pope not to appeal to science to validate religion — Wayfarer

In the sense of a simplistic version of both (which sadly few people get beyond), yes.

This cuts "both ways" because the risk is bad quality religion getting enforced on false scientific grounds (e.g in the so called "communities" being identified by materialistic sociology, cramping individual style).

no evidence — Apollodorus

Observation achieved with the help of complex calculation and inference is evidence. I assume ongoing evaluation of method.



Belief and trust are ordinary qualities we engage to what degree we like, all the time. Science doesn't reify. It gives us jigsaw pieces. Being finite ourselves we don't and shan't see everything.

no sound, then it wasn't a "bang" — Apollodorus

We don't know how long time is, and we don't know how much (things) "nothing" has got in it. By analogy, if we are on what might "look" like an upswing on an existence wave . . . The "big gentle lapping"?

Some people, have had a glimmer of person, and time, and light, appearing in "rapid succession" (perhaps they turned a "corner" into "sight" in our "model"). A tenable enough variant view is that "person" appeared later, with human folk.

(Light has a noticeably specific measurement.)

What scientists have always been doing is tuning in natural ears / eyes and instruments. Diagrams in books and "music of the spheres" (intuited rationally as well as remembered or even misremembered from previous investigators) are expressions of findings from all methods.

We don't know how much before before, before before was.

All "why" questions are partly "how" questions. All "how" questions are partly "what" questions. The universe is analogies, all the way down (one of my mottoes :wink: ).

Faith can only act as "crutch". — Alkis Piskas

According to me I need to mix first with people who will (by their demeanour and sound hermeneutic in life) help me identify basis for my belief. "Faith" might have to come if I'm ever in a tight spot and I'll need what I'm calling "belief" first. I believe the kind of belief I'm mentioning is something agnostics can give themselves in their own context. It is the wholesome and requisite / absolutely necessary component in healthy religion if or when that ever occurs. This is quite fascinating as some holy texts seem to use only one word for both (whether in original or translation I'm not sure), yet I'm convinced both distinct things were always "intended".

Alleged talk of "god" or "religion" is really talk of the "god or religion pretext" with lots of "god or religion subtexts". I have read your poignant autobiography; what JP II proclaimed was enforced cliqueyness (after a very different start I later became a refugee from the "armada").

celestial dictator — Corvus

An image of a "tank" enforced by "mafia" was perhaps not the sole metaphor OP intended? A fuller and more explicit range including a self-effacing divinity that respects our discretion to explore honesty actively, would have convinced better. I've seen people arise proposing to weaponise religion on grounds of this kind and I've always seen the bad effects ensue. Non-weaponised religion is a very different affair. (Some churches are a mixture.) If wouldbe religious leaders just say they are going to devise the "celestial dictator" model we ought to be on the alert.

Don't be so frightened of 180 Proof. If you study what the rest of us are saying first, you will understand where and how his expressions fit in.

think and act like that. No problem at all to the theists who don't — dimosthenis9

Thus to follow up your OP, how can agnostics of goodwill and religion-adherents of goodwill complement each others' efforts to strengthen public and individual morale? The very wide range of answers almost all of us have already given draw on background knowledge, honesty, reason, Nicomachean virtues, and the like. Do any of those still exist among some sectors in your country?

The things that destroy philosophy, reason, science and knowledge on all subjects are:

- conflating the several separate phases in perceiving
- conflating the according of value with judging
- denying imagination and all inference
- reifying (saying that the word is the thing)
- ignoring background knowledge of all kinds including what is not in the "canonical silo"

If all of us pay a better degree of attention to most of those most of the time, we'll be at cross purposes less often. Develop spatial thinking. The mathematics of morale is not zero-sum.

Leaving it open to attribute sources of morals to a reified cardboard god, in the format of a just-so story (the standard format that was always meant to be taken as a riddle or paradox) could be the way a self-effacing god worth its salt set "authoritative interpreters" up to be challenged on their veracity.

ostensible talk of "god" is usually really talk of a "god pretext"

an intermediary or higher authority that requires faith, and that authority holds all the cards — praxis

Like the dimosthenes9 quoted which enforces the "tank" effect for example. I know someone whose family were mafia in those parts.

