Of course they do, but that wasn't the question on the table. You weren't talking about the methods, mindset, approach, or beliefs of scientists studying quantum mechanics. You were talking about QM's preposterousness. Now you're trying to change the subject. — T Clark

In fact, I said nothing at all about QM being preposterous. I said it "certainly seems strange." You said QM is preposterous, and apparently feel it's as preposterous as religion, if not more preposterous than it is. If that's what you believe, so be it. I merely think QM and religion are not analogous.

Maybe Gnostic Christianity, but that sounds more like Neoplatonism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, Christianity through the years has borrowed heavily from neoplatonism. It's one of the ingredients in the vast hodgepodge, or stew, that is Christianity.

I've never thought any religious belief sounded any more "preposterous" than quantum mechanics. If you're in the mood for some pointless argument, there are plenty of reasonable arguments against religion, but preposterousness is not one of them. — T Clark

Quantum mechanics certainly seems strange, but I think the analogy with religion doesn't work. I suspect that those studying QM approach things a bit differently than religious believers. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if it's taken up by religious apologists and claimed by them to support their religious beliefs. It seems that's been the case for a while now.

Agree? — Art48

I think that certain religious beliefs are less preposterous than others. But I doubt believers care whether they're more or less preposterous to others, and will be unimpressed by any argument that they're beliefs are unreasonable regardless of whether they're told there is no God or that particular beliefs about God are unsupportable.

Does it not sometimes make one feel powerless or at worst nihilistic in the face of it? — invicta

Only if you're inclined to disturb yourself with what's entirely beyond your control. I'm too much of a Stoic to do that. What could be more pointless?

Where would you consider more appropriate? — Art48

I'd prefer that there will come a day when there will be no further reference to an "external world" anywhere, anytime, if what is meant is some place apart from us that we can never "really" know. But we're so infected by the belief that there is a world "out there" that it's unlikely that blessed day will arrive.

There's something comical about presuming to give lessons of this kind on YouTube. I wonder what people really are seeing when they watch this video. Just a representation of a representation made by a representation of something the representation believed was represented, I suppose.

We're in the world. We're part of reality. It isn't something separate from us, that we observe. But this is old stuff.

What, then, is the point of asking "What's the point?"?

Well, they are good Christian soldiers in the war against humanism, which like Communism seeks world domination... — Tom Storm

Yes, but I wonder if they feel they must demonstrate, somehow, that conversion to Catholicism has made them better advocates (or apologists) for God than Anglicans can be. Justifying their Papism, in other words. I'm a cynical fellow.

These Brits who decide to join the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church just can't stop talking/writing, about God (and themselves) it seems. Newman, Chesterton, Lewis, Copleston, just go on and on. It's as if they have something to prove.

The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos.

Yes. I like Hadot. He wrote an interesting book on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations arguing they were a kind of Stoic practice.

'The unexamined life is not worth living' is one of the Socratic maxims. Philosophy itself means, not just the 'love of wisdom' but 'love-wisdom' and it's cultivation. I've been following a series of posts on Medium by a scholar of stoic philosophy, and that is its entire focus. — Wayfarer

The unexamined life, yes. Not the unexamined "me." Our lives are lived in an environment, and include much more than us; we don't live, really, when we concentrate on ourselves.

I don't know the scholar you refer to, but ancient Stoicism and other ancient schools taught how to live, as I said before, and perhaps that's what the scholar is referring to.

I had in mind the fellow who wrote light-hearted, jaunty things like this:

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.

There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic if it is pulled out I shall die.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Happiness is the greatest hiding place for despair.

But I understand these are merely short quotations, though there seem to be quite a few along these lines. They strike me as a bit gloomy. But I don't mean to characterize all of his work.

Very well stated, but the point could equally be made that philosophy used to contemplate these larger questions, but that its scope has been deliberately narrowed by those modern exponents of it that you mention, perhaps to avoid the very kind of self-examination that the OP is trying to elicit. Enables those exponents to conceal themselves behind the jargon of professionalism and to direct awkward and embarrasing questions into thickets of technicalities.

Consider for example Kierkegaard, a philosopher with whom I am only sliightly familiar. But his entire ouvre is very much first-person oriented and addressed to questions of just those kinds. — Wayfarer

But to what extent is philosophy useful to this self-examination as you call it? What can such necessarily subjective reflection by philosophers achieve that isn't achieved far better by others who are not expected to be constrained by reason, or the need to explain rather than evoke?

I know little about that VERY Melancholy Dane, Kierkegaard, but he seems more a theologian or commentator/apologist for religion than a philosopher.

Name one cheerful philosopher.
— Ciceronianus
Democritus (et al). — 180 Proof

I stand corrected.

Thus, I've always had a strong affinity for Epicureanism — 180 Proof

Stoicism for me, but like Seneca, I have great regard for Epicurus

he image of cheerful philosophers torturing lawyers is just too delicious; we'll just slowly pour the whiskey into the bottle until the flyster either flies or floats out. — unenlightened

Name one cheerful philosopher. But I've suffered the tortures of the damned, sir.

I see you're a big fan of Euripides. — frank

Well, as portrayed by Aristophanes.

