That couldn't be right, because if he didn't believe that his religion has a plausible attitude to suffering, surely he'd abandon the faith, which he hasn't. — Wayfarer

Have a look at Hart's recent interview on Youtube with Curt Jaimungal. He's pretty clear. It's a pretty staggering interview - perhaps because he is, these days, less cocky and self-regarding owing to his own sickness and pain. He has faith that there must be some kind of explanation for evil but he doesn't pretend to know what it is. I don't think it follows that people leave their faith just because it doesn't have all the answers. If that were the case most theists would be atheists by the morning. People generally believe that on balance secularism or theism makes more sense of the world they understand. The issue of suffering has nagged at Hart for decades. And he has certainly discussed that his faith is sometimes impacted by doubt. Isn't that how faith works?

I think Hart's views tell us that it's not so simple as theism having better responses or answers. If a theist and religious scholar as sophisticated as Hart comes to this conclusion, then the problem of suffering and evil can't be put down as an obtuse physicalist response.

As mentioned in an earlier comment, there is an unspoken convention that this is not something that can be considered in the secular context, as by definition, secular culture can't accomodate it. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure about that. What do you mean by 'accommodate'. David Bentley Hart has said (and recently at great length) that the problem of suffering (the inherent cruelty of this world) is atheism's best argument and that there is no answer to it in religion which he finds plausible. And isn't death the end of suffering for secular types? In the mean time, I have worked in palliative care a lot over time and I can say that theists seem way more disturbed and distressed by suffering than secular people I've met. Anecdotal I know but there it is.

Thank you but @Joshs is a serious player in this space and I am sure he has a response.

To test the claim of radical changeability in all objects of experience for everyone is to do two things:
1) it is to try to teach a believer in stable objectivity to see the underlying movement in supposedly static experience. How do you convince someone to see more than they see? Either they see it or they don't. Meanwhile, as relativist, you can leave them to their objectivism, knowing that it works for them, and isn't 'wrong' or 'untrue', just incomplete.
2)The believer in radical relativism must every moment of experience test their own perception(make it contestable) to see if this dynamism continues to appear very moment, everywhere for them. — Joshs

That sounds complicated and a lot like hard work. Is this exhausting to live by?

As a non-philosopher I find this hard to grasp or at least accept. Is it making too much out of too little change?

Even if meanings subtly shift from moment to moment, we can still reliably communicate, build technology, and make predictions about the world. This suggests that there’s a shared, stable structure to reality (note I am not sayign objective or certain) that doesn’t depend on momentary subjective fluctuations. For example, the laws of physics or the meaning of basic concepts like “cat” remain consistent enough for people across cultures and times to understand each other and cooperate. If everything were as fluid as this seems to suggest, such stability and shared understanding would seem not to be possible. What am I missing?

On the other side, there is the fear that those in the immanent frame have reduced the human good to mere consumption, the specter of consumerism and spiritual emptiness, or on the far side the fall into grave sin. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This would cover my sense of the world today, but oddly I get there more from an immanent frame. Like David Hart (although not sharing his faith), I see as much consumption, consumerism and spiritual emptiness coming from mainstream theism as from any secularists. But I don't think either frames are justifiable in as much as we don't really know, do we? I mean, can we even say for certain whether maths is invented or discovered, much less say anything sensible about the notion of a god ( I have more sympathy for an apophatic orientation). So for me neither frame really fits, but I do get what Taylor is getting at.

:up:

Kuzminski disputes that Pyrrhonism *is* skepticism, per se, pointing out that the latter is a form of dogmatic belief (or dogmatic unbelief, more to the point.) Kuzminksi points out the the Greek 'skeptikos' meant originally an 'enquirer' or 'seeker', which is very different from what negative or dogmatic skepticism developed into. — Wayfarer

Nice. I don't come out of a philosophical tradition, but I was always taught that one needs to separate healthy skepticism from denialism. I do think it is healthy for anyone to ask what reasons they have for holding any particular belief. We probably need to do this to grow - to transcend the dogmatic assumptions of upbringing and culture. In your case, would it not be fair to say that a skepticism about the mainstream and its platitudes drew you towards a countercultural orientation and by extension into traditions of higher consciousness?

That was not only a big failure of Spain but the European Union altogether. Our politicians decided back in the 1990s and early 2000s that it was better to manufacture everything in random Chinese villages, with zero labour rights. — javi2541997

Yes, this neoliberal approach was as common In Australia as it was in Spain. We used to make clothing, tools, cars, whitegoods, toys, furniture. All now imported from various Asian countries where labour is cheap and easily subdued.

