Designed by whom or what? — Wayfarer

Not by humans, because that would lead to infinite regress. So, the technology is clearly of non-human origin. The rest is foundationalist belief. In religion, the belief is that the universe and humanity were created by the same creator.

So, the technology is clearly of non-human origin. — Tarskian

What technology are you referring to? I thought we were discussing biology.

religion is built into our preprogrammed biological firmware, — Tarskian

Quran 30:30

I'm not a scholar, if I'm being presumptuous, accept my apology in advance.

Is it necessarily instilled in us biologically? Or is that a favored interpretation because your's is currently a physicalist view?

Could it have been instilled in each human soul; this innate desire for religion?

I looked at Quran 30:30 and your reference to Fitr, and neither is explicit; but your "nature", given Islamic dualism, I'd lean on religion is built-in desire of the soul. (?)

What technology are you referring to? I thought we were discussing biology. — Wayfarer

Biology is a natural technology. We did not design it. We only very partially understand it. Still, it works surprisingly well.

Is it necessarily instilled in us biologically? Or is that a favored interpretation because your's is currently a physicalist view?

Could it have been instilled in each human soul; this innate desire for religion? — ENOAH

In my opinion, impossible to say. The notion of soul is also part of religion. I personally believe that we have both some form of firmware as well as a soul.

some form of firmware as well as a soul. — Tarskian

Assuming you don't mean "firmware" literally; sticking to the metaphor, what is the soul? Does it not also code the hardware so that it operated effectively? Is the soul, software? The operating system for the software?

Biology is a natural technology — Tarskian

Not so. Technology, derived from the Greek ‘techne,’ means something made by art, craftsmanship, or human intervention. Biology, on the other hand, pertains to natural processes and organisms that arise without human fabrication (or any fabrication so far as we can tell.) While technology can mimic or be inspired by biological systems (biomimicry), it remains fundamentally different because it is a product of intentional design and manipulation by humans. In contrast, biological systems evolve through natural selection and other processes intrinsic to life itself.

To equate biology with technology is to overlook the essential distinction between naturally occurring phenomena and human-engineered artifacts. Biology operates through mechanisms and principles that are not designed or created by humans, whereas technology is inherently a product of human creativity and engineering. It’s important to have conceptual clarity in respect of such fundamental terms.

Assuming you don't mean "firmware" literally; sticking to the metaphor, what is the soul? Does it not also code the hardware so that it operated effectively? Is the soul, software? The operating system for the software? — ENOAH

The soul is what is gone when we die. Its role while we are alive is not clearly determined.

Biology operates through mechanisms and principles that are not designed or created by humans, whereas technology is inherently a product of human creativity and engineering. — Wayfarer

Biological systems are designed according to principles that appear similar to us to a technology, but clearly not of human origin. I use the term biological technology to point out that to an important extent we are similar to technological devices.

But they’re not designed - not unless you’re defending an intelligent designer. Are you?

But they’re not designed - not unless you’re defending an intelligent designer. Are you? — Wayfarer

I personally believe that it is a non-human technology that embodies particular design principles. The analogy I see it through are technology devices with embedded software, i.e. firmware. There are lots of parallels. It is obviously not exactly the same. However, there are still surprisingly many similarities. An acceptable way to analyze something for which you do not have design documents, is to compare it to things for which you do have them. That is why I view biological devices through the lens of modern computing devices with embedded firmware. For example our own eyes are quite similar to embedded cameras with embedded firmware. It is not a perfect analogy but it is still better than nothing.

Odd as it may seem, I kind of agree. The caveat is that about 99% of people will say, ‘oh, you mean God designed it’. The reason being that, in the case of human-created design, there’s an obvious agency involved, namely, humans. But DNA, so far as we know, came into being without an agent - although, of course, intelligent design advocates will say that the agent is a higher intelligence. To lay my cards on the table, I don’t argue for intelligent design, but I’m at least open to some of those arguments.

