If I understand your words rightly, uncanni, your 'summa' speaks to me as well. — 180 Proof

It's nice to be understood sometimes... :victory:

I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life. — dazed

In 66 years I have not found a way around it. If you are not one of those people who can't lull or distract themselves from what you understand as a fundamental truth, you live with it. At times throughout my life, it's produced crises when everything seemed pretty absurd and meaningless. I have weathered them.

I derive intense pleasure from Nature, and I believe in Nature's ability to triumph over human destruction of the planet. I follow the Torah's code of ethics as far as my relationships with other humans goes, but I don't believe in a diety or intelligent design, unless that's the same as physics..

Indeed, the Tanakh says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent." ~1 Corinthians 1:19). — 180 Proof

I just want to point out that this quote isn't in the TANAKH; just in New Testament.

Faith is nothing but magical thinking — 180 Proof

This seems correct: magical thinking, which is an infantile mode, is quite comforting. It reduces complexities to simple answers; one definitely doesn't have to think as much (unless they have to go on a proselytizing campaign and think up ways to convince people to accept the same tenets of faith. In that sense, Paul was an excellent salesman.) It even stops all sorts of nagging questions from arising in the first place. It neatly ties up all sorts of loose ends. I always thought this was the purpose of faith..., no?

I lean towards believing chances are fair-to-good that living conditions favorable for human life on this planet will be decimated before the imperial status quo crumbles. — staticphoton

China and US are certainly doing all that they can to guarantee it.

So did we ever decide which topic to focus on? The discussion seems to meander all over the place.

faith", in the context of this discussion, is the belief supported by the probable or the reasonable, regarding religious claims. — Samuel Lacrampe

Just because Tom Aquinas says it doesn't make it so. All of these arguments are easily deconstructed these days: probability and reason cannot prove the contents of faith.

"Theology is." — tim wood

I think assertion would yield fruitful discussion, but in line with the concerns expressed in your OP, I think we'd need to narrow the focus, or there might be the tendency for people to go off in infinite directions on a too-broad topic.

So what is it about theology that we might want to investigate:

Can we agree that believers can not precisely map out what they can know about the gods (because the gods are to some extent unknowable)? — Bitter Crank

BC, would this lead to a discussion on the nature of faith?

Theology is a litany of rationalizations for suspending disbelief in "god". — 180 Proof

180, this is an interesting proposition: that all theology consists of (psychological, I take it) rationalizations or manipulations of the story line?

Not necessarily. In some religions like christianity, judaism and islam, the belief is that the religious instructions were given by the gods — Samuel Lacrampe

I must respectfully disagree, or point out that you may be jumping the gun by getting into the contents of this religion or that. This goes back to the issue of faith--asserting the belief that human-written texts are the word of the diety.

But talking about the nature of faith is not the same as espousing faith in the doctrine that a diety directly inspired a written text. I don't get the impression that we want to jump into a discussion about whether or not Torah, Koran or Gospels were dictated by a diety.

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What hypocrites we must seem to the world. — frank

I don't know if we could win the Most Hypocritical Country" award, but we'd definitely put up a good fight.

The United States has never kept anything--not even itself--safe for democracy, but we alredy know that that phrase is ideological newspeak for keep the world safe for our own economic expansion, which it did with a vengeance throughout the 20th century. I know more about US policies in Latin America: the brutality of the hypocrisy was ghastly--for ex., who the US supported and what it allowed to happen in El Salvador in the 80s. Even inside its borders, the US has never championed the rights of its citizens--or, to put it another way, has never treated African Americans as citizens. But that's how ideology works: you can no longer see what's right in front of your face because you're so distracted by soma in all its potent forms.

The Enformationism thesis is a hypothetical account for how the world came to be, and to become, and should be accepted only as food for thought. — Gnomon

It's delicious!! I like it a lot.

Been reading philosophy since my teens, got a PhD in humanities with a minor in Critical & Cultural Theory, most of which I read on my own, not in classes.

A Massive Big Bang explosion hardly seems to be a good way of intelligently designing a universe, but rather appears as if something really got out of hand. — PoeticUniverse

I think it's perfect: intelligent design, in my mind, is physics, is what is. "Intelligent design" is a bit too anthropomorphic of a phrase for my preferences.

