I didn't read that one. But I really liked The Fall.

As far as pleasure goes, it's also the fires of hell.

What is to see the species as a bunch of haunted monkeys? To enjoy/suffer the alienation that comes with that? It's a strange loop. And it's also the old goal of seeing the game from the outside. So of course it's just one more way to be haunted. Since ghosts are not optional, it's about the quality of one's ghosts, which one is never done determining.

Maybe this can be compressed: how seriously shall one take seriousness and the faces it makes ? Is the highest mental life necessarily entangled in the burning issues of the day? Or is this just a more complicated version of taking out the trash, so that we can get back to dreaming? I think of Archimedes and his circles. The burning issues of the day are also just raw material for pattern finding.

What are the general structures of intellectual types bashing it out? What ideals/idols must they appeal to in order to threaten/seduce the opponent into submission? Then there are all the handshakes and salutes and pats on the back. Humans like to hunt in packs, go to war together. The cause is secondary to the warmth of fighting for something Ideal with others in the know, who see It.

Mostly we are on this side or that by chance, shaped by circumstances we didn't shape. 'Others are determined by their source, but not me. I decided. I am a spark of pure freedom. ' In theory we're too hip for that fantasy, but in practice we depend on it (incarnating God in his self-sufficing apartness, minimizing how embedded we are.) The 'I' (gaseous entity) continues to emit self-descriptions which it could not predict and did not decide. It rides the horse backwards.

I take you for one who knows the pleasures of the cynic.

Indeed, but I venture that all of us are caught up in some kind of 'magical' identification. What varies is the complexity of the game.

As you say, simplified worldviews. But at some point we all lean on such a narrative, or so it seems to me. To be sure, clever people are good at hiding it.

Or good at making their own narrative the least worst.

Is it a truism? I agree it's an old thought. But few of us are eager to apply that thinking to ourselves.

I agree. But he's already banned, I think.

The ideals/idols relationship is still fascinating, tho.

True also. Several reasons exist, one is that civilization helps the individual survive easier and more lucratively, second, that the individual can aspire to become king, if not in realistic terms, at least in fantasy. — god must be atheist

I like that you add the part about the king. Yes, there has to be the organization of people for that to be possible. Seutonius wrote that wild book The Lives of the Twelve Caesers. Those guys proclaimed themselves gods, indulged their nastiest fantasies. The book is probably a mixture of fact and fantasy itself, but I think it gives a good picture of the ego monster.

This is the problem with religion. It's a blinding force. It saps and taxes the intellectual energy levels of all societies where religion is a prevailing, major social force. — god must be atheist

I think there's some truth in that. But for me there's no big difference between religion and all the other forms of magical thinking. And I can't even demonize magical thinking, because what else are we going to do? Maximize our comfort? I think of Brave New World. But it's important that they had soma and 'the feelies' to fill the void. And then we dream everynight, maybe to escape from the burden of disciplined thought and its tedious reality principle.

I think of a young person's dreams of their future ( a great writer or musician or scientist or athlete). To be a 'great' artist is to touch some kind of internal divinity. And a great scientist is extending Knowledge. But what does that mean if we're just clever monkeys churning out new clever monkeys in maximum comfort, safety, and rationality? I say look at our entertainment. Our dreams are violent and grandiose. The underground man takes his hammer to the crystal palace.

My point is that we just are magic monkeys. And even my own investment in science and philosophy is fueled by a kind of elitism and not just curiosity. I want occult knowledge, and science and philosophy are hidden from non-initiate not only by their conceptual complexity but also by the violence they do to more traditional narratives (occult in practice but not in principle.) I've been reading I am a Strange Loop, which is great so far, and I think one of the late 'religions' or replacements for religion is just the continual enrichment of consciousness. There's something greedy in this, a kind of sublimated Caesarism that doesn't need much if its left alone to dream but also doesn't want to be interrupted by the thousand issues of the day. And wouldn't it be hellish if humans were always earnestly absorbed in the bells and whistles of the serious issues of the day? At the same time it's monstrous. 'Don't disturb my circles.'

I agree absolutely. Religion is just PART of the behaviour modification program. There are other institutions in society that help the same program: law, and social customs. — god must be atheist

Excellent. So I think we understand one another better. Basically groups have norms and general ways of experiencing existence, and religion is one crystallization among others of such norms/perspectives.

I am not blaming religion. I am only saying there is much too much focus on religion, so much so, that we lose our sight of what it is that is really going on. — god must be atheist

Ah, OK. I was projecting too much anti-religion on you, it seems.

