Belinda wrote: ↑June 26th, 2024, 4:43 am
Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 25th, 2024, 7:34 am
Belinda wrote: ↑June 25th, 2024, 3:45 am
Sy Borg wrote: ↑June 24th, 2024, 5:49 pm
Why refer to truth, goodness and beauty, mercy, and knowledge as "God", an anthropomorphic Abrahamic deity? On the surface that's akin to calling courage, strength, resilience and justice "Superman". So what do you see as being under the surface in your claim? My gut feeling is it could work by leveraging the placebo effect, but I'm not sure the Spinozan deity provides such benefits, since it is natural rather than supernatural.
I refer to those qualities as God because the anthropomorphic Abrahamic deity has served his turn during past ages.Like him or not, he and the religions that interpreted him have been the most significant historical medium that bore the aspiration of civilisation----truth, goodness, and beauty.
Those 3 aspirations are roughly equivalent to father, son, and holy spirit but without the anthropomorphic symbolism of the latter 3.
It looks to me like a neat hack to keep people following one leader rather than breaking into gangs and feudal divisions. When I look at the "goodness" of Abrahamic, what we see is goodness to the in-group and ruthless dispatching of outsiders.
What we refer to as "ethics" and "morality" are simply a means of cohering a group so that it may compete better against other groups. It's still a dog-eat-dog world, everyone for themselves - just that the "self" is a collective rather than an individual. Over the millennia much has been said about morality, but most of it is clearly lip service, hence a world always at war, be it militarily or economically.
Belinda wrote: ↑June 25th, 2024, 3:45 amThe problem with Spinoza's deity, nature, is that in its strong determinism it seems to reflect the past . However we can bridge what has happened with that which we hope will happen. Aspiration is within human psychology and therefore within nature: any man who entirely lacks aspiration in all areas of his existence is clinically depressed. I knew someone like that and he would have died of it had he not been medicated and otherwise cared for.
The larger problem IMO is attributing nature with the name of a supernatural anthropomorphic entity that was used to cohere groups to band against common enemies. Seemingly, the only reason to refer to "universe" as "God" is to elicit an emotional reaction. You might as well call the universe Ba'al, Odin or Zeus.
It's obvious not enough is known about the message of Jesus of Nazareth who promoted God as universalistic. I.e. that we love enemies too. This version of God is a universalistic development from the basic monotheism of ancient Judaism. The growth of the idea of a universalistic God may be read from The Bible, OT and NT.
Ba'al, Odin, and Zeus were gods of polytheistic religions. There is much to be said in favour of polytheism. Mariolatry and worship of various saints comes closer to polytheism. The tribal power element of polytheism is basic to polytheism and can never lead to the universalistic values of goodness, beauty, and truth.
It's true it's "still a dog eat dog world". That will always be the case. Good, truth, and beauty are aspirational and are continuously being made and remade in a relative world , like a living language is continuously being made and remade.
The Deus Sive Natura of Spinoza is not existential but is essential, which is why Spinoza is said to be "God obsessed".
Abrahamic religions are not existential but promote the idea that God exists essentially from before time, and therein lies the rationale for tribalist behaviour.
As an Australian, I am amused by the idea of a Middle eastern deity posing as "universal". It's as if Noah's sons flew a haulage craft to Australia to save two kangaroos, two saltwater crocodiles, two funnel web spiders, two brown snakes, two taipans, two death adders ...
So, I am leery of any Abrahamic claim to universality. The nations of the Middle East are significantly more deeply split than any other region. Their idea of universalism is largely "We are the law and you will obey us". That's why Muslims today are continuing the colonisation and enslaving of Africans, but without the internal protest movements of the west that demand better conduct from their leadership.
Rather, it seems that most Middle Eastern people just want to avoid trouble because their governments are harsh, so they don't question, and many are probably unaware of what's going on in Africa due to media censorship. Like Muslims, Jews are not driving any humanitarian causes either, so none of the Middle East can be thought of as embracing universality whatsoever. They are tribes aiming to survive.
