People become so overwhelmed by problems and the fashionable "everything's fucked' thinking that they are oblivious to what's actually better. But I understand that people see things differently. That's part of the fun of being a human being.

Who cares that cars are better when all cars do is make us slower, tired, and ravage nature? — Martijn

Well, I do care, they are safer, more reliable and less polluting. But I don't own a car. I have access to good public transport now, whereas 60 years ago there was none in many areas I can now travel in comfort. Another improvement.

Human progress is a delusion. — Martijn

The word progress is obviously a context-dependent, imprecise term, it refers to improvement, but not to some kind of transcendent force driving us toward a Platonic form of perfection. In my own life, I’ve seen a lot of progress, so I can’t really agree with your view. Cars are better, TVs are better, food is better, the status of women is better. Healthcare has improved, communication is faster and more accessible, education is more widespread, and social attitudes toward things like race, gender, and mental health have become more inclusive and informed. I would rather be alive today than 85 years ago or 200 years ago. My dad, who died a few years ago near the age of 100, said that the greatest joy he had experienced was the progress he'd witnessed - despite the wars, pollution, political and corporate corruption.

I agree there is something there, yes. What is" the move to reduce God to its defensible core" all about, do you think? What defensible core? — Astrophel

I'd say it is about setting aside big claims and just looking at what shows up in human experience, for instance feelings of awe, moral responsibility, love, the numinous, meaning. The “defensible core” is the part of that experience that still cuts through and remains with us even if we don’t assume God is a 'real' being. Meaning that God isn’t seen as a thing out there, but more like a deep sense of meaning that arrives through experience and gives shape to how we understand life.

:up:

My only comment is the glib observation that in my experince Marxists are less interesting than anarchists. I am not someone who believes in utopias or the perfectibility of human beings and I usually find people who see the world as a rigid expression of theory to be dull monomaniacs. But in the current world of plutocracy, I hear my Marxist voices calling.

But most of what is thought about God is a lot of medieval drivel, so that much can be dismissed summarily. The question really is about, after the reduction, the move to reduce God to its defensible core ---minus the endless omni this and that, and Christendom, and the Halls of Valhalla, and so on--- what is it that cannot not be removed because it constitutes something real in the world that religions were responding to? The imagination has been busy through the millennia, and I don't think we want to take such things seriously, regardless of how seriously they are taken by so many. It is not a consensus that that we are looking for. It is an evidential ground for acceptance, and since God is not an empirical concept but a metaphysical one, one is going to have to look elsewhere than microscopes and telescopes.

Meister Eckhart prayed to God to be rid of God. I think it begins here, with a purifying of the question (that piety of thought) so one can be rid of the presuppositions of the familiar, the way when one "thinks" of God, one is already in possession assumptions that determine inquiry. It is, as with the Buddhists and the Hindus and Meister Eckhart and Dionysius the Areopogite and other spiritualists and mystics, an apophatic method: delivering thought, well, from itself. then realizing you had all the questions wrong. Not the answers, but the questions.

And what is a question, but an openness to truth, and what is truth, but a revealing, a disclosure (not some logical function in the truth table of anglo american philosophy). The Greeks had it right with their term alethea. One has to withdraw from the clutter of implicit assumptions (Heidegger's gelassenheit. See his Conversation on a Country Path about Thinking) to ALLOW the world to be what it is so one can witness this. Otherwise, it is simply the same old tired pointless thinking, repeating itself. — Astrophel

This is extremely well written and interesting and I think I agree.

Well, the obvious answer to this is that you can't have issues with things you don't follow, right?

I'm not a philosopher, and I don't have anxieties or burning questions about truth or reality. Metaphysics doesn't particularly capture my imagination. I'm content. I've read enough (and about) Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, not to mention some Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi, to have a sense of the discourse. But I'm mainly here to understand what others believe and why. Hence my interest in more sophisticated accounts of theism.

