If you try to define religion as someone who is not religious, from the outside, then your notions of religion will be all over the place, not making a coherent whole.

A, for example, Hindu's idea of religion and a Roman Catholic's idea of religion differ, even significantly, but what they have in common is that their own notion of religion is meaningful to them, respectively. — baker

This is a philosophy forum, it is not a theology forum. I've tried joining a couple of comparative religion forums, they were a real mishmash. The thread topic is about the 'concept of religion' which I think is a valid topic and I'm attempting to address from the viewpoint of comparative religion.

I didn't start off on my spiritual quest as if it were an obviously 'religious' one. I thought, at the time in my life, that I was engaged in the attempt to understand enlightenment. This was present in popular culture mainly through counter-cultural sources, like the Beatles encounter with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, LSD trips, and writers like Alan Watts and D T Suzuki. Nothing to do with Church pews and organ music. That was what I had attempted to study through the perspectives of comparative religion, anthropology, psychology, history and philosophy (the latter being of almost no relevance. Only much later in life did I begin to realise that what I was considering 'enlightenment' and what goes under the heading of 'religion' might have something in common. And that was because, when I started trying to practice meditation in order to arrive at the putative 'spiritual experience' sans artificial stimulants, mostly what I experienced was pain, boredom and ennui. So I gradually came to realise that this 'enlightenment' I had been seeking was not likely to be a permanent state of 'peak experience' after all, that, if there is such a thing as religious ecstacy, that it is a very elusive state indeed.)

One could add science to your diagram, a new segment. — Banno

It's there, but solely confined to the innermost circle. That's why, in the 'scientific worldview', nothing really happens for any reason, as distinct from a prior material cause, and only ever in service to adaptation.

Wittgenstein apparently had a poor opinion of Schopenhauer: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind ... where real depth starts, his comes to an end." — Banno

What bollocks. As if Wittgenstein is the final word.

Dawkins describes the transcendence of unweaving the rainbow. — Banno

Dawkins has not the least inkling of what the term 'transcendence' means.

:up: Good.

What I'm trying to articulate is a revisionist interpretation of the meaning of spiritual awakening. It provides a religious cosmology but one not centred around the Biblical sense of religion - possibly more Gnostic

There is a theme (or meme) that is found in both Western and Eastern sources of the human as microcosm 'which posits a structural similarity between the human being (the microcosm) and the cosmos as a whole (the macrocosm). Given this fundamental analogy, truths about the nature of the cosmos as a whole may be inferred from truths about human nature, and vice versa.' Ideas of this genre can be found across cultures and across history.

A compatible idea is found in the SEP entry on Schopenhauer:

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being. ...

As much as he opposes the traditional German Idealists in their metaphysical elevation of self-consciousness (which he regards as too intellectualistic), Schopenhauer philosophizes within the spirit of this tradition, for he believes that the supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through introspection, and that we can understand the world as various manifestations of this general principle.

At a very high level this provides a sense of the way in which self-knowledge and the 'philosophical ascent' can be seen in cosmic terms: that human beings are in some fundamental sense the Universe coming to know itself. Julian Huxley saw this:

As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.

although he was much less spiritually-inclined than his brother.

Whereas, by contrast, the standard naturalist attitude in the 20th Century was that humanity and indeed life itself was a kind of 'biochemical fluke', the chance occurence of molecules banging together in an infinite empty universe. But that started to break down as soon as physicists became obliged to acknowledge the 'role of the observer' in their experimental outcomes. Maybe the observer is not so accidental after all.

Put some cattle under that hat, a horse under that saddle. — baker

:yikes: Working on it.

Our role and responsibility is not enhanced but is instead diminished by claims of cosmic significance. — Fooloso4

How so?