It’s true that computers provide a metaphor for mental functions. In fact, that was the presiding metaphor for a school of thought in cog sci called functionalism. Functionalism is the view that mental states are defined by their functional roles—how they interact with other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs—rather than by their internal physical or biological makeup. This perspective is analogous to how a computer operates, where what matters is the function of the software rather than the specific hardware it runs on. (Myself, I run on Idealist OS :-) )

In this case however we’re considering more than mental functions. That life seems designed is news to nobody, really. it was the basis of the watchmaker argument of Bishop Paley, and the subject of deconstruction in any number of books by Richard Dawkins.

So let’s get clear on what you mean by ‘designed’. Where do you think your idea fits into that overall set of ideas, or does it not?

So let’s get clear on what you mean by ‘designed’. Where do you think your idea fits into that overall set of ideas, or does it not? — Wayfarer

I look at biology as a technology that we mostly fail to reverse engineer, if only, because we do not have access to its design documents. In a sense, it is superior to our own technology, because it seems to embed the factory that produces the device inside the device. We can't do that.

Biology as a technology is analogous to Von Neumann universal constructors:

John von Neumann's universal constructor is a self-replicating machine in a cellular automaton (CA) environment. It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, completed in 1966 by Arthur W. Burks after von Neumann's death.[2] It is regarded as foundational for automata theory, complex systems, and artificial life.[3][4] Indeed, Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner considered Von Neumann's work on self-reproducing automata (together with Turing's work on computing machines) central to biological theory as well, allowing us to "discipline our thoughts about machines, both natural and artificial."

The reality is that in all practical terms we can't do self-replication with our technology. So, biology is simply a superior technology.

Therefore, my analogy that tries to map something that we do understand, the technology of computing devices, to some fragment of biology, is necessarily limited. We simply cannot reverse engineer it. If we could, we obviously would.

The very notion of "design" is tied to our technology. The term may be too simplistic when discussing non-human technology. What exactly does it correspond to in that case? I think we must accept the limitations of what we truly understand, reflected by the technology that we master and the problems that we can solve. If we truly understood biology, we would be able to build biological devices from scratch, which we can't.

Therefore, the term "design" merely reflects the limitations of what we understand. If we truly understood the technology of biology, we would probably dedicate a better term to reflect a particular important document that describes how it truly works.

I look at biology as a technology that we mostly fail to reverse engineer, if only, because we do not have access to its design documents. — Tarskian

Rather hubristic, isn’t it?

Actually I want to go back to something you said at the beginning - that religion is ‘built into our firmware. When pressed, you said:

Whenever a behavior is universal throughout history and throughout the world, it can only be biological. Otherwise, there would be or have been numerous societies in the past and/or throughout the world that did not have it. — Tarskian

But what if you believe that, because the only explanatory paradigm you accept is the biological? (Presumably because it’s scientific.) I agree that religious experiences or visions have occurred to h.sapiens throughout history, which is certainly supported by anthropological and archeological evidence. But why should that be ‘biological’ in origin? Might that be because the only kind of theoretical basis that science accepts for human faculties and abilities is that provided by evolutionary biology?

There obviously many features of h.sapiens that are biological in origin - practically everything about human physiology and anatomy can be understood through the lens of evolutionary biology. But why should a particular kind of experience be regarded as being attributable to biology? Sure, the experience of birth, disease and death are common to all species, therefore biological. But what about the religious experience, in particular, can be understood through that perspective?

There obviously many features of h.sapiens that are biological in origin - practically everything about human physiology and anatomy can be understood through the lens of evolutionary biology. — Wayfarer

I consider evolutionary biology to be largely conjectural. If you truly understand something, then you can build it by yourself from scratch. So, as far as I am concerned, evolutionary biology does not truly understand what they are talking about.

But what about the religious experience, in particular, can be understood through that perspective? — Wayfarer

Religion is much more modest than evolutionary biology. It even starts by saying that even though we may ourselves be unable to create biological devices/beings from scratch, there is someone else who actually can. This take on the matter sounds much more plausible to me.

