That "appeal to a higher authority" is related to what Hans Kung talks about when he speaks of a "paradoxical fundamental trust in uncertain reality". Without an appeal to higher authority or some axiomatic proposition or some grounding of presuppositions, we are left epsitemologically awash. Still, there are no rational a priori grounding presuppositions, we merely "hypothesize" an Ultimate Reality in order to justify our fundamental trust in uncertain reality. This hypothesis or justification is not unreasonable, but it is trans-rational or meta-rational, and any attempt at justifying remains just that, an attempt not an empirical demonstration. What we look for, then, is consonance and congruence and coherence and consistency between Revelation and Science, Metaphysics and Physics. And there is a LOT of it!

Let me excerpt another piece of my correspondence with Steve Petermann:

On one hand, I believe there are profound implications for rejecting natural theology in the manner of Karl Barth, as articulated above by Henry. Such uncritical appeals to rationally unsupported dogmatic assertions and religious beliefs are not compelling for everyone, leave fides sans ratio, can not answer post-modern critiques, provide no common ground for interideological dialogue and are impoverished by an implicit and ungrounded epistemological hubris.

On the other hand, I must point out that I do appreciate why such appeals are compelling for believers. They are, after all, quite often logically consistent, internally coherent and externally congruent and this is evident in the realization of some of their truth claims (such as about human transformative processes). Such claims are tested and indirectly proven vis a vis auxiliary hypotheses, which exist in relationship to unprovable core commitments, which are at least consonant with other hermeneutics. Perhaps it is the denial of such consonance which is the main problem?

I resonate with Steve's closing suggestion: "I guess what I am suggesting is that whatever one makes of claims of revelation, the only truly effective process for creating a morally compelling framework is a natural theology that arises out of ontology, our experience of telos in life, our inferences about that experience,
and our struggles to concretize it as best we can in a moral stance. It may be a "messy" business but maybe there is progress."

I wrote: I think there is progress and have sneaking suspicions about telos. Those who a priori deny the possibility of a transcendent hierarchy often do so on the grounds that the revelatory claims and putative revelatory processes of the great traditions don't meet up with their expectations and don't satisfy their theodicies. Who's engaging in anthropomorphic projections in these instances?

pax tibi,
jb

Moral frameworks like these may decide for democracy overagainst fascism or totalitarianism but that decision is ultimately arbitrary based on consensus or power.

I want to address this little snippel since it appeals to the political side of me. The moral side, well, let�s just say leave me the hell alone and that�s all the Natural Law I need.

People like Washington, Jefferson (maybe less so), Adams, and Hamilton believed in a thing called Divine Providence. They knew they were making deliberate, perhaps arbitrary, choices about what type of government to propose for the thirteen colonies. They made a concerted effort to study the systems of government that existed up to that time, dissected them, and considered their inherent strengths and weaknesses and what made them tick. But they cautioned, even after the system that we now have was accepted, that it could only be made to work with the help of moral men. They considered God to be a necessary part of people running their lives effectively and that their little scheme was just that � a scheme. It was just a tool to be used to allow moral men and women to live their lives as well as possible, but that it was not the CAUSE of people being able to do that in the first place. This new political system just, for the most part, prevented uncouth, evil or misguided people from taking back what was ours to begin with: freedom.

Thus I take real issue with the (usually liberal) idea that we simply �decide� on democracy or totalitarianism and that the decision is ultimately arbitrary and based on consensus or power or whatever moral framework is the flavor of the month. There are extraordinary stories of George Washington, a mediocre military man at best, time and time again escaping certain death as if he were marked for a higher purpose. The Indians, having seen this man not so much as scratched while all the other (at the time) British officers were being killed or wounded, and with several horses shot from under him, came to regard him (I forget the exact phrase) as some kind of man who was destined to change their world.

It may be true that most forms of government and ruling power in the long history of mankind were arrived at by people taking power but I believe that any arrived at by �consensus� without some higher purpose (like the European Union) are probably doomed to unravel at the first sign of real adversity.

Now it�s true that no one can point to his or her religious beliefs and say that �these are the real truths.� But I think we can agree that some unseen, perhaps spiritual side of existence MUST account for ability to put two and two together and come up with five; that is, when our actions and intentions are of a �higher� nature we get more out of things then we seem to put into them.

