I’m not sure it is ethical to lie for my boss, or any other person above me in any hierarchy. — NOS4A2

It depends on how much you want to keep your job ...

What the hell has economic status got to do with how you treat people? — I like sushi

Socioeconomic status.

Pretty much everything. The class war is the only real war around.

The hatred that religions have often showed for other religions is one of the best arguments against religion. — Wayfarer

I think this hatred is an argument against comparative religion.

Why do you think it's an argument against religion?

As I said at the outset, when I embarked on that course of study, my quest revolved around 'what is enlightenment?' (Years later that would become a magazine title published by a turn-of-the-centuy bogus guru.) But I still think it's a valid and legitimate question.

The kind of cross cultural study of religion that comparative religion offers provides plenty of insights into that.

How does it do that, can you elaborate?

Every religion that has a notion of 'enlightenment' has its own ideas about what it is, how to achieve it, and how relevant it is.

It's not clear whether the idea is justified that enlightenment is somehow an objective phenomenon, quite independent of religions, and that different religions just have different takes on it.

I didn’t say you said anything about sacrificing truth, but you are willing to knowingly utter a falsity to preserve someone’s feelings, with little consideration to the feelings of others who identify as the opposite. I just think that behavior is less than ethical, more of a ploy to avoid confrontation than anything else. — NOS4A2

If the trans person is your superior at work, you must refer to them in whatever way they want to, and this has nothing to do with the trans issue per se, but with workplace hierarchy. Similar for other workplace policies.

It's only when the trans person is your socioeconomic equal that the trans issue comes up.

Perhaps not so useless; after all, it is not something to be measured by how it looks in the dress, the posture and behavior, and so on. — Constance

You're describing the experience of zoning out. It can certainly be pleasant enough, it can seem profound. But I question its value in relation to suffering.

Well, the broader context is philosophy's world: pull away from mundane affairs and ask more fundamental questions, like what does it mean to know something, not about the weather of if the couch is comfortable, but anything at all. But when you arrive here, you face indeterminacy, which is a term I lifted from others to use place of metaphysics. — Constance

I have always understood religion to include epistemology, and other philosophical disciplines.
Granted, some religions are more explicit about this than others.

In regard to this, I've had strange experiences with some religious people. For example, when I asked a Christian what the self was, he told me that this was the field of psychology, not religion. He preached eternal damnation to outsiders of his religion, yet he thought it is psychology that decides what exactly it is that burns in hell forever. Bizarre!

When you face indeterminacy at the foundation of all of our affairs, you are where religion begins, and where philosophy should be. The former is fiction, largely, the latter analysis.

Not sure I know what you mean here.
For the religious, there seems to be no such indeterminacy.

Do you know that god exists, or do you believe that god exists? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Neither. But simply for the sake of precision, I cannot just exclude the possibility that god exists.

So what? You're not allowed to have an interest in the subject unless you're a 'religious person'? Who get to decide that? — Wayfarer

It"s not clear how you get to that from what I said ...

My point is that comparative religion offers concepts that are alien to actual religions, concepts that are artificial impositions on actual religions.

For example, the idea that all religions are essentially about the same things, the same desire for the sacred. In contrast, religions typically take a dim view of eachother.

I know what they do and how they think. Philosophy's job, as I see it, is to take this, and give a reflective analysis. What is going on when we pull away from the participation, and see it in a broader context? — Constance

The moment we 'pull away from the participation', we stop being religious.

What use is the 'broader context' to a religious person?

The point of that study was, as the quoted section says, to understand the common themes in different religious traditions, through a number of perspectives. It was as near as you can get to a kind of scientific study of the subject. I found the anthropological and sociological perspectives particularly interesting. — Wayfarer

But what when no actual religious person believes those things? Comparative religion tends to offer concepts that are alien to actual practitioners. Religious people normally don't seem to have a metareligious or suprareligious view of their religion.

@schopenhauer1

I actually envy the antinatalists. They seem like really tough folks, or relatively well off socioeconomically, or both.

I'm down with a back injury. I haven't properly slept in days because of the pain. In a state like this, to think how meaningless existence is requires more stamina than I have.

