Belief in the divine as the source of Being is perfectly rational

blown the fuck out
>meme reply
point in case

>h-he insulted me so he's wrong

Lel pussies

meme reply again
you really don't have a lot of material here do you

here's the problem here, you have a principle of being which I would agree to, but you call it the divine. I don't like this term because it sounds like you are just making a leap from this abstract term that is practically meaningless to christianity's god or something similar. even if you aren't the term has all sorts of baggage from its general usage, even if you don't mean the general usage. it's like when SJW's make it so they can say black people aren't racist because they have redefined racism

Despite the picture of Jesus I'm not pushing Christianity. I use the term divine because this principle would necessarily be: perfect, transcendent, good, all-powerful

alright so now you've added properties to your divine. how can this not be a personal god with the property "good"? from looking at all of "being" in the universe I certainly would not say a principle of "good" underlying it is self-evident

>t. autism

You're right. It's not self-evident or even necessary.

Maybe thank God He is good, and not as you are.

Good because by definition it is beyond necessity/relativity, and thus cannot be subject to evil. By being beyond all relstivities, it is unconditioned, and if it is unconditioned, it is absolutely free, there is nothing to determine it but itself. This quality of being-in-itself is the principal quality of good even as we know it immanently, such as the hero who sacrifices himself to save others or the individual who overcomes great adversity: both are transcending their conditioning by retaining their agency and groundedness in the midst of harmful external factors

you have yet to prove that he is. now you are contradicting yourself. your argument hinged on minimal concept of only that which is self-evident about the principle of being and now you are not only sticking by your "good" property but also speaking to your divine as though it is a personal god. so then you are doing exactly what i said you were doing earlier and overstretching your minimalist argument to get to some sort of personal god

>Good because by definition it is beyond necessity/relativity, and thus cannot be subject to evil.
and also beyond being subject to good, besides that there is no objective morality to say what is "good" and "evil" in the first place. I would call this amoral, not good

It is exactly this quality of being unconditioned that is what is meant by Good, although you're right morality does not apply at this scale

it is perhaps what you mean by good, but not what i would call good, or most people for that matter. this is the same thing as you did earlier with calling the principle of being divine. all this does is confuse people with word games

More like others are just ignorant of how to define concepts like the Good beyond "it's desirable to X", which is why you get moral relativists who think the Good is as arbitrary as someone's dietary preferences.

"Word games" isn't an argument. If someone can't make the necessary connect to their own life experiences to make these concepts intuitively comprehensible, it's not my fault

Too much rationality is not a good thing.

The rational end of life is death, should we then kill ourselves to reach that conclusion immediately or irrationally rebel against this in whatever extent we can?

Rationality is overrated.

it is also rationality that causes you to realize that this kind of reasoning is not a good thing however

Yes indeed, but the only divine belief that can be considered truly rational would be something distant and abstract, such as pantheism or taoism. The problem with this style of "God is defined as the first cause" "God is all love" etc. style arguments is that you start out with these distant, abstract ideas that sound reasonable, and then start piling on much less distant, much more anthropomorphic ideas of God. God is all love, yet somehow he's seriously fucking offended by the fact you don't psychically acknowledge Joseph's wife's son dying for your sins as an act of forgiveness.

Rationally you're going to die anyway, so there's no point in killing yourself if you happen to find life enjoyable. That said, taking your own life if life has become truly unbearable is not necessarily a bad thing.

>my position's not the problem, it's everyone else that's stupid

OK then.

Rationality helps understand the beginnings and ends of one's perceptual event horizon but it's emotion that decides their attitude towards it.

"Enjoyability" is an emotional characteristic not rational.

The human brain is not just the left half or right half but a balance of both.

Nah. Especially not christian divinity, seeing as how there is no proof for the resurrection of christ.

>"Enjoyability" is an emotional characteristic not rational.