What goes on here has no describable significance for the universe. — Fooloso4

You write this as if there is a real universe without sentient beings in it to realise what it is. Nobody has any knowledge of such a universe. What if part of the significance of sentient beings is to help bring reality into existence? ¹

For virtue to be "its own reward", being virtuous has to be about more than just the gratification of one's ego; instead, it has to have real-world consequences that are advantageous for the person acting virtuously. Otherwise, virtue becomes something vestigial, expendable. — baker

:ok:

Sorry, Wayfarer, I keep referring to this post. — T Clark

No problems at all, T.

I don't know who it was, probably Yuval Noah Harari (Israeli historian), that said that our DNA contains a record of the past experiences of our ancestors going all the way back to the first life forms 4.5 gya. If only we could decode this rather interesting double-helix tome written in the language of life (DNA/RNA). — Agent Smith

What would there to be gained by decoding it? Aren't we already embodiments of it? Doesn't 'what we are' exemplify 'what it means'?

↪Wayfarer's diagram, which I didn't understand the first time I saw it, and which remains obscure to me — Banno

Allow me an interpretation, then. The point of this diagram is that, despite the obvious and (many would say) irreconciliable differences between different traditions, there is a common structure that can be discerned.

Each ring forms a nested hierarchy, or level of being, within which the higher circles include but transcend the inner or lower circles.

In Christian-English terms, on one side, the hierarchy is Body-Psyche-Soul-Spirit (in terms of the individual) and on the other side, Nature, Angels, God, Godhead (in terms of of the cosmos).

This structure is replicated for other cultural forms (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, etc).

That is the basis for Huston Smith's argument that there is a common structure, and that, therefore, the religions are agreeing and disagreeing about something real.

That is also compatible with John Hick's pluralistic model outlined in his Who or What is God?

The question will be asked, that if this purported structure is real, then why can't it be validated by science?

The response is to consider that these are the kinds of structure which are only perceptible to one particular form of terrestrial intelligence, namely, h. sapiens (and even then not every individual member of that species). As the modern scientific model is predicated on the exclusion of factors that cannot be objectively and physically sensed and measured, then naturally this is out-of-scope for the scientific method. In positivist terms, it will therefore be categorised as nonsensical.

However in my view it offers a coherent undestanding of 'mind and cosmos' as it provides for a vision within which h. sapiens has a role, rather than being the 'accidental byproduct' as it is depicted by scientific materialism. And if indeed it can be discerned across so many cultures and periods of history in the forms of literature of those traditions, then that literature should be regarded as evidence and not simply dismissed as myth.

...having been brought up in the Baptist tradition... — Tom Storm

It should be noted that the cross-cultural perspective of a John Hick or a Huston Smith or a Mircea Eliade is vastly different to the mainstream ecclesiastical Christian view, which must always start from the premise that Christianity is the 'one true faith'. That is what differentiates that kind of understanding from the stereotypically religious outlook.

nihil ultra ego.

Forever the same on thephilosophyforum.

:up: Your posts are definitely improving through time in my humble opinion. Just been reading this interview which I'm sure you will find relevant.

What’s striking about this graphic is how utterly egocentric it is, with man (even women are merely supporting characters) being the center of heaven, earth, and selfhood. How can these stories of sin and ignorance fit other lifeforms when most don’t even possess a central nervous system? — praxis

It's not in the least ego-centric. In Buddhism, as an example, it is only in the human form that beings are able to hear and comprehend the Buddha's teaching. This is not 'egocentric'.The ego is only one aspect of the human being, the self's idea of its self. Humanity has a particular place, and also particular responsibility, as the living being that is able to realise its true nature, and also act as a ward for other creatures, even though we're conspicuously NOT doing that at this time in history. Modern culture's inability to recognise the unique station of human being is one of the major contributors to this.

For some background:

Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek: Νίκος Καζαντζάκης [ˈnikos kazanˈd͡zacis]; 2 March (OS 18 February) 1883[2] – 26 October 1957) was a Greek writer. Widely considered a giant of modern Greek literature, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times.[3]

Kazantzakis' novels included Zorba the Greek (published 1946 as Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas), Christ Recrucified (1948), Captain Michalis (1950, translated Freedom or Death), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1955). He also wrote plays, travel books, memoirs and philosophical essays such as The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises. His fame spread in the English-speaking world due to cinematic adaptations of Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).