As for "faith" this has to be taken apart in infinite detail. If someone stronger than me claims I have breached "faith" in their absolute imposition on my faculty to discern, I want to dissociate myself from them for the sake of my integrity. They can't demonstrate honestly that there isn't better "faith" than what they are substituting for my stolen discretion and initiative.

Because the OP proposed logic, and because logic works when it is based on honesty plus background knowledge, this is why we are offering informative answers.

the most fanatic, hardcore Christian group of all — Alkis Piskas

This "ranking" probably varies with different countries and ethnic heritages - but not to contradict you. I am aware of infinite variation in quality among eastern orthodox. Under all "badges" small details in theology, instead of being evaluated in their own right, sometimes extrapolated to the most horrendous bad dynamics (spreading across official boundaries).

(I am still catching up from page 6) Praxis is saying in response to your OP what I was wishing to say which is that when we bring our well thought out virtues with us we can feed further into the loop of well thought-out thinking and virtuous action.

From a commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics I have by Oesterle, it appears those are mainly mental ones like proportion, contemplation, quality of initiative, continence, knowledge, right appetite, speculative virtues, art, prudence, equity, justice, right, temperance, perseverance, magnanimity, fortitude, measure, reason, discretion, attention to detail, principle, efficient causes, and the like.

To quote an apostle you don't follow, "against these there is no law".

Like church "evolution" — dimosthenis9

Don' t try too hard! I've seen it done, and it ain't pretty! Uncouple, de-link, I say again.

Thank you, sorry I didn't understand that well enough. Now we are nearer bases for discussions.

Good observations. Just because no-one "concludes" the argument doesn't invalidate anything. It's a matter of complementing each others' individual provisional decisions re prioritisation.

what exactly excuse — dimosthenis9

The people I mentioned had those. I think you have foundations for logic. These need spelling out.

because you are addressing many people besides those, and you invited us all in your OP.

Is this like a material dialectic jagganauth? :wink:

Am I allowed to react after 2 months?

The "killer" (in the example given) re Godel is surely a bit of hilarity!

Baden, what a brilliant thread, mega thanks!

Atheism and Theism are one and the same thing! — TheMadFool

That is a cool paradox!

convince me of the existence of ... God — TheMadFool

I gather that in the Middle Ages "proof" meant logical plausibility for further trial by experience. At best, they were admirable agnostics.

As for order, there is no outer limit on its level of complexity. There are subatomic scales, the scale we're at, the cosmic scale. We're nowhere near "completing" our understanding of any of those scales. Comets with a too long orbit to calculate (yet) may additionally be influenced by "fields" we've barely begun to sense a glimmer of. As it was only a couple of years ago observations were strengthening Einstein's gravity wave idea, or they started photographing black holes, it's beyond credence when some big people claim everything is an open and shut case.

Maybe the elements are in a dance, and we are green with envy because we didn't choreograph it . . .

(On the actually religious side which I want to leave for other threads, often when "god" is mentioned what is really meant is "god pretext" and lots of "god subtexts".)

The strawberry is sustenance. Its trace elements will give the person stamina to gain inspiration and insight. What one should want to survive is one's integrity, and integrity is about one's faculties as individual. Self-respect is one's first and last experience.

Maxing out is imprudent and disrepectful to one's own faculties. Serendipity / providence put a strawberry there and serendipity / providence caused your bank balance and might never do so again. A person who is that stupid with his own means and relationships is liable to get sacked for foolishness in work.

Prudence is a form of "going equipped". Why deliberately give oneself unneeded preoccupations / paint oneself into a corner? People who use this "example" other than you are doing to get us to react appropriately, haven't faced the meaning of survival.

Maybe the man has self-respect and if he perishes it will be at a moment of self-respect and especially of gratitude to serendipity / providence. Besides its concrete sense of sustenance, does the strawberry represent integrity? Does integrity require a lifetime to build up? At the same time does it always remain open for us to start on, or start afresh on?