But the instructive thing is the depth with which he (and my sister, by way of osmosis) hated Malcolm Turnbull. Far more than anyone on the actual Left, so far as I could tell. And I think Turnbull was the last actual Liberal (as distinct from Conservative) to lead the Liberal Party. — Wayfarer

Lots of conservatives hated him for his advocacy of a republic which made him anathema to Liberal tradition. And they also hated him for his popularity with Labor voters. He was too urbane and sophisticated.

I wonder how much more rain will be needed until the Nats and their supporters realise there is a climate problem. — Banno

Climate change is unlikely to have any impact upon them. Many will come to accept the position that change has come but that it is a natural cycle which humans can't influence.

See, this is where things go stupidly fuzzy. And if one is dead set on not reading anything written in Germany or France during the early to mid twentieth century, things will stay that way. — Astrophel

What makes you think fuzzy is a bad place? I don't read much philosophy, regardless of the country. But if you're advocating for continental philsophy over analytic, sure. I have no issues with this.

Isn't this a fancy way of saying that we created the idea of God to manage our anxiety?

↪Tom Storm seems to be thinking along similar lines. Thanks, Tom. I wonder who else agrees? — Banno

I come to this largely from outside philosophy, with unsystematic reading and a lot of quiet festering, so naturally I would assume my ideas are probably not fully coherent.

I guess I probably wouldn't agree with the ideas behind this, so that might be a difference. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed. And that's what this site is all about, civil disagreement. Hey, and I might be 'wrong'. Or you.

I think if one believes that the buck stops somewhere definative - god, the transcendental - then my view would seem messy and unsatisfying.

In a relativism based on anti-realism (which I'm aware no one in this thread has suggested) there is simply no fact of the matter about these criteria you've mentioned. Nothing "works better" than anything else. So, we can debate in terms of "what works," or "is good," but, per the old emotivist maxim, "this is good" just means "hoorah for this!" That seems to me to still reduce to power relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not convinced this the right take, but I agree for many it's unsatisifying.

When someone says “this is good,” it doesn’t merely mean “hoorah for this” as a purely subjective exhortation, but rather that the community endorses this judgment because it coheres with shared experiences and serves as a reliable guide in practice. When you think about it, history is full of such social practices that have eventually been accepted then superseded, often abandoned, and sometimes even regretted. My view would be that we fumble in the darkness, trying to find ways of coping together, and since most humans seek to avoid suffering, certain patterns emerge in our practices.

Are power relations involved in this? Yes, and even power relations are contingent and unfixed. They are woven into most discussions about what is real and how we should live. I think Banno is right:

And this is an excellent reason to keep a close eye on those power relations, and to foster the sort of society in which "might makes right" is counterbalanced by other voices, by compassion, humility, and fallibilism. — Banno

Maybe this is inadequate, let me know. Sometimes I think that all of this resembles the functioning of road rules. They are somewhat arbitrary, but they work if applied consistently and are understood by the community of road users. They change over time, as situations change. They are an ongoing conversation. We seek to avoid accidents and death and aim to get to places efficiently and the road rules facilitate this, but none of this means the road rules have a transcendent origin. Nor can they be explained away as subjective and therefore lacking in a comprehensive utility.

And these are true measures of usefulness, or only "useful" measures for usefulness? The problem is that this seems to head towards an infinite regress. Something is "useful" according to some "pragmatic metric," which is itself only a "good metric" for determining "usefulness" according to some other pragmatically selected metric. It has to stop somewhere, generally in power, popularity contests, tradition, or sheer "IDK, I just prefer it." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, this is a familiar criticism, and the usual response is that infinite regress is probably unavoidable since we don’t have any ultimate grounding. There is no non-circular grounding for us to cling to, try as we might. We settle, at least for a while, on what works, and over time this changes. In that sense, our version of reality or truth functions similarly to how language works; it doesn’t have a grounding outside of our shared conventions and practices.

Bear in mind that I am sympathetic to these views, but I hold them tentatively.

what we can point to is broad agreement,

So popularity makes something true? Truth is like democracy?

shared standards

Tradition makes something true?

and better or worse outcomes within a community or set of practices.

Better or worse according to who? Truly better or worse?