He translated also a number of notable works into Modern Greek, such as the Divine Comedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Origin of Species, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Wikipedia also notes:

While never claiming to be an atheist, his public questioning and critique of the most fundamental Christian values put him at odds with some in the Greek Orthodox church, and many of his critics.[16] Scholars theorize that Kazantzakis' difficult relationship with many members of the clergy, and the more religiously conservative literary critics, came from his questioning.

I haven't spent much time with that work as I've only just become aware of it, but it seems at the very least a considerable and profound work. But it is probably too big a piece of work to productively argue about here.

I'm reading some of that Dean Inge text just to reconnect with a classical presentation of the subject. I read some of it years ago when I was studying comparative religion. He has a Platonistic bent which I didn't appreciate at the time, but I do now. He goes on to say:

Mysticism is not itself a philosophy, any more than it is itself a religion. On its intellectual side it has been called "formless speculation." But until speculations or intuitions have entered into the forms of our thought, they are not current coin even for the thinker. The part played by Mysticism in philosophy is parallel to the part played by it in religion. As in religion it appears in revolt against dry formalism and cold rationalism, so in philosophy it takes the field against materialism and scepticism. It is thus possible to speak of speculative Mysticism, and even to indicate certain idealistic lines of thought, which may without entire falsity be called the philosophy of Mysticism. ...The real world, according to thinkers of this school, is created by the thought and will of God, and exists in His mind. It is therefore spiritual, and above space and time, which are only the forms under which reality is set out as a process.

Those kinds of motifs can be traced back to Plotinus and Proclus.

//ps// I will also acknowledge that Inge had some pretty reactionary and repugnant political views, but his scholarship in this subject matter was peerless.//

I'd say what really matters, to me and maybe everyone, is feeling, feeling, feeling. Some philosophers have suggested that concept doesn't grab the absolute, that maybe art is better. And some religious thinkers have put feeling first. In my opinion, that's the cleanest route. Let it be called 'feeling.' Or, if it's ineffable, don't even start to argue for it. — jas0n

Reason is still king. Religion must not be a matter of feeling only. St. John's command to "try every spirit" condemns all attempts to make emotion or inspiration independent of reason. Those who thus blindly follow the inner light find it no "candle of the Lord," but an ignis fatuus; and the great mystics are well aware of this. The fact is that the tendency to separate and half-personify the different faculties—intellect, will, feeling—is a mischievous one. Our object should be so to unify our personality, that our eye may be single, and our whole body full of light. — Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism

[deleted: sarcasm]

Just goes to show that Trump couldn't start a piss-up in a brewery.

The ugly Truth: Trump’s social network in trouble as woes mount

Opportunity for some righteous schandenfreude, if such exists.

Devin Nunes, who possibly aced the field as the most obnoxious of Trump's congressional boosters, abandoned his political career to leap aboard this sinking ship.

:rofl:

(I'm supposed to be working....)

It's easy to appeal to the repugnance of rape and murder as purported evidence for the universality of moral instincts. But many a moral question, maybe most of them, are much less dramatic.

People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts.Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense. — Richard Polt, Anything but Human

... assured by naturalism that the Universe has no inherent meaning, that the idea that life has a reason for existing is an anachronistic throwback to an ignorant age.
— Wayfarer
This a true of nihilism and – once again ↪180 Proof – not (moral) "naturalism". :roll: — 180 Proof

I see the point, and will try and find time to read that SEP entry. But the form of naturalism I have in mind is that espoused by, for example, Bertrand Russell for much of his life - 'That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms...'

The other form that this takes is the typical deferral to Darwinism as a kind of catch-all explanation for everything about human nature: that 'we evolved' to have 'feelings of altruism' because of its supposed 'advantage' for natural selection. That is so widely assumed nowadays as to be almost beyond question, certainly by the great majority of those who register on this forum. It seems obvious to naturalise ethics this way.

