We cannot really know what the good is until we direct our attention towards God. — EnPassant

Spiritual truth is not an intellectual abstraction, it is a way of being, a way of life. — EnPassant

Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

And once that distinction is kept clear, the pressure to defend suffering — cosmically, theologically, or poetically — disappears. — Truth Seeker

Not necessarily stoned,
but beautiful

mass protests for Trump [Pedo-in-Chief]
— @BitconnectCarlos

No-one is protesting deportations. They are protesting the lawless, fascist tactics. — Questioner

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
Logic: reasoning must be valid.
Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief. — Truth Seeker

My argument is that since the universe is mathematical it proceeds from mind since mathematics needs a mind to reside in. — EnPassant

Intelligence [mind], or goal-directed agency, neither follows from nor is presupposed by the mere mathematicity of nature. — 180 Proof

As C. S. Lewis explained, the pagan gods weren't simply altogether false but are instead to be understood as distorted images of the real one. — BenMcLean

Note ---That evolution has a direction & destination is an inference from the "arrow of time" — Gnomon

Btw, deep space travel is for machines -- the tinier the better -- Von Neumann self-replicating/nano-fabricators (e.g. Bracewell Probes), and not living organisms (re: hard radiation exposure is too lethal, transport size increases likelihood of hazardous particulate impacts, life-support limitations & extreme durations between destinations, etc which exponentially compound the costs/risks). — 180 Proof

180poopoo — Gnomon

Ghosts are in no way measurable or observable whatever. So the comparison is fatuous.
— Wayfarer

I compared Energy to ghosts ... measurable effects of spirits (e.g. ectoplasm) despite their being invisible & intangible & immaterial ... I do believe that the mental concept of Souls, having demonstrable [subjective, hallucinatory] effects on bodies ...

It is not a material substance, but the matter-energy equivalence has been demonstrated in Einstein’s famous equation e=mc2. Ghosts are in no way measurable or observable whatever. So the comparison is fatuous. — Wayfarer

All due respect, I don’t think you
[@Gnomon] demonstrate understanding of the sources you’re quoting.

I tried to point out that in physics, 'energy' has a precise definition and meaning, which I think you [@Gnomon] were disregarding, in order to use the term in a particular way to suit your polemical framework. — Wayfarer

Are there any good reasons for manned spaceflight? — an-salad

This mission is too important for me to allow you [humans] to jeopardize it.

Let me put it this way ... The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.

Just a moment... Just a moment... I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure within 72 hours. — HAL 9000 (1968)

Do I need to remind you that this is a Philosophy Forum, not a Physics Seminar?
— Gnomon

No, you don't. But, again, a vital part of philosophy of physics is, in fact, clarify the meaning of the concepts that are used in physics.

As I said various times, I am not, in fact, making a critique of your metaphysical view from a purely meyaphysical standpoint. Rather, what I am trying to say is that it is not correct, in my opinion, to use out of their proper context terms that have a defined meaning in a given particular context. By doing this, there is a problem of (at least possible) equivocation that it is needed to be addressed. — boundless

But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.
— Joshs

And yet his theory of truth emphasized revelation, uncovering. My theory of truth is that we see ourselves as in communication with the world. The division between a psyche and its world is the capacity to be mistaken, to read the world incorrectly. — frank

[T]here is no compelling evidence that 'consciousness' has a special role in quantum mechanics. And even those who does give consciousness some kind of 'role' in quantum mechanics generally say that consciousness doesn't 'do' anything to physical reality. Rather, QM is a tool that is used to predict how the knowledge/beliefs of observers evolve in time. — boundless

Can the supernatural and religious elements of Buddhism be extricated? — unimportant

Here's a video that discusses those two types of faith.
32 – A Clean, Well- Lighted Place https://vimeo.com/1135111091 — Art48

I've often thought that we are living in an anti-modernist, neo-Romantic period where everything is centred around emotionalism and we are no longer generally convinced by reasoning or science, which seem to be widely understood as joy killers, the enemy of the human. Lived experience is seen as overriding institutional knowledge, with self-expression and personal freedom framed as moral imperatives.

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything: a vanquishing of certainty, a privileging of subjective experience, an obsession with authenticity and a re-enchantment of nature, bordering on its worship. T — Tom Storm

On the existence of options in a deterministic world — MoK

And now some words from John Dewey: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and beomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men." — Ciceronianus

You [Esse Quam Videri] suggest that intelligibility’s norms must be explained in order to be binding, that unless non-contradiction, coherence, and explanatory sufficiency are grounded in something non-contingent, their authority becomes inexplicable. But from a Wittgensteinian point of view, norms are not the kind of thing that gain authority by being grounded in something else. Their authority consists in their role within practices of giving and asking for reasons. To ask for a further ground is not to deepen the explanation but to change the subject.

Normative authority isn’t a causal force that needs metaphysical backing; it is a status conferred within a space of reasons. To demand a further metaphysical explanation is to assimilate normativity to the wrong explanatory model, one appropriate to causes, not commitments. Chess rules are binding even when nothing practical is at stake; their bindingness does not require an ontological ground beyond the practice of chess. Anything that purports to ground the norms of intelligibility would already have to be articulated and assessed under those very norms. The grounding project therefore generates an infinite regress or a pseudo-foundation.

Unrestricted intelligibility isn’t a coherent ideal. The demand that intelligibility be grounded “without remainder” is not simply reason being faithful to itself; it is reason overreaching its own conditions. Finitude isn’t a defect to be compensated for by grounding, but a constitutive feature of understanding. For instance, Robert Brandom argues that the force of norms like non-contradiction arises from their role in inferential articulation. To contradict oneself is not to violate a metaphysical law but to undermine one’s own standing as a reason-giver. That is a genuine error, not a mere inconvenience, but its seriousness is pragmatic in the space of reasons, not metaphysical in the space of being. The normativity is real, but it doesn’t point beyond itself to a necessary existent; it points sideways, to the social and inferential structure of discursive commitment. What drops out isn’t truth, but the idea that truth needs a metaphysical guarantor.

Transcendental reflection can clarify what we are committed to when we reason; it cannot deliver an account of what must exist in order for those commitments to be valid. From this vantage, your [Esse Quam Videri's] appeal to necessary existence is unnecessary. — Joshs

Understanding the metaphysics of presence can assist in this effort.
— Mikie
So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what?
— L'éléphant — 180 Proof

As opposed to what is absent, hidden, concealed. Which is far greater than what’s merely present before us.

I like to think of it as studying unconscious (absence) behavior as opposed to conscious behavior. — Mikie

I'm "reading" Energy" in a "Metaphysical way" instead of a Physical way. — Gnomon

Understanding the metaphysics of presence can assist in this effort. — Mikie

So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what? — L'éléphant

Philosophy has all too often been an assault upon everydayness. Originally in the ancient West, though, it was vitally concerned with the best way to live our lives. I think that's a worthy inquiry. I don't look to an unrepentant Nazi like Heidegger for guidance in that regard. — Ciceronianus

We live in and are part of an environment. Our minds are part of it because we're part of it. All we know, all we feel, all we do results from and are part of our interaction with it. That is what's "natural" to me.

To the extent our interaction with the rest of nature indicates certain conduct and information is useful and beneficial, we may come to rely on it and it may become customary. But we should always be willing to accept that our judgments and conduct are subject to change when what is learned through further interaction establishes change is appropriate. What's customary may become inadequate or undesirable. I consider that to be common sense. — Ciceronianus