Why not hedonism?

Started by Daniel, January 13, 2019, 12:21:10 PM

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Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 11:00:14 AM
If you ask me, in the year 2019, I am going to say Eastern Orthodox or Buddhist.

Really?

I hadn't realized you were somehow attracted to the musings of Siddhartha.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Mono no aware

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on January 28, 2019, 01:30:44 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 11:00:14 AM
If you ask me, in the year 2019, I am going to say Eastern Orthodox or Buddhist.

Really?

I hadn't realized you were somehow attracted to the musings of Siddhartha.

Only mildly.  What Buddhism has going for it is that it begins with the brute fact of suffering: every sentient being suffers, it acknowledges, with no God to account for it.  Suffering just is (which is a fine description of the world as we find it) and Buddhism proposes a liberation.  It does have massive problems, though.  The single baseline supernatural belief you have to take on to be a Buddhist, of course, is a belief in reincarnation, which is not very credible, even though the Greeks themselves had it in their doctrine of the transmigration of souls.  It makes more sense, though, than a Catholicism that can reinvent itself to the extent that, say, the death penalty can be proclaimed a moral wrong after two thousand years.  I am not planning on becoming a Buddhist, but when QMR proposes with mystical certainty that Novus Ordo Catholicism is viable, I am going to prefer the mystical certainty of a Buddhist proposing reincarnation—if we're talking about what's reasonable, that is.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 11:00:14 AM
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 28, 2019, 09:28:48 AM
QuoteAnother problem with grace, though, is that, like the claim to a natural law, it is yet another non-verifiable claim that any person of any religion could make.  "By the grace of God I believe in (X) and know with an absolute and mystical certainty that is (X) is true."  This is what I try to stress to QMR.

Objectively non-verifiable, admitted; subjectively non-verifiable, denied.

Agreed.  For the person who has the experience, it is the most verifiable and certain thing in the world.

As it is verifiable and certain. It's judging and drawing inferences that isn't. And my answer would be that the perennial core of truth in each of them points to Jesus Christ as its source and summit. To whit, Valentin Tomberg.

QuoteBut the fact that various people claim mystical experiences in favor of different religions is where the problem comes in: this is like a conference of solipsists arguing over which one of them actually exists.  Everyone is certain of their own mystical certainty.

And that's fine. Even the objectively verifiable is "only" subjectively verifiable as such. The issue is of what he has encountered. I wouldn't want to deny them their experiences and the certainty of those experiences, as I've had many of them myself. The worlds of Tantric Buddhism exist and its spiritual states are attainable. Allah, no doubt, is a reality to the Sufi, megalomaniacal taskmaster as he is. The question is, have you encountered Jesus Christ and the cosmos-creating, soul-shattering joy of the love that flows from him and fills your being?  Because everything falls into nothingness, is so much straw, in comparison, and the one who has it, he will know what is is and either accept or reject it.

Jesus doesn't say, "Here's my proof!". He says, "I am the truth. Follow me and you will know it and be set free".

John 8:32 : "If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Quote
If an unbeliever is presented with claims of mystical certainty from a Catholic, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Mennonite, a Mormon, and an Eastern Orthodox, and must choose from this set based on which is the most reasonable, how would they know which one to choose?  If you ask me, in the year 2019, I am going to say Eastern Orthodox or Buddhist. "

By the grace of Jesus Christ will have an encoutner with and come to choose him. Or they won't. There is no outside certainty, and nobody is owed it.


Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 05:53:51 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on January 28, 2019, 01:30:44 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 11:00:14 AM
If you ask me, in the year 2019, I am going to say Eastern Orthodox or Buddhist.

Really?

I hadn't realized you were somehow attracted to the musings of Siddhartha.

Only mildly.  What Buddhism has going for it is that it begins with the brute fact of suffering: every sentient being suffers, it acknowledges, with no God to account for it.  Suffering just is (which is a fine description of the world as we find it) and Buddhism proposes a liberation.  It does have massive problems, though.  The single baseline supernatural belief you have to take on to be a Buddhist, of course, is a belief in reincarnation, which is not very credible, even though the Greeks themselves had it in their doctrine of the transmigration of souls.  It makes more sense, though, than a Catholicism that can reinvent itself to the extent that, say, the death penalty can be proclaimed a moral wrong after two thousand years.  I am not planning on becoming a Buddhist, but when QMR proposes with mystical certainty that Novus Ordo Catholicism is viable, I am going to prefer the mystical certainty of a Buddhist proposing reincarnation—if we're talking about what's reasonable, that is.