My view is, certainly h. sapiens evolved just as the science has discovered - you can't argue with the empirically-established facts - but that once at the point of being language-using, meaning-seeking beings, then h. sapiens' capabilities are no longer circumscribed by natural selection alone. It is a factor, but at that point the species transcends its biological origins in some vital sense.; horizons of meaning become available that are not visible to other creatures. And that's why we're morally responsible in a way that animals cannot be. But of course, as evolution has now become in many respects a secular religion, then that distinction is unintelligible to great many people.

:up:

I'll look into that Kazantzakis text you mention. My practice fell of a cliff a couple of years ago and haven't been able to restart it.

Do you situate the source of ethics and morals in the perennial philosophy you referred to above? — ZzzoneiroCosm

I try to, but it's difficult. It makes you wrestle with some deep existential questions. But that's why I studied the subjects I did and pursued this particular type of inquiry.

Well, the point is that we do philosophy regardless, and we take ourselves to be making sense. How do we know that is not compatible with our intellects having evolved naturalistically? — Janus

The contradiction is that we assured by naturalism that the Universe has no inherent meaning, that the idea that life has a reason for existing is an anachronistic throwback to an ignorant age. Whereas it was assumed by pre-modern philosophy that things exist for a reason and that the rational faculty is what enables us to grasp it.

n. With the new research, theorists have begun to question whether moral emotions might hold a larger role in determining morality, one that might even surpass that of moral reasoning." — ZzzoneiroCosm

You see what I meant by 'subjectivizing'?

''Max Horkheimer's 1947 book The Eclipse of Reason argues that individuals in "contemporary industrial culture" experience a "universal feeling of fear and disillusionment", which can be traced back to the impact of ideas that originate in the Enlightenment conception of reason, as well as the historical development of industrial society. Before the Enlightenment, reason was seen as an objective force in the world. Now, it is seen as a "subjective faculty of the mind". In the process, the philosophers of the Enlightenment destroyed "metaphysics and the objective concept of reason itself." Reason no longer determines the "guiding principles of our own lives", but is subordinated to the ends it can achieve. In other words, reason is instumentalized.

The effects of this shift are devaluing. There is little love for things in themselves. Philosophies, such as pragmatism and positivism, "aim at mastering reality, not at criticizing it." Man comes to dominate nature, but in the process dominates other men by dehumanizing them. He forgets the unrepeatable and unique nature of every human life and instead sees all living things as fields of means. His inner life is rationalized and planned. "On the one hand, nature has been stripped of all intrinsic value or meaning. On the other, man has been stripped of all aims except self-preservation." Popular Darwinism teaches only a "coldness and blindness toward nature."

According to Horkheimer, the individual in mass society is a cynical conformist. Ironically, the 'idolization of progress' leads to the decline of the individual.'

Presuming that our convictions are nothing more than instinctive responses, the idea of questioning the morality of a purported higher authority really is incoherent, because the whole idea of a higher authority, and the question itself, would also be nothing more than instinctive responses. — Janus

So much for the sovereignty of reason, then. Rather vitiates philosophy, doesn't it? (Oh, the irony.)

Volodomyr Zelenskyy said

some victims in Bucha were “shot and killed in the back of their heads,” while “some were shot on the street, others thrown into wells”. The graphic images have led to global condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and demands he be tried for war crimes.

In his first speech to the [UN Security Council] since the invasion more than a month ago, Zelensky said he did not wish to negotiate with Russia and would rather a powerless and outdated UN purge Russia of the veto power it wields on the Security Council. Failing that, the organisation should dissolve itself, he said.

“This undermines the whole architecture of global security, it allows them to go unpunished so they are destroying everything that they can,” he said, adding that Russia’s leadership was acting like “colonisers from ancient times”.