Yes, it can look like this. It can also look like my uncle Raymond who has a phd in geology. Do better! — Constance

I'm refering to the uselessness of self-mortification practices.

Let's wait till we know god exists before we start calling things 'divine'. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You seem to think other people are as much in the dark about god as you. That's bold.

I hope your back pain abates, if it’s any comfort, I’ve had that occur twice in my life, both times it was excruciating but it passed after a day. — Wayfarer

Good for you. I'm not so lucky.

@schopenhauer1

How much misery can a person take ...

So, given the prevailing antinatalist view that simply BEING currently increases suffering, what is it that prevents us from increasing awareness of our potential to BE different, in a way that potentially reduces suffering? — Possibility

The conviction that merely reducing suffering is not enough.

The Nazi scenario is not 'grossly unrealistic' - it happened to my grandparents in World War Two - German troops regularly went door to door asking locals if they had any information about Jews and/or resistance people in hiding. My grandmother also happened to be hiding people in her basement. — Tom Storm

And the Nazi soldiers just took her word for gold?

This is what is so unrralistic about this scenario: that the soldiers would just belive people.

But this scenario applies to anyone who is asking you provide an answer to a question the true answer of which which could result in someone's harm. It's a simple way to dramatise the flaws in deontological approaches. Another good example would be a violent male asking if anyone knows the new address of his ex-partner who has fled his attacks. This comes up in my work a lot.

You are still letting the other person dictate the terms.

You could say any number of things in reply, or nothing at all, and they could all be true, and still not divulge sensitive information. You just need to be creative. Probably your granparents were.

The cure for all existential doubt and for all the distress that might befall the philosophically oriented is to not be philosophical, but to be superficial. That is, ignorance is bliss. So, if you wish to cure your wandering and confusion by refusing to look behind the fact that the goal you're pursuing actually has no meaning, I guess you could temporarily deceive yourself into thinking you had real purpose and that would get you through the day. — Hanover

Relative socioeconomic wellbeing shouldn't be underestimated. Not as a goal, nor in its consequences for the person's metaphysical outlook. It seems such people actually are happy.

Talk about rigidity.
The point is not to lie. You seem to think the point is to have the conversation on the other person's terms.
— baker

No, I'm pointing to the fact that truth telling can kill people. If we ignore potential consequences we are a fools. — Tom Storm

No. When it comes to people deliberately killing people, this is because the killer had the means the motive, and the opportunity to do so.

The Nazi scenario is emotionally loaded, but grossly unrealistic. If you think a Nazi patrol looking for hidden Jews would simply take a person's word for gold, and move on after a No ..

Theological fatalism is the view that we cannot make any free choices because God already knows what we are going to do. — SwampMan

You seem to think that your choice can only be free if nobody else knows about it.
But why?
As long as their knowledge of your choice doesn't interfere with it, where is the problem?

The origin of humor is existential complacency.

This is a philosophy forum, it is not a theology forum. I've tried joining a couple of comparative religion forums, they were a real mishmash. The thread topic is about the 'concept of religion' which I think is a valid topic and I'm attempting to address from the viewpoint of comparative religion. — Wayfarer

What is the aim and purpose of comparative religion?

Only much later in life did I begin to realise that what I was considering 'enlightenment' and what goes under the heading of 'religion' might have something in common. And that was because, when I started trying to practice meditation in order to arrive at the putative 'spiritual experience' sans artificial stimulants, mostly what I experienced was pain, boredom and ennui. So I gradually came to realise that this 'enlightenment' I had been seeking was not likely to be a permanent state of 'peak experience' after all, that, if there is such a thing as religious ecstacy, that it is a very elusive state indeed.)

That's because you didn't start off with purification of bodily actions, and purification of verbal actions. Those are an absolute necessity, without them, "meditation" cannot bear noble fruit.



* * *

I have to go now. I threw my back out the other day. I'm in so much pain I can't sit upright anymore.

So religious doctrine with regard to morality is to act as a past record of what people had found out about it.

Now. Why do we need a past record of what people had found out about it? Why not a current one? There are more people alive now than have ever been, so more people now should be directly in touch with god than have ever been.