Does Buddhism rely on doctrinal coherence throughout the ages, though?

I reckon they have a few different denominations and schools of thought.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Daniel

#94
This is a little off topic, but...

I'm wondering, does Buddhism claim that everyone is morally obliged to become Buddhist? Or does it only claim that Buddhism is useful (necessary?) insofar as we want to escape from suffering?

Suppose I don't care about suffering. (I'll take the suffering or I'll leave it... doesn't matter one way or the other. That sort of attitude.) Is there any reason for me to become a Buddhist?

At least as far as religion is concerned, Buddhism seems completely pointless. The whole purpose of religion is to give to God the adoration we owe Him. But Buddhism says that God is irrelevant. It doesn't offer us a means of practicing religion; rather, it basically seems to say that there's no need to practice religion, and it further says that that we should instead focus our efforts on doing whatever we can to escape from our desires and from suffering.

Mono no aware

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on January 29, 2019, 04:37:00 PMDoes Buddhism rely on doctrinal coherence throughout the ages, though?

I reckon they have a few different denominations and schools of thought.

Yes, that's certainly true.  I should add that the Zen school of Buddhism in Japan doesn't even seem to be concerned with reincarnation, which I consider the baseline Buddhist doctrine.  Zen might be properly classed as a philosophy or discipline.  But the more popular form of Buddhism in Japan is the Pure Land version, which entails belief, salvation, and heaven.  So yes, as different as it gets. 

I guess if I were to seriously consider Buddhism, I would be attracted to the Theravada form.  But reincarnation makes no sense, at least as the Buddhists consider it.  I once asked a Buddhist: since life contains suffering and the goal is liberation from rebirth through annihilation, why do Buddhists have children?  He gave me an anthropocentric answer: that only in the human form was a soul capable of reaching nirvana.  So I said, why not nuke the planet several times over and destroy all sentient life with a nuclear winter?  Where would the souls go if there were no more biological bodies to inhabit?  He said I was asking ridiculous questions.  "I don't believe in Buddha."

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Daniel on January 29, 2019, 07:14:37 PM
This is a little off topic, but...

I'm wondering, does Buddhism claim that everyone is morally obliged to become Buddhist? Or does it only claim that Buddhism is useful (necessary?) insofar as we want to escape from suffering?

Daniel, what do you really mean by morally obliged?

My view is that the Holy Spirit in the heart prompts me to will good, on the one hand, while on the other hand, because I desire union with God, I have a reason to obey His commands that lead me to it. Failure to do this, choosing evil instead, will lead to Hell, the eternal separation from the divine, something I would do anythign to avoid. Does what you call moral obligation fit into this? Or is this just "useful"?

If we're talking about the de facto atheists, a Buddhist equivalent of liberal Christians, or an imaginary "pure" Buddhism of modern reformists, that's one thing, but traditional Buddhism is inextricably synchretised with locla "polytheism" and has Bodhisattvas and gods and demons and a Hell from which there is basically no escape once you end up there.

QuoteSuppose I don't care about suffering. (I'll take the suffering or I'll leave it... doesn't matter one way or the other. That sort of attitude.) Is there any reason for me to become a Buddhist?

Looking past a vital cause of love of God and the good, is there any reason for you to become a Christian other than the reward of Heaven and escape from Hell? Please don't say you're obliged because you owe something; that's talking in circles.


John Lamb

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 28, 2019, 09:28:48 AMI can say "it is only by the grace of God" that I don't, immediately, right now, take an Uzi (assuming I owned one) into the nearest shopping mall and start mowing down people, and it might sound really pious, but it fails the reality test.  This would be simply extra, gratuitous evil on my part.

Actually, none of us are probably as far off from this as we might imagine. Looking into the evils in the world can easily lead to despair, and the devil encourages this despair and turns it into wrath. The devil is disgusted by mankind and he is eager to share his anger & disgust with others. With the withdrawal of God's grace and at the encouragement of the devil, you might quite easily in your imagination wish to slaughter a crowd of people, which according to Christ's teaching is to have already committed the sin spiritually. Then to commit the sin in act you only need a mental illness, which God could, again, very easily permit you to have.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 28, 2019, 11:00:14 AMIf an unbeliever is presented with claims of mystical certainty from a Catholic, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Mennonite, a Mormon, and an Eastern Orthodox, and must choose from this set based on which is the most reasonable, how would they know which one to choose?

