In the 1980's the tension in Australia was always education understood as a blunt tool to get you a job - well paid or otherwise. Education at some point ditched history and context and became obsessed with vocational outcomes rather than wisdom or preparation for an adult civic life.

Speculatively, as a pandeist ... — 180 Proof

Intriguing speculations, 180.

This is interesting -

...this is the basis of pandeism: the deity annihilates itself by becoming the universe in order to experience not being the deity.

So many humans try to be as gods, while the deity itself pursues the experience of not being a deity. Not being anything. What do you imagine were some of the attributes of this deity? Did it have anything approaching a 'personality'? Or is it more of a metaphoric entity?

I don't think this is true at all. Can you cite an example? How could theists have a "sophisticated metaphysical account of God" when God is generally considered to be unknowable? — Janus

You ask some tough ones and well done.

This comes up a lot. I think the gist of it is that unsophisticated accounts of god are the magic man in the sky who has temper tantrums and demands obedience. Pretty much the literalist Biblical account. It is philosophically unsophisticated and an easy target for the Dawkins brigade. Despite the idea's great power across the globe, many theists are ashamed of this god and ridicule atheism for even addressing it.

A sophisticated account of god seems to lend itself to a greater mystery, more in line with perennialism and associated traditions which hold that all created beings participate in and derive their being from the ultimate Being of God. God as the source and ground of all existence, the "Absolute" or "Ultimate" Being from which everything else derives its existence.

And so from theological thinker and philosopher David Bentley Hart we get this:

The soul’s unquenchable eros for the divine, of which Plotinus and Gregory of Nyssa and countless Christian contemplatives speak, Sufism’s ‘ishq or passionately adherent love for God, Jewish mysticism’s devekut, Hinduism’s bhakti, Sikhism’s pyaar—these are all names for the acute manifestation of a love that, in a more chronic and subtle form, underlies all knowledge, all openness of the mind to the truth of things. This is because, in God, the fullness of being is also a perfect act of infinite consciousness that, wholly possessing the truth of being in itself, forever finds its consummation in boundless delight. The Father knows his own essence perfectly in the mirror of the Logos and rejoices in the Spirit who is the “bond of love” or “bond of glory” in which divine being and divine consciousness are perfectly joined. God’s wujud is also his wijdan—his infinite being is infinite consciousness—in the unity of his wajd, the bliss of perfect enjoyment.

Neither of the two provide any explanatory power as I see it. The latter is more baroque and fun and I guess would align itself with philosophical traditions of idealism and a robust critique of naturalism.

Hence this from Hart (again).

The very notion of nature as a closed system entirely sufficient to itself is plainly one that cannot be verified, deductively or empirically, from within the system of nature. It is a metaphysical (which is to say “extra-natural”) conclusion regarding the whole of reality, which neither reason nor experience legitimately warrants.”

Has any more sophisticated writing about god like this ever resonated with you?

Paul Hogan is 84. I remember when he was just a pedestrian TV comedian, before he sold out with that pedestrian mega hit, Crocodile Dundee.

Thanks. I'm sure we agree on a lot of things. But I am far from certain where I stand on much of this material. I'm just pointing out one dimension of what seems to be at play. I think I may be ambivalent about a range of matters. :wink:

I admire your old school confidence. I can only imagine it stems from your presuppositions which seem to privilege notions of transcendence and civilized discourse. As a reluctant nihilist and someone with little confidence in reason's traction, I am less sanguine.

I do agree that ethics is a particularly thorny issue, but it's also a particularly important one. It doesn't need to be a particularly thorny issue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, I guess we could equally say that nothing needs to be a thorny issue, whether it be health care or fire arms policy. But it is.