My proposal to the problem of evil and free will:

There is no god or gods. There is no evil. There is no hell or heaven. There is no free will. There is no sin. — god must be atheist

I agree, but...

Case closed. Now we can all go home and sit down and eat dinner and go to sleep in peace. — god must be atheist

not quite with this. Because the absurd supernatural stuff was arguably not the essence of religion. People justify violence and greed in terms of secular abstractions just as readily.

For instance, maybe a few million peasants be starved now for the classless society to come. Maybe race becomes magical.

Not worrying about earning an eternity of suffering in hell via a god's evil nature, — god must be atheist

I agree with you here. I was raised with the spooky stories of an evil god who burned people for eternity. It was a relief to jettison all that. But that comes with a price. If we were godless apes who had only believed there was a god, what did it all mean? People want a cause. They crave something substantial. These days that gets directed into being on the right side of history.

Instead of history being cyclical, we still have the Christian structure of time. It's all building toward something. One day everyone will be woke, free not only of theism but also of all the other isms and phobias, even those that haven't been discovered yet.

There's not only the religion of progress but also a nostalgia religion (and various blends.) We can go back to the old ways that respected Gaia. We can be green-skinned neo-humans who feed on sunlight like the plants.

what it means is that the entire morality shit is designed to control the behaviour of the masses. — god must be atheist

But surely lots of 'morality shit' is just a way to organize our interactions for just about everybody's benefit. 'Don't steal. Don't murder.' That's just civilization. Of course some of the holy rules haven't aged well at all.

But mostly the masses want civilization. We will gladly assent to the prohibition of theft and murder. How can we develop our higher faculties without such prohibitions? Such prohibitions express what is higher in us against what is lower. And religion's control of sexuality seems over and done with at this point. To accuse people of yesterday's sins is today's sin.

A last little point is all the evangelicals who voted Trump. To me that suggests that their religion is just politics was some feel-good imagery tacked on. Give us wealth and fame, O Lord.

Fascinating post. I'm not an expert on such matters, but I find it believable that we humans will face some crises of our own creation. Never pay today for what you can pay double for tomorrow. Even better, never pay today for what someone else can pay quadruple for 100 years from now.

Given our crazy human response so far, it is easy to just suspect that we're just fucked. Maybe it's too late. And people are eaten up with lots of other issues too. The sirens go off every ten minutes. Phantasmagoria. That doesn't mean I don't believe this particular siren, but it does mean that I'm desensitized. That girl is right enough in her outrage, I guess, but she's got the same DNA as the creeps who let it all happen. She's a member of the lucky generation for whom the abstract doom is no longer so abstract.

If humans were just animals (and I think they were), then it's hard to judge them. They were just too clever with tools and at the same time not tuned to think far enough into the future. They had a good run with a greedy algorithm. Their genius (adapting the environment to them) was their downfall. They were their own predators, but even this didn't keep their population small enough.

The most depressing outcome of thinking fitting into a society which requires the being to marginalize his self-respect by selling himself alongside toasters, automobiles, tvs, smartphones, screwdrivers, hammers, and homes...is that this could ever amount to self-care. Marketing oneself requires self-neglect, abortion of the inner world, the opposite of self-care. — Anthony

I relate to the some of the points you make, but I also think strangers can't care that much about one another. As long as live in groups of millions of people, I don't see how we can avoid marketing ourselves. Strangers don't want us, and we don't want them. We want their skills applied to our problems or the stuff they can give us. And the reverse. As long as we are dependent on that stuff on those skills, we have no choice but to scrounge around for whatever they'll take in trade.

I agree that self-reliance can come off as creepy and threatening to people. It is an especially proud position. I share your disgust with just being a product, on the department store shelf next to toasters. But I think it's deeper than capitalism. It's human nature.

Being self-reliant (and self-regulative) goes hand-in-hand with salubrious health. Virtue is its own reward. The reason for strife is just this: the fact we are forced into dependence on others. That Jesus was a carpenter tells you he was self-sufficient, could build the structures he was dependent on, etc. Someone who does the work of living eventually becomes thoroughly vexed by a human system revolving around endless beliefs and no relation to the substrate of life on which the organism depends. — Anthony

I like this. Good point about the carpentry. I am actually thinking of seriously changing my lifestyle, starting by abandoning the city. What's frustrating is that I still have to buy land. And then medical care costs a fortune. So it's quite hard to unplug. And I don't want to be farmer. It's much easier to get the money to buy canned beans and cage free eggs (which don't cost much) than it is to create my own food --especially given my abstract hands-off education. So the realistic compromise seems to involve smart shopping and maybe creating my own job.