Keeping a past record seems little more than archiving. If we want to know what's moral according to divine rule we'd be statistically better off consulting the current crop of religious cults than the written record of the previous crop. — Isaac

That would be religious moral historicism. But that's not the point of religious doctrine. Religious doctrines tend to claim to be "timeless", "not bound by time", "for all times" (also for all places).
The point of refering to religious doctrine as a source or justification of morality is that only religious doctrine has the potential to provide the metaphyiscal framework needed for an action to be judged as moral or otherwise.

The point is there are more people alive now than have ever been. So if some small portion of humanity are open to enlightenment or divine revelation, then what those people are saying about morality right now is a better guide than what a far smaller group said about it in the past.

In other words, why are you privileging ancient people's access to god (which they then wrote down) over modern people's access to god. — Isaac

There's thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs right now. You (or Wayfarer) may not personally like what any of them have to say, but that doesn't make it hard to see how morality from divine revelation could work without religious doctrine. On the contrary, it's easy to see how, we just need to ask one of thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs we have with us right now what's morally right and what's immoral. — Isaac

And when we compare those new accounts to the more traditional, older ones, we find the newer ones usually wanting.

But for this comparison to make sense, one actually has to study both the old and the new. If you, for example, study the Pali suttas on the one hand, and what some modern mainstream Buddhist teachers are saying on the other, it's clear as day that the latter are inferior. The difference is as evident as the one between hot pizza and cold pizza. But to see that difference, you just need to do the homework yourself, summaries done by other people don't work.

Fear not, I breathe. It is not as radical as it sounds. But you are invited to wonder what the experience is about. — Constance

There is "living in" without pause or question,

then there is stepping away into a broader context, and giving an account. — Constance

That's what religiologists, culturologists, and the like do. Not what religious people do.

My point isn't what you think it is. It is about lying. Kant says you don't lie to anyone just to achieve a consequentialist greater good. Maybe I should have said Kant would recommend you tell the Russian troops where the Ukrainian women are hiding because lying is wrong. — Tom Storm

Talk about rigidity.
The point is not to lie. You seem to think the point is to have the conversation on the other person's terms.

The same way a theist demonstrates the existence of his diety. He doesn't. Such is a foundational faith statement, from which all sorts of conclusions derive.

I'd submit without that faith foundation, nihilism and amoralism results.

You've got to have faith in something I suppose. — Hanover

Not necessarily faith, but a goal (although, arguably, this can involve faith). By pursuing a goal, nihilism and amoralism are not options anymore. Because by pursuing a goal, a person's actions are directed toward that goal, meaning that the wandering, confusion, inconsistency etc. associated with nihilism and amoralism are eliminated or at least minimized.

I objected to your saying

Not knowing what is morally demanded of us is something that causes most moral creatures occasional distress, and we do resort to others and our own reflections to try to figure it out, meaning we must be accepting there is some objective standard for what that moral reality is. — Hanover

because it goes too far.

It remains that the choice of creed is yours. It remains that you cannot just dump your moral responsibility on to god /.../

Your systems have a gapping hole in them. — Banno

Again, it remains that you have to choose your creed. Unless you rely on your creed to decide your creed for you... — Banno

Only for the desperate prospective adult convert.

Don't forget that most religious people didn't choose their religion, but were born and raised into it. It's become part of their sense of self, part of their sense of right and wrong by default. They internalized it before their ability to think criticially has developed. Your above objection does not apply to these people.

It only applies to the undecided, the "seekers", who are a minority, and in reference to religion, an aberration. So they're not a relevant population as far as religion goes. Even if they are the ones who experience the moral and other doubts most intensely.

Existentialists would say that accepting a creed as one's moral guide is an act of bad faith.

Faith as bad faith. Go figure. — Banno

Find an existentialist who
1. has not renounced his existentialism or otherwise moved away from it,
2. has not died by all acounts prematurely (so that the point of how long they would stick to their existentialism is moot).

Because if the past record of existentialists is anything to go by, they either ditched it eventually, or died relatively young.

Not knowing what is morally demanded of us is something that causes most moral creatures occasional distress, and we do resort to others and our own reflections to try to figure it out, meaning we must be accepting there is some objective standard for what that moral reality is. — Hanover

This goes too far.

By relying on others to clarify moral questions, we're only assuming that someone else might know better than we do, or, at most, that someone else knows better than we do.