Of course, not everyone will agree, but that hardly seems like a problem. Not everyone agrees that the Earth isn't flat, or that vaccines work, yet that is rightly not a determinant factor in what gets taught. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure how you can say it is hardly a problem. We fail to agree over the fundamental building blocks of civilization itself, forget the flat Earth or vaccine debates - they are symptoms of a bigger issue, aren't they? In increasingly diverse and polarized societies, if there is no shared mainstream narrative, chaos or internecine tribalism would seem to be a consequence. Is it any wonder that some people are calling for a return to religion or Christian values as a kind of nostalgia project, harking back to a perceived golden era?

Plato's being ruled over by the rational part of the soul seems like a virtue that could have wide support. I don't see much of Aristotle's virtues raising too many hackles either. But you tend to only get these in pre-school, even though their application in the real world is quite complex. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, you're right - it is their application in the real world where the trouble begins - what books can we read? What is the role of women in society? Is taxation a builder of civilization or theft? Is race a problem for Western culture? Should trans rights be supported? Whose books should we read? And on it goes as the culture war drags on.

numerous members of this forum hate Spain, Portugal and England equally, and they think Western civilisation is the worst, our countries suck and we are bloody genociders, etc. But you know what is the biggest irony? None of them would go and live in Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Kenya, Angola etc. Most of the people who are against us, live and will live in the West side of the world. — javi2541997

I'm not sure which members you are thinking of. But I do agree that these days there is significant self-loathing in the West - we are often self-described as patriarchal, misogynist, war mongering, colonizing fascists and I can see why some people embrace 'strong men' and forms of nationalism, just to escape to a place of certainty and confidence, no matter how bogus.

And then moral education is completely absent. There is a lot on following rules and consequences, but I recall virtually nothing on "what is truly good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I kind of agree, but how would you teach 'the good' in a world where there is no agreement on what the good is or if it is anything more than perspectival. Education would seem to be lot easier in a culture where pluralism and diversity don't exist.

Not quite on topic but if there is an afterlife, I hope it is marginally less tedious than ordinary life, with its multitude of dreadful rituals and sufferings, from toilet breaks, headaches,

It seems to me that being involves tedium and ritual, from eating to pissing. And almost everything that makes us human from the mundane to the delightful would seem to be missing or unnecessary in any afterlife I can imagine - headaches, walking to the shop to buy milk, stroking the cat, drinking a strong coffee, shaving, sleeping, cross country skiing, the smell of wet grass after the rain, Mahler's Second Symphony, trimming finger nails, movies, books, eBay...

What would it mean to be without being? What would we do without all the physicalisms that make up human identity? How would our consciousness, with is shaped by being embodied, adjust to a new nonphysical realm, I wonder? Is the afterlife non-physical or is it just physical somewhere else?

This doesn't answer the question in the OP; and isn't necessarily true. — Bob Ross

Not sure which of my comments you are responding to.

I think school's greatest contribution is probably socialization and development of 'people skills'. Learning how to deal with differences and to communicate and cooperate. Many of us no longer seem to know how to interact with others. I learned a fair bit at school, much of which I remember, but I also know that I was just as busy cutting class, smoking and getting into trouble. I wish I had paid more attention in math and science, but I found those subjects insufferably dull. I have no idea what is taught at schools today - many of us are not in the USA. Seems to me that history, politics and critical thinking remain important. How to teach those in an environment of tribalism would be challenging.

But it’s a lot more slippery when it comes to moral judgements and ethical decisions, as the criteria are not necessarily objective (I say not necessarily, because if those judgements and decisions cause harm or calamity, those are objective consequences.) But it’s possible to skate through life being wrong about any number of such things, and if there is no karma-upance in a future existence, then - so what? — Wayfarer

I tend to agree.

what phenomena requires us to posit God's existence to explain? — Bob Ross

An atheist is always going to say 'no' to any given phenomenon, from the question of being to why there's something rather than nothing.

I think more sophisticated theology will sometimes look a lot like pantheism or even atheism to some. Bentley Hart is a Greek Orthodox Christian and academic who is strongly influence by the Patristic Tradition.