I do feel the absurdity of our distance from the substrate. Most of us just glide along, dreaming. We live in screens (which does have its good points.)

I agree. And even which books are included in this or that official bible of this or that religion are the results of politics.

As far as disobedience and contrarianism go, I agree there too. But the bible is library of books that even individually contradict themselves. A person could spend decades trying to focus on the 'true' personality of Jesus, and this would be like trying to make sense of prince Hamlet. Really strong literary creations force us to keep reconsidering them and ourselves.

My current opinion is that the character Jesus from the gospels is glued together from incompatible fragments. That's an aesthetic claim, an opinion. If I was a director handed the gospels as a script, I would have to make decisions about what to cut out. I'd have to choose one of the fragments. Personally I'd go in for a more mystical, philosophical Jesus. He'd only sound crazy to those who didn't decode his metaphors.

Applied to moral values: an objectivist believes that moral values - so moral goodness and badness - exist, if they exist, outside of minds. Our minds give us some awareness of moral values, just as our minds give us some awareness of tables and chairs. But the moral values, like the tables and chairs, exist extra-mentally (if they exist at all).

Subjectivists about moral values believe that moral values exist as subjective states, if or when they exist.

I think moral values are demonstrably subjective. Here is my simple argument:

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued.
2. Only a subject can value something
3. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject. — Bartricks

I returned to your OP to get an idea of where you are coming from. I agree with the subjectivists in your terminology.

Premise 1 does, however, cast the morality in terms of 'subjective' experience (the experience of value) to begin with. In others words, you are perhaps assuming what you'd like to prove.

To me this is the problem with P's and Q's. Abstract arguments can be checked by a computer. The real problems happen in the meanings of words.

When people say 'murder is wrong,' they don't mean 'I feel that murder is wrong' or even that 'we feel murder is wrong.' They are generally aiming at something beyond mere feeling. One can of course argue that this 'something' they are aiming at isn't really there (that 'murder is wrong' ultimately describes the way that people react to murders. Or might as well be understood that way, since it's hard to make clear sense of that extra something.)

Or take this argument:

1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3 Therefore not P.

is that valid or invalid? Well, it is obviously valid. Someone who kept insisting that it was invalid is just a berk, plain and simple. And yet there are many above who have denied that my argument is valid despite it having precisely that form.

Am I just 'deciding' that they are wrong? Doesn't your reason confirm that the above argument is valid? — Bartricks

I agree that the argument in terms of P's and Q's is obviously valid.

If being morally valuable and being valued by me are one and the same property, then if I value something it must be morally valuable. — Bartricks

I agree. But you are asking for trouble with this identification. If you value ice-cream, then ice-cream is morally valuable. It's rhetorically awkward.

I think it would help if you answered my more abstract questions about your motivations. Are you trying to show that a 'true' or 'absolute' morality depends on something like a god?

Idol worship is not about ideals. — god must be atheist

We all idol worship in some sense. If you can think analogically you will agree. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

<emphasis added>

Since most of us don't worship graven images but instead serve concepts these days, it's only the analogical extension of 'idol' that's interesting. And this analogical extension is itself an old thought. It's a good thought, too, since it allows (potentially) for a kind of intellectual distance from our current investments.

I'd say 'deep' critical thinking is on this level. It's exciting and dangerous, and I think it's where the big revolutions in personality come from. And then even our ideals are perhaps more image-based than we would like to admit. We'd probably see certain faces in a album of pictures as fitting or not fitting our image of a 'deep thinker.' We imagine a certain lifestyle or way of being as the real thing. Maybe the genuine thinker is an activist. Or maybe the genuine thinker lives on a mountain away from everyone. Or maybe the true thinker just lives like a normal person, to get a great view of reality or as a manifestation of humility. Or perhaps is a full professor at a prestigious university. Or gets summoned by the government as an expert when there's an emergency. TV rules because it's close to the animated idols in our imaginations.

One x in the logic of : if x then dislike, is, well, too-muchness. In my opinion and I'm hoping to be proven wrong, not even the best of virtues can withstand the fall caused by too-muchness. Love is good but too much love is self explanatory. — TheMadFool

I see your point when you put it that way.

So I'll offer a different perspective on the 'omni' situation altogether. To me the 'omni' thing is theological as opposed to psychological. We can instead think of the infinity of God in relation to the finiteness of individual mortals. As others have written, God can be understood as humanity's projection of itself as a species. Any particular mortal, no matter his or her genius, is nothing compared to all of us as a whole. We pop into the world with necks too weak for our skulls and no language.