“It is obvious that the key institution of the world which must ensure the coercion of any aggressor to peace simply cannot work effectively.” — SMH

Meanwhile Russia has dismissed the graphic footage and witness testimony of grotesque abominations and mass murder and torture as 'Western propoganda'.

So - is Zelenskyy right? Should Russia be expelled from the UN Security Council? If a country is committing criminal acts, doesn't its presence on this council vitiate the chance of it being held responsible by that council?

My exemplar Darwin quote:

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? — Charles Darwin, private correspondence

What to call it if not (informed) personal conviction? And what's so awful about (informed) personal conviction? — ZzzoneiroCosm

It's not that it's awful or wrong, but that it subjectivises ethics. They become a matter of choice rather than being grounded in anything beyond oneself, although that's also one of the consequences of pluralism.

By the way, with respect to the 'I-Thou' relationship - I have the idea that prior to the advent of modernity, this defined our whole relationship with nature herself. Because nature was seen as the creation of God, then one's relationship to it was more of 'I-Thou' than 'I-it'. The world couldn't be seen as simply an array of things being acted on by physical forces but was the expression of intention. The loss of that sense is what was referred to be Max Weber as the Disenchantment (which is kind of the flip side of the Enlightenment.)

The world as it is, is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limitations of finitude, as by sin and ignorance. The more we can raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to the reality. "Such as men themselves are, such will God Himself seem to them to be," says John Smith, the English Platonist. Origen, too, says that those whom Judas led to seize Jesus did not know who He was, for the darkness of their own souls was projected on His features. And Dante, in a very beautiful passage, says that he felt that he was rising into a higher circle, because he saw Beatrice's face becoming more beautiful. — Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism

As this thread is about concepts of religion, I will provide this schematic again, which I've posted elsewhere recently, attributed to religious studies scholar Huston Smith.



He argues in his two books, Forgotten Truth and Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, that there are "levels of being" within which the vertical dimension corresponds to the axis of quality, providing a basis for ethics other than the merely quantitative, which characterise the 'scientistic' outlook.

These levels appear in both the "external" and the "internal" worlds, "higher" levels of reality without corresponding to "deeper" levels of reality within. On the very lowest level is the material/physical world, which depends for its existence on the higher levels. On the very highest/deepest level is the Infinite or Absolute (Dharmakaya in Buddhism.)

Basically this is an attempt to recover this understanding of reality from materialism, scientism, and "postmodernism." Smith does not attempt to adjudicate among religions (or philosophies), or spell out any of the important differences between world faiths, and does not intend to substitute a new religion for the specific faiths which already exist.

Nor should any such project be expected from a work that expressly focuses on what religions have in common. Far from showing that all religions are somehow "the same," Smith in fact shows that religions have a "common" core only at a sufficiently general level. What he shows, therefore, is not that there is really just one religion, but that the various religions of the world are actually agreeing and disagreeing about something real, something about which there really is a matter of fact, on the fundamentals of which many religions tend to concur while differing in numerous points of detail (including practice).

Suffice to say that the only dimension assumed to be real by the modern/post-modern attitude is the first, namely, the physical or natural domain, hence physicalism or naturalism as the dominant paradigm of secular culture. From within that horizon, any of the deeper/higher levels of being can only be depicted as matters of personal conviction.

Such a self-deprecating remark as you make above is either a sample of false humility (which is offputting), or just a plain declaration of incompetence (which is also offputting). — baker

All I'm saying, is I don't claim to be enlightened. Had enough of your sarcasm and constant jibes, baker.

The context was that I was arguing that there is such a thing as a higher truth. The question was, how do you know that? How can you demonstrate it? To which I replied with reference to the idea that in the 'perennial philosophy', there is the figure of the sage, 'one who knows by virtue of the kind of human they are'. I firmly believe that is true, although in saying that, I'm not claiming to be a sage. So it amounts to acknowledging that no, I can't really demonstrate it 'objectively' even if I have the conviction that it's true. This usually then leads to the conclusion that it's only a matter of 'faith', of 'believing without evidence' - because the 'testimony of sages' and the annals of spiritual philosophy are all simply a matter of faith, not scientifically demonstrable. Thereby falling right back into the false dichotomy which characterises modern philosophy, that there is what is scientifically demonstrable and objectively verifiable, and anything else, no matter whether it's noble or profound, must always be a matter of personal conviction.

