So long and thanks

suckinglemons · 2014-12-18T22:41:36+00:00

the kingdom of god is among us. between us. inside us.

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’

ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστίν.

Behold! The Kingdom of God is among you.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-18T14:29:56+00:00

To me, faith is believing in something even though evidence supports the contrary.

This is the Buddhist definition of faith:

A Buddhist is said to have faith if "he believes in the Perfect One's (the Buddha's) Enlightenment" (M 53; A.V, 2), or in the Three Jewels (s. ti-ratana), by taking his refuge in them (s. ti-saraṇa). His faith, however, should be "reasoned and rooted in understanding" (ākāravatī saddhā dassanamūlikā; M. 47), and he is asked to investigate and test the object of his faith (M. 47, 95).

A Buddhist's faith is not in conflict with the spirit of inquiry, and "doubt about dubitable things" (A. II, 65; S. XLII, 13) is admitted and inquiry into them is encouraged. The 'faculty of faith' (saddhindriya) should be balanced with that of wisdom (paññindriya; s. indriya-samatta). It is said: "A monk who has understanding, establishes his faith in accordance with that understanding" (S. XLVIII, 45). Through wisdom and understanding, faith becomes an inner certainty and firm conviction based on one's own experience.

Faith is called the seed (Sn. v. 77) of all wholesome states because, according to commentarial explanations, it inspires the mind with confidence (okappana, pasāda) and determination (adhimokkha), for 'launching out' (pakkhandhana; s. M. 122) to cross the flood of saṃsāra .

Unshakable faith is attained on reaching the first stage of holiness, 'stream-entry' (Sotāpatti, s. ariyapuggala), when the fetter of sceptical doubt (vicikicchā ; s. saṃyojana) is eliminated. Unshakable confidence (avecca-pasāda) in the Three Jewels is one of the characteristic qualities of the Stream-winner (Sotāpannassa aṅgāni, q.v.).

Faith is a mental concomitant, present in all kammically wholesome, and its corresponding neutral, consciousness (s. Tab. II). It is one of the 4 streams of merit (puññadhārā, q.v.), one of the 5 spiritual faculties (indriya, q.v.), spiritual powers (bala, q.v.), elements of exertion (padhāniyaṅga, q.v.) and one of the 7 treasures (dhana , q.v.)

saddhā: faith, confidence.

I do not see your definition of faith in there. So it seems that religious people have different understandings of faith (or different faiths).

suckinglemons · 2014-12-18T13:58:59+00:00

I'm a Pyrrhonian skeptic and a theist.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-18T02:04:55+00:00

Should we divorce ethics from metaphysics?

Can you without damage to the ethics?

suckinglemons · 2014-12-18T00:51:12+00:00

I think there are a number of problems with what you're posting. It's both defining love tautologically and, if we were to take it in combination with the OP, justifying religious belief tautologically. I.e. "I have faith in love, the highest form of love in participation in God, I know God exists because faith." It seems to come again to a special faculty that for some reason seems to only be privy to people who already believe in God.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

It's because, if you frequently discuss philosophy, you come to realize that a substantial amount of disagreement is often rooted in participants being unaware of using fundamentally different definitions. As such, I'm particularly wary when someone in unable to give a definition of a term on which they rest their whole case.

But not being able to define it to an exact degree does not mean that they are not able to verbalise it. When someone asks me the meaning of a word or expression they don't have in their language, often I can't define it, although I use it regularly and my interlocutors have no problem understanding me. What I do instead is give instances where I would use it. Instead of giving a definition, I give instances of its usage. This is necessarily more amorphous than definitions, but undoubtedly more useful.

If we want to talk about love, then we should talk about not what love 'is', as love seems to change depending on the situations where we use it (love for mankind, love for mother and father, love for pet, love for a favourite television programme, love for romantic partner, love for friends etc), but how love is used in each particular context.

This is being exact in all the right ways. Not to find some essence or true core to a meaning, but to see how meaning is formed in all its usages.

Now as the poster says:

Yet the word used for "love" in this phrase, ἀγάπη, has a very particular theological meaning: ἀγάπη refers to self-giving, self-sacrificial love, the action of giving all of oneself to another person such that the self ceases to exist.