Close family who we didn't know we had, is now last thought to have been seen by the family when he was aged 12 (it may have been older, but information we have runs out). That was at a perilous period in the history of their countries. Is there (deliberately misleading) silliness from people with their hands on the handles of public propaganda?

People will only believe in God, if they had personal experience of God or religious events. Otherwise it would be unlikely the faith and beliefs could arise via intellectual or ethical inculcations. — Corvus

ref your last three posts, if people don't have personal experience of god or religious events it is unlikely faith or beliefs would arise via intellectual or ethical inculcations:

though I know people that was true of, the question was the other way around. I've misread it a little, but your point isn't clear here. In your subsequent (shorter) posts you didn't make it clearer. I was certainly in the wrong for not asking you for clarification and you didn't seem to be querying the clarity or thrust of the other two I've cited.

Are you trying to say morality doesn't essentially come into religion, only sometimes incidentally? And that the main source of morality has to be direct from reason?

But a necessary lie for humanity!

Most people STILL need that "lie" in their lives. Even if you and I don't. There are many more that they do! Can't blame or make fun of anyone for that. If he doesn't give you any troubles and he is acting "good", just respect him and move on! — dimosthenis9

Can we pull this apart. Have you got boundaries or do you get walked over? Boundaries are your healthy exchange zone. Better gods and their better adherents want you to have individuality and responsibility for your reasoning and the health of your mind, and the bad ones and their bad adherents don't.

Don't dodge that because you have exempted yourself from having any gods yourself.

Are you an evangelist?

If religions are going out of fashion look for a basis for morals in reason. If some people have some sort of religion leave them to it. None of them are in a ghetto where they can't find out about morals on grounds of reason.

You are the one that needs to leave people be. Move on to honest logic and reason like you were "suggesting" with forked tongue.

I'm probably twice your age and I worked hard to get away from some duplicitous people who had elaborate excuses.

Why do concepts have to be filled? — Corvus

They don't always, but we (and this is a public educative forum) have to look very hard at the rationale if reasoning is supposed to be based on that, and because OP and you and Philosophim want to overload me with your nebulous ideas charged with the label "morality" on the back of it, I'm going to have a say over it, as I hope almost all religious believers would, in the same circumstances. You don't sound honest about reasoning (which was OP's original "apparent" proposal), and that's immoral in itself. Effectively you've just admitted that for you, morality - a nebulous concept that you haven't characterised that has to be tied Gordian-like to another nebulous concept which you have graciously conceded to yourself doesn't have to be characterised - is an empty concept.

Those times I do do religion, I don't do it out of any need to be bossed.

Because it is empty, obviously he was not able to see it — Corvus

Please don't act stupid, you know you wouldn't expect us to actually want to sign a blank cheque.

To explore IF and CAN we do something different in societies!? Where exactly is our disagreement for that — dimosthenis9

You seem to be one of the ones that won't run with it. You sound like you're not interested in morality at all. Later I'm going to extract some extracts from this very thread and serve them up to you again like yesterday's greens :yum: I'll give you juice!

dogmatic stubborn atheist! Who wants to force his non belief to everyone! — dimosthenis9

Well give all of us billions of level headed and kind hearted agnostics some room then. You sound like you are fixated on excluding the middles. Haven't you read your Max Black?

Were you implying a subtext: "Who wants to force his immorality"? Were you?

180 Proof doesn't force anything. He gets in quick when you dump duplicitous "arguments" on us and leaves you with the hard work of figuring out why, should you be so moved. Most of us forum members are determined to stretch our minds for serious reasons. Have you ever read Consolation of Philosophy by Manlius Boethius?

"rather than not (to be)" — Alkis Piskas

... is what I had in mind and my construction got mixed up with "something rather than nothing"! :wink:

an interesting miniature history — Alkis Piskas

I had to be frank about the state of my reading and "digesting". "Interesting" is such a tactful word! At any rate I'm finding out things that are very different from what we were usually told in the summaries of summaries. I try to gauge where to spend my money first - not Descartes or Ayer. Secondary sources give me a "feel" - usually mutually contradictory among themselves. I feel sorry for undergraduates who have to swallow the canonical fare in the prescribed sequence. No wonder so few went in for "philosophy".