I hope you can see why I don't think this gets us past "everything is politics and power relations." I think Nietzsche was spot on as a diagnostician for where this sort of thing heads. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not quite. The position isn’t that truth is mere popularity, but that truth is built through ongoing conversation and agreement. What counts as true is what survives criticism, investigation, and revision within a community over time. So instead of certainty, we have a fallible and evolving consensus. Tradition, in such a context, is something that should be investigated and revised if necessary.

Humans work to create better ways to live together, but these are contingent matters. It’s still meaningful, it just isn’t definitive, permanent, or grounded in some ultimate truth. This doesn’t inevitably reduce everything to power and politics; as Rorty might argue, it can also lead us toward solidarity. The lack of a foundation doesn’t prevent us from having conversations about improvement, you might even say it invites them.

It also seems to me that even if you believe in foundationalism or some transcendent notion of the Good, there is still no universal agreement about what it actually is. So, in practice, we’re all engaged in an act of creative invention and ongoing conversation. I think everyone is in the same boat.

I’ve not pursued his work, but would you say he was one of the first in the more recent wave of anti-modernists who'd like us to return to a more enchanted world of Greek thought and classical theism?

But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Subject to certain purposes, you might say. But there aren’t facts about usefulness in the transcendent or metaphysical sense. What we can point to is broad agreement, shared standards, and better or worse outcomes within a community or set of practices. Context and intersubjectivity.

Id say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real. — J

Nicely put.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What I got from @Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist.

Beyond this, I don’t have a significant interest in the true nature of reality. I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan, but didn’t he say that truth is not about getting closer to some metaphysical reality; it’s about what vocabularies and beliefs serve us best at a given time? I'm sympathetic to this, but my interest is superficial.

As I mentioned earlier, a difficulty with social "usefulness" being the ground of truth is that usefulness is itself shaped by current power relations. It is not "useful" to contradict the Party in 1984 (the same being true in Stalin's Soviet Union or North Korea). Does this mean "Big Brother is always right,' because everyone in society has been engineered towards agreeing? Because this has become useful to affirm? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well it may well be useful for one's survival to accept that Big Brother is right, so at one level (that of ruthless pragmatism) sure. But being compelled to believe something out of fear of jail or death is a different matter altogether, isn't it?

People should be allowed to believe whatever they want, say whatever they want, and express themselves however they want. — Wolfy48

I don't have strong views on this. Americans seem really activated by discussions about freedom. I am sympathetic to some forms of censorship. I like the idea of outlawing hate speech. We can't allow people to scream out "fire!" in a crowded theatre - we know what stampedes do.

I understand the viewpoint that unrestricted freedom leads to anarchy, but how can you simultaneously argue for liberal democracy and the restriction of speech? I support non-violent expression, and I feel like suppressing those with a different viewpoint than yourself is the OPPOSITE of a liberal democracy... — Wolfy48

Liberal democracy is more than free speech, in the USA, say, it is also responsibility and:

Free and fair elections: Citizens elect representatives at local, state, and national levels.

Rule of law: Laws apply equally to all individuals, including government officials.

Separation of powers: The government is divided into executive (President), legislative (Congress), and judicial (Supreme Court) branches.

Protection of civil liberties: The Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights) protects freedoms like speech, religion, and the press.

Checks and balances: Each branch of government can limit the powers of the others to prevent abuse.

Do you believe strongly in all of these?

Asking "What is really real" supposes that there is One True Answer, rather than a whole bunch of different answers, dependent on circumstance and intent and other things. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to hold such a monolithic view. — Banno

That is a helpful frame for "what is real?'

Personally, I don’t find the question to be a useful one. I have no choice but to accept the apparent physical world I inhabit, even if physicalism is ultimately illusory. I have no confidence that meditation, drugs or other so-called higher consciousness practices can lead to anything substantively meaningful and lasting. Those who believe otherwise, I simply take to have a different disposition than my own.

But more importantly, I think it ties into a large problem in liberal, particularly Anglo-American culture, were nothing can be taken seriously and nothing can be held sacred. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If true, why does this matter? Describe the problem to me. I'm not sure I see a lack of seriousness myself, but perhaps what you mean by this is many groups no longer read or follow traditional values.