Thank you for your answers, I shall think them over.

Or admits to having no access via [that uniquely human form of] existence, and so, gets on with the business of existence, knowing (unlike postivists) that it's just business. — ENOAH

Easier to say; but I don't think it possible to go back to business, and just as likely that one was never wholly really there IN the "just business" to begin with. After all, if one is there staring at the abyss of being, what is it that drove one to be there in the first place? It wasn't the curious lines of thought produced by philosophers. It was something there originally that made their thinking compelling.

A thin line between existential enlightenment and schizoid personality, the latter literally meaning divided. The kind of thing I have been emphasizing would be no more than an encouragement of a psychosis by normal standards.

So well said! — ENOAH

But did I say it? Yes, and this was a derivative occasion, for was I not just repeating words I have said many, many times before? Derivative in the mundane sense, sure, for nothing in my head is not derived from those I read. But more broadly conceived, derivative in terms of the possibilities already in the language I was educated into. One direction the OP takes us is toward the self, the ontology of the self. This is value-in-being.

Do you think he maintained focus on knowing, right through to the end; or, did he silence the knowing, the pride that would follow, and the fear which the former arises to overcome. Did he make the ultimate sactifice; one stripped of all construction, loosened from the (safety) net of becoming; a sacrifice of being?

If the former, "one" remains "I" even in its noblest sacrifice.

If the latter, one truly is the body being and ceasing to be. — ENOAH

It is a curious question. He was at once there and not there, and certainly he had been "not there" many times. He likely lived in this threshold most of the time. Already dead, you might say, by any non physical standard of living. But read the Abhidhamma: it is a world of extraordinary and unrealized dimensions of experience. I have argued that the notion of "no self" is not taken up very analytically in the East. I will in the future look more deeply into this extraordinary account, very alien to our culture.

WTF? I'm intrigued. Thanks! — ENOAH

That's Eugene Fink's Sixth Meditation. The first five are found in Husserl's Cartesian Meditations. Quite accessible! Unlike the more technical works.

You know, that might be a "crack" a glitch in the mechanics where aware-ing might find "it's [organic] self." I've never tried.
But you must agree. Instantly "thoughts" flood the aware-ing, even in its "effort" (which habitually employs thought). — ENOAH

Yes, I do agree. But explicitly one can yield to the world, what Heidegger called gelassenheit, his meditative thinking that does not dogmatically seize hold of the world but yields to its possibilities of disclosure. This is, for me and I suspect for you as well, the uncanny sense one has of the world as being, or being-in-the-world as one approaches its margins. Absolutely essential, I argue, for understanding the nature of religion. It is our own finitude that is somehow lost, but lost IN that very finitude: Inquiry beings with the life we face every day, then moves to what is unsaid and ignored. You like Fink. Here is an actual quote:

If, then, the point of breakthrough to transcendental life, the transcendental ego, is described and fully unfolded in the first stage of regressive phenomenology, we have essentially two possibilities for proceeding further. Either we actually get into the concrete disciplines of constitutive investigation, and carry out static and genetic analyses of constitution, or we first of
all develop the full content of being as it is given us by the reduction, we disclose the hidden implications of the ego: co-existent [koexistierend] transcendental intersubjectivity. These two possible ways of proceeding are not at all, however, of equal standing. The methodologically correct procedure is
rather to keep to the first stage of regressive phenom enology and to cover it
in its whole breadth, to complete the initial form of the phenomenological reduction, egological reduction, in the final form, intersubjective reduction. It is only by disclosing transcendental intersubjectivity (even if only in its protomodal form) that constitutive regressive questions, which in every instance
proceed from the construct of acceptedness which is "the phenomenon of the world," achieve the rank that makes possible adequate understanding of the intersubjective world as the correlate of a transcendentally communicating constitution. That is, if we immediately go into constitution within the egological restriction, then on the basis of egological performances we shall never
be able adequately to explain the intersubjective sense of being that constituted objectivity has. There are elements left over in the problematic of egological constitution that do not come clear and which compel us to return to the methodologically first stage of regressive phenom enology and broaden
the contracted field within which regressive inquiry into constitution began
its work.[/i]

You see, Fink is no mystic. He is a very rigorous intellectual, but his thoughts attempt to find where in the already given world transcendental impositions have their ground. In this passage he prepares the way for a discussion about metaethics by introducing the condition of intersubjectivity. Emanuel Levinas moves deeply into this.