The risk from Dimosthenis9, Corvus and Philosophim is that they will create one more eccentric clique signalling ambiguously (even to themselves) about what they have and haven't bought into. That time is gone, I keep telling you.

So a theist won't raise his kid according to his religion's "moral standards"? — dimosthenis9

A subset haven't been; and some religions don't have any. I'm pro "religions" as a vaguely general phenomenon (and I do urge members to apply quality criteria), I just want to stop the package dealing and piggy backing. If you don't know how to suggest morals, don't pooh pooh those who do know how to suggest them.

unnecessary words — dimosthenis9

Is that a buzz phrase?

Nothing can replace God. — Corvus

I want to nuance your statement because there are too many definitions or usages of "god". In Nietzsche's milieu we know something of the concept the oppressive bourgeoisie vaunted. Believe you me, it is too fluid, there is what is not called a god that is a god but not a good one, and every conceivable variation. Interposing an empty concept as 180 Proof rightly calls it is the exact opposite of the honest logic required. If you aren't an inspired evangelist (and probably even if you are) how are you going to make this inconvenient and confusing incumbrance catch on?

That was only a specific cultural timewarp when morals piggy backed on gods, it doesn't apply in the present tense.

I'll count myself out anyway because I look for my gods myself if I fancy having any, and I don't package deal / portmanteau as between my gods and my morals. Any divinity worth its salt will not give you brownie points for flourishing the lip service you give it. You and Philosophim sound like you are trying to achieve the opposite of what was in the OP.

Religion gives you community, belonginess, and a greater purpose not only for you, but those around you. It encourages you to reach out to other people and bring them to the light. It is a place you can reach out to for emotional support ... many people ... want the support group. The social safety net. To sing in the choir. To feel like they are part of not just some abstract plan that is greater than themselves, but the real and present group of people that they are attending and finding friends with. To question God is to question those bonds. To risk losing the place you might find solace in. That is very hard for people to leave. — Philosophim

On the one hand I think churches used to be a place to sing together (more rare in the last 15 years). I also agree it's tough leaving anything.

As a youngster I didn't have that goal for the church, and in recent years I've gone back to that attitude. In between, I joined the "church within a church" where I thought these goals would be fulfilled (your spiel sounds like their advertising).

I left that because of underhand goings-on, dumbing down and being strung along so that I could provide cover. I'm not going to venture a percentage as to how general this is in churches, but I hear of a lot of churches that have the "church within a church". To turn round your point about questioning God 180 degrees, in my observation to question those bonds is not to question God.

Let's say it has been happening like you say sometimes. You can't say how general that is either. So yours is a valid but perhaps, at the practical level, a weak argument. I've known the values you say in a local history society (minus probably the confessing) and I imagine they occur in plane spotters' clubs or model making societies.

For the thrust of OP's main point it doesn't matter whether religion dwindles or changes, it's about how we can roll out morale-building mores to the public and not cliquey eccentric tribes which was how most churches were functioning sociologically, and on honest rational grounds. While there was a bit more religion in my young day, the agnostics obviously felt fully entitled to take part in morals.

If it's the non-religious that are just as prone to poor logic as the churchgoers are, we ought to teach them good logic and not pretend only we churchgoers are entitled to have logic (of sometimes poor calibre).

Good vibes — TheMadFool

Good "swerve" :wink:

'Epistemic identity' is when you can't tell two things apart ... 'Ontic identity' is when two things actually are the same. — Cuthbert

Is this what Hume was referring to when he was commenting on most people's abysmal grasp of causation?

It could be God or it could be Chance. — TheMadFool

Chance could be working through "god" - whether a necessary OR a contingent "god".

I keep stating (because I love to see myself typing it) that we are on an existence wave in which something has the propensity (nice Popper word) to be rather than nothing; that is why "god" does appear to play dice which are loaded.