I like the story of the tsimtsum because it's poetic: I imagine a very lonely G_d, holding its breath, wondering how on earth to fix the catastrophic creation of evil. Humankind has fallen far behind vAs far as we know, it's only a problem on our little speck of a planet.

I have issues too, and mine is the short memory of humankind, which takes an internet ninni such as Martha Nussbaum as source of an idea which is well over a hundred years old. — god must be atheist

I ask my students if they know what Woodstock was, or who Freud was. Most of them say no.
I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled...

I doubt that Nussbaum is a ninny, but abreaction is, indeed, Breuer and Freud's terminology. A quick glance at her book, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, on Amazon reveals that Freud is frequently cited.

But is abreaction really a novel concept? Could we say that Augustine had an abreaction when he resolved his "Whence evil"/split mind problem?

But judging hate as like evil, is, as we both seemed to have argued here, off. — Coben

I absolutely agree: they are not the same thing; I see no argument demonstrating in the least way that they are interchangeable terms.

I appreciate the clarification.

And if they are unwilling and/or unable to question the ‘moral code’ set out by society then I wouldn’t want them on my side when push comes to shove. — I like sushi

I wrote, "When a person chooses a moral code...": I had in mind the kind of person who takes philosopy seriously and thinks issue out--not someone who simply does or believes what s/he is told. That's not someone who has made a decision; that's someone who hasn't thought.

I was not thinking of an unthinking person at all. One has to be able to question the application of a moral code in extreme circumstances that require singular decisions to be made. But bottom line: if one has chosen a moral code carefully with much thought, one knows how to follow it correctly, even if that means you have to violate some part of the code in order to uphold a higher principle of the code.

You seem to think that people can have a good bias but not an evil bias. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Now you have changed your wording, from love and hate to good and evil. These categories are not the same thing.

When a person makes a decision to adopt a moral code, clearly it's because they believe it is "right,"
and because it makes clear what is "wrong" or "damaging" behavior. I'm talking about traditional moral codes regulating our conduct in society--not some amoral/immoral self-serving, anti-social code.

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If Mother Nature had bad children (humanity), who is blame? No, I don't think Mother Nature is bad just because there are a few bad apples in her family tree. Mother Cosmos is imperfect, but not Evil. :smile: — Gnomon

This is the only case where I would hold neither nature nor nurture responsible for bad humans. Mother Nature didn't physically, sexually or verbally abuse humans, or in any way deprive love. That's not how it operates. Nor do I find the Great Breathing Cosmic Womb in any way imperfect: it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

It's only humans (and perhaps cats, who have a tendency to be overly cruel with their prey) who don't do what they're supposed to do: all other species take appropriate care of the environment and thus thrive, until they have to move on (i.e., plagues of locusts). Humans, on the other hand, wantonly and wilfully destroy their own environment, not to mention the obscenely horrific way they have treated other humans throughout history. My fundamental premise is that human cruelty, greed and exploitation of nature are "bad." They may have produced technology in general, but the entire enterprise has reached catastrophic proportions now, as most of the world recognizes.

It is only when a certain level of prosperity is reached that individuals have the luxury of kicking back and asking the so-called "existential "questions at all. Schopenhauer never had to work a day in his life, and his philosophy shows the careless arrogance that comes with such privilege. — Janus

That's pretty much the history of western philosophy, a leisure activity for sure. Philosophers have for the most part traditionally suffered from the scourge of white male privilege.

Hey, I have no problem with the expansion of the universe; it's what goes on on this planet that sometimes bothers me. I'm not shopping for a new cosmos...

The big bang is neither perfect or imperfect; it just is what it is.

If humans are the black sheep of Mother Nature's family, why do you have faith in such a bad mother? — Gnomon

Who said she was a "bad mother"? Nature is not our primary caretaker!

Can you be a little bit more disparaging and unwelcoming to the newcomer?

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in Timbuktu (we'll send a camel for you) — PoeticUniverse

I want to go, too. Bamako, Mali!!! I want to go!!!!!!!

We are in the middle of the cosmic exhalation. Upon inhalation, all matter will recede into black holes, themselves receding into even larger ones until all is converged, which is when G_d will sneeze again, starting the next big bang. The womb of the black hole will give birth.

It's true I have little faith in humnakind, but I have infinite faith in the cosmos, i.e., mother nature.