I, as I have said, am a quasi mystic, meaning I do not sit in a cave trying to annihilate the world; but I do take this kind of thing seriously. For the understanding, the reduction is the key to this (see the underlined text above). It subsumes all meditative practices intellectually, which means that while the meditative practice may be the ultimate rigor of discovery, to understand this is to move into phenomenology. All of the "metaphysics" in the ancient Eastern texts are reducible to phenomenology, whether it is in Pali or Sanskrit. How can I say this so emphatically? Because it is so clear. Phenomenology takes one INTO the world and shows us the problematic of this relation.

Of course, these texts are often disdainful of language's attempts to disclose the unspoken, but this is exactly why one has to read Derrida: language is self critical; if there is something profound about our existence, language will discover this. It is IN language it is revealed that the world is metaphysics.

This comes up consistently. Does this answer, if any necessary premises are accepted, address it? Use rock because cup has the added complexity of being a cultural construct.

In nature without language eyes see rock and brain process it bt sending signals to trigger an appropriate feeling, drive, action, if any. The "conversion" of the rock into the object, "the rock" doesn't take place. So that your question, "how rock there brain here" does not even come up.

In world of human mind, eyes see rock, a conversion into language autonomously takes place, drives feelings actions, are displaced/determined by those constructions. Now eyes "see" "rock — ENOAH

Yeah, I do time and time again come back to this. I don't want to complicate it. Not one thought. Consider that I am the scientist that is asking the simple question about a relation between two objects, a brain and a fence post. One has to isolate the condition and study it as it appears, and nothing else. Later one can assimilate and object all she likes, but for now, just intelligent observation: how is it possible?
It isn't. There is no epistemic theory that makes the connection. Knowledge according to the physicalist model is impossible. So, this makes one review the working thesis of what a person is, an epistemic agency, that is, me, this self that stands before the world. What do we do when idea flat out fail? We reexamine assumptions, or examine them for the first time, as is mostly the case here.
But first, are you convinced that "physical reality and the causal laws that apodictically determine it" is a failed attempt? One has to first get to this place.

The purpose: to undo the grasp that physicalism has on one's basic thinking. It is a very strong, intuitive hold, encouraged constantly, assumed throughout one's education and a permanent fixture in belief. THIS has to be undone. ANd then, one can look at alternative theories in a different light. (What is a theory: and idea with a predication. "Snow is white" is a theory.)

And all that you say about the world of language and the world of the human mind: put this on hold, if you would. For one cannot speak of the world and drives and feelings, etc., until one can say what the world and the rest are. This takes the matter to the perceptual act itself. The perceptual act is PRIOR to what things in the natural DO.

Husserl's transcendental contradictorily involves the Ego. It is, by definition, not elevated. — ENOAH

The transcendental ego. True, one does have to read his works mto understand the nuances of phenomenology. Keep in mind that he opened a door. Later, philosophers will walk through in greater strides.

For me it is simpler. The elevated reality where humans are concerned, belongs to being [that organic being]. All else is talk. — ENOAH