We are then raised into language, and this language is the stored result of millions of mortal lifetimes. In general a person of substance contributes physically and/or intellectually not only to the language but also to the infrastructure that allows for thought to be applied to the material world, which allows for news thoughts, and so on. So individual mortals are like cells, quickly dying and quickly replaced, but finding comfort nevertheless in their participation in something bigger and grander than them. This helps soldiers charge machine guns, politicians propose new laws, poets write daring lines, philosophers create systems that, for instance, 'decode' God this way --which incidentally contributes to and changes the very 'God' they describe. If God is 'really' just us, species or community on the right side of history or [unpredictable next version], then maybe God is mortal, finite, questionable. But that's another thread. The main idea is the contrast between the puny individual, no matter how clever, and everybody else who came before, here now, and will come after --and everything we 'owe' them.

I'll ask you to view the issue from the perspective of Aristotle's golden mean and the Buddha's middle path. Excess is considered a vice and not a virtue. — TheMadFool

OK, I'll try. But it's hard to think of an excess of virtue. What about being excessively concerned with the middle path? Can one be too much in the center? I do think highly of the golden mean, but I understand it to apply to certain contexts. Like a mixture of air and fuel for an ideal burn. But we are still maximizing something via a golden mean in such an example.

Gnostic Christians also have an ideal, but we do not let ourselves be subsumed by our own creations and remain perpetual seekers of the best god/rules and laws to live by, as Jesus taught. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

The 'ideal' you mention is your idol. This ideal/idol is having-no-idols (except the idol/ideal of having-no-idols of course.) I like that idol. It's an old idea/ideal/idol.

We all idol worship in some sense. If you can think analogically you will agree. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Unlike fresco, I agree with you on this one. If we bother to shoot our mouths off on a philosophy forum, then I think that we are in general embodying some ideal, projecting it for others, evangelizing.

That seems uncontroversial. If there is insight in your analogy, I think it lies in seeing that religion is continuous with politics and literature. Sure there are ghosts involved, but they should be understood in terms of their function, of what they do for people (bind them together, comfort them, etc.) There are ghosts in politics and literature too. In literature On TV people know that their ghosts are made up, sometimes. But a charismatic ghost matters in the real world, made up or not.

That's exactly what I'm bloomin' well doing! Literally. Here. Now. I'm presenting the argument in the cold light of day on a philosophy forum to see how it fares. Answer: hasn't even been dented. — Bartricks

But you're the one deciding it hasn't been dented. And you've insulted those who challenge you. That is crankish behavior. If you invented a time machine that worked, I'd understand the arrogance. But it's only a philosophical argument. We already know that people mostly believe what they want to believe. It's power that convinces people more than arguments.

You do deserve some credit for hanging around and debating the point.

Yes, I'm the pope. I have to be nice to losers all day long so I unwind by being really nasty to some on the internet in the evenings. — Bartricks

What a strange mixture of honesty and bitchiness. Philosophy is supposed to be about reality and not just serve as therapy. That's what I've heard. Yet we come anonymously to a place where we can be rude with impunity (which is pretty escapist) to talk about reality.

It's not as crazy as it sounds, because the collision of worldviews is violent. And intellectual types don't really want a physical fight. Their brains are too precious. Their unhatched eggs must be protected from something as vulgar as actual war.

We wear polite masks to pay the bills, and then come for the sublimated violence of a philosophy forum. If it was all logic, a computer could do it for us. If it was all rhetoric, it would be rap battle. We need something simultaneously cruel and respectable.

Ah, I see. Well, that's false - but whatever. Just focus on the argument and stop trying to analyse me or I'll tell my mum — Bartricks

Pretty good answer. Threatening to tell your mum is a nice pivot. Change the mask. I really was pleasantly surprised. I tried to push your buttons and you kept your cool. I respect that.

My argument is not about where our 'sense' of right and wrong, good and bad comes from, but about what it would take for anything actually to be right or wrong, good or bad. — Bartricks

OK, that helps. Are you saying that without something like a god there can be no 'true' right or wrong? That in the absence of a god we just have 'monkey' opinion and feelings about right and wrong?

Okay, fine. But what would it take for that belief to be true? That is, what would it take for anything actually to be morally good?

That's the question I am answering. You don't answer it by looking into the history of the belief, but rather by looking at what the belief is 'about'. — Bartricks

This helps too. If you are looking into the ground (or its absence) of some kind of timeless, pure morality, then that is a different issue. I was just taking it for granted that there is no such ground --that we are animals who ended up (for various reasons) calling and feeling certain actions and attitudes 'right' and 'wrong.' I was concerned with morality as it exists and evolves historically.