OK, and there'd still be no point to killing yourself on a rational basis. You're going to get there eventually, so why bother? If you bring up "muh suffering" I hope you choke on a pretzel; not fatally, just uncomfortably.

Which funnily enough still wouldn't prove Christianity correct. It would only prove that Christ came back from the dead. In that case, he could just be a rogue demigod out to stir up shit for the old pagan faiths; we've already accepted the supernatural at that point, so anything goes.

rationality is itself sometimes based on emotions, emotions are part of the human condition
that something is rational doesn't mean it is necessarily true however.

I've explained my position, your argument "w-well, not a lot of p-people think that way!" Not a problem with my position.

You haven't provided a reason to believe there is a good. You've just called people idiots for not believing there is a good, which is bad form.

In strict calculation, given that you've made no support for your position, it's much more likely that you, the butthurt crank, is the one in the wrong.

The reason is efficiency, not suffering.

It's for the same reason that Capitalism is seen as "rational".

Since efficiency is the end then life becomes inefficient towards the goal of death.

And what benefit is efficiency? What rational basis is there for assuming that this "efficient" course of action is superior? What rational basis is there to assume that death is the goal of life? The fact it's inevitable proves that it's only inevitable, not that it's life's goal.

I did.

Nah, you made a claim that proves jack shit (existence existing proves only that existence exists and literally nothing else) and then tried to claim your subjective values as proof of an objective good. Step up your game.

You're confusing the definition of a word with a fact. A fact is true regardless of whether people agree. The same cannot be said about the meaning of words. With a word used to refer to as great a variety of things as good, you cannot take single meaning for granted. You've made no argument for why "good" is just things Spinoza likes (free, absolutely infinite, etc.). You just say it is and that if everyone were as smart as you they would agree.

There is Being. There is a Power of Being, or alternatively, an ultimate nature of this Being. The Divine is what we call this principle. By being the source of relativity it cannot be subject to relativity itself, and because the product of a principle is always inferior to the principle itself, it is transcendent and therefore supreme and therefore good, and because all beings aspire towards freedom and wellbeing, and because that essentially means freedom from contingency, all beings aspire towards the good/divine.

>guy with Veeky Forums disagrees with me
>pretty much every philosopher worth a damn agrees with me, or rather, I agree with them

hmmmm

Not an argument.

I suppose the criteria for a philosopher being worth a damn is whether they agree with you. This is the ciricular model of all of your logic.

Neither is "your definition of the Good isn't shared by most plebs, w-word games!"

Refute it on its own terms or shut the fuck up.

Nope, have read plenty of philosophers who would adamantly disagree with me and I still think their viewpoint is valuable.

Its rational to admit taht we don't know everything. Therefore something beyond our knowledge can exist. However, it is absolutely irrational to believe in god/gods proposed by religions as its full of contradictions with reality.

>all beings aspire towards the good/divine.

Prove it.

Nietzsche already blew your reasoning out of the water.

>be spinoza fag
>call the big bang god
>therefore god exists

Firstly, the argument is not that the majority of people's definition of good is correct. It is that language is a social tool, not a fixed entity, for which the term correctness is applicable to its use.

Here is a more thorough refutation. Assuming that good refers specifically to something unchanging - the word by itself, not in anybody's mouth - then there is a thing in reality, independent of human perception, which is the underlying principal that makes something good. Therefore, goodness has an essential quality (that is to say, a thing is good with that quality and not good without that quality) of goodness to be a quality of the thing. By what means is this quality proven essential? A dictionary? This is a social proof. An appeal to other philosophers? Social, yet again. What about to the masses? Social, as well.

If you can show me an answer to how you know that any quality is a quality of good without a social proof but rather a logical or experimental proof, then I would be glad to admit I was wrong.

The sad thing is that the conclusions Spinoza came to were so valuable, but all that some care about is using the same definitions he used.

Allow me to correct a post I didn't edit correctly.