At some stage in this confessional thread one might start to see a pattern; so far the obvious pattern is that philosophers like to display their examined lives, and think it serious and worthwhile to do so. And who am I to disagree? — unenlightened

If you won't, I will. Who am I to do so? A lawyer, who can't stop being, or playing, an advocate. Wait. I'm a tortured lawyer. Some day I'll reveal the reasons why I was fated to become one.

It's an old story, isn't it? Let's talk about ME. It's true philosophers have been known to indulge in this--most notoriously Augustine and Rousseau. But it's something we all do, now and then.

The formal training in philosophy I experienced so long ago might be characterized as narrow, but I'm thankful that it avoided speculation along these lines, just as it avoided seeking to discover the meaning of life. In many ways, it cheerfully undermined attempts to address the supposed great questions of humankind, when it bothered addressing them at all. You know the names; Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, etc.; those whose business it was to show the fly the way out of the bottle.

I became convinced, and still am convinced, that what philosophers had to say in this respect was said long, long ago as part of the effort to determine how best to live. That took place before Christianity, before Romanticism, before people came to understand that "God is dead" and despaired because of it, before nihilism, existentialism; in short, before we became devotees of angst.

I don't mean to say that great questions are unimportant or should not be addressed, but I don't think philosophy is useful in addressing them, unless we mean by philosophy art, poetry, meditation and pursuits which evoke rather than seek to explain. Those are pursuits which are better left to those who aren't philosophers.

If we changed the word "law" in #3 to "rules" or "theory" we'd have no disagreement. The quibble is over the term "law."

Is this a correct summation? — Hanover

I think so. It seems I'm a legal positivist. I think the use of the words "law" and "rights" result in confusion, and the law is distinct from morality. I favor legal rights as I think they serve to put limits on governmental power. But rights which aren't legal rights are what people think should be legal rights if they're not already.

I favor virtue ethics and other ethics which aren't based on concepts of individual rights. People claim so many rights.

So a woman is raped in a nation where the positive law permits it because she is the possession of the man who has committed this act.

Was this "act" a violation? If it was a violation, what was it a violation of? — Hanover

Are you asking me?

The law in effect wasn't violated, clearly. But no non-legal right must be violated in order for an act to be immoral. The rape was reprehensible regardless of any right or law.

Such is the case with legal rights as well. Someone believes they should have a legal right to do X. Rather than appeal to nature, though, they appeal to those in power. The difference is that legislation is designed to let one man or group of men arbitrarily dictate to all other men what they may or may not do, not unlike slavery, which is contrary to natural law. — NOS4A2

Legal rights already exist. Why or when they came into existence is another matter. The law is the law, regardless of its merits, regardless of why it became law. One might claim a legal right is a natural right, but whether it is or not is immaterial to its status, its function, its enforceability.

Natural Law, I think, doesn't necessarily entail Natural Rights,although it isn't law, properly speaking. The Roman jurist Ulpian said of slavery that it is "contrary to nature." The ancient Stoics taught we should live "according to nature." Whether Roman jurisprudence accepted what we call "rights" is debatable. Roman citizens had a "right" to appeal to the Emperor (that's what Paul did, not that it did him much good, though it kept him alive for a time). A trial was required in certain cases, so perhaps that may be said to be similar to the "right to trial," but I think it was more a prohibition of certain conduct than a positive right, e.g. a citizen cannot be punished with death until a trial is held doesn't mean that he has a "right" to trial.

The ancient Stoics, as far as I know, never spoke of the "rights" of individuals. Instead, their ethics focused on proper conduct, virtuous conduct "according to nature." So, e.g., we shouldn't steal not because there is a right to private property, but because coveting and taking someone's property isn't virtuous--such things aren't important to the Stoic Sage.

If they were recognized and enforceable within a particular legal system then they would be limited by jurisdiction. Natural rights are supposed to be universal, but there is no universal legal system. In any case, natural rights are supposed to precede and transcend legal systems. — NOS4A2

I know that's the claim made about them. But a "right" that isn't a legal right is merely what someone believes should be the case. Someone who believes we have the natural right to do X believes that we all should be able to do X, for whatever reasons used to maintain that it is "natural" that we be able to do it. What if we cannot do it (for whatever reason)? In that case, those believing we have such a natural right claim only that we should be able to do it.

"Natural rights", to the extent they're not legal rights, are what people wish were legal rights. In other words, they wish they were recognized and enforceable within a system of laws we make. Otherwise, they're merely what we think we should be allowed to do without hinderance and without being subject to penalty.

Précisément! Hence, the OP's claim that the philosopher will not find God — Agent Smith

If that's true, Augustine was no philosopher, as he thought he--more than anyone--had found him.

si comprhendis non est deus, — Agent Smith

Si ENIM comprehendis, non est deus. Roughly, "if you can comprehend it, it isn't God."

That was Augustine, of course. Never let comprehension get in his way.

Impersonal gods are not worth talking to or (therefore) talking about. Stick to physics, no impersonal god will care. — unenlightened

If god is immanent in the universe, we talk about god all the time. Even physicists.