I have a lot of respect for that thought process - where most people just accept those biases they inheret, *not everyone does*. — flannel jesus

Having come from a family of apostates I am well familiar with this phenomenon. But I still think that when people leave religions, it is just as likely because religions fails to satisfy them emotionally first. I think the reasoning comes post hoc. My Dad, who left the church in 1937, put it like this - 'I wasn't satisfied by any of the stories anymore. Then I looked into the arguments and found I wasn't the only one. Then I left.'

There are arguments against naturalism from perspectives other than the theistic. But from a theistic perspective the problem with this argument is that it makes of God one being among others, an explanatory catch-all that is invoked to account for purported gaps in naturalism. In other words, it starts with a naturalist conception of God which is erroneous in principle. Quite why that is then turns out to be impossible to explain, because any argument is viewed through that perspective, for example by the demand for empirical evidence for the transcendent. I think the proper theist response is not to try prove that God is something that exists, but is the ground or cause of anything that exists. That is not an empirical argument. — Wayfarer

Nicely put. I think that's a fair response to the argument from a more sophisticated theistic perspective. David Bentley Hart explores this in his essay, 'God, Gods and Fairies'.

To speak of “God” properly—in a way, that is, consonant with the teachings of orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Bahá’í, much of antique paganism, and so forth—is to speak of the one infinite ground of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things.

God so understood is neither some particular thing posed over against the created universe, in addition to it, nor is he the universe itself. He is not a being, at least not in the way that a tree, a clock, or a god is; he is not one more object in the inventory of things that are. He is the infinite wellspring of all that is, in whom all things live and move and have their being. He may be said to be “beyond being,” if by “being” one means the totality of finite things, but also may be called “being itself,” in that he is the inexhaustible source of all reality, the absolute upon which the contingent is always utterly dependent, the unity underlying all things.

Imagine a person who values truth, logic and reason. Imagine this person believes the best way to have true beliefs is by applying logic and reason to the things that he may read, hear, see or otherwise experience. — flannel jesus

Most people self-describe in this way. I was just talking to a man who said precisely this and that this is why is is a Muslim. Reason demonstrates the Koran is true. Which is obviously not the case.

Now imagine, unbeknownst to this person, that he's actually *bad* at applying reason and logic to things. Perhaps this person has a really poor intuition for logic. — flannel jesus

I suspect most of us are bad at this. We have 'reasons' for everything but I'm not sure how rational our thinking is.

And then, suppose he does come to understand that he's bad at reasoning - what then? If he still cares about the truth, but he has come to accept that his tools for discovering or filtering truths are compromised, what should he do? — flannel jesus

I'm not sure many of us are overly concerned about truth. In relation to what? Speaking personally, I navigate my world through intuition and experince rather than logic. There are a few subjects where I will employ reasoning per say, but generally this comes post hoc if I am pushed. We are emotional creatures who inherit most of our beliefs and capacities from the culture we are reared in. Post hoc justification is a wonderful thing.

Remember the gospels are anonymous accounts, written many years, in some cases many decades after the supposed events. Most reputable biblical scholars today would say that the stories in the NT were likely inspired by someone, perhaps more than one person. Myths are often inspired by actual people.

Of course, there is no shortage of similar miracle stories even today. Sathya Sai Baba (who died in 2011) to name one, healed the sick (cured cancer, etc) raised the dead, he materialized gold and jewelry for followers. Indeed some followers even now are awaiting his resurrection. You can talk to scores, thousands of first hand eyewitnesses to Sai Baba’s miracles.

I understand there are no contemporary extrabiblical eyewitness accounts of Jesus. Some writers like Josephus writing 60 years later, references the belief and it's origins story. This is not evidence of Jesus himself or any events described. There is also scholarship to say the Jesus reference in Josephus was put in later by others.