This applies to the god issue in general. People have vague notions of the real nature of god(s), but religion (in my view) is mostly manifest in how people actually act. This even applies to math. For the most part the metaphysical status of numbers and so on is unimportant enough to remain endlessly undecided.

Specialists in god, pure math, and philosophy can endlessly refine their attempt to formulate the absolute versions of their concepts, but mostly the world never cared. It makes due with coarser and more embodied versions in each case. It performs comforting rituals, acts on standard calculations, and gets its philosophy from politics and other forms of pop culture. Just as look at which books are bestsellers, etc. People are more likely to be annoyed than impressed by a quotation from Plato or Marx.

I've noticed that you, like others, are getting hung up on God and keep mentioning him - I have not, except to point out to people like you that I have not mentioned him. God is not mentioned in any premise in my argument or in the conclusion. — Bartricks

Well I did misunderstand where you were coming from --with your help. If you can answer some of my questions above, I might figure out your motivations. For instance, do you believe in something like the biblical god? Or is your divine subject secondary to your point?

1. Subjects and only subjects can value things
2. I am valued
3. therefore I am valued by a subject.

So, if I follow reason I now get to the conclusion that my being morally valuable consists in me being valued by a subject - a subject of experience, a mind.

I am one of those myself and there are billions of others. But upon reflection it is simply not plausible that I am the subject in question:

1. if I am the subject whose valuings constitute moral valuings, then if I value something, necessarily it is morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3. Therefore I am not the subject whose valuings constitute moral valuings. — Bartricks

Your hidden assumption seems to be that there is only one subject bestowing value. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Much of our sense of right and wrong is inherited from the community. There are things that 'one' does not do. But in highly complex and pluralistic cultures like ours, one of the things we do is ...question the things that one does. We obey by disobeying. But that's another issue.

It's easier to just think in terms of tension between the community and the individual. With certain basic norms, the individual is impossible. But most of us these days think of the community as being justified in terms of what it offers the individual (at the price of a certain conformity.) In a democracy with laws that can be changed, it's even almost the duty of a citizen to think how the laws themselves can be improved. And of course there's moral progress to be chased, like setting a good example. A person could try to make vegetarianism cool. Or make transphobia look bad. [Simply labeling things 'phobias' was the PR move.]So individuals can use persuasive speech (and so on) to edit the current norms --but they will usually reason from uncontroversial norms toward the establishment of new norms.

This is why you appeal to logic in order to prove the existence of God to us decadent, heathen philosophers. And it's why certain evangelical atheists will use the 'it's science, bitch' approach. What matters is no whether the logic or science is good but rather the assumed investment of the target market in the magic word. (Of course there is good science and good logic, but perhaps you see what I mean.)

I said to you:

So 'Reason' establishes her own divinity through her favorite son. But we already knew she was divine. The fact that you chose to establish her via an argument says it all. — joshua

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you drunk? — Bartricks

My point is that your theory and your sense of its importance is self-flattering. You seem to be casting yourself as the 'favorite son' of the Goddess Reason.

An argument that seems to establish the truth of a divine command theory of value cannot - by any sane person's estimation - be considered trivial. — Bartricks

I counter that a sane person who thinks an argument establishes the truth of divine command theory would instead look for the mistake in that proof (find out its sophistry.)

Aw diddums. Philosophy isn't therapy and the truth sometimes hurts. The argument establishes the being of a god, regardless of how that may or may not impact your psychology or anyone else's. — Bartricks

You're fun, bro. At least we've finally squeezed it out you: You're an internet-tough-guy theologian. I've seen the atheist version, but the theist version is new to me. It;s like church lady clothes becoming hip again. Instead of appealing to 'science,' you appeal to 'logic.' In either case some magic word is invoked in order to generate a new magic word. Your 'logic' 'establishes' the 'being of a god.' No small accomplishment. I'd be proud of myself too.

But you'll have to add your 'proof' that there is a God to a list of other 'proofs' that few take seriously.

Now I do agree with you that 'philosophy isn't therapy and the truth sometimes hurts.' The real 'god' at work is a personal investment in exactly this principle (which is also the macho fantasy of the intellectually identified .) We pay for truth by sacrificing the parts of our personality that don't want to see it. Our cherished fantasies of who we are must be thrown into the flames, a living sacrifice. We must be washed in the blood of the lamb fires of logic.

It's an investment, though, because we expect in return the narcissistic pleasure of belonging to the exclusive club of those who know the spiritual/metaphysical truth.

Note how often you use the 'diddums' condescension gimmick. I laughed at some of your insults. They're your best work so far. But that's because this is where the essence of your position is manifest.
It's the ancient game of projecting yourself as daddy. And you are playing a retro version, where you (little daddy) are 'proving ' the existence of big daddy classic, no doubt created in your image.