What this shows is that ubiquitously, folk do not make decisions on the basis of rationally maximising their self-interest. Some other factor intervenes. What that is, is open to further research. — Banno

Need would be a factor, I would think. In other words, the extent to which the money is needed And need would have to be taken into account in determining what constitutes rational "self-interest."

Somehow the issue slid from whether women should have bodily autonomy to whether one should chew on a wafer. — Banno

Aha! So you think there's a difference between those issues? Perhaps that's because one is an ethical issue and the other is not. I win!

Don't know much about Cardinal Pell. Apparently, he wanted the priest to perform mass while facing away from the congregation rather than facing it, a position (literally) I would endorse if I cared, first because that's the way it was when I became an altar boy and second because the priest isn't the star of the show.

But as a Cardinal, I assume he wanted everyone else to be a Catholic, of the old school if he was old school. There are things Catholics do as part of being Catholic, just as there are things chess players do as part of playing chess. I don't think it's "good" that I make moves according to the rules of chess, but I ought to do so if I want to play chess.

there are 613 commandments, — Hanover

Jesus Christ! Oh. Sorry.

I'm not sure what would be moral about...well, I don't know what all those commandments are, so you have me at a disadvantage. Does one of them have to do about not eating unclean animals (I'm not trying to be funny or sarcastic). If so, how would refraining from doing so be moral?

I don't see how to understand that in a coherent fashion. What is ethics if not what one ought do? — Banno

Well, OHCAC says I should "drink the wine and chew the wafer" (as Tom Lehrer sang in his magnificent song The Vatican Rag, which you should listen to if you haven't already), which is to say participate in the Eucharist. Now, am I acting ethically when I do so? What is it that's "good" about the drinking and the chewing? What if I merely chewed? Am I being "bad" if I do neither? What if I skip drinking and chewing a few times? Am I unethical? I think not. One doesn't drink and chew because it's good to do so, but that it shows one's devotion to and belief in OHCAC and Jesus.

If you are generally tolerant of the views of those who have found personal existential meaning and you have no concern trying to proselytize others to your views, it would seem no one should have any reason to object to that kind of person. — Hanover

Ah, good. As delightful as it is to compare China and Iran, I'd prefer to explore the motivations of theists (or other believers, to the extent they're involved) and atheists in their dispute about God.

Now, I suppose it's possible that theists engage with atheists because they think atheists are unethical, it being necessary that God is accepted in order for mere mortals to be moral. And, I suppose it's possible atheists engage with theists because they contest that view. But that doesn't seem to be the origin of the debate, nor does it account for its intensity. It's just not juicy enough, as it were.

Intolerance would account for the intensity, which sometimes devolves into contempt. But intolerance by atheists seems inappropriate where there is simply belief, without demand that others believe as well or behave as if they believe, or that others support the belief. If someone claimed to be a follower of Mithras, I'd be eager to find out just what that means (I wish we did), but wouldn't feel obliged to say "There ain't no Mithras" and argue the point with him/her. If someone claimed to be an atheist, I wouldn't feel obliged to argue that God exists, though I feel there's something which may be called divine.

So, is that all there is? Intolerance on both sides, which flares up whenever someone claims there is or is not a God?

Those who think god's favour is dependent on our actions will have quite different attitudes towards what we ought do, to those who suppose god uninvolved.

Again, the issue is ethics rather than metaphysics. — Banno

I dunno. That would seem to make ritual tantamount to ethics. According to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (OHCAC), for example, we ought to partake of or participate in the Sacraments. But I doubt it would consider doing so to be a matter of ethics.

I'm assuming you mean here a god that can't be pleased by any human actions or gestures? I guess the debate would have no where to go. — Tom Storm

That's what I mean, yes. So, can we say then that the debate is driven by the belief in a God influenced by human conduct? [Wow, this is what Socrates must have felt like]

I think so.

Is this serious? — Mikie

Certainly not. Clearly, it's being abused because of neoliberalism.

Let's try this (I'm genuinely curious). Would this debate be taking place, or be significantly different, if the God at issue is:

"Merely" the Creator of the universe, i.e. one that having done so, does not intervene, is not influenced by worship or prayer--is the First Mover and nothing more;

Immanent--a part of the universe and therefore which can be known only through the universe, not supernatural, but an active, generative force guiding it (Fate or Providence).

True. Very relevant, here.

And yet "Gott mit uns". — 180 Proof

Or maybe more to the point, Deus Vult!

Theism is significant because too many damn theists proselytize and/or inject magical thinking – superstitions – into their explanations or arguments, even in nonreligious contexts (e.g. politics, commerce, science, ethics). Mostly, atheism is an intrinsic threat to theism because it is always a live option for (thinking) theists like potential defectors from a blinkered, totalitarian regime. — 180 Proof

Theism seems to tend towards exclusivity. I wonder if that may explain some of the intensity of the debate. Some of the ancient pagan philosophers thought traditional pagan religious beliefs, largely polytheistic and non-exclusive, to be unfounded and even silly, but as far as I know there was no debate or dispute between them, and pagan philosophers would participate in rituals or favor compliance with them or at least tolerate them.