Firstly, the argument is not that the majority of people's definition of good is correct. It is that language is a social tool, not a fixed entity, for which the term correctness is applicable to its use.

Here is a more thorough refutation. Assuming that good refers specifically to something unchanging - the word by itself, not in anybody's mouth - then there is a thing in reality, independent of human perception, which is the underlying principal that makes something good. Therefore, goodness has an essential quality (that is to say, a thing is good with that quality and not good without that quality). By what means is this quality proven essential? A dictionary? This is a social proof. An appeal to other philosophers? Social, yet again. What about to the masses? Social, as well.

If you can show me an answer to how you know that any quality is a quality of good without a social proof but rather a logical or experimental proof, then I would be glad to admit I was wrong.

*is not

whoops

>le nietzsche Xdd

He wouldn't call it the good, but Nietzsche would agree that freedom from bondage and becoming a great-souled overman go hand in hand. Read more

I've said it like 5 times. Freedom from contingency, whether biological, mental, or social. Naturally this results in the self-actualization of the being involved.

>He wouldn't call it the good, but Nietzsche would agree that freedom from bondage and becoming a great-souled overman go hand in hand. Read more

He wouldn't however consider these to be objective goods. He was pretty clear about this, there is no truth, only perspective.

>I've said it like 5 times. Freedom from contingency, whether biological, mental, or social. Naturally this results in the self-actualization of the being involved.

But where do you get the second stage of this, that this represents an objective good? Many people seem quite happy to sacrifice freedom in exchange for other gains, not even strictly material ones that could be construed as freedom from something (freedom from hunger for instance), but often immaterial ones of a religious or ideological nature.

Wait, are you that fucking idiot that keeps starting those threads about existence having a meaning? Why do you keep doing this?

>But where do you get the second stage of this, that this represents an objective good? Many people seem quite happy to sacrifice freedom in exchange for other gains, not even strictly material ones that could be construed as freedom from something (freedom from hunger for instance), but often immaterial ones of a religious or ideological nature.

1. Life exists
2. Life is the movement towards some future state (not literally physically)
3. What is amenable to the wellbeing and self-realization of a being is a "good"
4. Beings are, however, subject to biological and social forces which expend their energy towards unproductive, wasteful, or otherwise harmful ends
5. Harmful is defined as that which compromises the felt integrity of a being's volition/self-concept (as well as societal impact, but we're just focusing on just one person here) by subordinating that self-concept to what is ultimately not OF it: sexual desire, fear, hatred, etc.
6. The objective good is that which is most conducive to the eradication of patterns of thought/activity that are derived from psycho-physical forces that are prior to the being in question, and therefore cannot be said to constitute the being's true "Self"

>heh look at this tard, thinking things have meaning
>le current year

fuck off back to r/atheism if you want an echobox, brainlet

Some of Spinoza's ideas were fine. But he could have called his god anything other than god except he didn't want to be persecuted as a godless atheist.

>brainlet

Yep, it's that fucker

I'm not calling you a tard for thinking things have meaning, I'm calling you a tard because you obsessively create these threads.

on a site infested with schizos, weebs, and deviants, you're worried about the guy making metaphysics threads

fuck off

Fuck it hurts just to read

>1. Life exists

But it really doesn't. What exists are the fundamental particles that organisms are made of, but the distinction of them as organisms, or living versus non-living (or indeed, any distinctions at all), is purely a distinction born of a thinking mind. But a the thoughts of a thinking mind does not give rise to universal truth.

>2. Life is the movement towards some future state (not literally physically)

The state of something is just another distinction, one created by pinning something to a void and declaring that it is. But the fact remains that it still is not in any universal sense.

>3. What is amenable to the wellbeing and self-realization of a being is a "good"

You've reached a sticking point here. What is amenable to wellbeing and self-realization is amenable to wellbeing and self-realization, not a good. You've tried to make an ought from an is here.