On the one hand, conservative critics bemoan the Left’s excessive seriousness, it's humorless, puritanical enforcement of political and cultural "wokeness." On the other hand, they claim the Left doesn’t believe in anything.

Part of what made Donald Trump's campaign so transgressive was the return to a focus on thymos, — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm sure one could argue any number of things about Trump's arrival that would seem to fit. Which one is true? Could it not also just be seen as a return to old school bigotries (anti modernist/anti woke) and white nationalism and a general rage that comes from several sources? That rage may well turn against Trump too, since it seems to me that politicians often just surf on community attitudes.

Today, even in politically radical circles, it seems everything must be covered in several layers of irony and unseriousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't your take informed by a bias that values traditionalism and is suspicious, perhaps even hostile towards political radicalism (particularly of the Left)? Is your use of irony as Rorty uses it? Is 'unseriousness' how they would describe it, or is that your description for it? There's a further quesion in what counts as a politically radical circle?

This tendency can also lead towards a sort of elitism, which I think Deneen explains this well using Mill: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Custom has been routed: much of what today passes for culture—with or without the adjective “popular”—consists of mocking sarcasm and irony. Late night television is the special sanctuary of this liturgy.

I dislike the smugness of late-night talk shows as much as the next conservative, not for ideological reasons, but because they often feel like the enforced moments of group hate from 1984. But does it matter? Interestingly, one of those figures, Bill Maher is now celebrated by conservatives because of his anti-woke rants. So has he become an approved dispenser of mocking sarcasm and irony—but with a heart?

Trump and co are the elite. It is a mistake to think that there is just one type of elite (not that you are arguing this). Looks like in America they've swapped one elite for another. This latest one seem less concerned about freedom, but let's not get into that can of worms. Politics is a filthy business no matter what side.

So it sounds like, from this and other posts, that you're presenting an anti-modernist position. Like many others, you seem to hold that secularism and scientism are problems and that we need to return to classical ideas and values for the sake of 'civilisation'. Perhaps you could finesse this position for me if I have misread you. I find this sort of discussion quite fascinating. And perhaps this isn't the thread.

The more pernicious sort of bigotry, to my mind, seems to be much more common in the upper classes, and tends to get practiced by people who are "accepting of religion" or even identify as from a certain faith (although it tends to be people for whom this is more of a cultural identity). In this view, religion is fine—provided it is not taken very seriously. It's ok to be a Baptist or a Catholic, so long as you're not one of those ones, the ones who take it to seriously, allowing it to expand beyond the realm of private taste. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You'd imagine this is fairly common today. Why do you find this more pernicious?

This is a sort of tolerance of faith just so long as it is rendered meaningless, a mere matter of taste, and a taste that confirms to the dominant culture. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Seems fairly benign to me if accurate, but it would be interesting to find out if this is how they saw it too. You're describing your take on it, but would they identify with this account? Or would they have interesting things to say about their privately held faith?

I would imagine that a significant percentage of self-described Christians are not particularly serious about their faith and perhaps find the social connection, community and the fact that their entire town attends a set of churches, compelling reasons to be part of it.

Second, religious beliefs are only allowed a sort of freedom from condemnation in as much as they accord with liberal norms. So, things like not ordaining female priests, viewing fornication as a form of sin (against the "Sexual Revolution"), more conservative positions on divorce (sacrament versus contract between individuals), get decried — Count Timothy von Icarus

An understandable reaction, I'd say.

quote="Count Timothy von Icarus;989335"]The problem is that, because "religious belief" has become merely a matter of "private taste," disagreements on such issues simply get written off as always a sort of bigotry. Yet, it seems to me that there is a sort of rational argument to be had re fornication, pornography, gluttony, acquisitiveness, etc. that it is not helpful to dismiss in this way.[/quote]

Generally, when I hear this kind of argument, it's framed around the idea that religions often promote outdated or 'backwards' worldviews, which some people follow dogmatically.