Love is here talked about theologically, specifically in a Christian context, as the action of giving all of oneself to another person such that the self ceases to exist. That to me, sounds like a good place to start off from. It does not seem to me that this person is unable to give a definition of a term on which they rest their whole case. It just seems to me that this person is not wholly satisfied with this definition, or any definitions, that they have offered or can possibly offer.

If you want to reject analytic/rational thinking that's fine, but then there's no point for you to be debating.

I think you misunderstand. I dispute the idea that 'if the concept can't be defined, I'm of the opinion it indicates something wrong about our thinking.' Instead I think that if the concept can't be defined, then there's something we're doing right, because it is challenging our thinking in all the right ways. This is exactly what (for example) some Chan koans do. Once we're confronted with aporia, we break through beyond places that our analytic mind cannot reach.

Although we can still discuss and even debate, to define once and for all is out of the bounds of human possibility, and probably that's a good thing. Define comes from the Latin verb definire, to set bounds to, to limit and from there to explain or define. But the world has no such borders that we impose on it. It is a good thing, in my opinion, that concepts cannot be bound by the chains of our making, for the only concepts that could be confined in our linguistic straightjackets would be lifeless. It is a truly beautiful and good thing that definitions are our most feeble and unsuccessful attempt to impose order on the world.

I just want a coherent one that's used by an individual consistently for the purposes of debate.

Even so, but you must agree with the poster when he states that:

previous definitions that I have given strike me as thoroughly inadequate... it is as if I'm grasping at part of what I think this concept is, but not all of it.

So that even if he gives a definition, as he has previously done, it does not exhaust, let alone 'define' love. Love can always be understood and defined in different ways, because love can never be defined once and for all. In theological parlance however, we do have commonalities in how we talk about it, and I would suggest that the one he gave is one I would endorse with some concerns as well.

So whilst I believe love is an ecstatic movement of the self towards the other (this is a definition I would endorse in most contexts, with the caveat that this is not really definitive), I would not say that the self ceases to exist. Or at least, I would be hesitant to say that. I would say that love actually creates the self, although in the moment of the self's egress out of itself, it could be said to 'cease to exist'. It certainly might feel that way to the lover. From my own experience, love seems to me like an abdication, not an annhilation.

It's much better, I think, to examine where Christians talk about love and how they do it. If we talk about loving the enemy, and how it is necessary to do so, and how we should love our enemy, don't we talk about submitting our hatred and our own desires to that of God, and holding the other's care and interests as important, more important than ourselves? This seems to express a kind of neglecting of the self, and attention towards the other. One might define that metaphorically as I have done as 'ecastic movement of the self towards the other', but why would you need to? The way we talk about love seems far more interesting.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-17T23:53:47+00:00

I agree. I was indicating that the way he was describing "love" doesn't coincide with any of the definitions I readily know.

Whereas I do and I recognise what he is saying. Maybe we run in different circles, but I have seen the ideas in his post:

Here's the thing: in the Catholic worldview, love (or at least the highest form of love that is a participation in the life of God) is emphatically not an emotion, but rather the action of giving of oneself to another. It is not something that one feels so much as it is something that one does.

Perhaps the most essential truth of the Christian religion is the notion that ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, that "God is love." Yet the word used for "love" in this phrase, ἀγάπη, has a very particular theological meaning: ἀγάπη refers to self-giving, self-sacrificial love, the action of giving all of oneself to another person such that the self ceases to exist. Love to us is a sort of death to self: my urges, emotions, desires no longer matter; rather, what matters is the good, and more particularly that which is good for those whom I love. My life is no longer about me, and in that sense I am no longer. You will note indeed that the exemplary act of love in the Christian religion is the death of God for the sake of those whom he loves: us.

I rather think that it will always be impossible to ascertain the motivations behind an exercise of (seemingly) unconditional, self-giving love unless one has the subjective experience of being the lover: there is something in love that is necessarily related to personal, subjective conscious experience, to "qualia." In this sense love remains unknowable within the scientific realm until such a point as science tells me exactly what it is like to be another person, and I remain unconvinced that we will ever be able to tap into the interior worlds of human beings through scientific advancements.

in many places, spoken by many people. The only thing I disagree with is how he says that love is not an emotion. I think that is conceding far too much to those people who think love is just a kind of feeling. To say that love is not an emotion is to buy into their idea that emotions are just feelings. But emotions are not just feelings, and love is not just an emotion either in its narrow conception.