Doesn't the way this response closes off the conversation bother you? — Banno

But if you keep going back to a default position which forecloses the idea of there being a sapiential dimension to philosophy, then what is there to discuss? That was what my intemperate outburst yesterday was in response to. I felt that passage I quoted from Josiah Royce conveys something profound, but it's met with 'so what?'

While our philosophical forefathers might show how one might think, they cannot make our decision for us. — Banno

But we value philosophers because they have insights that we do not. It's not a matter of slavishly following authority, but also not a matter of rejecting the insights of the tradition because it's an authority.

I don't think you, or any one else, can say what it is. That's what it means for something to be ineffable. If I am wrong in this then all you need do is tell me what this "core insight" is. — Banno

It is something that has be realised, known first-hand.

The "perennial philosophy" is in this context defined as a doctrine which holds [1] that as far as worth-while knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; [2] that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and [3] that the wise men of old have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no "empirical" basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality--through the praj~naa (paaramitaa) of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides,(30) the sophia of Aristotle(31) and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and [4] that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents. — Edward Conze, Buddhist Philosophy and it's European Parallels

If I attempt to relate that - even considering I possess it, which I don't - if you're not even open to the possibility that it is so, then there's nothing to discuss.

As far as the rational nature of ethics, I believe that is writ large in the entire Western philosophical corpus - Aristotle, Plato, and Kant, to name only a few.

The idea of god being dead, with all foundational values collapsing, is on the table in this discussion. — Tom Storm

It's an idea I've never bought into. I'm old enough to remember the (in)famous Time Magazine cover story on that, and didn't take it seriously, not that I was 'churchy'.

one man's torch is precisely another man's delusion — jas0n

The fact that these traditions can go wrong and become disastrously perverted is a consequence of human nature. Humans can wreck just about anything.

A taste of Berger, too. Why not? — jas0n

I really liked his book The Heretical Imperative. And I got a lot out of sociological studies of religions.

perhaps one man's torch is precisely another man's delusion — jas0n

The sun’s light is refracted by the earth’s atmosphere into the spectrum of the different colours of the rainbow. Perhaps the ultimate light of the universal divine presence is refracted by our different human religious cultures into the spectrum of the different world faiths. Or, in the words of the medieval Sufi thinker, Jalaluldin Rumi, ‘The lamps are different but the Light is the same: it comes from Beyond’.

And concerning the different, and indeed often conflicting, belief systems of the religions: our earth is a three-dimensional globe. But when you map it on a two dimensional surface, such as a piece of paper, you have to distort it. You cannot get three dimensions into two without distortion. And there are a variety of projections used by cartographers which are different systematic ways of distorting the earth’s curvature to represent it on a flat surface. But if a map made in one projection is correct it does not follow that maps made in other projections are incorrect. If they are properly made they are all correct, and yet they all distort. Perhaps our different theologies, both within the same religion and between different religions, are human maps of the infinite divine reality made in different projections, i.e. different conceptual systems. These all necessarily distort, since that infinite reality as it is in itself cannot be represented in our finite human terms. But perhaps all are equally useful in enabling us make our journey through life. — John Hick

But, in a pluralistic culture where very different and even antagonistic cultures are all in contact through global media, there's also bound to be a lot of friction.