Not sure what you mean by "organic," but I do understand what you are talking about. But I would say this: For me, the world is this grand "ineffable" disclosure of being, and when I am in the intimacy or deep proximity of this experience, the world seems to stand still, and I become aware of the "substratum," if you will, of the horizon of being in the world, the absolute "thereness" that remains undisclosed in day to day affairs. Such an odd way to talk, but there it is. This state is often called ecstatic, meaning one stands "outside" of oneself and the usual assumptions that are always in play.
The "talk" is an attempt to give this experience analysis. Just that. And the literature IS productive here. This "being as such" occurs to the understanding in language. That is, when you ask yourself, what IS this? you are already the mode of disclosure. This simplicity you speak of is a simplicity; this is not being challenged. This is where we leave Heidegger in the dust. But if one wants to clarify the "what is this?" question, and make more clear the vocabulary that one is using every time one tries to think about what it is, then Heidegger is VERY useful. As is Husserl, and especially all the post post modern phenomenologists I read. I don't know that they experience the world quite as I do, in fact, I am sure they both do and they do not, but they help a lot to guide thought through to greater realization.

Look at it like this: I am quite sure the ancient people of the Christian bible were often deeply attuned to the "divinity" within, profound and wondrous. By this I "simply" mean that they experienced the world a bit as I do, free of the burden of presumption and open to the world's original being and free of the endless distractions of science and technology and the claim these make on our identity. But interpretatively they were just awful! Dreadful ideas of primitive thinking that brought about the world's worst horrors. One has to ask, how they could their thinking be so radically missing the mark of what this original divinity (I am calling it) "said"? The answer to this question is that everything we experience is interpretatively received. The "good" as Wittgenstein called it does not wear its interpretation on its sleeve in the entanglements of familiar affairs.

Such is the problem of the "simplicity" of analysis-free living.

I'll join this thread instead of creating a new one..

Recently watched documentaries about Maya, Aztecs and Inca, it's fascinating how they even though in no contact with the rest of the (religious) world had their own religions.

This suggests religion is essential to people and not rooted in some historical religion.

It suggests that even if religion is completely erased from earth and forgotten, at some point people would come up with new religions.

So long as h. sapiens are mortal and scarcity-anxious, I agree our species will remain congentially religious.

If we one day reach trans-humanism and sway away from the way of life as we know it and if knowledge is preserved then it's possible for religions to become obsolete.

Otherwise we'll remain homo sapiens and religions won't go away.

Trends show that new religions emerge (ex. new age style religions) and are replacement for those who stopped being part of major religions.

I don't think it possible to go back to business, — Constance

I must have confused you. "Business" is what we can't leave. Assuming the hypothetical staring at the abyss of being is even possible (if anything, it's a micro-glimpse, not a stare; an aware-ing, not a vision), it's not so much a returning, as a being smothered (once again).

something there originally that made their thinking compelling. — Constance

Not just originally, continously. We "pursue" being because we are being.

It's just that we "pursue" being; thereby, ignore that we are.

thin line between existential enlightenment and schizoid personality, — Constance

Though the latter may suffer from the misfortune of thinking they are two things. Both are "pathological," if by existential enlightenment, you are referring to the "pursuit" of being, thinking you will access being by such pursuit. It's the same for you and I, if either one of us denied the inherent contradiction/futility in a dialogue which intermittently (to wit: now) pointed out it's own futility.

While schizoid, as you say, or any other pathology recognized as such yields no functional benefits, not so for philosophy, though the latter seems futile. Philosophy, just as it is wilfully blind to the futility of its pursuits, is wilfully blind to its own actual role: to make sense/navigate the meaning making system. To order the Narratives in functional ways.

Philosophy gets us even to the essence of religion, that pursuit of and glimpse into the real truth outside of our Fictions.

One direction the OP takes us is toward the self, the ontology of the self. This is value-in-being. — Constance

I think that to be both a valid and worthwhile discussion, but through my lenses that takes place as two discussions. Ontology of the real self would exclude the ego/subject and therefore necessarily all signifiers, including but not limited to all words/thoughts/ideas. So called ontology of the so called Subject self, I, would yield much intriguing discussion, but I would recognize that we are analyzing the laws and mechanics of Mind.

I have argued that the notion of "no self" is not taken up very analytically in the East. — Constance

With all due humility and modesty, we are applying western analysis to the concept of no-self; not to the level of technical precision you might prefer, but still; despite phenomenology, mahayana is permeat.