Arguing that a science doesn’t begin from radical doubt, that it “works from established beliefs/knowledge, and then tries to explain what is less well understood in terms of what is more well understood” just subsumes it as a secularized version of the belief in a God of fixed purposes. Because both rely on faith in sovereign purpose, this faith is itself nihilistic, productive of skepticism. — Joshs

Great, thanks. Yes, I guess if all meaning is contextual and shaped by practices, then a radical skepticism would seem to be superfluous. Such skepticism relies on the idea that meaning or truth must be grounded in something absolute or universal.

Would you say postmodernism is best understood as a form of skepticism, or does it represent a distinct philosophical approach?

Believing in god does not resolve moral conflicts. — MoK

I don't know how anyone can argue effectively that a belief in god can resolve a moral conflict. How? How do we know what God thinks about moral issues? Which God is true? Can anyone demonstrate what God's relationship to morality is? Believers can't even agree on morality so it's clearly not working as a useful source of morality.

Nice. Well I consider postmodernism to be a huge subject with many tributaries and it would require considerable expertise to understand and critique it. I find much of what I have read about postmodernism sympathetic to my intuitions. I tend to hold human knowledge and beliefs are contingent products of culture, language and cognitive limitations and that we cannot transcend these to reach some putative 'really real' or 'ultimate realm'.

I think it would be interesting to read opinions by folks from other countries, because these tend to be more objective than what our government might be... — javi2541997

From the 1960's on until 1990, my grandmother went to Spain every year for three months for her winter holiday. Not sure what she thought about Franco but she didn't like police. She loved the architecture, the people, the food, the language, the weather. She once met Orson Welles in a cafe.

Australians often travel to Spain. They seem to go because it's a cool place to see and the food is great. Tourism is a pretty shallow - it's opportunities to take photos and eat.

In the 1970's my mum and dad sometimes talked about the transition to democracy and hoped that Spain would make the journey from Franco to freedom. I would have thought the reforms and advancements were worth it. But if you are suspicious of government and consider your democracy to be flawed and shameful, then you would be like every second young person in any Western country on earth who is convinced their country's government is shit and that no one tells the truth.

:up:

I must admit I understood little of what you wrote, but I do have a suggestion. The letter is long and dense. I think you might have a better chance of Priest reading it if you shortened it to a one or two paragraph summary, — T Clark

Agree. Short three sentence paragraphs and dot points are more likely to get it read.

I think that is a hallmark of every social movement, that it casts itself as an answer to all big the questions, no? — Pantagruel

Perhaps not. One of the threads within postmodernism (Rorty comes to mind) suggests that not only is there no definitive answer, but the very 'big questions' themselves are grounded in presuppositions built on quicksand. Is PM too dispirit to be classed as a social movement - is it not closer to a range of tendencies or frameworks for critiquing assumptions about grand narratives (to use that awful term)?

God is believed to be omniscient. This means that God knows all moral facts (by moral facts I mean a set of facts that rightness and wrongness of an action can be derived from) if there are any. — MoK

Well, that's just one interpretation of god. But don't forget that for many theists god doesn't properly 'know' anything because god is the source of all goodness and all potential - god is not reducible to the status of some kind of sky wizard, with a set of opinions, god is the ultimate concern and the ground of being itself.

Thus, believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts. — MoK

Theists have no objective basis for morality. In this respect we are all alike. The best a theist can do is form personal beliefs or preferences or subjective views about what they think a god's morality might be. This is why, even in the same religion, theists are all over the place and can't agree on so many moral questions, from the status of women, to euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, gay and trans rights, blood transfusions, stem cell research, divorce, human rights, etc, etc.

Ok. I'm no expert but I tend to think of postmodernism as a more exciting, perhaps liberating way to examine matters, something that refreshes our dependence on any number of gods from the 'natural order' to the 'absolute concern'.

a type of reactionary response to a recent phase of psycho-social evolution. — Pantagruel

Can you explain what you mean?

the idea that mankind has reached some kind of tipping point. — Pantagruel

Do you mean that the hubris and vainglory of foundationalism have been challenged by a severe form of skepticism?

Exactly!

You can't choose or coerce people into respect and confidence in "traditional institutions, family, community, and religion," although maybe some people are in the process of trying to do that. The changes are metaphysical - they're about how think the world works and should work - about how we know what we know and what our goals should be - about what's right and wrong. I'm not sure there is any way to go back.

We should remember that the good old days were not all that good. Slavery, exploitation, and oppression were ok with full support by traditional institutions, family, community and religion. There were at least as many wars then as there are now, although the ones we have now are more dangerous. People died of diseases that are easily treated. Life expectancy has increased dramatically. Were things better then than they are now? — T Clark

Nicely put. There's very much a cult of 'things used to be better' from almost every quarter (but frequently for different reasons). Some people preferred things when minorities were silent and oppressed. Others think the past had better values and metaphysical frameworks. We are often said to live in a disenchanted era and everyone from Iain McGilchristt, Jordan Peterson to D. Trump are flogging nostalgia projects, seeking some kind of restoration.