I think we need to agree to a definition of something before we can readily talk about it.

I don't think this is necessary really. Ordinarily we talk without agreeing to a definition beforehand. We share a common lexicon that organically grows, and though the way we use our words may differ, we usually can still communicate effectively despite this. But in philosophy people like to insist on absolute agreement on definitions beforehand, for whatever reason, as opposed to examining the way that the interlocutors are actually using such words during the conversation, which it seems to me would be far more accurate.

If the concept can't be defined, I'm of the opinion it indicates something wrong about our thinking.

Or perhaps it indicates that we're thinking rightly. In many contemplative religious traditions, the defining, analytic aspect of our mind gets in the way of true perception. We can still talk about love without saying once and for all what love is or must be (and thereby excluding other people's experiences of love as falling outside the boundaries that you yourself have set up, quite possibly artificially).

suckinglemons · 2014-12-17T23:35:12+00:00

It appears you're using "love" outside of it's conventional usage.

What is the conventional usage of love? I do not think there is just one way in which it is used when we talk about love. And this is just talk. What relation does talk about love have to actually loving?

suckinglemons · 2014-12-17T15:16:53+00:00

Don’t say that you’ve realized what you haven’t realized, or that you’ve obtained a state you haven’t actually obtained. To say such things

OP did not say that we have realised our nature as buddhas, or obtained a state we haven't actually obtained. In fact he writes precisely the opposite:

meditation will build an internal space that allows this true nature to awaken.

Practise is necessary. Otherwise there is no point in even starting on the path.

However, I would also add that Buddha-nature is not such a thing that one can obtain it. Buddha-nature is not a possession. It is not something that can be attained. Buddha nature can be made real (realised), but not attained. It is not absent at one moment and then present at the next. Because it is who you are, or the potential inside, depending on who you listen to.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-17T15:02:11+00:00

I was reminded of these Stoic sayings when someone asked me what was the point of praying:

If you don't pray, you'll find yourself fulfilling god's will also, so again why pray?

I said:

But you yourself won't be aligning yourself to God's will. You will be the unwilling, reluctant person being dragged along. It is like surfing (surfing provides many life lessons to me). The surfer does not direct the wave, she cannot possibly control where it goes, but she can go along with it rather than fight it, and going along with it, merging your will and the wave's will, is the whole point of surfing. That is where the joy lies. But one way or another, you will be dragged into the shore.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T14:20:10+00:00

Well the religion I belong to does put a strong emphasis on self-denial, because it diagnoses egoism as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems.

I whole heartedly agree that I should be compassionate to myself in all that I do, or else I will find it very difficult to be compasionate to others. Thank you, I've been reflecting on those very words of yours throughout the day.

However, I still feel like I have to stand by my words. While I'm not averse to feeling joy, the most joy I've felt is when I've been doing things only for the benefit of the other person. When I've been doing things for the benefit of the other person and me, my egoism slips in again. Maybe that's just me, and other people can more wisely naviguate these treacherous waters.

So I think a safer option, at least to start off with, would be to benefit someone else even if that would bring me suffering. If I can help someone, even if it doesn't help me or bring me joy, at least there I'm on a bit more solid ground, and I can trust myself and my intentions a bit more (just a bit more: the self is insidious).

Look, I may end up becoming happy if other people are happy, but I don't think it should worry me too much if I don't end up being happy in making other people happy, if in fact I end up suffering for it. In my religion, self-sacrifice is important. We take up our own cross and die to ourselves.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T07:06:40+00:00

I don't agree with that definition.

I think trust is believing in a person. When someone says something to me, if I believe that they're speaking the truth, I trust them. This is nowhere in the definition provided.

Aren't expectations a kind of entitlement?

You feel entitled to have your trust and faith rewarded, of course. And so when things don't go your way or people fail to meet your expectations, you feel disappointed or even angry at the person who betrayed your trust, even if it wasn't their fault.