When it comes to bigotry, hearing Muslim men say that women are 'whores' if they're not chaperoned by male relatives, or that gay people should be jailed or killed, makes it hard to see such views as something that can be excused or explained away. Bigotry often exists on a continuum, ranging from subtle biases and stereotypes to overt hatred and violence. The latter would seem to be the most concerning.

The relgious bigotry toward atheism can be interesting too. It often involves dismissing atheism as illegitimate or lacking any meaningful foundation. The atheist is frequently characterized as morally bereft, intellectually deficient, dishonest and spiritually empty, as if disbelief in God equates to a deficiency in character or purpose - even a type of disability. This account undermines the atheist’s credibility from the outset; their views are rarely engaged with seriously, since they are presumed to rest on a fragile, incoherent worldview - one readily dismissed as a house of cards.

I don’t think the Libs are pragmatic. They seem driven by hard ideology and certain people they are in the thrall of. They need a skilful, charismatic leader and an internal ‘night of the long knives’ in order to transform. Is SL that leader? I’m skeptical. I also don’t think they care for the citizenry’s opinions- they think voters are wrong and responding to lies. Thoughts?

Scenario two: The Libs blame Dutton entirely for the disaster - after all, he's gone, and no one else wants to take any responsibility; they take the money from Rinehart, indirectly of course, and keep to the right, business as usual, reactors and all, re-form the coalition in a year or so and repeat their mistakes next election. — Banno

I think this one.

The beauty and goodness that can only be witnessed in a winged chariot through the "heaven above the heavens". This beauty [s undisputed and undebatable. — GregW

Winged chariot? I don't think any subject in philosophy is undisputed and undebatable.

Beauty and goodness are the defining attributes of beautiful and good things. — GregW

That's a circular argument. E.g., Truth is what true statements express.

If you believe that beauty is not a culturally constructed or contingent concept, then what exactly is beauty as you understand it and how do you access or recognise it?

I’m saying that they are abstractions because they are not physical things, they are ideas and there are dramatic variations in what people recognise as good or beautiful, hence for some, porn and sport. They are abstractions because they are intangible, mental constructs. You point to some instantiations like marriage. Well again, there are many people for whom marriage is a painful trap. This is a slippery, context dependent matter.

Maybe some ancient Egyptians played Rock'n'Roll already. I don't know. The thread title is just a symbolic picture. The main question is about the link between contemporary music and contemporary environments, and whether Rock'n'Roll can only be a product of our time. — Quk

Thanks for expanding on your idea. It’s easier to follow with some texture.

I guess for me, rock 'n' roll is rooted in specific influences: a particular time, place, and sound. You can poetically argue that elements of rock existed earlier, but I think that’s probably stretching it. What we’ve really seen is that human beings use music to self-soothe, mourn, and celebrate. It can also be an act of defiance and a statement of identity. No doubt, there are common threads across the centuries.

some people never experience love
— Tom Storm

I can't understand why you believe that "some people never experience love". Are you saying that some people never experience the desire for the beautiful and good? — GregW

These are two separate matters. Yes, I am saying that some people never experience love. As for the beautiful and the good—no doubt some people attempt pursue these abstract notions through things like porn or sport, perhaps?

Essentially agree. What’s interesting to me is that people are forever trying to build fences around art - demarcating what counts as art and what does not, usually excluding works they find challenging, dreadful, or both. I generally hold that art is anything intentionally presented to provoke an aesthetic or reflective response. Whether you like it or not, or whether it’s “good,” remains a separate question, one that’s often confused with the more fundamental issue of what art is in the first place.

In the end, discussions about the value or appeal of a work should not be mistaken for conclusions about its status as art. The ontology of art - what makes something art - demands a different kind of attention than questions of taste or judgment. I personally avoid violent art work or themes, but that's entirely on me.

Cool. I just wanted to emphasize the objective element of technological affordance (I won't say determinism) and the co-evolution of technology and music. Not everyone goes along with it! — Jamal

A friend's sister was a jazz singer here in Australia. One Christmas, about twenty years ago, we were listening to some of her recordings. My friend said to me, "You realize if it wasn't for the microphone she wouldn't have a career. It helped create an art form." I’d never thought about it until then.