1. If moral values are my values, then if I value something it will necessarily be morally valuable
2. if I value something it is not necessarily be morally valuable
3. therefore moral values are not my values.

Yet it is valid. Obviously. — Bartricks

Yes.

An argument that seems to establish the truth of a divine command theory of value cannot - by any sane person's estimation - be considered trivial. — Bartricks

I agree.

But looking only at the argument above, the moral values belong to something like the community. If we didn't always already agree on all kinds of behavior being good or bad, we wouldn't have made it this far. We're social animals. So the word 'moral' seems already charged with some impersonal subject, a kind of 'we' that does and does not do certain things.

On the 'God' issue again: if the commanding divinity offends our moral intuitions, then he or she had better have the power to back it up. Even then conformity would only be prudence. 'Our' moral intuitions are already the commanding divinity. Tribes have their 'gods,' which cannot be questioned. To really be in the tribe is to see/feel why such questioning is impious or irrational.

It looks to me that history is largely about the modification of our conceptually mediated moral intuitions. The 'divine commander' looks organic, like a kind of mist thrown up by our doings. We remake the world, and the changed world forces us to remake ourselves. Repeat until we run out of world.

No, I am not defining 'God' as I didn't mention God. And Reason is the subject whose values are moral values and whose prescriptions are the prescriptions of Reason, a subset of which are moral prescriptions. That's what the argument establishes. — Bartricks

So 'Reason' establishes her own divinity through her favorite son. But we already knew she was divine. The fact that you chose to establish her via an argument says it all.

People are bringing up God because many of us have been exposed to quite a few "philosopher's gods" over the years. A subject who determines what's right and wrong for all of us....that's largely why people want gods in the first place. And often enough this divine 'subject' will endorse the preferences of his or her discover. The 'philosopher' is the Reason-whisperer. For better are worse, all of your opponents in this thread are also servants of that particular goddess. Reason dictates that you and your argument have to march through misunderstanding and criticism.

LOL. Good one.

How come religious people like God when these same qualities are disliked when in their comrades at an infinitely smaller scale? — TheMadFool

People identify with their gods and dictators. The god/dictator is their best self, their inner truth.

To really be in a tribe is to feel unified by this shared identification. Asking certain questions about this god is wrong (in the eyes of the group) to the degree that it manifests an absence of the proper passion. 'Only a person who didn't our god could think that way.' And those who don't love the god are enemies of the tribe, especially since they are contagious. Often we question the old god in the name of a new god, and the 'question' is really an answer in disguise.

What I find odd is the combo of love + power + knowledge as the target of your questioning. I'd like to have as much of that well-blended trinity as I can get. And I'd like people with power to have knowledge and love. And I'd like people with knowledge and love to have power.

Typically people object to moments in sacred texts where divinities are all too human (petty, spiteful, irrational.) I suggest that we reject these follies (when we do) in the name of our living gods (which may be abstractions like justice, rationality, etc.) (Along these lines, it's hard to find people without 'living gods.' Just look at what they appeal to when they criticize others' gods. And for things that aren't allowed to be questioned, things that are 'obvious' to all 'decent' people.

Weak.


Goodbye.

If the law was not real, and was only a matter of our imagination as Hume says, then we could not reliably engineer battleships to float. — Ron Cram

But the problem is this move from 'battleships have floated' to 'battleships will float.' I do not deny that we just can't take this problem seriously. I emphasize that, yes, it is intellectual candy. But that's just what's fascinating. We have complete gut-level trust in the uniformity of nature, despite not having any 'metaphysical' support for this trust. The mighty edifice of science is built on a faith that runs in our blood. I say this as a lover and student of science who also likes philosophy.

The uniformity of nature is the principle that the course of nature continues uniformly
the same, e.g. if X is the cause Y, then Y will necessarily exist whenever X exists. In particular,
the uniformities observed in the past will hold for the present and future as well. Hume’s query
in Inquiry IV/ii is whether our belief in this principle is founded on reason or not.
After rejecting the notion that its certainty derives from demonstrative reason (because
there is no contradiction in the thought that nature does not continue uniformly the same), Hume asks whether it can be supposed to rest on probable (i.e. empirical) reason. He argues that this assumption leads us into a vicious circle, and therefore must be false... — paper

https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/modern05/Hume_on_empirical_reasoning.pdf



Also, thanks for the links. But please just quote or paraphrase the points you'd like to make. I need to know how you interpret whatever you link me to. I could be wrong, but I'm still not convinced that you are even seeing the problem. Perhaps you could paraphrase the problem as you see it. That might help me locate the disconnect.