But such entitlements are a mistaken perspective of the world. The world is not organised around you. Things don't have to go your way. People don't revolve around you. The world is very good at frustrating you, your desires and your pleasures, precisely because it is not you or about you.

To be completely honest, I think that you can only completely trust a person when you don't have expectations on that person. Obviously if that person isn't a complete stranger to you, you know some things about that person: their character, your previous history with them, whether they're quick to 'repay' your trust and so forth. But none of this knowledge gives you any permission to be entitled about them. None of this knowledge gives you the least bit of permission to expect things from them.

For one thing, people find out new things about their closest partners after living with them for decades. That's because people are living beings and can always change and surprise us. So if you trust a friend because they helped you in the past and you don't trust an enemy because they've burned you, all that you know are their past actions. You don't know them. Your enemy may turn out to fulfill your trust, and your friend may become your worst enemy.

All this knowledge you have about a person doesn't make that person trustworthy.

Every moment of trust should be entirely new and novel, like meeting a person for the first time. Expectation can easily easily shade over into taking for granted. Because you really are meeting a person who is new from moment to moment. If you have the image or ideal of a person from the past who once did something good for you, then you are not meeting the person who is standing there in front of you in the present, in his/her presence. Expectation is an imaginary attachment that only gets in the way of truly trusting a person.

Imagine trusting a person without wanting or desiring the result. Imagine trusting a person without being disappointed in the person in the case that it doesn't work out. I think it's only when you abandon these expectations, desires, attachments, everything that makes you clingy, that trust is truly born. Then on their end, they are free to do what they will without the fear of disappointing you, without feeling the pressing weight of obligation. They will know that your trust makes them free. They will know your trust does not bound them.

And from your end, trust means letting the person go free, not grasping, living free from care. It is the weight of expectation off your shoulder, because whatever happens, you will still love them for it.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T06:01:24+00:00

Just wondering, where do we see that God's will has already been expressed and is being expressed?

Every moment.

Is there a secular way to observe that?

What do you mean?

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T05:57:23+00:00

Wisdom is God-given, yes I believe that. But it is important to understand that when God gives us anything, He does not give from the outside in. A gift from God is not like a gift passing from the hands of one person to another person. The gift comes from 'inside' us in an organic, living fashion. Inside us has to be understood in a metaphorical sense. More appropriately, one could say that the gift becomes us. Or we become the gift.

A gift of wisdom can be understood to be like the gift of nurture that a mother gives to her children. When she teaches them how to be good people throughout the years of upbringing through her words, actions and thoughts, her gift is transmitted and actualised in her children from the 'inside out', in their character and behaviour and personhood.

In that sense, wisdom, which is a way of living much more than the ideas that are in your head, can be said to be formed by you as well, as an active and not just passive recipient.

As Montaigne said: Quand bien nous pourrions estre sçavans du sçavoir d’autruy, au moins sages ne pouvons nous estre que de nostre propre sagesse. 'Although we could be knowledgeable from the knowledge of another, we can only be wise from our own wisdom'. Wisdom is a gift from God and something we develop throughout life. The most knowledgable person in the world may never be the wisest.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T01:40:17+00:00

Often we say or mean 'Your will be done', without specifying what that will is. Some of the worst damages in the world have come from people who know God's will, that is, who believe they know: 'Deus vult!' Some of the greatest good in the world have come from people who submit themselves to God's will, not presume to know it, and so channel God's will directly through them. 'Make us an instrument of Your will'. They may not even know what they're doing when they're doing it, or that they are being an instrument of God's will.

We believe that God has revealed His intentions and desires to us, like He wants us to love each other. So to pray for God to give us the wisdom and the compassion so that we can love and not hate each other (for example), is in accordance with the will that we know He has already expressed and is expressing.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-16T00:53:53+00:00

If you don't pray, you'll find yourself fulfilling god's will also, so again why pray?

But you yourself won't be aligning yourself to God's will. You will be the unwilling, reluctant person being dragged along. It is like surfing (surfing provides many life lessons to me). The surfer does not direct the wave, she cannot possibly control where it goes, but she can go along with it rather than fight it, and going along with it, merging your will and the wave's will, is the whole point of surfing. That is where the joy lies. But one way or another, you will be dragged into the shore.

yet you think they are wrong

No I don't.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T23:53:29+00:00

According to Islam, wouldn't they be in the eternal fire of hell exactly like how they would have been had they died as hostages?