I propose that the idea of objective morality has to do with
1. confusing power for authority,
or
2. a justification of particular actions that is intended to protect one's tribe or one's ego.

In short, the concept of objective morality has the function of one person or group of persons having or presuming to have power over other people.

How is "This moral view is objectively right" different to "this moral view is right"? What does "objectively" add? — Banno

It introduces the dichotomy objective vs. merely personal/subjective.

"You may think you look good in that dress, but you're not being objective."

Ahhh. But what is hypoxia? It is not a deficit of oxygen outside of the physiologist's lexicon. And there IS an outside of this. — Constance

I strongly urge you to stop experimenting with oxygen deprivation.
The only things that do "fall away" in oxygen deprivation practice are your cells and tissues, specifically, your brain cells. It's an ascetic practice that doesn't lead to any noble attainment.

Again, I strongly urge you to stop experimenting with oxygen deprivation.

How would I know? — Tom Storm

I assume that people are goal-driven, purpose-driven beings, and that therefore, they know why they do things, esp. when those things require concerted effort and resources. The way "taking on greater philosophical nuances and self-reflection" and "enlarging one's perspectives" require concerted effort and resources.
I assume, you, too, are goal-driven, purpose-driven as well.

Whys, as any child soon learns ends up in an infinite regression of answers followed by more whys.
/.../
It's whys all the way down.

Only for a child. The wise person knows how to think properly, thinks properly, and thus makes an end to aimless, useless thinking.

[

I'm trying to counteract your dominance and your externalizing, etic approach.
— baker
...as am I. — Banno

No, you're not. You insist on the external, on the perspective of an external, uninterested observer.
You're like someone trying to discern the taste of the proverbial pudding 1. without tasting it, and 2. by dimissing the accounts of those who claim to have tasted it.

Moreover, you appear to deny that the distinction between the emic and the etic approach even exists, or at least that it is not relevant.

(I've noted before that you're a semantic atomist, or at most, a semantic molecularist.)

That's the point of following through on the search for a "stipulated anchor". I do not think that such a thing can be found.

Neither do I think such an anchor exists. But this is not because "religions" would have nothing in common, or because a term doesn't have an essence, but because the term"religion" is often used as a product of secular religiology that has its own needs, interests, and concerns, while other times, it is used in a specific intrareligious context.

I don't think you've understood what is happening here.

It's Humpty Dumpty land.

It is the ultimate control, watching air hunger rise, then calming it down, but it insists, but there are moments when the massive energy of thought and feeling fall away. — Constance

A.k.a. hypoxia.

All this to say that one must convince oneself of one's religion; kid yourself into it, so to speak. — Banno

Only desperate prospective adult converts do so.

I'll just say if you're honestly aiming at a deeper understanding of religious notions and practices, anxiety is the key. — ZzzoneiroCosm

No, but commitment to a particular religion.

The way you're framing your "honest aiming at a deeper understanding of religious notions and practices" is already done with the assumption that religions are human constructs with which humans try to overcome existential problems, while you automatically exclude all possibility of divine revelation, quite ignoring that divine revelation is key to many religions, esp. some major ones, like Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

Is it the mistake of confusing the body of knowledge science produces with the process of uncovering that knowledge? — Banno

And with the processes of teaching and learning that knowledge.

..and then I read this:
But as you know with all serious thinkers, all ideas are presented in context.
— Constance
:wink: — Banno

Why the wink?

But religions have that dimension of the radical unknown, the metaphysics. I can think of many ways cultures take of the world and systems of thought as a utility, true, but religion is a "utility" or perhaps a complex heuristic (a provisional dealing with) that has as its object no object at all, and the constructed object, its rites and symbols, are these weird, threshold institutions that deal with this foundational position of our indeterminacy in all things. — Constance

It's not clear that actual religious people think that way about religion. They are not relativists and doubters like that.

It's Easter time. The local Catholic parish sends out a monthly newsletter to everyone living here, including the non-Catholics. "This is the time of celebration, of the victory of life over death", "Christ has risen", and so on reads the newsletter.

To suggest that the people who wrote this newsletter believe that they are dealing with something merely constructed about the radical unknown???