Whether people were willing to be martyred for their beliefs (and many of these stories are unlikely to be true) is irrelevant to the truth of those beliefs. Suicide bombers and martyrs to religious or political causes are not uncommon. Hinduism. Buddhism and Islam all have martyrs. So? People do astonishing things for belief, whether true or not. Note also that the early church probably fabricated martyr stories. Candida Moss, a Christian scholar, writes about this in The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom

CS Lewis said that the options one had for one's conception of Jesus were "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord". I believe there is a 4th option, which I have described here. It is "Misunderstood." — Brendan Golledge

Most people I have heard address Lewis go with ‘Myth’ as the fourth option. Given we know virtually nothing about whoever the real person behind the Jesus stories might have been, we can't claim to know enough to offer liar, lunatic or lord. I do think myth covers off on this one pretty well.

Would you still take the pill when you're together? — Vera Mont

Yes, we often joke about what a drag having to rustle up a lunch is. I can see us popping a pill in the car together then going about our business without the need to disrupt our activities with a sit down meal. Wonderful.

How about family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or social events, like weddings and charity fund-raisers? Or just plain dinner parties with friends and colleagues? So many human bonding rituals are centered on the sharing of food. — Vera Mont

Well, I am a little different to some people. I don't generally attend parties or dinners. Last dinner party I went to took place years ago. But I do sometimes go out to a restaurant with a friend. I have already written that I would reserve eating for the occasional 'recreational' meal. So if I wanted to celebrate something with good food, I would happily eat then.

Medication is necessary, but I don't think we could make a daily occasion of taking a pill together. — Vera Mont

I don't generally eat meals with others as it happens. My partner and I maintain separate homes - I could never live with someone. Fortunately she feels the same and it has worked for many years. We eat together 2 or 3 times a week.

the formative forces of art (which he distinguishes as Apollonian and Dionysian) are the same forces that form the reality of the existence in which each and everyone of us lives each and every waking (and dreaming) minute of our lives. — Arne

I wouldn't disagree. I think everything humans do probably comes from the same source and impulses.

"The person of artistic sensibility stands in relation to these formative forces and the reality of art
as does the person of philosophic sensibility to these formative forces and the reality of
existence."

Where does this 28 year old professor of philology get off telling the rest of the world about the reality of art AND the reality of existence? And in such an unequivocal way? — Arne

Who knows? What does the quote mean? I have no poetic imagination , so prose like this is just grey sludge to me.

I am not a big fan of eating. I eat a couple of meals a day and sometimes just one. I enjoy 'recreational' meals but mostly eating is drudgery for me. If I could just take a pill I would love that. I told my mum this about 30 years ago. She laughed and told me that my grandfather had made the same point 30 years earlier.

Yes, I have read and heard a lot about N and tried to read several of his works (Kaufmann's mainly) - including Zarathustra, Human All to Human, On the Genealogy of Morality, Beyond Good and Evil. I just can't do it. Possessing an abbreviated attention span, I find philosophy pretty hideous reading no matter who the writer. So I take full responsibility.

There is a significant difference between saying my understanding of Nietzsche is X and saying I understand Nietzsche. — Arne

A reading of him. Yep, ok.

What is it intrinsically about making a claim of understanding Nietzsche that you take issue with? Also, are they all necessarily liars? Or are some merely mistaken?

And when anyone claims to "understand" Nietzsche, I try not to make eye contact and slowly walk away. — Arne

That's an interesting comment. Can you say some more?

Perhaps one can say of many of Nietzsche’s followers as well as of his more shrill detractors that they are gauche and insufferable in their inability to read him well. — Joshs

Could well be. It's unknown to me since I have no reading of Nietzsche. :wink: I suspect he's probably very interesting if you can get through him, which I can't.

Thanks. Yes, some Nietzscheans can be gauche and insufferable.

Nietzsche is not much to my taste, why do you dislike him?