[invisible on *.edu + *.gov domains in northeast and southern california]

quote:

Now it�s true that no one can point to his or her religious beliefs and say that �these are the real truths.� But I think we can agree that some unseen, perhaps spiritual side of existence MUST account for ability to put two and two together and come up with five; that is, when our actions and intentions are of a �higher� nature we get more out of things then we seem to put into them. BRAD

[/invisible on *.edu + *.gov domains in northeast and southern california]

Come with me into a third millenium planetarium. Relax. Ease into your cushioned recliner seat, but leave your sweater on for it's almost cold. Now, close your eyes and put on the airliner-like stereo headphones, which pipe in ars nova chorals and new agey off-key harmonies while the lights dim. Go ahead and grasp that hand that has reached out for yours, for it is the hand of Carmen Diaz/Tom Cruise, who is sitting next to you [just to keep you grounded in the fact that this is pure fantasy].

As you open your eyes, and gaze skyward, there is the projection of a luminous night sky, beautiful constellations in all directions. These constellations are formed by the twin stars of congruence, the brilliant suns of coherence, the red giants of consistency and white dwarves of consonance, each such helios an auxiliary hypothesis, all of them swirling around in an unseen but obviously curved space, a metaphysical space bent by an immensely dense absence, an absence whose presence we can only infer, for without it the emergent complexity which ensues from the cosmic chaos would yield nought but the anomaly of a paradox wrapped inside an enigmatic core commitment. Now, put on these little 3-D glasses of a panentheistic core commitment and gaze through its little plastic ontological lenses, however flimsy, and Voila!, you will be suffused in multi-spectral metaphysical light, immersed in teleological warmth, swimming in existential meaning, unthreatened by the nihilistic dynamism of the black-holish vortex (from which ontological light is occulted and will not escape) but rather reinvigorated by its testimony that nothingness as an initial condition is inherently unstable and has a tendency to decay into something (YEAH, RIGHT!) and that something, that remnant of stardust, is YOU, and that vestige of cosmic debris is ME, and that Unseen Force, which binds us to one another, is not explicated in Superstring Theory, for it is not how we are but THAT we are, which is the MYSTICAL, and it is GRACE that provides the unseen remainder such that 2 + 2 = 5!

Show's over. But we'll never be the same.

May the Force be with you.

pax,
jb

[invisible on *.edu + *.gov domains in northeast and southern california]

I wasn�t aware that NW California had that much going for it.

JB, that�s an extraordinary piece of writing.

This is my long answer to why Brad was right about there MUST be another side [I know. The poem fed more MBTI profiles but this is for the 1% of introverted thinkers which are over-represented here.]

If in our attempt to recover a natural moral philosophy, we have

1) distinguished between needs and wants, real and apparent goods, turning to an evolutionary epistemology;
2) formulated the one and only self-evident prescriptive judgement as "We ought to desire whatever is really good for us and nothing else." And thereby
3) reassociated is and ought, descriptive and prescriptive, the given and the normative;
4) dismissed hedonism and epicureanism;
5) exposed relativism as having hoisted itself on its own gallows;
6) nuanced absolutism with a deabsolutizing yet constructive post-modern critique;
7) demonstrated that an essential pragmatism lacks a given purpose insofar as whom or what its utilitarian aims are to serve;
8) hypothesized a telic meta-ethical framework which hints at this purpose;
9) proposed a putative consonance between our being/nature and its ontological ground as a criterion to test this hypothesis, at least
indirectly, using inferences from our experience;
10) suggested that this consonance might be measured in degrees of how compelling we feel a moral proposition is and in terms of how
successful we are in our struggle to concretize same in a moral stance;

Then, are we possibly in jeopardy of defeating our goal of recovering a natural theology by suggesting that without telos as our meta-
ethical framework, for some of the reasons listed above, we'd get different (or wrong) ethical results? Did this enterprise just make
us, de facto, supernatural, treating of mysteria fidei in addition to our proper subject matter, praeambula fidei?