>4. Beings are, however, subject to biological and social forces which expend their energy towards unproductive, wasteful, or otherwise harmful ends
>5. Harmful is defined as that which compromises the felt integrity of a being's volition/self-concept (as well as societal impact, but we're just focusing on just one person here) by subordinating that self-concept to what is ultimately not OF it: sexual desire, fear, hatred, etc.

Yet another attempt at creating an ought from an is.

>6. The objective good is that which is most conducive to the eradication of patterns of thought/activity that are derived from psycho-physical forces that are prior to the being in question, and therefore cannot be said to constitute the being's true "Self"

But there is no true self. The self as we understand it, aside from being strictly an idealistic construct, is composed of several competing wills, that often act in conflict with one another. By what metric can you say that one component which is fundamental to our existence is any more "true" than any other?

How could something that is not a 'psycho-physical force prior to a being in question' at the same time "free from contingency'?

>But it really doesn't. What exists are the fundamental particles that organisms are made of, but the distinction of them as organisms, or living versus non-living (or indeed, any distinctions at all), is purely a distinction born of a thinking mind.

Please, I'm trying to level with you, don't give me this autistic shit. yes, in an absolute sense we are complex molecular complexes, no, that does not somehow invalidate the fact that these complexes are in fact living, thinking, and feeling. don't split hairs, you know exactly what I mean, if there were any way in which life wasn't "actually" real, it wouldn't be real. period.

>The state of something is just another distinction, one created by pinning something to a void and declaring that it is. But the fact remains that it still is not in any universal sense.

No, clearly, life is a movement towards something. Life by definition is that which is not inert. If it wasn't life, it would be inert, end of story.

>You've reached a sticking point here. What is amenable to wellbeing and self-realization is amenable to wellbeing and self-realization, not a good. You've tried to make an ought from an is here.

No, I'm not projecting some nebulous moral quality on the self-actualization of a being here. A well-rounded, balanced, healthy individual is an objective phenomenon, and what we conventionally refer to as "good". This is what the good is. I am not adding a subjective quality, I am bridging the subjective idea of the good with what it refers to as an objective state of things. If the life of every being is a movement towards something which is amenable to that being (as in, the drive to dominate and excel in the present and the drive to propagate genetic material in the future), then it stands to reason the most essential expression of life would be what enables this in the most optimal way possible without sacrificing the integrity of the system this life helps comprise.

>he forgot to read the parts in Spinoza about free will

Then if by life you meant cognition, why didn't say so? Certainly life is used to mean something quite different for plants.

>But there is no true self. The self as we understand it, aside from being strictly an idealistic construct, is composed of several competing wills, that often act in conflict with one another. By what metric can you say that one component which is fundamental to our existence is any more "true" than any other?

That which is the purest expression of that being's interiority. Me losing my temper in traffic is not a "good", me realizing my temper is because of psychological factors x, y, and z and that I choose not to engage with it because I don't want to identify with that kind of anger is a "good".

Like I said, it is what the being feels is true or most authentic to his self-concept WHEN that self-concept has not been made impure by parasitical psychological complexes. The good is the awareness OF the awareness of self - as in, one arrives at a Self that is prior to or rather beyond one's thoughts, inclinations, impulses, etc.

>Please, I'm trying to level with you, don't give me this autistic shit.

But it doesn't "exist" in a universal sense. As I said, the distinction between living and non-living is one of our minds. The universe has no regard of it, and the only way to make it would so would be to create some Platonic realm of forms.

Also it's poor form to call someone autistic when you're the guy who starts nonstop metaphysics threads and then spergs out whenever someone dares to disagree with you.

>No, clearly, life is a movement towards something. Life by definition is that which is not inert. If it wasn't life, it would be inert, end of story.

There are lots of things that aren't inert that can't be described as "living" in the conventional sense. The sun most certainly is not alive. Besides, change itself is strictly an illusion of our perception, the fundamental particles remain the same.