Hick is known as a pluralist. That captures the point I'm trying to make about there being a 'core insight' that is carried in the various traditions - but without merging them all into a kind of new-age syncretism. They're agreeing AND disagreeing about something real. But whatever that reality is, is out-of-scope for what we currently understand as science.

that virtue is Christian-inspired is a convenient, self-serving myth. — Banno

But what underwrites virtue? It's all very well to gesture towards eudomonia, but Aristotle was also quite religious in a different way to Christianity, but nevertheless:

[1177a11] But if happiness [εὐδαιμονία] consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect [νοῦς], or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation [θεωρητική]. — Nichomachean Ethics

Furthermore, he elaborates elsewhere that seeking this out is the telos, the ultimate aim, of philosophy itself. And you won't find many counterparts to that in today's philosophy. (This is a major point in After Virtue.)

The differences we are talking about here are not metaphysical. — T Clark

I think they are.

:up:

Exactly and a good illustration of how theism offers no objective basis to morality. — Tom Storm

I'm at pains to point out that it's not exactly 'theism' that at issue. Or 'belief systems' as such. See this post again. I didn't seek confirmation in Christianity in my youth because it didn't seem to convey that insight, that it was something like a fossilised remnant. But - of what?

So I think your accusation, and your psychologising, misguided. — Banno

Fair enough. I withdraw it. I will plead 'bout of spleen'.

Here's promise of something more interesting:

But, why? What drives that? Mircea Eliade's answer is that religious ritual seeks to re-create the sacred in the midst of the profane. That the religious traditions seek to embody a relationship with the origin of all. Plainly much of that has become attenuated and trivialised and dessicated in today's world, but that was what was behind it.
— Wayfarer

If this is so, then it matters not what religious practice one adopts. Further, this expression "...the origin of all...", expresses an ontological error. — Banno

Have I pointed out John Hick's Who or What is God? I think he makes a case for the kind of insight I've been seeking.

And I would obviously not agree.

My 'revisionist' understanding is that behind the religious philosophies that I think are meaningful is an insight into the fact that humans live in an unreal world, a false world, a sea of delusion. They go through their lives never suspecting that this could be so. But the awakened ones - sages, prophets, teachers of humankind - are those who see through this delusion and alone realise the actual nature of the human condition. What we know of as religious doctrines are historical attempts to capture and recall those warnings.

You seem to be arguing in favor of a foundational or transcendental guarantor for 'goodness' which you might consider to be an almost meaningless term without one. — Tom Storm

It's a question of reason, meaning, and purpose - and the absence of it. 'In social science, 'disenchantment' is the cultural rationalization and devaluation of [the spirit] apparent in modern society. The term was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of a modernized, bureaucratic, secularized Western society. In Western society, according to Weber, scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and processes are oriented toward rational goals, as opposed to traditional society, in which "the world remains a great enchanted garden".[/quote]

The residue of Christian-inspired virtues remain, but they're under threat from many other forces in the absence of a compelling reason for their existence, beyond a wan kind of 'feel-good' humanism. But for instance in the People's Republic of China, you're seeing a post-liberal political order emerge, where human rights mean whatever the Leader deems them to mean - human beings are only worthwhile insofar as they're useful to the State, individual worth is not guaranteed in the way that is implicit in the Christian faith.

That will only work if there is no other reason for being good. Now I think that there are other reasons, including being a decent person. Hence I am critical of your post. — Banno

The problem is, I see a recurring pattern in your posts, which floats various topics to do with religion, but which nearly always seem driven by your fundamental conviction that religions are on the whole stupid and unworthy of respect. So you want to elicit arguments in favour of various kinds of religious ideas, to then be able to say:

Much of what is posited in the name of religion is immoral. Religion, like all human activities, is plagued by hypocrisy and authoritarianism. — Banno

Even though there's obviously truth in that, there's another factor at work, which Thomas Nagel calls out in his essay Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion:

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper--namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the non-teleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed. — Nagel

And the argument from that perspective is one of the major voices on this forum.

do we at least agree that ritual practice of some sort seems central to the concept of religion? — Banno

But, why? What drives that? Mircea Eliade's answer is that religious ritual seeks to re-create the sacred in the midst of the profane. That the religious traditions seek to embody a relationship with the origin of all. Plainly much of that has become attenuated and trivialised and dessicated in today's world, but that was what was behind it.