Yet, it's the Jews who devised the idea of humanitarian-based universality, as opposed to Islamic authoritarian conformist universality. Still, the notion was raw as expressed in the Bible. The Romans progressed this idea. The Romans had previously been polytheistic in a relaxed way, rather like Hindus. They would petition appropriate or adopted deities for help, but not much more. So, when the first Christians arrived, Romans were happy to add "God" to their deity list. But Christians said no. Their God was BOSS, and the only real one. Notice the dynamic here?
My Dad is bigger than your Dad.
Of course, thanks to Constantine tripping balls due to lead poisoning, the Romans put aside their old gods and The Roman Catholic Church was born.
It's easy to see why no one revoked Christianity afterwards. What better deity for an empire that sought to control the entire world? A deity who could bring all together under one banner, one rule.
It's the human dream of organisation. We are a species that is aware of just how much nature (including human nature) besets its denizens with chaos. The dream is to get every chaotic thing and put it in a neat little box where it can be fully controlled. Such a place is known as "Heaven".
As I always say, the primary aim of morality/religion etc is to cohere groups. Groups that are less cohesive are taken over by those with more central control, which is why all functional societies today have central control. Central control in a group is akin to the point of a spear - focusing the forces at hand into a sharp, potent point. A spear with five or ten points will not penetrate as deeply as a single point.
So each human group develops its own morality designed to maximise group survival. Thus, "goodness, truth and beauty" only apply to group members. Outsiders to a group, of course, tend to be seen as terrible people who embrace evil, lies and ugliness. They are yet to know "the truth" as insiders know it.
Of course, some peace-loving individuals (like you) take these claims of universality more seriously than their political and religious leaders. You want to broaden our scope beyond nations, races or even species to recognise that we are ultimately one thing, which Pattern Chaser calls "Gaia". I certainly believe that the Earth is one thing, that the geosphere, atmosphere and biosphere are a single monolithic spherical entity with some remarkably complex interactions occurring on its surface.
This giant sphere in space, itself subject to a vastly more enormous zone of condensed matter, aka the Sun, is a more extraordinary entity than we tend to imagine, because we tend not to realise that it IS us (and many other life forms and other entities). We are the Giant Sphere's most eloquent expression so far. No doubt, there is an enormous amount of development ahead. The difference between P-C's (well, Lovelock's) Gaia, your Spinozan God and my generality is small.
The difference comes in our interpretations of universality. I think of universality as real, but humans are not emotionally or culturally ready for it, so I do not embrace universalism politically, unlike you two. That is, our moralities are not truly universal but only "universal" within a nativist paradigm. As I say, the whole point of morality is to allow groups to better compete against other groups.
In what looks like a standard Prisoners' Dilemma situation, any society that embraces true universalism will be taken advantage of by those that value their own culture over universalism. That's why today's polity is becoming more nativist. There has been a breakdown in global cooperation since the US abused its power in Iraq. Now, nations that were once moving closer to friendship split apart again. Nations started questioning the boundaries imposed by a system that was no longer credible (that is, a US system that promoted justice and peace).
Boundaries - both internally and externally - are increasingly being questioned, with a rise in invasions, coups and separatist movements. Not much truth and beauty to be found in that. It's just the chaotic winds of change. Chaos is necessary for reality to keep ticking over, but it is not convnient or kind.
Still, it appears to me that humanity is moving towards actual universalism. However, this is happening in waves, not consistently. It's as if the Earth is trying to cohere more and, while each attempt to organise itself brings progress, the attempts have all ultimately failed. From there will come war, authoritarianism and other things that have about as much to do with goodness, truth and beauty as a septic tank.
But then people become tired of being ruled by self-absorbed embodiments of hubris, and their desire for a better life brings the cycle back towards the next "universal wave". The kicker here is that the next wave of universality will deeply involve AI, which is capable of drawing out details that unaided humans cannot.
Sorry, this is longer than intended.
All are names of the ineffable God... 
Personally, I prefer Gaia, but each to their own...
- By Mr Benji
- By LuckyR