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I don't see any hatred in the babies' choices. I see a clear choice in the object, but nothing indicates any kind of reaction towards the other dolls--no punching, biting, screaming in anger, or anything that would suggest highly negative infantile emotions.

If you don't agree then show what creates our hate biases. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Agree with what? You don't show in that example a hate bias--only a clear preference. You conclude that the opposite is hate, but I don't conclude the same thing at all. You are aware that others see things differently from you, right? But there's still the problem of you demonstrating absolutely no hate bias in those babies.

You conclude that because you hate, ergo everyone hates? This is an absurd conclusion. It's true that lots of folks hate, but you could never demonstrate that everyone does.

Science. Try it. If your swollen head and ego will let you. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yes, my swollen head allowed me to watch the video, which was very interesting. But I don't see anything about hating versus loving. And this was the issue that I brought up by quoting you.

In my first comments I did not make the distinction between honest and dishonest critical thinking. — boethius

Thank you for your thoughtful response. What if I proposed that there is no dishonest critical thinking? Or that dishonest critical thinking is in reality its opposite, i.e., ideology? Ideology as "the ostensible sincere and unselfish concern for the welfare of others," i.e., all the good Cristian industrialists who exploited the hell out of the working class, Donald T. Rump's redneck slogan, Make America Great Again; etc.; in reality you have pure sociopathy at work: unconscionable (no conscience) satisfaction in deceiving and exploiting others while indulging your greed and ambition for more power.

This is Marx's definition, which is the only one I use it's false consciousness, not critical thinking. Ideology always involves callous manipulation and exploitation; critical thinking strives to treat each individual human being as such, and to communicate respectfully, without superciliousness or condescention.

Intellectual snobs or elitists, if such beings there be, need to get a little muddy in the trenches. It's the only way to learn how to respond to folks in their own language, without being pretentious. You have to be able to speak different speech genres, as Bakhtin wrote. So when one of my students speaks to me in Ebonics, I respond in Ebonics and use it regularly in the classroom. No way would I rather be at Harvard.

1. Ideology protects class interests; critical thinking seeks to liberate the oppressed/disenfranchised. Critical thinking recognizes the radical equality of all human beings, no matter what age. Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to others"; I take the Torah and all the rabbinical writings seriously (although I radically disagree with so much of the patriarchal silliness).

2. Marx called ideology ‘inverted consciousness’ or ‘the distortion of thought which stems from and conceals social contradictions’. So it's like those in power believe their own lies: "I'm doing this to protect democracy and to make America great again. I have the peoples' interests at heart--God forbid you think I have my rich kids and cronies' interests at heart.

3. "The rise of a body of ahistorical theory and analytic practice which does serious violence to materialist ontology, by grounding knowledge in "meaning", "interpretation", and the like rather than in the activity of real, living individuals, emerged historically as an antidote to the doctrine of philosophical materialism and its practices." Mardin Keshmiri, "What is this thing called ideology?"

It's easy to get too lost in the theoretical/philosophical speculations. Not that everyone belongs in the trenches I'm in; we're all called upon to assist others in varieties of different ways. I certainly don't want to sound like any kind of a proselytizer, but I believe fundamentally that I'm alive to serve and assist other human beings. There are other aspects of my life, of course, but if I'm not serving others, then, as Hillel asked, What am I? This is what my Jewish Existentialism consists of.

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I owe you an apology, and I amended my first post to make it clear that I agreed with your statement entirely. I never cease to be amazed at how easy it is for us to misunderstand each other on a forum like this one.

As for your final paragraphs, I have to agree with Hillel: "Learning not increased is learning decreased." Learning should be in a perpetual push forward, and should find no easy resting place--at least for no longer than it takes one to quench thirst at an oasis. Then continue the exodus, the wandering, the movement.

I'm about as much of an intellectual snob as I am a Trump supporter: less than zero. I spend almost all my time among far less-educated people where I live. I'm not in some ivory tower; I'm in the trenches. And I'm always trying to teach my under-class students the power and liberation of critical thinking; perhaps one out of 50 or 100 gets it. It's a labor of love and duty. I have a profound belief in the power of critical thinking to liberate people from all the ideological cobwebs of mass delusion and mystification that are so liberally showered on the American public; and I mean ideology in the classic Marxist sense: distortions and lies used to control people to obey. to put their spirits to sleep, to matrix them, so to speak. It's always an incredible moment when one of my students is awakened out of ideological brainwash.

