Worldview discussion

[Robban]

You are an adherent of Judaism no? If so, do you not agree with the Genesis account that God created the universe?

Wisdom,
Proverbs 8:1,
Will not wisdom call out and understanding give forth it,s voice?

The following verses of 8 is what Torah announces?

v 22,
The Lord acquired me at the *beginning* of His way,
before His works of old. (wisdom)

"In the beginning" the beginning of His way,

 

[Arthra]

Much thanks is in order Arthra, to you. For you have succinctly and clearly presented us with a view of the Baha'i worldview. It seems to me to be monistic and centers on the notion that reality is one and that all life is oriented towards a unity with the one. It seems to me then, like other views here, to be pantheistic. Is that accurate?

Thanks for your reply "anonymous person"! Actually in response to your question.... Baha'is are not "pantheistic". By oneness we don't mean we can be one with God. Rather we can respond to His Message through a Prophet or Messenger. The Manifestation of God can reflect His attributes but is still a creation of God.

 

[dlamberth]

Very profound indeed dlamberth! I have a follow-up question for you in the hopes that you may be able to clarify something for me. You have said that your beliefs about various issues regarding origin, meaning, morality, and destiny stem from your perspective that All is God and God is all. My question is this, how is it possible to speak of something from a particular "perspective" if ultimately no individual observers exist to observe reality from their perspectives?

If you'll notice, not once did I speak for any other perspective than my own. I'm of the firm conviction that there are as many perspectives of God and Reality as there are Human Beings. So to answer your question directly, it's not possible for another individual to observe reality from another perspective. I liken it to a leaves on a tree. They are all part of the same tree, yet not a single one is like another. At most, another person can "catch" an image of what anther is saying. At the same time, closest I've seen where one person comes closes to catching the perspective of another are from the Mystics. But they talk about it differently and use words like "catching the transmission". But Mystics operate in a space of consciousness where ones' perspective of reality is in a different realm than most of us operate in.

 

[dlamberth]

In other words, do you think that caring for humanity is a good that has genuine value in and of itself,

This ^^

 

[ananda]

Thanks ananda for your thoughtful responses. They do tend to raise questions for me though. For example, you speak of what is the case for individuals. This is interesting. How can there be "individuals" if all is one and one is all?

I'm not sure I understand your question: Buddhism, as I practice it, does not teach that "all is one and one is all".

In addition to my question about the ultimate fate of the universe and of humanity, you answered by saying that the answer is inconceivable. If it is true that it is inconceivable, then you would not know that it was inconceivable. This is thus a self-refuting view is it not?

One day, it may be conceivable. But until that day comes, it remains inconceivable in my mind and is best put aside in order to spend the short amount of time I have addressing what I can conceive: the problem of suffering/discontentment and its solution.

 

[Zoness]

What do you mean by "good for goodness sake," precisely? I ask because this language is very Platonic. Are you assigning the notion of goodness a transcendental reality, or do you mean it in purely utilitarian or pragmatic terms? In other words, do you think that caring for humanity is a good that has genuine value in and of itself, or is it simply a matter of personal preference and societal utility?

Always the good questions. I'm still exploring this. Is it a cop out to say both? For sure I feel it's utilitarian but there may also be a transcendent quality surrounding it. Sort of like a Platonic Ideal Form. Though I'm not sure that's enough to make me a Platonist alone!

 

[Silmarien]

Always the good questions. I'm still exploring this. Is it a cop out to say both? For sure I feel it's utilitarian but there may also be a transcendent quality surrounding it. Sort of like a Platonic Ideal Form. Though I'm not sure that's enough to make me a Platonist alone!

No, not a cop out at all. Morality is a complicated thing, and I think you can get pretty far by focusing on human flourishing and what does and doesn't contribute to it. But if you're going to jump from supporting ideas because they're useful to supporting them because they're good in and of themselves, there needs to be something transcendentally good about flourishing in general. If you get there, you're a Platonist, at least on this issue.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Very interesting Jane_the_Bane! In all of this I have gathered that you hold to some form of pantheism, is that correct?