Well the best of luck with that. We don't have to agree. — unenlightened

Fair point.

I am leaning into Plato's claim that love is a desire, a desire for the beautiful and good. — GregW

Plato believed in transcendentals (the forms in his language) and thought there was an ideal form of love (along with beauty and goodness). I don't.

Love is an experience shared by all. — GregW

Do you know this for certain? I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it.

The differences are real, not merely in the ear of the beholder.
30m — Jamal

I have no issue with that. I was quoting my dad who was echoing you on opera. I think the invention of the mic ushered in unparalleled vocal nuance and creativity. My dad heard many gradients of subtlety in the better operas and performances. I am not personally an opera fan although I consider Strauss’ last songs to be exceptional. But we’re back to personal taste.

To my ears, the softer, more subtle, more intimate singing of the era of recording, with all the timbral complexity and diversity, is a lot less ugly than operatic singing, which is relatively one-dimensional and usually quite offensive (again, to my ears). — Jamal

You're right, it is subjective, my father enjoyed opera and thought the range and texture of singing was so much more refined and relatable than the 'screaming banalities' of rock music. I guess it's what we're used to. It's certainly the case that more people can participate in rock, no matter how idiosyncratic and odd their voice might be.

If we are talking about ancient Egypt then I wonder if the blues is a more apposite comparison. Did the pyramid builders sing away like the slaves of the old South?

Probably in the 1950's, with American radio. — Wayfarer

Ha! Yes, this and people like Ike Turner.

If you're asking for details, there are so many factors. Where should I start? — Quk

How about you start with what you already began?

You said this, explain:

Rock is the opposite to Mahler and Chopin. — Quk

Why?

powerful yet lovely urge for freedom, accompanied by a big "wall of sound" — Quk

Why? Explain. For instance, how do you delineate the difference between the climax in Beethoven compared to Mahler?

No need for references to sound engineering or musical terms but if you feel you need to do so go ahead.

Short answer: In my book, Rock is the opposite to Mahler and Chopin. — Quk

What counts as rock in your book? It's an umbrella term like 'crime' or 'transport'. I'd struggle to hear Beethoven in this vein. A 'big wall of sound' and 'freedom' are exceptionally amorphous concepts and apply in a range of domains. — Tom Storm

Can you provide some key indicators or is thsi just how it 'feels' to you personally?

To say Mahler is the opposite of rock means your idea of a “big wall of sound” and “freedom” needs some clarification, because that’s exactly what Mahler’s 2nd is about and evokes. Same goes for the Revolutionary Étude, which is loud as hell and all about freedom.

If these works don’t meet your criteria, that’s fine, but help us understand the thinking.

Sounds that initially seem ugly become beautiful after some decades just because the humans get used to it? — Quk

I think this is true for music and the visual arts. Yes, ugliness may reside in something being unfamiliar but how do we compare this to something that remains ugly? I'm not big on essentialist categories like beauty and ugliness.

Personally I've never developed a taste for rock music.

What counts as rock in your book? It's an umbrella term like 'crime' or 'transport'. I'd struggle to hear Beethoven in this vein. A 'big wall of sound' and 'freedom' are exceptionally amorphous concepts and apply in a range of domains. You could be talking Mahler's Second or Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.

When I think of rock, I mostly think of white musicians appropriating Black music; along with a lot of posturing and conceit.

I think you do better than that. Not only do you not mind theists, you bring up God or religious faith yourself. Which is certainly fine with me, but it’s worth noting who is raising these subjects.

Quite honestly, (and that is the real issue - we need to trust each other), but quite honestly, I like my science straight, no ice, and no chaser. That’s the only kind of science there is.

I like philosophy as a blend of physics with the metaphysical/logical/linguistic. I don’t really like philosophy of religion, or shoehorning God into science. Science is specifically about using my own reason to judge everything for myself, so there is no desire in me to go beyond testable evidence when talking philosophy.