Joshua, I don't believe you are an atheist. You wouldn't have written your post above if you were. — god must be atheist

That you would think that suggest to me just how boxed-in you are. For me the god-issue has been dead for ~20 years. That's how long I've been a total atheist.

These previous statements by me are opinions, not facts, but I hold these opinions about you because of the many references you wrote all favouring Christianity in spirit and in emotion. — god must be atheist

What I think you are missing is that critical thinking and the religion of progress evolved (largely) from Christianity. You can see a good version of this transformation in the Left Hegelians. Heaven is brought down to earth. Humanity grows up and puts away its otherwordly fantasies. It become 'our' job to build 'Heaven' down here. We just have to eradicate poverty, superstition, injustice. Maybe nationalism is on the list of superstitions. So we all just need to wake up and be purified, rational beings, one species under the flag of Reason. I'm not knocking this fantasy. I feel its pull. But notice how apocalyptic and conspiratorial our pop culture is these days. Just as Satan was the lord of this world in Christianity, we see a repetition of string-pullers in high places as the bogey man (perhaps Christianity itself is Satan the adversary.)

I say look at 'grand narratives' as the essence of 'religion.' Instead of demons and angels, we have more worldly superstitions these days (unrealistically diabolical politicians and billionaires and institutions). When we don't see ourselves in the adversary at all (when we think we are totally pure and at war with total filth), that is an indicator of superstition --in my book, anyway.

I have seen many, many wolves in sheep's clothing. It's the oldest trick in the book that you are practicing: declaring you're atheist, then praising Christianity non-stop.

You must think I am so stupid as not to see through your thin veneer. — god must be atheist

I almost envy your belief in my belief. Note that you are enjoying the usual conspiracy theory here. 'Everyone is wearing a mask. Nothing is as it seems.' The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

Conspiracy theory is a primary form of religion these days. The world is out of control. Conspiracy theory is the comforting idea that some bad people are in control. So all we need to do is grab the controls from them, wake up, etc. I don't think so. But I would only bother to say so to others who identity with 'truth.' Why kill the buzz of strangers? If I have no solution?

Because of cause and effect due to physical necessity. Each step in the process is well understood. It is like the physical necessity of one billiard ball forcing another billiard ball to move. It can be clearly observed. — Ron Cram

From my perspective, you are missing the point entirely.

That we all 'project' necessary connection or physical necessity is not in dispute. Our minds seem built to do just that. The point is that this is so automatic that even understanding the problem of induction is difficult. It's not only conceptually difficult (but it's too 'close' to us), but it's also difficult in terms of motivation. First it offends our metaphysical urge toward a reliable theory of existence. Second, there is no practical payoff. Since we are going to keep on projecting necessity automatically even after realizing its metaphysical baselessness, why should anyone bother to suffer a perception of this baselessness? In my guts I believe in the 'laws' of nature, even though I can see that such 'laws' are merely 'irrational' expectations. And I see that we simultaneously define not only rationality but sanity itself in terms of sharing these expectations. The problem of induction reveals the 'animality ' of our thinking. When the bell rings, we salivate. But we are more elaborate than dogs, so we express that salivation in differential equations.

You are copmletely driven by your desire to prove that atheists have gods. — god must be atheist

I'm a hard-core atheist. Maybe that will help.

What I'm trying to point out is that anti-religious role-play tends to be blind in its own investment in spectral entities ---like truth, justice, progress, etc. This is not to say that such entities make bad 'gods.'

Your examples are fit for a congregation in Baptist church, but they are shown to be wrong by someone who is a cliritcal thinker, not a blind follower of a faith in god along with all other accoutraments of a god worship. — god must be atheist

Indeed, the 'critical thinker' is the 'Christ image' (the what-we-should-be) of (negative/critical) philosophy. Just as the vegetarian is proud to abstain from meat and the Christian to abstain from sin, so the critical thinker is proud to abstain from superstition -- from un-criticized/un-purified belief. Less meat/sin/superstition means more virtue and higher status -- at least among those who fly the same flag. But why? Assuming that superstition was good for the individual animal (helped him thrive and reproduce within his superstitious tribe by keeping his morale up), the 'religiously' critical mind would choose the cross capital T of Truth, looking forward to vindication in some virtual future.

If it helps, I'm criticizing you not from the under the flag of traditional religion...but instead from under our shared flag. To me you are being insufficiently critical of your own criticism, which is to say insufficiently self-conscious. Seemingly locked in a anti-'Baptist' framework, it seems that you were 'forced' to assume that I'm a bible-thumper. Instead I've moved on to put more vital 'gods' in question (like progress.) And then to put my motives for doing so in question. And all of these moves are at least 150 years old.