Keeping it to themselves could be seen as permitting ignorance, propaganda and delusion to wreak havoc on the world when one clearly knows better. — Benj96

Sure, but my hypothesis is what if their omniscience allows them to see that people are not ready for knowledge and that if it were made available, much suffering and chaos would result. Sometimes the the truth is better left unsaid. Remember Sophocles - "Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise! :wink:

It seems interesting to me (at least superficially) that some people seem to participate in philosophy primarily to understand the history of philosophical ideas over time (sometimes lingering in the classical, analytic or continental pools), while others see philosophy as an aid to personal development and critical thinking. The approaches seem quite different and seem to address different personality styles and needs. Thoughts?

I suspect the Omni would keep their powers to themselves. They would know precisely the reactions of the human killer ape.

CBT, regularly used as I understand it to treat trauma and with some success it appears, is based in large part of Stoicism. So, I wondered what was meant when it was claimed Stoicism fails to by "address trauma." — Ciceronianus

Yes, I have worked in the trauma space for many years - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was developed as a way to assist people with their responses to trauma and particularly to manage their behavioral reactions (what some like to call their triggers). It seems to work well. Albert Ellis, a seminal figure in this area, drew from Stoicism especially Epictetus.

his embrace of Marx's view of the ideal and the real as invention rather than as discovery. — Paine

Ok. I can see that.

To do your questions justice Tom, would require a book length response. — Rob J Kennedy

Sure, that goes for most things here. :wink:

I'm still not sure why existentialism not, say, Stoicism (which might be of similar use). Or other more accessible schools of philosophy.

When I read existentialism back in the 1980's, for me it felt more grounded and practical and focused on real world behaviors. If philosophy seems overwhelmingly theoretical and abstract, existentialism seems like a good way in. When Sartre writes, 'We are our choices" to me it seemed an immediate and vivid account of what it can mean to be human. Of course attempting to read Being and Nothingness, I got bogged down in the phenomenology and psychoanalysis which seemed incomprehensible and stultifying. Sartre seems to oppose the idea of an unconscious which is fixed and drives our behaviors (our histories and experiences) and posits a kind of total freedom which I find unlikely. Thoughts?

The freedom of the individual to exchange his commodity labour-power on the market requires his individual freedom. In this respect, the concept of freedom is directly linked to the capitalist mode of production.
 
 Now one may ask what is wrong with that. — Wolfgang

Plenty of people have thought there was something wrong with this ( with very limited freedom present) hence unions and progressive parties and reformers in most capitalist lands.

I’d say the dominant value in the west is probably neoliberalism and as for values like rights and inclusion, etc aren’t these often just for decoration? They are the stories we tell ourselves. Isn’t hypocrisy and conflict what lubricates culture?

How do you tell the difference between theoretical values and what happens in practice?

I'm struggling to get around to it, being in a perpetual backlog of things I ought to read. — Wayfarer

I hear you. I've been watching Braver on youtube but I work 50 plus hours a week, so I really don't have it in me to read anything except for the labels on shampoo bottles.

A couple of questions for you, if you don't mind? What would you say is the difference between someone who is influenced by existentialism and someone who is an existentialist? What is it about the approach that appeals to you - is it solving or managing any particular concerns you've had?

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger are two of the most important—and two of the most difficult—philosophers of the twentieth century, indelibly influencing the course of continental and analytic philosophy, respectively. In Groundless Grounds, Lee Braver argues that the views of both thinkers emerge from a fundamental attempt to create a philosophy that has dispensed with everything transcendent so that we may be satisfied with the human.

As you might guess, given the content of my posts, I tend to recoil from the very idea. — Wayfarer

I saw that review or article. If that is in fact what their project involves (and perhaps the wording is wonky). My quesion is what exactly does 'dispensed with everything transcendent' mean? Do they mean this is the sense that their ontology makes transcendence inaccessible or incoherent? It's one thing to bracket something away, it's another to say it is meaningless. I'd love a bit more on this.