The expertise here on TPF is epistemology and logic (language/math) and metaphysics and mind, and anthropology and science generally, and theories of our shared, physical world. — Fire Ologist

Nice. And generous. I have no expertise, just curiosity.

How about you, Tom? Don’t I seem like I am just speaking my mind? No anger. No reason to lash out or seek to judge the cause of decadence.

But in any event, I have said nothing in bad faith. Nothing in this post need be doubted for its sincerity.

I do believe “culture is debased and decadent.” Although I would say “adrift” and not “debased and decadent”, but I see a basic point in your words, and I have a skeptical view of what people do with their culture.

There is no reason, theists and atheists can’t discuss many things as equals - as individual thinking beings making their way sharing their views on anything. — Fire Ologist

I think this is all very reasonable and nicely put.

I like the word "adrift" and perhaps I should have used it. "Lost our way" is the other phrase which comes up in this discourse.

On the weekend, I saw a father teaching his young son how to do long division. The son wasn’t understanding it. The father eventually got angry and intoned something like, “I’ve shown you this four times now and been very clear, and you can see how it works on the paper. What are you not getting?”

Moral of the story? People get annoyed when others don’t see the things they do, especially when they’ve been patient and tried to demonstrate the reasoning. And it doesn’t have to be about philosophy or God. Perhaps any irritation expressed on these pages has just been frustration at others not understanding.

Yes, and it's clear that currently immensely popular thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Iain McGilchrist, and John Vervaeke hold views along these lines. That our secular era and it's bereft metaphysics has resulted in a disenchanted world of scientism and transactional relationships.

There's the argument that such talk provides broad maps of where we are in the intellectual and cultural landscape. As such it's not true or false so much as useful or indicative, and justifiable on those grounds, perhaps. — Banno

Fair point. Given this is a discussion forum, we are bound to speculate, not just about metaphysics but also about what kinds of situations or emotional states lead to certain views. As long as we don't use this to settle an argument or determine that it's true for everyone, I don't find it overly problematic.

OK, then the Priest provided an ad hom, and you responded to my comment about an ad hom with another ad hom, suggesting it wasn't that it was an ad hom, but that i was just sour. Like I'm at all upset. — Hanover

Seems a sour reaction. I'm not concerned if you're not upset, or are.

Is it an unintended ad hom? Ok then. I also think it may sometimes be correct.

My suggestion is that we stop being so concerned for each other's differing views. I trust wholly in the sincerity of your atheism, have no desire to modify it, and don't believe that but for some unfortunate circumstance you'd be different. — Hanover

I'm here primarily because I'm interested in what people believe and why. I've never claimed that any of my occasional psychologizing represents the final truth about anyone here. Frank raised a question about motivation and I simply wanted to introduce another possible perspective.

t'd be like me opining that atheism is borne from trauma and alienation and whatever else sounds right. Wouldn't your response simply be, sure, all of that, but that you're atheist because that position is correct. — Hanover

Oh, and this... why not? I believe some people are drawn to atheism because they feel a sense of disconnection from the world. Perhaps they haven't experienced deep love or meaningful connection with others or maybe their temperament swings towards nihilism. For those people, a godless, meaningless world may seem to make more sense because it aligns with their emotional reality. I have certainly met such folk.

That stuff about psychologising, again. — Banno

I can't help it either.

Explain how this isn't pure ad hom. — Hanover

Well it's not my original thinking. I got this from a Catholic Priest friend of mine and it sounded reasonable. I can't do much about your seemingly sour reaction to it.

Not to mention it sounds like you care for the souls of the misguided. Ironic. — Hanover

I actually think if theists feel this way, it is entirely understandable. No irony.

I expect I'll do as a representative secularist, and I have never in my entire life been afraid that one or another religion might turn out to be true.

You (and Nagel, I guess) are just making this up. — Srap Tasmaner

I think Wayfarer may be right about this but conversely there's also many a theist who is afraid that perhaps there's nothing to this God caper. Having watched Christians in palliative care (an aspect of my work) it is not unusual to find people having no confidence in God at the end, often to the surprise of relatives and friends.