>A well-rounded, balanced, healthy individual is an objective phenomenon, and what we conventionally refer to as "good".

No, it isn't. Our definition of well-rounded and objective has changed considerably. But besides that, the fact that the existence of this being can only be realized by them or anyone else subjectively means that it would be fundamentally impossible for it to be an objective phenomenon.

>If the life of every being is a movement towards something which is amenable to that being (as in, the drive to dominate and excel in the present and the drive to propagate genetic material in the future), then it stands to reason the most essential expression of life would be what enables this in the most optimal way possible without sacrificing the integrity of the system this life helps comprise.

But the movement of every life isn't that. You already acknowledged that people can pursue self-destruct aims. You have no basis to clam that these are somehow not facets of their "true" self. You've looked at something that common is, and attempted to make an ought out of it.

>That which is the purest expression of that being's interiority.

By what metric do you claim something to represent that?

>Me losing my temper in traffic is not a "good", me realizing my temper is because of psychological factors x, y, and z and that I choose not to engage with it because I don't want to identify with that kind of anger is a "good".

Why exactly is one good and the other bad?

>Our definition of well-rounded and objective has changed considerably.
>well-rounded and healthy

You know what I meant.

Then a self is nothing. Nothing comes of nothing, so the self is neither a cause of effect. What is its motion, then, since motion is part of the essence of life?

>But it doesn't "exist" in a universal sense. As I said, the distinction between living and non-living is one of our minds. The universe has no regard of it, and the only way to make it would so would be to create some Platonic realm of forms.

Neither does your viewpoint matter either, are we done?

>There are lots of things that aren't inert that can't be described as "living" in the conventional sense. The sun most certainly is not alive. Besides, change itself is strictly an illusion of our perception, the fundamental particles remain the same.

Oh man.

>No, it isn't. Our definition of well-rounded and objective has changed considerably. But besides that, the fact that the existence of this being can only be realized by them or anyone else subjectively means that it would be fundamentally impossible for it to be an objective phenomenon.

Nope, he can recognize it himself. He doesn't need an external validation of his self-actualization; the only true metric is one's felt sense of his Self.

>But the movement of every life isn't that. You already acknowledged that people can pursue self-destruct aims. You have no basis to clam that these are somehow not facets of their "true" self. You've looked at something that common is, and attempted to make an ought out of it.

Deviations do not disprove the norm. It cannot be a "true" self because the very nature of the worst of self-destructive, immoral impulses are by definition rooted in the aforementioned psycho-physical forces. Even a serial killer can't claim his deviancies are his "true" self because a. he did not will them upon birth and b. they have been expressed and will continue to be expressed in other individuals, and thus is prior to his self.

>Why exactly is one good and the other bad?

Because being an angry piece of shit is not conducive to what I'm talking about

>as in, one arrives at a Self that is prior to or rather beyond one's thoughts, inclinations, impulses, etc.

There can be no self beyond those, because those are the whole of the self.

He is. His name is I Am, and He is Good.

The question was whether or not God had to be good, and I do not know the answer to that. The consequences of God not being good are too horrific to contemplate.

Not necessarily, you guys are almost right on the money though. The self is nothing when it does not identify with the organic entity it has inherited, but because it can know itself as such, because there is an AWARENESS of itself as being beyond these contingencies, it cannot just be nothing. It is both nothing and everything.

>The consequences of God not being good are too horrific to contemplate.
What? You're living it right now.

>Neither does your viewpoint matter either, are we done?

No, not really, because you haven't addressed that point. It fundamentally undermines one of your precepts. Prove that it exists in any universal sense.

>Oh man.

Not big on pre-Socratics are you? Figures. You sound like you have Plato's dick lodged firmly in your throat.

>Nope, he can recognize it himself. He doesn't need an external validation of his self-actualization; the only true metric is one's felt sense of his Self.