Heidegger called gelassenheit, his meditative thinking that does not dogmatically seize hold of the world but yields to its possibilities of disclosure. — Constance

Hah, like an uncarved block, actionless action. That Heidegger! I have to imagine he knew more than he let on to, delivered it to his world in the most progressed language of the day. But that sounds like wisdom beyond logic.

It is our own finitude that is somehow lost, but lost IN that very finitude — Constance

Oh yah. That's perfect!

Ironically, I may be diverging from your position (I hope not) but the first finitude is what we exactly are, and always are, a finite, organic, mortal animal. We create out of that finitude, out of its imagination, a filter which without escape modifies how we perceive the first and real finitude.

It is only by disclosing transcendental intersubjectivity (even if only in its protomodal form) that constitutive regressive questions, which in every instance
proceed from the construct of acceptedness which is "the phenomenon of the world," achieve the rank that makes possible adequate understanding of the intersubjective world as the correlate of a transcendentally communicating constitution — Constance

I don't want to jump to conclusions (need to read Husserl now, and him, within context, understand especially their use of "intersubjectivity") but this seems very compelling (Mind/History).

Fink is no mystic. He is a very rigorous intellectual, but his thoughts attempt to find where in the already given world transcendental impositions have their ground — Constance

Ok, right. Reduction, as in, can I put it this way, "trace signifiers down to the root in "nature" for the first signifier"?

All of the "metaphysics" in the ancient Eastern texts are reducible to phenomenology, whether it is in Pali or Sanskrit. How can I say this so emphatically? — Constance

No disagreement here! I totally agree. Just as, and I say this in support of your point, not as a "tit for tat"

one has to read Derrida: — Constance

I totally agree again. I'm no Derrida scholar, but having actually enjoyed reading Grammatology (enjoyed as cf to Hegel or Lacan) same has built Foundations in my mind.

Consider that I am the scientist that is asking the simple question about a relation between two objects, a brain and a fence post. One has to isolate the condition and study it as it appears, and nothing else. — Constance

Ok. Got it. So hypothetically, though we don't know what other animals see, can the question be asked of other beings? Obviously my dog will see the ball in the air that he lead to catch. Same question applies dog brain here ball mid air, how is it the two meet?

Isn't that a question biology/physics can answer? Leaving the real question how is it object becomes "fence post" in a human mind after science explains the optic system.

Within my current thinking, there is no question the object in the distance exists outside of my Mind and is a real thing in a real world. Any confusion over that, I submit, betrays the absurdity that logic/reasoning, though functional, can sometimes create. It is

The answer to this question is that everything we experience is interpretatively received. The "good" as Wittgenstein called it does not wear its interpretation on its sleeve in the entanglements of familiar affairs.

Such is the problem of the "simplicity" of analysis-free living. — Constance

Worthwhile points. Ignorance is not bliss. Knowing that you cannot know does not mean stop pursuing knowledge.

I'm triggered by the urgency in your tone to read and think about these things, especially my current hypothetical place, in more of a Phenomenological context. See where it leads

I thoughts on the whole matter of religion is varied and widespread. Could you perhaps give me a summation what has happened over the 9 pages as I am late to the party.

I think it could be best to start by looking at differing cosmological perspectives both now and historically, then extrapolating further back into prehistory.

I think Mircea Eliade did some stellar scholarship on religions and religiosity in general. — I like sushi

Well, you're preaching to the choir. But the OP is about something prior to the qualified nature of the experience. One may experience something so alien to common sense and deeply profound that it requires metaphysics to give an account of it, but to make the claim that the world as it is in all its mundanity itself possesses the basis for religious possibility, this is the idea here; that in the common lies the uncommon metaethical foundation for ethics and religion.