We have to continue awakening anew each day, for it's far too easy to be seduced by comsumerism, global capitalism, satan, or whatever you wish to call it. Stay woke.

I don't understand your point, can you expand on it? — boethius

The point is to acquire a context within which one can study various texts. I'm not going to insist that one have a world view in place before reading philosophy or political science or whatever: in fact, it's impossible to forge a broad world view without using reading as the vehicle through which it's forged.

I assume that most everyone on this forum is concerned about any philosophical discourse that smacks of fascism, which is why they ban a series of subjects--Baden writes, "Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them."

So it seemed to me that one of the issues that arose concerned how do we acquire philosophical knowledge? One member suggested that Ayn Rand should be banned, and then the Mormons became part of the discussion;

My point was, by all means, read what you want if you want to find out what it's about for yourself, but it's important for a critical thinker to be self conscious and self reflexive about the world view from which each of us reads. My world view is constantly adjusting itself according to the information/knowledge I acquire, and I don't think much of the idea of a rigid, unchanging, unshifting world view. It will crack and break.

Usually people get into philosophy because they're interested in something specific. — VagabondSpectre

This is certainly true in my case. I got interested in Existentialism in the late 60s because it was relevant to my generation, plus I wanted to understand my own existential angst. Since I was an avid reader, I just kept going. I was in college in the 1970s and took some philosophy courses; I was in grad school in the 80s and got a minor in critical and cultural theory, which I consider a branch of philosophy. So I have a long list now, but I started with Kaufman's Existentialsim from Dostoyevsky to Sartre

Please, join a course or group or internet forum that can be argued to be welcoming critical thought on religious and theological matters for a year ... then become a Mormon for a year ... then report back on the appreciation of critical thinking and exposure to challenges to beliefs and assumption in each group. — boethius

I agree with you entirely: it's not like fast food! Another possibility is to do serious research of your own online, at serious websites only, about who and what these people and organizations are, how they operate, a thorough appraisal of what their most important ideas consist of, and why critical thinkers may tend to be highly skeptical about bringing a discussion "down" to that level. It's not censorship; it's just a complete waste of time.

Mein Kamph became legal to read in Germany again in 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/books/a-german-finally-picks-up-mein-kampf.html

Critical thinking is nothing if not the consistent attempt to identify and analyze ideologial discourse and to de-mystify it. A critical thinker makes every attempt not to be hoodwinked by ideas, and I am extremely careful to identify little bits of fascism, totalitarianism, promotion of psychopathic ideas or practices (like by Pharma companies) or white supremacist belief/practices hidden in whatever I read or speak about with others. It's a daily confrontation.

The author of the above article is a critical thinker, an "intellectual"; most of the neo-nazis buyint and reading the book over the past three years are not.

As an old existentialist, the existence or fiction of God is irrelevant to me: whether it's there or not, it doesn't save the existentialist, who has to do that for herself. Although perhaps an agnostic existentialist might feel less alone in the cosmos if there were one...

the question itself is overwhelming — Wallows

What is the question? Do you mean what he refers to as the problem of existence?

In one sense, Schopenhauer is being a bit like the fox with his tail cut off: he wants everyone to experience the angst of examining the meaning of one's own existence. And, of course, he's correct: the vast majority of folks are content eating their tv dinner in front of the tv, or thinking, I'm saved; I have nothing to worry about.

Not everyone is capable of contemplating the problem that Schope lays out. My reaction: he's right. To contemplate the problem of existence is not fun or mind-numbing.

All our biases are in us to protect us, be they love biases or hate biases. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Not true: they don't protect; they sicken and weaken--in this case, the human psyche is weakened by the defenses one forms to avoid the pain and trauma of abuse. You call them biases, but you're really referring to the defenses you use to justify your opinions. And the conclusions you jump to, expecting the reader to accept them!! Loving more causes hate: just plain silly, and stupid. Dumb. Dull-witted. You can do better than that!!!

But a field is just a theoretical abstraction — Gnomon

That seems just about as ignorant as what you claim about my speculation. Your comments about peeling away at matter until we arrive at...??? don't negate the existence of matter.

That is a perfect expression, my genius friend...