Assuredly, we have already delineated the point where the derivations of a strictly moral philosophy or essential pragmatism get thrown
back on themselves, ungrounded and without foundation. However, in our exercise, above, let us not lose sight of the fact that our
hypothetical attempt at grounding is just that. It has no more ontological status, in reality, than any ungrounded essential pragmatism.

Can there be talk then of a stalemate?

Are there consequences for getting this wrong? Will the ethical products coming out of the meta-ethical machinery of a telic-framed factory be
different from those of the strictly philosophical one? Doesn't an inclusivistic theocentrism admit to the possibility of an upright and mature conscience and a good and moral life without any essential dependence on revelation? Is what is compelling a guage of what is true?

Absent apodictical proof our argumentative resources are marshalled.

From Thomas Reid's __Essays On The Active Power of the Human Mind__(Boston: MIT Press, 1969): "The learned and the unlearned, the
philosopher and the day labourer, are upon a level, and will pass the same judgment, when they are not misled by some bias, or taught to renounce their understanding from some mistaken religious principle."

What are the learned and unlearned to do?

Ralph McInerny identifies several argumentative sources in __Characters In Search of Their Author__ (Univ of Notre Dame Press, 2001). He speaks of showing one's opponent to be guilty of inconsistency, tracing consequences to manifest absurdity, argument from authority, practical absurdity and such. On one hand, we recognize some of these as logical fallacies, argumentum ad hominem (such as on playgrounds and coffee klatches) and argumentum ad absurdum (such as with popularized quantum mechanics). On the other hand, logical consistency, internal coherence, external congruence and hypothetical consonance are the criteria of empirical science and are "all we've got" for matters dealing with other than first principles, though different hypotheses yield conclusions with differing
degrees of certainty and probability due to methodological constraints or due the very nature of the subject matter (as well as some matters occulted in principle, such as the earliest moments after the Big Bang, the deep structures of matter and, as in this case, ontological riddles).

So, as McInerny points out: "Neither Plato nor Aristotle thought they were proving the fundamental assumption of thought; rather, they were showing its inescapability by reducing its rejection to nonsense."

No one has proved a telic framework, ontological ground or foundational metaphysics, but it doesn't take Plato or Aristotle to demonstrate to the learned and unlearned, the philosopher and labourer, the consonance, consistency, coherence and congruence that inhere in same (and manifest absurdity in the alternative hermeneutic).

If a meta-ethicist uses the one and only self-evident prescriptive judgement, "We ought to desire whatever is really good for us and
nothing else." to cross over the Humean is-ought chasm, then when his essential pragmatism's derivations can no longer put off the evil day
of reckoning of discovering their own end and purpose [ those not being given in the nature of things, as regarding "for whom" we have studied
evolutionary epistemology and human instinctual, affective and cognitive needs (me? you? my family? your kin? our progeny? the common good? the planet? the cosmos? the gene pool? all transkin altruists? the disabled? the handicapped? the insane? the infirm? the elderly?) and "why"], would not the most consistent course of action be to wager for that which, itself, would be most consistent and most consonant with "whatever would be really good for us"?

And isn't that an "ultimately" purposeful existence, in a framework that would magnify meaning, enhance beauty and preserve goodness,
once working on the presupposition that they have an objective existence at all? Aren't non-telic frameworks a house of cards built on a
paradoxical trust in uncertain reality, which is manifestly absurd given as how it seems to support us without itself being supported, to ground us though not itself grounded, to be our origin though itself without origin, to be evolving aimlessly? Perhaps we aren't faced with a choice of levering the meaning we have versus casting it entirely aside, but we are given a choice of levering the meaning and magnifying the beauty, and it is entirely reasonable and moreso consonant, consistent, congruent and
coherent with our experience of reality--- in this common man's view.

After all, the content of my praeambula fidei seemed to be also contained in various subsets of the mysteria fidei and intertwined in the creeds, codes, cults and community structures of the great traditions and invite dialogue as to how this could possibly be so, global dialogue.

I'm rolling the dice with Pascal.

pax,
jb kung

Now it�s true that no one can point to his or her religious beliefs and say that �these are the real truths.� But I think we can agree that some unseen, perhaps spiritual side of existence MUST account for ability to put two and two together and come up with five; that is, when our actions and intentions are of a �higher� nature we get more out of things then we seem to put into them. Brad

I propose a toast:

Though giant rains put out the sun,
Here he stands for a sign,
Though earth be filled with waters dark
Brad's cup is filled with wine.