For lack of a better term yes.
And if we were looking for "objective meaning", I'd say *existing* may be the best correspondence to that. I do not view matter as the antithesis of spirit, but as the most (literally) tangible form of reality.

 

[Eyes wide Open]

.

 

[Eyes wide Open]

Tikkun Olam (fix the world) is a profound concept,
the place where mysticism meets activism.

With due respect to Judaism, I could just take this one piece as my mantra for life from that religion. Profound indeed. I was pleased when I came across the concept some years ago.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Morality is a complex topic indeed.

I think the closest we can get to something like "objective" morality is this:

The act of murder (that is, the act of deliberately killing another human being under circumstances that are not socially accepted, like war or self-defense) causes demonstrable damage to both the victim and its community, and most people will react negatively to it both on an instinctive, an intellectual and a social level.
We will also notice people who lack the instinctual/emotional ability to comprehend this, realising that they suffer from certain pathologies (sociopathy/psychopathy).

All of that said, events like the deliberate mass murder and persecution of indigenous populations, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and many others show that it is easy for our species to deny the humanity in those who do not belong to our in-group.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Of course, it's further complicated by people's failure to distinguish between ethics and conventions. This is why some people are morally offended by breast-feeding mothers in public, or hold that it is morally reprehensible to shake the hand of an unrelated person of the opposite sex.

 

[Zoness]

No, not a cop out at all. Morality is a complicated thing, and I think you can get pretty far by focusing on human flourishing and what does and doesn't contribute to it. But if you're going to jump from supporting ideas because they're useful to supporting them because they're good in and of themselves, there needs to be something transcendentally good about flourishing in general. If you get there, you're a Platonist, at least on this issue.

Then I may be a Platonist, at least on that issue. I'm still exploring the many areas of philosophy and have been especially more skeptic but I've started to fall for Panpsychism quite a bit. It's the first philosophical idea that I'm truly excited about and it seems to connect a lot of dots in relation to the things I've experienced, what I value and fear and it breathes some life into ideas I've previously discounted. Now I may be using it as a wish making crutch but I dare suggest most people do that with their beliefs so I'm in good company.

It seems Plato's Sophist explores some Panpsychic ideas so I may be reading that in the future.

 

[anonymous person]

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the universe is meaningless in and of itself, as in asserting that as a fact, just that if there is some sort of objective purpose, I don't know what that might be. And since we can't seem to figure it out, it seems plausible that if it exists, it's hidden from us for some reason. So if there is a "higher purpose", it doesn't seem to include humans knowing what that purpose is.

Morality is a tricky one. I can't appeal to some sort of objective morality except in the sense that we all agree that there is a difference between right and wrong. It's deep down in the core of all of us. It can be explained by evolutionary theory, but as far as I can understand, religion doesn't have a better answer. If something is right because God said so, then it's not right in and of itself, it's just what happens to be God's will. It looks like at least some animals also have a sense of morality or justice.

You've given me quite a bit to think about holo. Morality is indeed an issue that raises many questions. I noticed you said that we all agree that there is a difference between right and wrong. Many pantheists would disagree with you. In fact, many pantheists would argue that it is essential to pantheism that distinctions like right and wrong are ultimately illusory.

I sympathize with your misgivings about the apparent arbitrariness of a view of a Divine Command Theory of moral obligation. The Euthyphro dilemma is one that presents a challenge to people like myself who hold that God is the source of objective moral values and duties. I think that Christian philosophers in the past have argued correctly, that the dilemma is a false one. Of course, they were working with a particular view of God as the Summum Bonum or "Highest Good".

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

The best way I can find to describe my stance on morality is to compare it to language (as another intersubjective construct):
Language is self-referential, which means that it is not just labels we stick to pre-existing categories and concepts: it *creates* them. (The way different languages compartmentalise wavelengths of light into different colours is a very tangible example of this.)
Accordingly, different languages have a distinct way of understanding and relating to reality.

At the same time, all languages try to make sense and give structure to the same reality, the same sensory perceptions, the same universally human experience.Accordingly, even the most foreign languages can be translated and accessed, even if something is lost in the process.