Leading to the crisis of disillusionment which is post-modernism. — Pantagruel

Do you hold that post-modernism is a bad thing? Might it not also be a way we can use to think more interestingly outside of our habitual foundationalist posturing and dualistic thinking? Post-modernism is so ubiquitously detested, I can't help but think it must be onto something.

I don't know, I think these political-religious discussions are a bit more complex than what mainstream atheism would have us believe, right? — Arcane Sandwich

Most mainstream atheists don't think much about issues at all. For me an atheist is just a person with no belief in gods. It doesn't come with any other commitments. Atheists I have met beleive in astrology and ghosts.

That's an odd thing to say, given that Islam is an Eastern religion. — Arcane Sandwich

I believe he was having a go at Hinduism and Buddhism, as far as he understood these.

Is that also the case if it's a drug-induced experience involving hallucinations, for example? — Arcane Sandwich

Even more so. Many people think of the effects of substance use as temporary insanity.

Who are we to say that their religious experience is somehow less religious than the religious experiences of Protestants or Catholics, for example? — Arcane Sandwich

That's true. But as an atheist I wouldn't differentiate much between any religious experiences, so there is that. I think other religious folk are probably more likely to divide experiences into the genuine and not genuine. A devout Muslim once told me that any religious experiences had through Eastern religious traditions were false. I spoke to a Methodist once who told me that all religious experiences were simply histrionic expressions of mental ill health. If you are looking for the disenchanted and dour, speak to a Methodist. :wink:

West has gone so far with reason. — Jack Cummins

Not sure about that. Is this not a cliche? I would argue the West is largely irrational and emotion driven, like most humanity.

Remember that reason is the foundational support for classical theism (natural theology). Even today if you were to read David Bentley Hart or other serious philosophers and theological thinkers, they would maintain that reason leads you inevitably to god. St Anselm for instance thought that faith was merely a starting point - the deeper understanding of theism was encountered through reason. I think you'll find that many forms of idealism today (Bernardo Kastrup, for instance), appeal strongly to deductive and inductive reasoning.

And here is one of my points: Nothing that Psalm 22 says is incompatible with Rastafari. — Arcane Sandwich

Fair enough - Haile Selassie is revered as a messianic figure, often regarded as the second coming of Christ or the incarnation of God (Jah).

On the other hand, I might enjoy thinking or reading about such questions just to see what the creative human imagination can come up with. — Janus

Certainly. I am on the forum for precisely this reason. To me philsophy primarily seems to be a creative way for us to manage anxiety.

For me the only questions that approach "the ultimate concern" are 'how should I live?" and "how should I die", — Janus

Do you really ask this kind of quesion, or does it come up indirectly through interactions with ideas and day to day living?

That's funny. There don't appear to be any limits on interpretation and believers will make things fit and create frantic workarounds to ensure that they can retain specific doctrines and beliefs; Christians, Muslims, Marxists, Republicans all do it.

I have a friend who is a Catholic priest. I prefer his take. He sees the Bible as a series of myths and legends that are antiquity's method for pointing at the transcendent. My favourite quote of his, "Of course it didn't happen.'

If Jesus was a man in addition to being God, why wouldn't it be the case that he has got something to do with material wealth? — Arcane Sandwich

I don't think that works. The God part will provide.

But is it really worth our time analysing an entire myth like this when thousands, perhaps millions have come before us? I was just adding what I was taught and what struck me personally as odd.

Heaps of interpretations for this. The one I was taught was he was quoting from Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?

It's just another element in the stories writers introduced to demonstrate prophecy and continuity with the tradition (Kind David's suffering) but many Christians often believe that the Psalm itself references Jesus.

I find the story where Satan attempts to tempts Jesus stranger than the above.

the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.
Matthew 4:8

If Jesus is God, then what's he going to do with material wealth? Surely even less effective than trying to temp Elon Musk with a dollar bill. I guess one might need to contrive an allegorical interpretation that transcends literalism for this one to work.

Nice. That actually helps me to make sense of the Mishima.

So what could that question even mean, other than whether there is some independently real thing which appears to us as a cow? — Janus

I guess it can only mean something based on language and zoological classification. Which is fine for me. If there is a realm where cowness is found.. who cares?

It is surprising how much interest these kinds of strictly ambiguous and undecidable questions generate. — Janus

I guess it's all just another way to chase after a god surrogate. Ultimate truth being a conduit towards the Ultimate Concern, Tillich and other theist's term for god.

