And verkakte Star Wars movies.. :gasp: — Tom Storm

They don't have their critics?

Only positive interpretations are welcome. What other text gets that treatment? — Isaac

Canonical texts: Homer, Dante. Shakespeare. Goethe, Walt Whitman, other religious texts, texts with a long historical tradition of interpretation.

Great, no argument, so substitute insult.

The difference of opinions shows only that there is a difference of opinions. Nothing more. — baker

So lay it out for us, Baker: how is the correct opinion ( the one that you seem to be claiming would reflect the fact of the matter) be identified?

Harry: Hey, I got laid last night. Susan is really good in the sack!
Dick: Really? I want to hit that too!
(a week later)
Dick (to Harry): You liar! You told me Susan was great in the sack! I did her last night, but it sucked. Man, you made a fool out of me!


Question: Is Susan to blame for Dick's bad experience of the sexual relation between them? — baker

This is completely irrelevant. The question we are looking at is whether those who claim they are spiritual masters could be identified as either deluded or liars on the one hand, or the real deal on the other. The question about the contribution that must be made by the student is not at issue.

If you want to discuss this, then stop coming up with poorly conceived analogies and address the actual question. Support your apparent claim that there is a determinable fact of the matter as to whether someone is enlightened or not

Refer to ↪Banno — baker

So what? Outlining a theory that actions are driven by beliefs says nothing about restraining or punishing, or even judging, people by their beliefs. Even if it were granted that all actions are driven by beliefs, it certainly doesn't follow that all beliefs lead to actions.

Or does it just say that determining the difference is very hard? — Tom Storm

I guess it depends on what it means to be enlightened. If it is, as I argue, just a disposition of non-attachment, and if having self-cultivated to realize that state gives one the ability to teach others how to realize it, or at least help them to, it would then seem to follow that, if we can determine whether or not someone is non-attached, by definition we could determine whether they are enlightened, and hence whether they are a potential guru. Lotta "ifs" there!

By the time someone does something that could be problematic, it's often already too late. Such as discovering only a few years into your marriage that your spouse is a thief, or serial killer. — baker

You can't lock someone up on the suspicion that they might do something "problematic". Would you want to live in a society where that was common practice?

They can. This is the normative aspect of art theory. — baker

They cannot. There may be some consensus, but there will also be dissension, among critics.

While I don't know how the art critics do it, they appear to be fully certain that it can be done, that it should be done, and that they are doing it. — baker

As Kant tells us, when we make aesthetic judgements we all take them to be, and by default intend them to be, universalizable, but they are not.

The difference of opinions about a work says nothing about the quality of said work. — baker

The difference of opinions shows that there is no objectively determinable quality of art works, music and literature.

Someone being one person's guru and another's charlatan doesn't make that person a guru, or a charlatan. — baker

The fact that someone can be one's guru and another's charlatan just goes to show that there is no objectively determinable fact of the matter about whether anyone is a guru or a charlatan.

Thinking is generalizing, abstractive, associative, contextualizing, reflective,,logical, analogical, dialogical, dialectical, imaginative, conjectural, speculative. rational, irrational.

Isn't the main topic (assent to) neverending damnation?
It has been, and is, upheld by some.
And the topic has moral implications (whether upheld by one or billions). — jorndoe

As I see it there are two distinctions to be made. First there are undoubtedly a certain number of people who believe that God will torture sinners for all eternity, who don't approve of that or take any pleasure in the thought of it, but are no doubt afraid, very afraid, of the Lord.

Then there are undoubtedly some others who both believe that God will torture sinners for all eternity, and who approve of that, even glory in it.

I think the first group warrant our pity, not our reprehension or scorn. The second group would seem to have lost something of the normal human moral compass. Should they be morally judged , though, if they are kind to others in this life? I would think not.

You say there are moral implications, but "implications" are only of import if they lead to actions, and only warrant reprehension if they lead to reprehensible actions.

:lol:

The other side of the argument that the causal forces and conditions that determine our behavior are too complex for our simian brains to comprehend and hence we believe we must be free, is that the freedom we feel cannot be explained in third person causal terms and so we might be mistakenly led to dismiss it, and lose faith in it.

There is an inevitable cognitive disjuncture or dissonance between acceptance that our behavior is entirely determined by forces and conditions over which we have no control, and the idea of moral responsibility.

