REASONING:
I don’t deny that reasoning takes place. The process of moral reasoning is self evident. What I deny is that such process takes place apart from, or superior to, the free will that associates with a perspective of consciousness. Reasoning about moral values is not a process that arises wholly within a brain, derived of some mythological, separate and independent “faculty” for crunching numbers. Rather, arriving at anything that can be recognized as reasoning entails a feedback process, whereby a brain receives, responds, and reconciles with stimuli and information from the Field that encompasses it.
Each model about moral purposefulness by which a brain thereby stores information unfolds in direct, intuitive relation with the Field. In a sense, the intuition of a perspective is not reasoning, but is accumulating a kind of direct storeage of information, even though such information is product of a process whereby reasoning has taken place. Continuously fluxing additions and changes to a brain’s storing of its records of experience do not unfold as products of intentional, mathematical calculations. They unfold as direct, intuitive responses with a Field of Conscious Will. The viability of each change in representations that are stored as models in association with a brain depends more on the character of the Field, as it has attached to a particular perspective, than on any faculty or internal completeness of a model for reasoning that is being processed.
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In death, all particular perspectives of consciousness must eventually become collateral damage from the unfolding purposes of the field of consciousness. Our material world is not the best of all possible; we are only its gardeners, always pursuing communion, and perhaps eventual merger, with a happier state of being.
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4 comments:
Atheists sometimes take the position that Believers don't engage reason. Well, I do not deny that reasoning takes place. The process of moral reasoning is self evident. What I do deny is that such process takes place apart from, or superior to, the free will that associates with each perspective of consciousness. Contrary to the position of some atheists, reasoning about moral values is not a process that arises wholly within a brain, derived of some mythological, separate and independent “faculty” for crunching numbers. Rather, arriving at anything that can be recognized as reasoning entails a feedback process, whereby a brain receives, responds, and reconciles with stimuli and information from a Field of Consciousness (aka God) that encompasses it. That feedback process is what guides the conscious unfolding of evolution, not some trite, useless, and circular notion of "the fittest."
It quite escapes me, how atheists pretend to derive reason or morality apart from free will, or how they pretend to derive individual free will out of the ether, apart from some mythological or metaphorical conceptualization of a common Field or higher Source of values. How they then pretend to reason their way to indisputable, self evident notions, or common notions of moral values, without some form of churches for helping to assimilate such values in practice, escapes me. One might expect, had atheists truly found a self evident source of moral values, that there would be general agreement among them as to specific values and that masses could be converted simply by giving them a good talking to. Regardless, how often does one see a group of self congratulatory "brights," absent unavoidable force, show willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to take a principled stand to defend a system of values? When they do, what animates their zeal, if not a call to metaphysics?
@Alfred Centauri, re: Free will is crucial, isn't it? Without free will, without that fundamental choice that we volitional humans face, the choice to live, one cannot derive ought from is.
"Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course."
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I cannot readily think of an objection to the above. I have sometimes expressed much the same, with minor difference in language. I take her philosophy to be consistent with sustaining a population under a Constitution and ethos for preserving government that is no more intrusive than needed to give free range to private expression and enterprise. That is why I find Rand interesting: much to agree with, yet much that seems impractical or trite. Sort of like what Franklin said about Adams: Always a good man, often a wise man, and sometimes right out of his skull.
While I believe there is a moral absolute, it consists in something like this: Willingness to be receptive, in good faith, intuition, and empathy, to guidance from the best of the unfolding aspects of a higher character – regardless of whether that character be called God or the Ideal Person. I think Ayn Rand had regard for the Ideal Person. She would likely not agree, but I think that was her favored myth -- because I do not believe an Ideal Person exists. That is, not apart from the “Ideal Person” who (in my myth?) is the Field of Consciousness.
I suspect Rand could have sustained her philosophy equally as well without troubling herself to try to discredit the notion of God.
Regarding reason: I believe it is often reasonable to appear to be unreasonable. Within a context, to reason and learn about what may be made good and sustainable, one experiments with what is not. It can be reasonable to test for what is bad -- even to take the side of what may be the bad -- for the sake of learning where a position may lead - provided one does not fall into despair that there is no good. After all, there would be little point in trying to teach respect for either reason or moral values, had one no choice in testing the matter. If pure “reason” -- un-tempered with intuition, empathy, and experience -- could prove the best path in each case, there would be little point to having free will.
Morality entails mind choices, which entails regard for free will, even the free will to take sides (even wrong or “unreasonable” sides), even though one side or the other may dislike the choice or impugn against it, as being irrational or unreasonable.
While it is not in my power of reason to give final judgment to whether any person is perfect, good, bad, or evil, still, responsibility does flow through me to judge and decide, however less than perfectly reasonable, who to follow and what actions to follow. It is my responsibility to try to appreciate and learn from the feedback. In exercising good faith during the process of feedback, I may thus hope to enhance perspectives, including the perspective that constitutes my own consciousness. So long as I am an agent for giving expression to free will, I have no choice but to make choices in judging those acts, events, and paths which I consider to be good or bad – even when others may reasonably consider my choices to have been unreasonable.
That is why I consider empathy (which I distinguish from love) as an absolute that is superior to reason. “Reason” has an air of presuming that one way of looking at things must be correct for each situation for everyone. Empathy does not.
What did the Founders mean, when they referred to "establish" and "religion?" Constantine, Mohammed, Isabella and Ferdinand, King Henry VIII, Martin Luther, and King James may have known a thing or two about what it means to "establish" a "religion."
Did the Founders intend that reading a Bible verse in a public school, having a school Christmas tree, having monuments in court squares, putting "In God We Trust" on currency, and funding "piss Christ" with tax money should be held to constitute an establishment of one religion over another?
Is everything that is obviously based partly in myth automatically a religion? Well then, are variants of the ideal of "the reasonable man" religions? What about the honest politician, rational buyer, ordinary and prudent driver, normal citizen, objective government funded scientist, objectivist philosopher, moderate Islamist, or intelligent Obama supporter?
If establishing collectivist Marxism is not an establishment of religion, then would establishing Shariah law also not be an establishment of religion? If promotion of a Christian value that encourages one to develop one's talents is religious, then is promotion of the use of paper grocery sacks religious? When true believers in global warming are allowed to proselytize on school campuses, is that an establishment of religion? When pro-choicers claim that fetuses are human beings for purposes of tort law, but not for purposes of some kinds of criminal law, is that based in science, wishful thinking, myth, or religious preference?
Under the Constitution, how many of these kinds of questons should federal courts be undertaking to claim authority to decide? By what sustainable principles should federal courts be testing whether each newly contrived concern constitutes either an "establishment" or a "religion?" By what principles are collectivist-imposed values of persons who happen to call themselves secularists to be allowed to be inscribed in law, but not values of persons who happen to be religious? Are values "religious" or "not religious" based only on the nature of the group that is advocating them?
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