Most who are religious do not give any thought to what Eliade had say and the mystical things they believe in are entirely textual, traditional, cultural, but certainly not personally mystical. This is reserved for "faith" in others who were like this, hence the rise of personality cults and so much bad metaphysics. Faith mostly encourages the divide between this world and another. Here, I want to show that this other world really is this one.
So here is a question that lies at the center of the idea of the OP: what if ethics were apodictic, like logic? This is what you could call an apriori question, looking into the essence of what is there in the world and determining what must be the case given what is the case. Logic reveals apodicticity, or an emphatic or unyielding nature. Entirely intellectually coercive. I claim that ethics has this at its core.

Do you believe we need language to think? As in this here written language? — I like sushi

Clearly we need a language to think about language, but to ride a bike or sow a seed, no. Reading Robert Hanna's paper on this very subject, I was reminded of the difficulty of addressing such a question: The cow looks up and sees greener pasture elsewhere, picks hersolf up and moves. Did the cow perform the conditional structure of thought? Obviously not, but there is was, in the pragmatic response, that is, the desire for greener grass, once observed, was satisfied by putting one leg in front of another and so forth. Call it proto-logical or primordial logic. But the difficulty: my assessment of the this protologicality issues from a language and logic that can only interpretatively understand the world, and this is done within logical and sematic delimitations. The cow's cognitive abilities are going to be assessed IN an interpretative bias.

This also applies to language thinking about language: how objective can this be given that the answer is going to be structured in language? This is question begging.

But on the other hand, Hanna gives a pretty good "philosophical" analysis on this matter. He says,

the correct answer to the question inherently depends on what you
mean by “thinking.” If by “thinking” you mean discursive thinking, then the answer is yes,
but if by “thinking” you mean essentially non-conceptual, non-discursive thinking, then the
answer is no

Of course, this is right. It ALWAYS depends on the flexibility of the words we are using. When you start the car in the morning, are you "thinking" about starting the car, or is it just rote action? But you certainly CAN think about it. I think when a person enters an environment of familiarity, like a classroom or someone's kitchen, there is, implicit in all one sees, the discursive possibility that lies "at the ready," as when one asks me suddenly, doesn't that chef's knife look like what you have at home? I see it, and language is there, "ready to hand". For us, not cows and goats, but for us, there is language everywhere and in everything.

It is trivially easy to deprave and degenerate humans away from their innate biological firmware. There is a lot of power to be had in doing so.

Therefore, the need eventually arose for religious scripture to appear which contains a copy in human language of the biologically preprogrammed rules that humans should not break and that government should never overrule. That is why during his investiture ceremony the new king was always forced to kneel to religion in order to be crowned. He had to acknowledge the supremacy of God's law.

If there are no tensions or even conflict between the political overlord and religion, then it is not a true religion. The more the political overlord complains about a particular religion, the more it is doing its main job, which is to constrain the political overlord, and therefore the more truthful it is. If religion is never an impediment to the expansion of state power, then it is a false religion. — Tarskian

At its foundation, religion has nothing to do with biology or politics and government, or kings. These sit on top, if you will, of a more primordial analysis. One has to see that biology, for example, can have no insight into what is not apparent in the microscope and manifest physical features of an organism. But religion is certainly not about this. It is about ethics. What is ethics? This is the question. Talk about anything else will beg this question. It is singularly an ethical/aesthetic question about an unobservable feature of our existence: The Good. This is where the discussion begins.

And just to finish the thought, imagine walking into a familiar environment, and coming across something that does not at all belong there. Notice how the language steps in for analysis. Sure, the cow can move to the greener grass and discover it is not grass at all, but something else green. But systematic symbolic constructions of language move inquiry deeper into causes and quantifications and comparisons and speculations, and so forth. This OPENS inquiry and makes religion's an analytic possibility, that is, something that exceeds the mindless story telling and ritual fetishes. Language allows thought to cancel what is irrelevant. Cancel naïve religious metaphysics.

But religion is certainly not about this. It is about ethics. What is ethics? — Constance

What are sound ethics? We take a snapshot of a sane society as well as an inventory of its rules. This is a suitable benchmark for ethical sanity. Benchmarking sane rules when it was still possible is what the scriptures implicitly do.