So, what’s the answer? Does it make sense to hold people accountable for their actions given that there is no free will? — T Clark

Are you asking whether, assuming there is no free will, no real choice, it makes sense to hold people accountable from a pragmatic or a moral standpoint? I'd say from a pragmatic standpoint, any society must hold its members accountable for their actions; that's the pragmatic perspective. On the other hand from the point of view of moral judgement, if people could never have done otherwise than what they have done, then I can't see how they could be morally accountable anymore than animals, lightning or volcanoes are.

Anyway, it's fairly clear that people have believed (and some do believe) neverending damnation. — jorndoe

Depends on waht you interpret damnation to consist in. I have read that at least some of the early Christians believed that eternal damnation consists in the realization that one has chosen to forgo heaven, and that eternal suffering consists in the realization of just what one has refused.

I agree; although I hold that people are significantly diverse; the idea that what they have most in common is that what they believe is not up to them is eminently plausible

What follows is that people should not be judged on account of their beliefs, but on account of their actions; which makes this OP seem wrongheaded, although I guess we should not judge @Banno for believing that those who believe in a God who allows eternal damnation, of the most simplistic kind as envisaged by the OP, should be reviled.

It's a feeling, an experience that is impossible to recreate at will for an adult person.
Except perhaps to some extent for adults who are going through an existential crisis and who in the process of their existential quest turn to religion/spirituality. — baker

Right, I didn't see that. I think feelings in general are impossible to simply create, in the sense of instantly just "conjure up". I also agree that existential crisis is often involved in religious conversions.

And you are the judge of who is "genuinely imbued with religious feeling"? — baker

No, why would you think that? I think people who are imbued with a feeling of religious reverence inspired by the scriptures of a religion; will experience the feelings that are advocated by the scriptures they are enraptured by. At the very least they will sincerely try to cultivate those feelings.

BTW my computer will not download the River of Fire you linked; it advises that it is a security risk. Maybe the computer is concerned that I might feel insecure if I read it. :wink:

I agree, but I contend that that "feeling" is the feeling of certainty about the Christian doctrines. And that this feeling is due to having been born and raised into the religion, ie. having internalized it from an early age, before the physiological ability to think criticially has developed. — baker

If that were true then adult conversion would be impossible, which it obviously isn't.

The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. And I think it's fair to say that those who are authentically religious, whether Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims, believe in compassion and love for others regardless of cultural or religious differences. — Janus


I can't make sense of this. The right 'feeling' is love and compassion (as if it isn't also for the non-religious!), but later you say they "believe in" it? What would it mean for someone to not "believe in" it? That they don't believe the emotions exist? That they don't believe they'll work (for what)? That they don't believe they're 'right (by what measure)? — Isaac

All I am saying is that love and compassion are the feelings advocated by the scriptures and that those who are genuinely religious; those who really have a feeling for it, will manifest those feelings towards others. What "non-religious" do is irrelevant, since I haven't made any claim about them.

I was referring to those who are genuinely imbued with religious feeling.

Fair enough. I think your view is very wrong, but I don't think anything further I could say would be anything but repeating what I've already said, so...

As if the object of faith were irrelevant so long as the "feeling" was right. What twaddle.

Do I have a tin ear? No, I'm pointing to an interesting discord in the melody. — Banno

The object of faith is irrelevant of the feeling is right. The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. And I think it's fair to say that those who are authentically religious, whether Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims, believe in compassion and love for others regardless of cultural or religious differences.

You have said that your argument applies only to those who admire God for punishing the unfaithful with eternal torment. In other words you admit it applies only to radical fundamentalists. That you make that concession is in your favour, but I think the title of your OP betrays your real intent, since it generalizes to "Christians" and "religion".

Those who admire God for punishing the faithless I imagine would be a very small percentage of Christians, and much less of a percentage of the religious in general. This thread seems like at best a pointless exercise, and at worst a lead in to anti-religious bigotry.

Are you doubting that it is a propositional attitude - that it is faith in something...?

'cause that's not right. — Banno

Of course any feeling of faith can be more or less framed in propositional terms. What I am saying is not about that, but about what I consider to be the fact that people of faith (who are not fundamentalists) are not much concerned about propositions, but about feelings. Have you considered the possibility that you may have a "tin ear" when it comes to religion?.

Do you think that we can say things like" the cat is on the mat" or "it is raining" and that it is the case that what we say in those simple kinds of observation statements is either in accordance or not in accordance with what is there to be observed?