That's still fundamentally subjective. It would be impossible for it to be an objective phenomenon.

>Deviations do not disprove the norm.

The norm was never proven in the first place, and since basically everyone pursues self-destructive aims at some point on some level. So it could be more easily argued as "the norm."

>It cannot be a "true" self because the very nature of the worst of self-destructive, immoral impulses are by definition rooted in the aforementioned psycho-physical forces.

Nice use of loaded language here. You must first prove that these impulses are immoral. Then you must prove that them being rooted in physicality makes them "not good."

>a. he did not will them upon birth

You have no basis to actually know that.

>b. they have been expressed and will continue to be expressed in other individuals, and thus is prior to his self.

Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

>Because being an angry piece of shit is not conducive to what I'm talking about

And what you're talking about hasn't been demonstrated to be an objective good. How can you say being an angry piece of shit isn't an objective good? Perhaps you're the most moral man on the planet due to your history of sperging out on Veeky Forums.

>No, not really, because you haven't addressed that point. It fundamentally undermines one of your precepts. Prove that it exists in any universal sense.

Life exists in the conventional sense I am arguing, and life existing in this conventional sense is all I need for my argument to function, as it is referring to behaviors of life as we conventionally know it. Cool your fucking autism.

>The norm was never proven in the first place, and since basically everyone pursues self-destructive aims at some point on some level. So it could be more easily argued as "the norm."

If you're seriously contesting "all life wants what's best for itself, consciously or unconsciously, give or take serious disorders", you got issues.

>Nice use of loaded language here. You must first prove that these impulses are immoral. Then you must prove that them being rooted in physicality makes them "not good."

I don't think you understand I'm not arguing for objective morality. I am arguing there are objectively recognizable states which the more conventional, subjective labels of "good" and "bad" actually apply, not in some absolute moral sense but as part and parcel of the nature of existence.

You even see this with physical exercise. The more one becomes fit and builds muscle, the more his own body becomes "universalized" and comes to resemble the ideal human form.

>You have no basis to actually know that.

Come on, get real.

>Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Sexual sadists did not invent sexuality, nor sadism, and certainly not an invention of both. What is sexual sadism in these types of murderers is some configuration or complex of neurological, biological, etc. factors that have occurred before in other beings and will occur again, and thus cannot be said to constitute the person's true Self in any real sense.

fedora

>Life exists in the conventional sense I am arguing, and life existing in this conventional sense is all I need for my argument to function, as it is referring to behaviors of life as we conventionally know it

The "conventional sense" is not a good basis for a philosophical argument. Life needs to exists in a universal sense for your argument to work, since you're trying to use the existence of life to prove that existence of a universal good.

>If you're seriously contesting "all life wants what's best for itself, consciously or unconsciously, give or take serious disorders", you got issues.

Ridicule is not an argument. All life wants what life wants, this not necessarily what is "best" for itself, as no life actually knows what is best for itself, or can even ever objectively know that.

>You even see this with physical exercise. The more one becomes fit and builds muscle, the more his own body becomes "universalized" and comes to resemble the ideal human form.

No, he comes to resemble a healthy human form that people find attractive. Whether it's ideal or not is a subjective value judgement.

>Come on, get real.

Well? I'm waiting for you to prove that claim. On what basis can a serial killer be said to not be acting out his "true" self that precedes his own existence?

>Sexual sadists did not invent sexuality, nor sadism, and certainly not an invention of both. What is sexual sadism in these types of murderers is some configuration or complex of neurological, biological, etc. factors that have occurred before in other beings and will occur again, and thus cannot be said to constitute the person's true Self in any real sense.

On what basis is "occurred in someone else" proof that something s not true?

No, I'm not. I'm not enjoying my citizenship in heaven because I'm not there yet. I'm still stuck on this planet that thinks satan is god. That's what I'm experiencing. Fools who believe liars.