That is why the scriptures had to be transmitted as soon as possible, in order to front run the degeneracy that would inevitably follow later on. That is also why it is no longer possible to transmit new scriptures. It would simply describe the depravity of our contemporary society and not be suitable as a benchmark. Prophetic times are over.

Thanks to the scriptures we still know what we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to behave. It is a fantastic tool against the manipulative narrative of the ruling mafia. They handsomely benefit from growing depravity. We don't.

What are sound ethics? — Tarskian

But this is not about what to do. It is about a descriptive account: when an ethical issue arises, what is there that makes it ethical? Religion is about the answer to this question. And the answer is value, and i use this term in the way Wittgenstein did when he said about this world, "In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value." He doesn't really go into it as I would like, but Moore talked about ethics having to do with a non natural property; so what is this all about?

When we talk about ethics and justified actions, we carry with this an assumption that things matter, and this mattering is the foundation of our ethical and religious lives.The argument here is that analysis shows that value is as apodictic as logic. Value is what ethics is, if you will, made of, and value has an epistemic (and therefore ontological; this can be argued) standing that is unassailable. Situations are endlessly assailable, and this can make value assessment ambiguous, obviously (as with torturing someone to save the lives of thousands, and so on); but value AS SUCH is unassailable. Just like modus ponens, say, or DeMorgan's theorem.

One may experience something so alien to common sense and deeply profound that it requires metaphysics to give an account of it, but to make the claim that the world as it is in all its mundanity itself possesses the basis for religious possibility, this is the idea here; that in the common lies the uncommon metaethical foundation for ethics and religion. — Constance

I am on board with this, simple because if we refer to any totality it is the current totality we know. We cannot think beyond and to say 'beyond' is merely an empty statement that is only actually applicable to different known areas of experience. If you get what I mean? Often the terms used are done so in overextension. An heuristic outside of its useful functionality.

Here, I want to show that this other world really is this one. — Constance

And mysterious ;) Reality is often more surprising than fiction.

So here is a question that lies at the center of the idea of the OP: what if ethics were apodictic, like logic? This is what you could call an apriori question, looking into the essence of what is there in the world and determining what must be the case given what is the case. Logic reveals apodicticity, or an emphatic or unyielding nature. Entirely intellectually coercive. I claim that ethics has this at its core. — Constance

I am not entirely clear what you are stating here. Can you be more specific about this hypothetical IF?

If you are asking where ethics/morals come from - with the assumption of some essence - much like Kant asked about what can be known prior to experience, I am not sure how this could be so. In terms of experience I think Husserl is the best landmark to orientate from given what I have found.

Of course, this is right. It ALWAYS depends on the flexibility of the words we are using. When you start the car in the morning, are you "thinking" about starting the car, or is it just rote action? But you certainly CAN think about it. I think when a person enters an environment of familiarity, like a classroom or someone's kitchen, there is, implicit in all one sees, the discursive possibility that lies "at the ready," as when one asks me suddenly, doesn't that chef's knife look like what you have at home? I see it, and language is there, "ready to hand". For us, not cows and goats, but for us, there is language everywhere and in everything. — Constance

I personally like to frame our intentionality as a form of questioning. What is 'given' is outside the frame of awareness. I like to frame Apodictic as that which we are not consciously attending to (it is a negative sense of being I guess? Hard to express).

For the record I do not view religion as a mere vehicle for ethics. I think the uses of it (especially in terms
of its prehistorical origins) were more far reaching and inclusive of much of human day-to-day experience.

Note: This topic looks like it is right up my street. I am ready for disappointment though as these kinds of discussions rarely go down the kind of path I was hoping for.

@Constance

I would enjoy to here what is meant by Religion and Religious here too?

I think it pays to distinguish what we are talking about and it what kind of historical timeframe too. Religion today is taken to mean a whole range of things sometimes and I am more concerned with common aspects that extend and persist rather than focusing in on any one particular instance or interpretation.

If we one day reach trans-humanism — SpaceDweller

A curious notion. What could it mean?