Do you think that when the statements are in accordance with what is observed then what we have said is true and when they are not in accordance what we have said is false?

Do you agree that this is pretty much how people generally understand truth and falsity, and that our legal system is also based on this kind of understanding? Say when people are called upon to give evidence, for example?

It's the supposed common "something it is like..." to which this argument applies, not the faith. — Banno

That doesn't seem to address my comments, You said:

The "something it's like to have faith" goes the way of the "something it is like to be a bat", joining the beetle in the box on the sideline. — Banno

I implied that I don't think being enraptured by religious faith is ineffable any more than being in love is,

In any case the point was that religious faith does not consist in some set of beliefs so much as it does in a feeling.

The "something it's like to have faith" goes the way of the "something it is like to be a bat", joining the beetle in the box on the sideline. — Banno

I don't think so. It seems clear to me that religious faith is an affected (not in the sense of being "put on") disposition, akin to being in love.

It also seems clear that there are many believers who don't really believe at all, but pay lip service in order to benefit from belonging to the religious community.

Then there may also be some who genuinely, viscerally believe in the possibility of eternal damnation. If you believed that it would be so terrifying that you would render worship unto God out of fear. If you were a thoughtful person in this position, then I think the cognitive dissonance would be such that you might divert, subvert any sense of criticism of God by telling yourself that "God moves in mysterious ways" but that He is all-good. all-knowing, all-powerful and all-present. You might tell yourself that he is beyond human conceptions of good and evil.

As long as we keep in mind that such ‘physicalistic’ entities are subjectively constructed as senses themselves. — Joshs

Right, so that would be the phenomenologist view; on the physicalist view they would be objectively apprehended by subjects, and would thus be understood to be subject-independently real, so, real even if not apprehended.

Oh, for crying out loud. I want to know the truth about "spirituality". So far, the most plausible conclusion is that "spirituality" is a form of sublimation, specifically, of sublimating the Darwinian struggle for survival into terms that seem more palatable. — baker

If it is merely "sublimation" and the whole enterprise is deluded as to its provenance from the start, then what does that say about claims to be enlightened?

From what I've seen, professional musicians believe that musical proficiency is amenable to precise determination.
Similar with the other arts. How else do you think they can write whole tomes of art criticism? — baker

Musical proficiency, i.e. being able to sight read, possessing perfect pitch, and the speed with which one can play an instrument fluently can be precisely determined. The greatness of a musical composition, the profundity of a musician's interpretations of Bach, Beethoven or whatever canonical composer you like, cannot be precisely determined.

There are critics who write about works and their qualities, and there are many other critics who have quite different ideas about what any critic has written, so no, not precisely determinable. The same goes with spiritual questing; one person's guru is another's charlatan.I don't see how you can claim to be familiar with the world of spiritual self-cultivation and yet disagree with that.

“ "Physicalistic nature," to which we have now advanced,
presents itself in the following way in accord with our
expositions: the thing itself in itself consists of a continuously or discretely filled space in states of motion, states which are called energy forms. That which fills space lends itself to certain groups of differential equations and corresponds to certain fundamental laws of physics. But there are no sense qualities here. And that means there are no qualities here whatever. For
the quality of what fills space is sense quality.”(Ideas II) — Joshs

This is interesting in that it seems to posit that all qualities must be sense qualities. So energy, mass, movement, persistence, change, extension and so on would not be qualities on that view.

The latter 'reconstruction' is involuntary (neurological) and the former voluntary (phenomenal), no? — 180 Proof

:up: That sounds about right to me.

Our taking some proposition to be knowledge is what is defeasible. This is the distinction you seem to keep missing. — Janus


Not missing, no. Just saying that the expression is universally and solely used to express this 'taking', and as such to suggest the actual real definition is something other than it is ever used for seems odd at the least. — Isaac

Right, I think I see your objection now, but I would still maintain that although we can never be 100% sure we have knowledge, we can reasonably believe that we do, while still acknowledging that we could be wrong.

Take this up with Maslow and his followers. — baker

Maslow.'s criterion of happiness is "self-actualization" "being all you can be". It's akin to Aristotle's eudamonia and arete; not dependent on having a lot of money, material possessions or what others think of you.