This very pertinent question is precisely the one that the traditional / thomistic theological manuals address, by speaking of the formal motive of our faith as "the authority of God revealing," and then applying this formal motive to the motives of credibility which show that Catholicism has the most convincing claim to be the medium of "God revealing". This is not to do away with any of the interior motives, spiritual insights, mystical illuminations, etc., but to provide these invisible & spiritual things – that are beyond reason – with a rational framework so that the Catholic faith can't be dismissed so easily as "well, the Muslims and the Buddhists have their mystical insights too – so why do I need your dogmas?" On the contrary, Thomism has always maintained the strict necessity of an interior illumination of supernatural grace in making an act of faith.

QuoteIf you ask me, in the year 2019, I am going to say Eastern Orthodox or Buddhist.  You will rightly contend that the Orthodox have a faulty epistemology, but as we've discussed before, the allegedly perfect epistemology ends in Vatican II, annulments-as-divorce, the NOM, St. John Paul II, and Francis reversing the death penalty.  That might be acceptable to you who have had a mystical experience, but for me, there goes Christianity.  It would then only remain for someone to decide whether they want to spend their time sitting on a yoga mat in the lotus position waiting on a promised enlightenment.  "I don't believe in mantra."

Catholic teaching is only "epistemologically perfect" in a refined and very formal sense – when the pastors of the Church co-operate with God's grace in teaching & declaring those dogmas of the faith which Christ & the Apostles have entrusted to them: it infallibly produces the truth in any intellect receptive to it. That doesn't mean that any statement of any Catholic person is bound to be true all of the time, or that everyone who call themselves "Catholic" is entirely receptive to the truth.
Analogy: the Oxford Course in Latin. It teaches people how to read Latin. But if you get a class full of dolts, or a teacher who refuses to teach, nobody ends up learning Latin. Does that mean the Oxford Course in Latin is unsound? On the contrary, it's a good course. Similarly, Catholicism is a good course, it's just that we don't always get the best people on the course or teaching it.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Daniel

#99
Kreuzritter - Could you clarify: What you seem to be saying is that the reason philosophers/ethicists have never been able to explain why people are morally obliged to do the good is because people simply aren't morally obliged to do the good?

In other words, you're saying that nobody is obliged to follow God's rules? That is, God could care less whether or not we follow His rules?
If we ignore heaven and hell, the man who chooses to do evil is not any worse a man than the man who chooses to do good?
But because of the reality of heaven and hell, it's a good idea to do good. The man who chooses to do evil is a more foolish man than the man who chooses to do good, but not a worse man?

edit - Or maybe he is a worse man, but that's not a bad thing, since there's no objective reason for him to be good?

Kreuzritter

#100
Quote from: Daniel on January 30, 2019, 01:47:57 PM
Kreuzritter - Could you clarify: What you seem to be saying is that the reason philosophers/ethicists have never been able to explain why people are morally obliged to do the good is because people simply aren't morally obliged to do the good?

No, I just genuinely don't know what that means. Ethicists will first have to explain what moral obligation is and what the question is searchign for before an anwer can be found.

QuoteIn other words, you're saying that nobody is obliged to follow God's rules?

God obliges us, but that's in the sense of a commandment for what he wants us to do.

QuoteThat is, God could care less whether or not we follow His rules?

No, I'd never say that. God care's very much, both out of his love for us and his hatred of evil.

QuoteIf we ignore heaven and hell, the man who chooses to do evil is not any worse a man than the man who chooses to do good?

No, he's evil, and that's what I'd mean by being worse in a moral sense.

QuoteBut because of the reality of heaven and hell, it's a good idea to do good.

Yes. But doing good isn't just a "good idea"; it's fundamentally an act of love from the heart. Even the one who merely goes through the motions of "doing good", if he doesn't have love, to paraphrase 1 Corinthians, gains nothing. I don't place man's essential humanity in the head with its capacity for reason, but in the heart with its capacity for love.

QuoteThe man who chooses to do evil is a more foolish man than the man who chooses to do good, but not a worse man?

I'd say he's worse, viz., more evil. I wouldn't say he's necessarily foolish in a mere intellectual sense, because if Hell and its suffering is what he has his will set upon, he going about it the right way. Wantign Hell, knowign what it is, isn't true or false - it's just ... sick, a result of a spiritual darkness. But he may be truly mistaken in thinking it'd be his joy, and he's certainly foolish and ignorant in what comes across as God's Biblical sense, but I'd place that more in the heart than the head.