Ok. I guess you'd have to read it to make sense of it.

True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys. — javi2541997

Can you makes sense of this one for me?

Those quotes sound like Nietzsche.

Having said this, you might be surprised to hear that I’m a big fan of truth as an asymptotic goal of knowledge , and knowledge as a progressive approximation toward an ultimate truth. Furthermore, I associate truth with achieving a knowledge characterized by stability, inferential compatibility, prediction and control, harmoniousness and intimacy. It might seem as though what I have said points to a relativism that eliminates the possibility of achieving these goals of truth, but I believe the universe is highly ordered. Its order is in the nature of an intricate process of self-development rather than in static properties and laws. We become privy to this intricate order by participating in its development through our sciences, technologies and other domains of creativity. — Joshs

Interesting. How is order an intricate process of self-development?

Let me give you an example to see if we can agree with the definitions: A Bulldog is ugly but one can like it. — MoK

Hmm... to me it sounds like you have added the notion of 'like' here to find a way out of subjectivism. How can it be that some people find ostensibly 'ugly' things beautiful? Surely they can't be beautiful, so it must be about 'like' instead.

But what do you make of those who sincerely believe that a bulldog is beautiful, or that a photo of a WW1 scarred battle landscape is beautiful? Are you forced into saying that they are wrong about this? I believe that the ability to apprehend beauty is intrinsic to a person's aesthetic imagination and capabilities. It isn't limited to an object/text/person/etc

The extrinsic features of the rose, its color, shape, or scent are consider beautiful and good because we enjoy it. — GregW

Are considered by some people to be beautiful. I don't think goodness comes into it, no matter how big a rose fan someone may be. My father, for instance, bought a house and removed all the rose bushes that were in flower in the garden. He held that roses were ugly plants and was indifferent to the flowers. I tend to share that indifference. I believe a sunflower is more beautiful to a rose.

it is understood that beings are bound by a state of beginningless ignorance, which bears some resemblance. — Wayfarer

I think that's an interesting idea.

Buddhism basically says that the cause of suffering is not some evil Gnostic demiurge that wants to torture mankind, or an indifferent God who lets the innocent suffer for no reason. No, the cause of suffering can be found within oneself, in the form of the constant desire (trishna, thirst, clinging) - to be or to become, to possess and to retain, to cling to the transitory and ephemeral as if they were lasting and satisfying, when by their very nature, they are not. That of course is a very deep and difficult thing to penetrate, as the desire to be and to become is engrained in us by the entire history of biological existence. — Wayfarer

I think this idea isn't hard to understand. What does one make of a more complex and overt example of suffering wherein an innocent is the victim and desire apparently absent? I'm thinking of a 10 year-old kid in one of Pol Pot's death camps. What might such a Buddhist perspective make of the kid's relationship to their plight?

For instance, I don't believe that one could have a "moral calculus" or ascribe some sort of "goodness points" to things or acts. Yet neither do I think all desirability and choiceworthyness breaks down into completely unrelated categories. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, fine with that.

It's a definition not an argument. How would one demonstrate that cows are "cows" either? For something to be transcendent, it cannot fail to transcend. If "absolute" is to mean "all-encompassing" and we posit both reality and appearances, than by definition the absolute cannot exclude one of the things we've posited.

Perhaps the definition is defective. One can have bad definitions. I don't think it is though — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not entirely sure I'm following this one. That might be on me.

A cow can be demonstrated via a clear zoological example, can't it? A simple correspondence. Transcendence is a qualitative adjectival abstraction that seems closer to poetry.

That is gloriously phrased.

Might beauty not be the product of both subjective and objective factors?
— Tom Storm
They are.

You're suggesting there are only two options here. 1) Intrinsic experience or 2) subjective experiences.
— Tom Storm
No, I am suggesting that the features of our experiences are either intrinsic or extrinsic. — MoK

Yes, but my point is that beauty may be the product of both. It's not an either/or.

Take a painting we agree upon as beautiful. There's the intrinsic - the skill of the artist and the use of subject, composition and colour, etc.

There's also the extrinsic - factors like social influence of critics and/or the painting's prestige; the lighting and presentation in a gallery or on a wall; cultural factors that lead to us being attracted to that particular painter's work or subject matter; personal factors, the painting my be one a parent first showed us and is therefore is imbued with further extrinsic qualities.

The idea of symmetry and health as contributors to human beauty appears rather memorably in an old BBC documentary presented by John Cleese (The Human Face) it presents a reasonably plausible account. I'm not sure it works for landscape as well since beautiful landscapes may well be terrifically dangerous - remote coastlines, deserts, war zones (there are beautiful depictions of ugly things). Extrinsic factors help form a person's aesthetic response and make them receptive (or not) to a subject.