Hypothetically, a "god" that was self-effacing in relationships rather than modelling a power craze, might want us to respect what and who is, as a priority over earning cosmic brownie points.

Some of His / its adherents might have distorted the meanings (a different thread expands on this): after all those around Moses were getting it wrong, that's the core of the story. The wording is in places carefully ambiguous in tone so that transmitters of the meaning will be held responsible. (I'm only alluding to a common ground for distaste for "god" talk.)

A "god" that was self-effacing in relationships would be content to slip out of the picture for agnostics "modularly" and want us - especially if we claimed to be adherents - to focus on respect (another thread deals with morals), which especially includes mental honesty in logic and epistemology.



This is why Russell and the anthropic principle aren't in contradiction (except insofar as he averred they were). A "multiverse" is a range of parallel calculations (a set of diagrams), but separate reasoning will tend to help us pick which apply better to the time and place we are in: calculations aren't wasted, if other uses for them don't emerge at least they were good practice.



As to the Bodhi quote, I think it was sophists like Berkeley and Hume that entrenched the dichotomy between matter, spirit etc in usual thinking, not scientists. Spinoza and Hegel pretended to be closing the gap but weren't. It took Husserl to affirm that what is out there and what is in our heads both exist at the same time (what I thought every child knew), but W James vetoed 1 his being published in the States, causing the continental / non-continental gulf and the vacuum into which the nihilist Ayer stepped. (My opinions are based on my "digesting" of secondary sources.)

1 James adversely recommended against Walter Pitkin's translation, f/n 26 - citing a Herbert Spiegelberg book - to Dallas Willard's chapter, 'Knowledge' in Smith B and Smith D W eds, Cambridge Companion to Husserl, 1995.

Frank Visser's book Ken Wilber, thought as passion (State University of New York Press, 2003) which has got lots of quotes from Wilber in it, explains that Wilber critiqued new age / "oriental" meditation severely and at the same time showed up the snags in reductionism in the name of so called science. He liked charts. One of his charts shows grades of development in different people. From his descriptions I would place a lot of "charismatics" rather low down on one of his charts.

I was in a movement of "charismatics" some years ago and it harmed me a lot because I was "supposed" to try to reach a vague standard which I now see had no basis. This is why I am now very feet on the ground and am opposed to strain of all kinds. I am only interested in what comes looking for me. Almost none of the public are using their faculties as dimosthenes9 was pointing out on another thread. All we need to improve the world is for more people to think straight and think more. I wonder how many self-appointed mystics were under 40 when they started and have not learned how to use their imagination yet. On the other hand some people are doing something highly normal, low key, plain, copious, relaxing and productive e.g poetry, or method in learning, or getting intuitions, but giving it a fancy name "mysticism".



I blame authorities who cut "logic" back to something very small, inaccessible and nasty (and sciences, history and languages likewise). I recommend Straight and crooked thinking by R H Thouless, revised ed, Pan, 1953, and Elementary lessons in logic by W Stanley Jevons, 1888. Jevons' sense of humour is subtle and his range of subject matter wide, familiar and vivid. I ignore his notations. Thouless guards us against the ever increasing gangs of thugs and liars. These things should have been taught in all schools. Don't forget Max Black's warning to not exclude a middle when it ought not to be excluded (middles get excluded far too often).

I used to think visually and even spatially as a small child, and a coach told me to get back to it and my life gradually got back on the rails again. Everyone has got this faculty and ought to start engaging it.

Always look for sound premises and don't be misled by what people "imply". Real logic is about honesty. Knowledge and belief can already be firm to be getting on with when they are tentative and provisional. Always keep all hypotheses on the table indefinitely, but provisionally re-prioritise them.

I am also determined to get infinite use out of words. Words allude (the word is not the thing). When we have a number of intersecting allusions (note my spatial imagery) we can begin to get meaning. Fundamentalists and reifiers deny all meaning(s). S J Gould slammed the reifiers.