You say there is an "ontological distinction." I'm not sure what that means. — T Clark

It's philosophical terminology for 'being of a fundamentally different kind'. Ontology was one of the traditional subjects of philosophy although its meaning has been changed, nowadays it is used to describe (for example) the fundamental kinds of entity in an information system.

So when I say an 'ontological distinction', then it means there's a fundamental distinction in kind between living and non-living. Whereas, for example, a Daniel Dennett would deny this because in his philosophy there is only one fundamental kind of substance, which is matter (or matter-energy). That's what makes him physicalist - there is only one kind of substance, and it's physical.

To give you an idea of a modernised version of traditional Aristotelian ontology, this is by E F Schumacher (who wrote a famous book called 'Small is Beautiful') in another book A Guide for the Perplexed:

For Schumacher one of science's major mistakes has been rejecting the traditional philosophical and religious view that the universe is a hierarchy of being. Schumacher makes a restatement of the traditional chain of being.

He agrees with the (Aristotelian) view that there are four kingdoms: Mineral, Plant, Animal, Human. He argues that there are important differences of kind (i.e. 'ontological distinctions') between each level of being. Between mineral and plant is the phenomenon of life. Schumacher also argues that there is nothing in physics or chemistry to explain the phenomenon of life.

For Schumacher, a similar jump in level of being (i.e. an ontological difference) takes place between plant and animal, which is differentiated by the phenomenon of consciousness. We can recognize consciousness, not least because we can knock an animal unconscious, but also because animals exhibit at minimum primitive thought and intelligence.

The next level, according to Schumacher, is between Animal and Human, which are differentiated by the phenomenon of self-consciousness or self awareness (and reason, abstract thought and language). Self-consciousness is the reflective awareness of one's consciousness and thoughts.

Schumacher suggests that the differences can be diagramatically expressed thus:

"Mineral" = m
"Plant" = m + x
"Animal" = m + x + y
"Human" = m + x + y + z

I understand that his way of looking at it will be rejected by a lot of people, but I think at least it makes clear what is being rejected. The question may be asked, what is it that constitutes the difference that Schumacher says exists; what are x and y and z? Is it like some kind of mysterious substance, this 'elan vital'?

I think that it refers to the attributes and characteristics of living organisms generally, which are invariably goal-directed and in that sense intentional. That is an attribute which is not found in inorganic matter. That quality of intentionality is what differentiates living from non-living beings, but it's is not an ingredient, in the way that say enzymes or hormones are - which is what makes it hard to objectively define.

Living things are different from non-living things, but we're all in the same family.

I'm strongly anti-reductionist and I think I've shown that in what I've written on the forum over the years. — T Clark

But that is reductionist, in that it reduces the attributes and qualities of living things to the same kind as matter. That is what 'reductionism' means: 'The view that only the material world (matter) is truly real, and that all processes and realities observed in the universe, including living organisms, can be explained in terms their basic constituents, e.g., atoms and molecules' - which is what you said.

non-living matter self-organizing is what lead to the beginning of life. — T Clark

So it is said, but that, in turn, depended on a causal chain that goes back first to the way that stars produce heavy elements, and before that to the way that the Universe produces stars. But I'm dubious of the idea life just spontaneously generates and evolves really constitutes any kind of theory.

I'm aware of some books on the physical possibility of life spontaneously self-generating, but the question I always have is, why is it felt that this constitutes an explanation? Or rather, what kind of explanation does it provide?

Anyway, that Third Way site has a lot of really interesting books, authors, and scientists, none of whom, I hasten to add, are affiliated with 'intelligent design' theories. I particularly like Steve Talbott who also has a bunch of excellent essays at the New Atlantis.

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They're depressingly subservient. It seems they have totally bought into the fact that Putin is an absolute ruler. This is probably why he is able to stay in power, because so many people around him simply believe that there can be no alternative. The transition to Czarist Stalinism is complete.