>The "conventional sense" is not a good basis for a philosophical argument. Life needs to exists in a universal sense for your argument to work, since you're trying to use the existence of life to prove that existence of a universal good.

No, it's on you to prove that life does not exist in any absolute sense. You're trying to falsely equate the fact of life with the unconsciousness of its material, when I can as easily just say in a universal sense, matter is both what is inert and what is alive.

>Ridicule is not an argument. All life wants what life wants, this not necessarily what is "best" for itself, as no life actually knows what is best for itself, or can even ever objectively know that.

That beings are confused by what is good for them does not then invalidate my premise, which is that all beings want what they (even erroneously) believe will be best for them. Even the suicide believes death will be a good for him, if we define good as the absence of pain.

>No, he comes to resemble a healthy human form that people find attractive. Whether it's ideal or not is a subjective value judgement.

And it's attractive because its ideal.

>Well? I'm waiting for you to prove that claim. On what basis can a serial killer be said to not be acting out his "true" self that precedes his own existence?

My claim was he never willed this for himself, I don't know how you can possibly try to argue that, unless you have memory of willing to be born as yourself and I just didn't get the memo.

>On what basis is "occurred in someone else" proof that something s not true?

Because a paraphilia exists prior to and outside of any given deviant, it cannot be said it is that deviant's "true" self, and the true self is defined as that which is not contingent on external, uncontrollable factors, because if it didn't depend on you but something else, how can you say it's truly yours?

>No, it's on you to prove that life does not exist in any absolute sense.

Does the universe have any knowledge of it? Are the fundamental particles that compose life any different from the fundamental particles that compose any non-living matter? The answer to both of these questions is no. So how can life be said to exist except as a distinction of our minds?

>That beings are confused by what is good for them does not then invalidate my premise, which is that all beings want what they (even erroneously) believe will be best for them.

So, you're a psychological egoist? Then what is good, can only be interpreted as what benefits the self. But this in and of itself fundamentally undermines the notion of a universal good, as the good can only exist to each individual, and the good of other individuals could not factor in except as it relates to a personal good.

>And it's attractive because its ideal.

It's attractive because it implies healthy genetics and thus healthy offspring. Whether it's "ideal" is subjective.

>My claim was he never willed this for himself, I don't know how you can possibly try to argue that, unless you have memory of willing to be born as yourself and I just didn't get the memo.

Then by your metric, nothing is your true self and the distinction is useless.

>how can you say it's truly yours?

Because I possess it, and that is ultimately the only distinction that should matter.

>Does the universe have any knowledge of it? Are the fundamental particles that compose life any different from the fundamental particles that compose any non-living matter? The answer to both of these questions is no. So how can life be said to exist except as a distinction of our minds?

It's meaningless to talk about literally anything by this standard. The universe doesn't have knowledge of it, so it doesn't exist? What a silly argument. Of course something must be perceived to be said to exist, just because there must be a perceiver does not mean his awareness of x is "not real" somehow.

>So, you're a psychological egoist? Then what is good, can only be interpreted as what benefits the self. But this in and of itself fundamentally undermines the notion of a universal good, as the good can only exist to each individual, and the good of other individuals could not factor in except as it relates to a personal good.

No, most people are trying to benefit the conditioned, small self, the wise man knows this is a confused desire to actualize the true Self.

>Then by your metric, nothing is your true self and the distinction is useless.

congrats, you almost figured it out. the only true self is that which knows it cannot in good faith identify anything outside it as its true self.

>Because I possess it, and that is ultimately the only distinction that should matter.

Then by that logic every thought I've ever had, no matter how bizarre, is the real me and I should act it on it because why wouldn't I want to benefit myself?

Sorry mate, I'm not going to settle for whatever hand biology has given me. I can't escape this body but that doesn't mean I want to identify with and indulge every impulse and inclination.

>The universe doesn't have knowledge of it, so it doesn't exist?