As far as I can tell, not much has happened since then in the realm of intellectuals. Obviously these old ideas have become popular. We now have bestsellers that cast religion as the great enemy of progress. To me it's just one more one-issue fantasy. If only the world's problems had a simple center like religion....

Indeed. We agree here too.

Anyone who seriously thinks/believes that nothing exists prior to human awareness of it has lost their fucking mind. — creativesoul

No, they've just been corrupted by philosophy. (I jest.)

More seriously, I think it's just a switch in ways of talking and hearing. I argued once that in a certain peculiar sense the stars weren't here before we were. Though I had my reasons, I'd no longer feel motivated to give them. It's just not the interesting part of philosophy for me anymore.

I'm only with me in the main, too.

I was actually going to say something similar about the "abstract" being comparable to the "supernatural", but got side tracked. — Noble Dust

That's what I thought you were getting at with 'supernatural.' We die/kill for ghosts like freedom, democracy, truth, God, justice, fame, glory, etc. Even wealth that is not concretely enjoyed but enjoyed as a number that is bigger (or even smaller) than other numbers is a 'god.'

Anyway, I had to chime in, because for me it was clarifying to realize that all we get with humans is a transformation of 'religion,' mostly from a more pictorial representation to an abstract conceptual representation of what is worthy and authoritative. An atheist mocks the theist, but the virtue of being an atheist is just as spectral as the big man upstairs.

In the name of [ ], I do this, that, and the other. Amen.

If our perceptions arise in our minds from unknown causes, as Hume argues, then a snowball that never melts on the equator would be possible. But if an external world actually exists, then it cannot. — Ron Cram

Why not? Because it's not the sort of thing that has happened so far?

And what do we know about $H_2 O$ that isn't based on our past experience? Our entire theory of molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles is a codification of the patterns we have found to hold so far (or since we've been checking.) [If someone did observe a violation, we probably wouldn't believe, them, though.] So saying that the snowball must melt because the electron must do X etc. only shifts the issue to electrons. Why should electrons continue to behave as they have?

Religions and beliefs in god(s) ARE separable from humans. I am sure about that, and I won't be swayed from it. Unless there is reason to. — god must be atheist

Right, because reason is a 'god.' For you, (the concept of ) reason is authoritative. And that's my 'religion' too, mostly.

So as a secular person, someone may worship money, yes, or science, progress, etc. These things are gods in their own way, and I would go further and counter that they are, metaphorically, supernatural as well. — Noble Dust

I agree. We get invested in concepts. In some cases, we think that the concept is 'up there,' laying down the law. (We can believe in a personal god.) But metaphorically concepts in general are 'up there.' I can't hold justice in my hand. Nor can I hold the virtue of thinking critically in my hand.

Much of philosophy and politics is (seems to me) a replacement for a traditional religion and a mere transformation of the 'gods' (dominant concepts of virtue and value) in general.

Hume never grasped this important distinction and Hume admitted that he never understood motion, force, power and energy. Indeed, these things cannot be understood until you understand the difference between primary and secondary qualities. The problem persists among the followers of Hume. None of them seem the slightest bit interested in understanding Hume's failures. — Ron Cram

You may be right about Hume on this issue. I don't know. But in general I'm personally less interested in a philosopher's failures than in his or her successes.

Of course I do like Hume. We do seem to have gut-level feelings about various thinkers. In the end, though, I'm more interested in the ideas than in their sources.

As far as the physics concepts go, I'm familiar, especially with the Newtonian stuff. I like differential equations and numerical analysis. I like simulations. But I don't see how it gets around Hume. A differential equation is just something we project on recorded experience, expecting it to apply to future experiences. Newton's 'law' of cooling, for instance, is just a general description of what we are used to and therefore 'irrationally' expect. I don't see how we can purely logically exclude the coffee that never cools in the freezer or the snowball that never melts in the equatorial sun.

I might be wrong, but I have the sense that you aren't grasping the problem of induction, which means you are missing out on a real mindbender.

I cannot agree that existence is absurd. I believe the empirical evidence clearly shows that life has purpose and meaning. I can't go into the reasons for this yet. I must finish my contra Hume papers first. — Ron Cram

Fair enough. The forum would be no fun if we all agreed.

You are an amusing conversationalist. I certainly hope the Amazon truck that runs you over is not delivering another load of books to my house. — Ron Cram

Thanks. And I also love my 'primed' books waiting on the porch.