It's the same with morality, basically. There's only so many ways you can react to one person killing another, and it is to be expected that members of a social species built around cooperation will react negatively to it, hence the concept of murder.
"Objective morality" is as much of an oxymoron as "objective language" (mathematics comes close to it, but is still a self-referential system) - but that still does not mean eating your neighbour or eating with your neighbour are equally valid modes of social interaction.

 

[MehGuy]

I am looking for some people who are not Christians to have a discussion with to better understand their worldview. The discussion will focus on answers to at least four topics which worldviews deal with: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. The discussion can be done here in this thread, in a private message, in person (If you live near Charlotte, NC), on Facebook, or through email. It can be made public or kept private. If you are or anyone you know is interested, please let me know. Thanks!

Origin: Depends how deep you want to go concerning the question.. as for why reality exists.. I greatly fear that no matter how hard we engage in science we may never be able to know.. the act of knowing might be a contradiction to reality. The information to be able to process such a thing might be too complicated for the laws of physics to provide.

Meaning: No objective meaning, subjective meaning is ok. Yet it's probably heavily relied on evolutionary psychology. Transhumanism will probably leave the question of meaning irrelevant. We'll transcend the need for meaning, and probably the idea of "identity" as we know it.

Morality: No objective morality, subjective morality is also ok. Might have somewhat less than vague perimeters. Still.. there isn't any reason to demand that someone needs to respect the idea of a morality. Empathetic begins are probably bound to some sort of morality at the end of the day, even the most daring of empathetic sadomasochists. Psychopaths are probably mostly free, although even they might find some need for some sort of "rules".

Destiny: No objective destiny. Although I think the closest idea of objective destiny is the strive for beings to engage in pleasure, lol. I imagine we'll be striving towards eternal bliss through technological means. Emotions are probably the only thing we really yearn for, even if said emotions can be masochistic at times and might not be intuitively noticed as a strive for pleasure.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Meaning: No objective meaning, subjective meaning is ok. Yet it's probably heavily relied on evolutionary psychology. Transhumanism will probably leave the question of meaning irrelevant. We'll transcend the need for meaning, and probably the idea of "identity" as we know it.

Why would you think that? Admittedly, I'm more of a post-humanist than a transhumanist, but the way I see these movements, they foster *more* awareness of identity instead of less - even while they acknowledge the artificiality of the concept.

 

[MehGuy]

Why would you think that? Admittedly, I'm more of a post-humanist than a transhumanist, but the way I see these movements, they foster *more* awareness of identity instead of less - even while they acknowledge the artificiality of the concept.

I do not see how that won't happen once we start messing with and modifying our psychology. Identity seems to be something that is born out of our evolutionary psychology and something that is extremely limiting/trivial and doesn't need to be. The trans-humanist community might have more of an awareness of identity than other communities but as far as technology is currently, no one is actually engaging in trans-humanism they're just advocates of it.

I'm not entirely sure what a post-humanist is but I'm guessing trans-humanism ultimately leads to that.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Humanism (and its direct descendant, transhumanism) adopts a philosophical framework taken from Christianity: an essentialist anthropocentrism that sees being "human" (or "human nature") as an ephemereal essence that fundamentally sets us apart from the rest of the ecosphere.
Post-humanism seizes upon advances in a wide variety of scientific fields to challenge this framework, expand the circle of moral concern and extend subjectivities beyond the human species.

 

[AskTheFamily]

God's face remains and embraces all things, everything was created from the light of his name, and to love for the sake of God means to love for the truth of how things truly are and the true value they have to the best of one's ability knowing they are linked back to the source and knowing the oneness of God is such that no blessing in creation exists but is found in him and no praise exists but he is the foremost worthy of it and to be appreciated most by it and that our good actions are more worthy to be attributed to God through his help, and our evil actions to ourselves. It also destroys racism and cultural prejudice, because God's beauty is spread in all creation and all types.

The heart of goodness lies in recognizing God's light and the heart of that light is the leader and guide, who is the heart of guidance and means to God for all of us.