Indeed. The distinctions between anything are products of our mind. What is and is not one thing or another is not some universal truth. The distinct between living and non-living is about as "real" as Donald Duck. We just hold to it because it's useful to hold to it, but if nothing thinking were around to make that distinction, it would not be at all (consider a world populated only by plants).

>No, most people are trying to benefit the conditioned, small self, the wise man knows this is a confused desire to actualize the true Self.

The wise man has created another conditioned self.

>congrats, you almost figured it out. the only true self is that which knows it cannot in good faith identify anything outside it as its true self.

The self does not exist independently. There is nothing that is entirely within ourselves. So trying to satisfy this "true self" is a fool's game; it doesn't exist.

>Then by that logic every thought I've ever had, no matter how bizarre, is the real me and I should act it on it because why wouldn't I want to benefit myself?

Of course not. They're just not "not" the true you. They're no more false than any other component of your existence, and it's up to you to prioritize which components of you to favour. This is just the nature of the human will. There is also no final "true" self to become either, as you'll be in a constant state of becoming.

On an unrelated note, have you ever read the Book of Chuang Tzu?

The true Self is the awareness of oneself - you are not the content of your experience but the experience itself. The true Self is not conditioned because by definition it is what apprehends conditioning in the first place.

And yeah, I've read parts.

>And yeah, I've read parts.

You should read the entirety of it, it's a good read and I feel would help get to the bottom of my thinking.

As for the awareness of oneself being the true self, that doesn't sound to be a particularly useful definition, as awareness of your self as an entity is just trivia; there can be no possible way to better this awareness.

Indeed, even awareness of yourself is a conditioned response. Would an entity that formed on its own and interacted with nothing but itself be aware that there exists anything that is not it? It would not be until it had an encounter with the other that it would ever need to make such a distinction, and thus become aware of its own existence as an entity.

>the one making the claim is the one that must prove this claim, therefore if I say there is no god, I must not prove it :D
>There is no cancer in my childrens smoking delight

So yes, fedora, YOU are the only one that must prove his filth, not those that are seeking a god, you're the only one telling us to do what brings absolute wrath and the less healthy approach.

It is a strange reasoning, that one of the smoker that must force other people to smoke and they must justify not smoking to him

I'm pretty well-versed in Taoism and it's exactly what I'm arguing for itt.

You misunderstand. It's not correct to say we are what is constantly becoming - because then we're not anything, we're always becoming something else - rather, we are the fact of becoming in the first place. So the conditioned self identifies with the waves, and the true Self identifies with the water. Or the small self identifies with the ebb and flow of a river, the true Self identifies with the fact of the river itself. It's paradoxical, and also has everything to do with statements like "there is no absolute truth except this one" and the like.

The true Self is essentially the Tao - that which cannot be named, because it is prior to the determinations of becoming by virtue of the fact it is the receiver and awareness of these determinations, but isn't actually them.

>p-pascals wagger

No, it's not a wagger, you see, one morning you wake up, and say: fucking hell, why do I cough so much and feel like shit?

Option a)
Ah yes, I'll do fucking nothing about it!
Option b)
Gonna try shit and see if I get better

None of them is a wagger, you are choosing to either look for a fix or do nothing at all, nobody is saying you must stay with a God that doesn't leave sings of his existence to those that ask for things because this god is obv false, so searching is kinda easy.

I'm not talking about awareness of oneself as a entity x in location y, but as pure awareness itself, as consciousness of the fact you are conscious and exist. This is the principle and source of the Good.

And trust me, eventually you'll end up quitting tobacco and see if it works, just like eventually you will find a God that absolutely seems to be answering to you.
Easiest trick is actually to just say: Ok, I believe in you, send me somebody so he can teach me what you want, I'll wait, I take for granted those who don't know a law are not obligued to it and no sin is inucrred.

youtube.com/watch?v=A-D8Mf9DdQI

SPBP

This is all just word games.