I generally dislike the term "spiritual", "spirituality". I do not consider myself "spiritual". I feel sickened if I read about "spirituality". — baker


Pretty much says it all. — Apollodorus

I think Baker enjoys being a contrarian just for the sake of it. I can't think of any other explanation for the absurd and cynical generalizations she comes up with.

It takes a physicist to know a physicist; it takes a good pianist to know a good pianist; it takes an enlightened person to know an enligthened person. Enlightenment is nothing special, in this sense. — baker

It takes a physicist to know a physicist, to be sure, because it is a determinate body of knowledge. It doesn't take a pianist to know a good pianist, even if a pianist might have some advantages when it comes to making such judgements. Whether someone is a good pianist or not (apart from the sheer manual dexterity and fluency is a matter of opinion. I see no reason, and you have not offered any, to think that judgements as to whether someone is enlightened are not akin to aesthetic judgements, that is they are not matters amenable to precise determination, like judging one's knowledge of physics

:up:

I think Aristotle's notion of happiness as eudamonia, commonly translated as "flourishing" is tied to the idea of 'arete' or excellence. We flourish to the degree that we actualize our potential, We cannot do this if we are enslaved by thoughts about our socioeconomic status. Flourishing does not consist in being famous, even if a flourishing individual may be famous, that would be incidental to their flourishing..

This is a gross generalization. People are diverse, and it seems absurd to me to suggest that one's spiritual aspirations are necessarily dependent on one's belief in rebirth. You have no warrant for such a generalization since the number of spiritual aspirants you could possibly know well would still be a tiny percentage of the total.

On the Buddhist understanding of rebirth, from a purely egotistical viewpoint how could the conditions a future life enjoys or suffers, since it is not me, possibly matter to me? If I have already overcome the egoic orientation to a degree that would allow it to matter, then the belief would be irrelevant, because if all I was concerned with was how my actions might affect the conditions that future beings find themselves in, then I could reasonably be more concerned with my actions and their effects on people in this present everyday life.

And yet people have been doing it for millennia. — baker

All we know is that they thought they were doing it; no guarantee that they were correct in thinking that.

In order to meaningfully observe the LHC and understand how it works, one has to have the according education. Without such education, the LHC does't make sense (or makes sense only indirectly/vicariously, via the faith that one has that scientists are doing meaningful things and not magic). — baker

Yes, but whether or not someone understands the workings of the LHC is itself completely determinable; whereas whether or not someone is enlightened is not. If we think of enlightenment as a matter of a certain lived disposition then it would be determinable in terms of their behavior, just as the greatness of a pianist can be manifest in her playing. (and even this much is not precisely determinable, as the understanding of the workings of the LHC would be).

If we take enlightenment to involve the possession of some special, propositional knowledge then it is impossible to determine if someone has it.That's why I say it is like an art, not like a science.

I think you have a perverse notion of happiness. Anyone who equates socioeconomic status with happiness is a slave to conditions; and that cannot be what happiness consists in.

If knowledge (correctly used) is defeasible, then it can't also be 'true' (where 'true is used to denote some property other than simply 'well justified' - I'm not yet clear what that property is meant to be). People are then (apparently) constantly using 'knowledge; incorrectly. — Isaac

Right I misspoke, knowledge itself, if it is justified true belief is not understood to be defeasible. Our taking some proposition to be knowledge is what is defeasible. This is the distinction you seem to keep missing.

You can tell what Terry Pratchett referred to as 'lies to children' about the content of saccades in terms of propositions, though. EG, someone might 'look at a chin to provide more information about the orientation of a face', but there's no conscious event of belief or statement associated with what the saccade's doing at the time, the speech act which associates the propositional content with the saccade is retrospective. — fdrake

Right, so to say that saccades are driven by beliefs seems to stretch the meaning of the term too far. See below, as to why I think it would be more apt to speak of saccades in terms of expectation or anticipation.

What do you see as the difference between the two? — Isaac

I think of beliefs as being more obstinate than expectations. For example say I always put my keys in a particular place; then I 'automatically' expect them to be there even though I know that sometimes I fail to put them there. On the other hand if asked whether I believe they are there I might say 'no' because I acknowledge I might have put them somewhere else, someone might have moved them, and so on.

For contrast, if someone asked me whether my fridge is where it usually is in the kitchen, I would not merely expect it to be there but I would positively believe it to be there, even though I know there is a very tiny chance that it's not.

I haven't done it; just thought about it.