Quoteedit - Or maybe he is a worse man, but that's not a bad thing, since there's no objective reason for him to be good?

What is an "objective reason to be good" supposed to be?


Please, please, please don't read anythign I write as a form of moral relativism, moral consequentialism, or divine command theory.

Prayerful

Quote from: Daniel on January 13, 2019, 12:21:10 PM
As I understand it, the Church condemns hedonism on the grounds that hedonism does not lead to salvation.

But what about those of us who probably won't be saved anyway? Seeing as there is no road to salvation for us (the reprobate), and seeing as our damnation--if God wills it--is inevitable, why should we not spend our short lives doing whatever we want?

Should there not be a double standard?

That can be a danger, or was at least in the fast, that by emphasising the fewness of the saved, how hard it was, that many would despair, that they would like in Isaiah 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.'
Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.

Daniel

#102
Sorry Kreuzritter, I didn't intend to read any of that stuff into your post. I am just trying to better understand your position.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I now see what you're saying. All men are obliged to obey God by the very fact that God commands obedience. And this obedience must be done out of supernatural love for God rather than out of an intellectual submission to duty. Those who do this are defined as 'good' and are consequently worthy of heaven; those who fail to do this are defined as 'evil' and are consequently worthy of hell.

I suppose I'm still having a somewhat difficult time grasping this though, since in my experience love is intellectual. But I suppose supernatural love might not be. Also, in my experience, even men who lack grace/charity still have the capacity to love. Though I suppose they have no capacity for supernatural love.

Would you say that God commands the impossible? Those who have no supernatural love cannot correctly love God yet nevertheless are obliged to do so?

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Daniel on January 30, 2019, 06:23:02 PM
Sorry Kreuzritter, I didn't intend to read any of that stuff into your post. I am just trying to better understand your position.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I now see what you're saying. All men are obliged to obey God by the very fact that God commands obedience.

I'd say God obliges them. But there's no "obligation" outside of one intelligence obliging another.


QuoteAnd this obedience must be done out of supernatural love for God rather than out of an intellectual submission to duty. Those who do this are defined as 'good' and are consequently worthy of heaven; those who fail to do this are defined as 'evil' and are consequently worthy of hell.

Close, but not quite.

God's nature is love. To unite with God is to love like him, and vice versa. I think of the anecdote about St. Francis appearing indistinguishable from Jesus at his death. Those who unite with him are, by degree, in Heaven; those who refuse and separate are, by degree, in Hell. It's not about declaring worth and divvying up reward and punishment, though you could see it from that angle and express it in those terms.

Doing good deeds without love can at least, with right intention, eventually foster that love. Those who only have faith and hope should nevertheless persevere.

QuoteI suppose I'm still having a somewhat difficult time grasping this though, since in my experience love is intellectual. But I suppose supernatural love might not be. Also, in my experience, even men who lack grace/charity still have the capacity to love. Though I suppose they have no capacity for supernatural love.

Although the usual term is agape, I'd say there are two ascept to the Hoyl Spirit's love: one, as agape, an outwardly directed, active love to give, the other, as eros, an inwardly directed desire to unite. They both feed off each other, but I suppose people will be more inclined toward one or the other.

QuoteWould you say that God commands the impossible? Those who have no supernatural love cannot correctly love God yet nevertheless are obliged to do so?

No, I don't think so. One just has to desire it and open oneself. Even just wanting it is an inkling of love.

Daniel

#104
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 31, 2019, 05:34:02 AM
Quote from: Daniel on January 30, 2019, 06:23:02 PMWould you say that God commands the impossible? Those who have no supernatural love cannot correctly love God yet nevertheless are obliged to do so?

No, I don't think so. One just has to desire it and open oneself. Even just wanting it is an inkling of love.
But there's a difference between having a generic desire to follow God's rules and actually following God's rules.

The former is easy: granted that you always acknowledge God to be most sovereign, you can never fail to want to follow all of His rules. Just keep your mind always on God's sovereignty in all your actions, and all your actions will be done with the desire to follow all of God's rules.

The latter, however, is oftentimes impossible: it pretty much requires that we have knowledge of God's rules... yet God doesn't give faith to everybody.
And it's impractical (perhaps impossible) to attempt to follow God's rules without knowing what those rules are, since all the religions seem to be contradicting one another, not to mention that it's also possible that none of the religions have knowledge of God's rules.

Nevertheless, God damns people who fail to follow His rules.