Bourdieu is about habitus which is where Dawkins' memes hit us; Husserl describes the stages in perception (more than you would think) including a stage where we can build in a valuation prior to judgment. This is where we can revalue as Nietzsche called for which might help (nothing promised) in coping with traumas / triggers.

Follow J H Newman's "assent to degrees of inference" which is in Grammar of assent (free PDF). Your inference, your degrees of it, your assent, your good pride in your individuality and your productivity of mind. Everything in this world and in life IS betwixt and between and a bit of this a bit of that. Don't believe the heavies who want to deceive you into all or nothing thinking.

Barthes wittily saw semiotics in culture (try his essay 'Plastic'; he also panned the industrialised religion of Loyola), while Peirce saw semiotics in all of nature. I have only dabbled in a few of these authors and have come across commentary about others. I am pinning them on my mental pinboard.

Every day you get up, ask yourself what enlightenment is going to come looking for you today. I find this helps me achieve better than any kind of "mystic" I used to "try" and is more relaxing. If your religion or anything similar gives you facts consider the "mystic" has been done for you. Epicurus begs us not to fall for superstition (neurosis). My physical makeup was always very contemplative anyway.

Relativity and quantum mechanics made good sense to me as a child when my mates explained them to me (they weren't on the syllabus) because they refer to different scales from the scale we are in and which we see. It was always obvious to me all parts of the world interact.

Myth and ceremony are supposed to bring about lesser intensity and not more. This society deprives us of what is normal then sends us on wild goose chases. Don't consent to be stolen from. I think the latest thread start needed widening to this base anyway.

Are there other kinds of mysticism according to you besides Tao? How do you compare and contrast. I'll look out my book on Ken Wilber because of this thread.

I don't know if your exotic sounding handle is meant to convey anything to me but as an intellectual I embrace some of the claimed attitudes of the anti-intellectual in your story. Instead of ideology and propaganda, why not just let each of us mix and match our already unique "portfolio" of inner wealths?

There is variety in this universe, there is me, there is some other people, there is things of all kinds, there are things I'll never know, all contentedly getting along alongside each other, no grand dichotomies anywhere, just variety. Many people sense all sorts, but I think it unsuitable to push any particular states. Just be you and you'll be surprised what you pick up.

Insights come looking for me. Serendipity = serenity dip. I get insights about what I like to get insights about. They aren't generic, they are personal, which is other people's access point because they know it has been vivid to me. Is designer outlet mysticism rather homogenised and therefore difficult for anyone to recognise as interesting?

But the spiritual, and intuition, are usually not ecstatic, fortunately. My peak experience is to be ordinary. That probably places me at the peak of humanity.

I loosely group as spiritual intangibles such as boundaries, relationships, attitudes.

No, it was just as tangible as all this but could not longer be remembered on practical grounds since most people had been upheavalled, as I explained in my contribution to the textual analysis thread. You are (part of the time) muddling too many things up, underestimating the subtlety and alertness in most of our lives, and underinformed on some points. Of course there are some things beyond our brains, that doesn't mean we are hostile. Nor does it mean we should strain ourselves. Whatever "beings" are at those levels, I'm convinced, if they are benign, they are content that we leave them be: they wouldn't want to be attention seeking. Everyone's gift is different, that yours is doesn't reflect on ours. I've seen so many people strain themselves and get intense over all this. Am glad I saw there is another thread on the subject and shall look it over.

no self reflection, no self cultivation, no rational thinking. Just with ... aphorisms for theists and morals. And adding in all these the average low intellectual level that most people have worldwide — dimosthenis9

Yes those are the hazard causers, not anyone's religious or non-religious badges. In my view of logic, sound premises are essential. Learning is open to everyone, not specific tribes with foibles.

you surely can't understand matter — Heiko

Indeed. "Propensity", "existence", "respect" is perhaps as much detail as we shall grasp of this (beyond the physical sciences).

And we can all be teleological biscuits if we're not too half baked in the way we go about our lives :wink:

(The ultimate teleological biscuits being Choco Leibniz of course :yum: )