Intellectual Bankruptcy (ritual, reject, contradiction, beliefs, creation)

[Ody]

Originally Posted by PeaceSeeker

True spirituality conforms to the laws of nature.

Spirituality is absurd. So is any real consideration of the issue when you think about it.

[zenzero]

Friend,
Philosophy is a study
Any study is using the MINd.
religion is just a WAy
a way to still/quieten that very mind.
The sooner the mind becomes bankrupt the better it is as then all men will again be in harmony with nature/creation/garden of eden.
Love & rgds

[Ody]

Originally Posted by zenzero

religion is just a WAy
a way to still/quieten that very mind.

A foolish bet... how we find necessary comfort in that I will never know.

[PeaceSeeker]

Originally Posted by Aasimar

I always wondered about the term metaphysics, and why it isn't applied to only selective branches of science.

Metaphysics is the highest form of philosophy, which attempts to gain knowledge of the ideas. Because the traditional, speculative perspective fails to succeed in this task, Kant suggests a new, hypothetical perspective for metaphysics. Metaphysics can succeed only when it is preceded by Critique.

[PeaceSeeker]

Originally Posted by Ody

Spirituality is absurd. So is any real consideration of the issue when you think about it.

Spirituality is basically consciousness.

[Ody]

Originally Posted by PeaceSeeker

Spirituality is basically consciousness.

....

[PureX]

Originally Posted by atofel

Since the enlightenment, we have seen a fascinating development of Western philosophy. The landscape is dominated by the transition from Christianity to deism, to naturalism, to nihilism, to existentialism, to postmodernism.

We are now left in a world where the dominant philosophy tells us the greatest virtue is to be tolerant of everyone and that everyone's beliefs are equal.

It is a world in which we are discouraged from any sort of confrontation by taking a stand for what you believe in.

It is a world in which the value of a belief or idea is measured by how useful it is.

These ideas are predicated on a deep philosophical development that started with the rejection of special revelation (the idea that knowledge can be given to us directly from God). It seems that once special revelation is rejected, we are left with these conclusions:

- No one owns the truth--absolute truth cannot be known. Yet, how can we know this?

- All notions of metaphysics are fantasies--stories that are useful for making us feel better. Yet, that is a metaphysical statement.

- People believe what they believe because it suits them. Yet, a person can only believe that if it suits them.

What a pit of contradiction and inconsistency.

Has philosophy reached a state of intellectual bankruptcy? What happened to having a philosophical bedrock from which we can build our lives with the bricks of reason?

Actually, none of those statements are self-contradictory.

Originally Posted by atofel

- No one owns the truth--absolute truth cannot be known. Yet, how can we know this?

We can't. Which supports the original proposition. The statement: "No one owns the truth--absolute truth cannot be known" is not an absolute statement, as you are trying to imply. The truth this statement is proposing is dependent upon what humans can know. And a truth that depends upon the human condition cannot be an absolute truth. An absolute truth would have to be true regardless of the human condition, in which case humans wouldn't be able to know it.

Originally Posted by atofel

- All notions of metaphysics are fantasies--stories that are useful for making us feel better. Yet, that is a metaphysical statement.

No, that is not a metaphysical statement. It's a statement about metaphysics. Statements about a subject do not automatically become that subject. A statement about the weather, for example, does not become part of the weather. A statement about God, does not become divine simply because it's about a divine concept. A statement about truth does not become true simply because it's about truth.

Originally Posted by atofel

- People believe what they believe because it suits them. Yet, a person can only believe that if it suits them.

The first part of this statement does not automatically lead us to the second. To claim that, "People believe what they want to believe because it suits them" does not necessarily imply the claim that all people do so all the time. For you to draw that conclusion from this statement without it having been expressed in such absolute terms is to in fact do what the statement claims people do. Yet the statement itself is not absolute, and so does not necessarily include itself as you are implying.

It's not philosophy that has become bankrupt, or is failing in some way. It's America's educational system, that no longer teaches it's citizens how to think critically, and honestly, and skeptically about their own ideas, and the ideas of others. Everything in our culture has become a commodity for sale, including honesty and skepticism. Ideas are now being sold to whoever is willing to buy them, regardless of their logic, rationale, or truthfulness. And teaching the consumer public how to think critically is now viewed by the policy-makers (and the profiteers that control them) as being bad for business. Not to mention it's being bad for the policy-makers, themselves, who can stay in power much more easily without a critically thoughtful voting public.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by atofel

- No one owns the truth--absolute truth cannot be known. Yet, how can we know this?

- All notions of metaphysics are fantasies--stories that are useful for making us feel better. Yet, that is a metaphysical statement.

- People believe what they believe because it suits them. Yet, a person can only believe that if it suits them.

What a pit of contradiction and inconsistency.

Has philosophy reached a state of intellectual bankruptcy? What happened to having a philosophical bedrock from which we can build our lives with the bricks of reason?

Your characterizations of various philosophical positions seem to be strawmen. More over, the Strawman fallacy is still a fallacy of logic, no matter how many changes there have been in philosophy over the last 500 or so years.