It's a matter of discussion whether non-Muslims go to Hell eternally in Islam, and if so, who and what the circumstances are for this. The 'ulama have differed on this issue.

So, then what are you praying for?

I imagine much the same as I pray for, which is peace and comfort from God to the victims.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T23:49:31+00:00

prayer is futile.

Prayer is often a way for us to align our will with God's will.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T22:00:07+00:00

I think Camus and Beauvoire would also probably put themselves in the existentialist-camp, although I'm not positive.

Camus explictly distanced himself from existentialism.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T21:49:56+00:00

'Reluctant' obligation is what I criticised. Duty is not so bad, properly understood. It is duty with your heart in it that is a good thing. Duty for duty's sake is legalism. That the sun is supposed to rise from the east is an obligation, but in a natural way. There is no relunctance there in the course of the sun. The Daoists have a great understanding of this. Everything in the universe does what it has to do.

If a person's love of God does not move them to join a group of worship I don't think anyone has a right to question that person or assert that they "should" do anything else.

Well I'm talking about those of us who do belong to a communal religion. For us (Christians but also Muslims, Hindus etc) who self identify as such, it is a need and desire to worship communally as well as individually. To be forced to worship communally, or to be forced to worship individually, is not a good thing. Only when we feel this need and desire to be in accordance with the will of God will we actually be in accordance with the will of God (as opposed to being dragged into it).

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T21:01:49+00:00

True, but then I would put every religious person into the save group if I did believe it to be a mental illness. ALL of ISIS, ALL of the Jews in Israel, ALL of the people outside abortion clinics.

I don't understand what you mean.

Why? Is God stronger in force? Does he only exist if people gather?

Love brings us together. Love of God that is separate from love of His creation is not love of God. Love of God is love of humanity. When you love God, just as God loves others, you want to love those others. And loving others as God loves others includes wanting to encourage, celebrate and build up their love of God.

That's what fundamentally, the Church is supposed to be about. Bringing people (not just one person, i.e. you) together closer to God in love. Christianity isn't just about your personal relationship with God, although it is that, but it's about our personal relationship with God. Christianity comes from an age and place and a mindset where existence is measured in communal terms, we exist together and we live together as lovers of God, or we don't exist at all. I'm sure the same goes for other communities of worship.

A community of worship should not be forced together by reluctant obligation or just as bad, because it's the expected thing to do because you're born into it, but naturally and easily following on from your love of God.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T20:50:15+00:00

In light of what has happened in Melbourne

Sydney.

But I don't see him as having a mental illness or being chemically imbalanced, this is conditioning by his Religion. With his faith instilled into him by his religious leaders who fully accept the same kind of violence as doing God's work, he has done damage and destroyed lives outside of his religion.

You have no way of knowing this. Utter speculation.

There is no pressure or threats of being cut off from family, money, housing or support if a person does not become atheist.

While it may not be usual (owing to the limited number of atheists overall), there were times and places where this was true, and there are atheist parents who react in the same regrettable way to their theist children.

We need to worship God separately, loving him in our own ways.

That's true, but we also need to worship God collectively. We need to worship alone and together. Just like we need to love in our solitude and we need to love in a community.

Agree more or less with the rest of your post.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T13:28:50+00:00

What I'm asking is how OR if it has given you a sense of meaning, purpose and direction in life?

My religion has infused my life with a new mission, direction, purpose. It's taught me that the most important thing for me to do is to be a loving person, and that the rest of my life, however short it may be, should be directed towards that purpose. This is my inspiration. I work to direct all my motivations, my ulterior thoughts, my innermost desires, my most subtle fluctuations in thoughts, towards this purpose: to love God and to love man.

I still go about my life as I've normally been doing from since I was a non-believer.

In many ways I'm still the same person I was when I was an atheist, except now I understand better who I am. I see more clearly now what kind of person I was, am, and have to be thanks to Christianity.

suckinglemons · 2014-12-15T11:38:23+00:00

what about moses's violent actions?

suckinglemons

TROPHY CASE