Tell to the Heartland nuns that here
At Shalomplace where he trod
A wandering Buddhist, joined us,
Stood up and drank to God.

pax tibi, with apologies to Chesterton
jb

[MBTI EF] For those who'd trade all the prose for poetry, perhaps what we've been saying is that if,

with Ignatius, we surrender our understanding to faith, our memory to hope and our will to love, then

with John of the Cross, the dark night of faith will be luminous, as soon as our eyes get adjusted to the dimmed lights of our epistemology of control, where our natural reasoning capabilities are not at all eclipsed but rather take their rightful place among the other luminaries in the constellations on which we have gazed and

the Planetarium Manager is like that, usually dimming the lights so as not to outpace the natural dilation of the pupils of our hermeneutics (thus blinding us), rather, pouring out Eternity eye-dropper style ...

but all of this is not to say that, on occasion, some Joker doesn't turn the cosmic lights on or off all at once, for certain of us, as St. Paul has testified and Pascal, too

but there will always be those who characterize our move toward consonance as a move away from dissonance, our move toward faith as driven by the engine of fear, when perhaps all we're doing is opening our eyes, unafraid of the dark, guided as we are by the constellations of congruence, consistency and coherence ... and they are there in the metaphysical firmament for all to see, multitudinously so
[/ MBTI EF][MBTI IT]

pax,
jb

You guys have some powerful reflections going and I've tried to keep up, but I'm afraid a lot of this goes into my brain and doesn't stick anywhere. No one's fault, really. A few years ago, something happened to my brain that pretty much wiped out its ability to do sustained philosophical reflection. It just can't hold and turn the concepts around and connect them together like it used to. I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing that happened, but I can say my mind has been mostly quiet since, and that's been a blessed relief!

I followed Brad's reflection on the founding father's reliance on providence and appeal to moral living to make things work, here. And I agree that a constitutional republic won't do well without an infusion of good-will.

I also enjoyed JB's fantasy reflection. When can I take the glasses off? Hmm, they don't seem to come off! Is that bad?

And I think the 10 point summary and following reflections are charting the broad outlines of what could be a comprehensive ethcial philosophy--certainly a good dissertation on one, at least.

But let's go the next step and say that succeeds! We come up with a philsophical treatise that is fairly indisputable (hmmm), and strongly affirming of some basic, traditional ethical principles.

Then what? What would motivate people to live accordingly? What makes people want to be good and do good?

That's where spirituality comes in, I think, and the answer that's always made the most sense to me is that being good and doing good is essential to human happiness, which is our deepest desire (back to St. Thomas Aquinas now). The problem is that we've so lost touch with even this deep desire that our basic moral and spiritual instincts for achieving it have become clouded over by attachments, which deliver short term thrills, but no lasting happiness. We've also excluded the happiness of others from the process, when helping others find happiness is part and parcel of realizing our own (as evidenced in Step 12 of the Twelve Steps). True spirituality is about liberating our deepest desire for happiness so that it can lead us unto its realization.

Religion, of course, has something to say about all this, but far too often, even in Catholicism, we seem to lose the focus that our beliefs and practices are really about helping people find their true happiness, which we say is ultimately fulfilled in loving God and neighbor. Our beliefs and practices are supposed to nurture and support those desires, but too often they become several removes from them, and this can be a distraction. I think most people--even agnostics--can be just fine with the basic Gospel message, it's the layers of Churchy teachings overlaying them that are often the obstacle.

So there's my few rambling thoughts to contribute to this new version of a K-pax thread.

Bottom line to liberals and conservatives: are you happy? If not, would you like to be? If so, why not experiment with the traditional values to see how they enable you to realize what you really seek? Give it a try.

Phil

I propose a toast:

Though giant rains put out the sun,
Here he stands for a sign,
Though earth be filled with waters dark
Brad's cup is filled with wine.

Tell to the Heartland nuns that here
At Shalomplace where he trod
A wandering Buddhist, joined us,
Stood up and drank to God.

For a kinder tribute one could not ask
From a friend afar, quite up to the task
Yet truly I would have stood in awe
Had he found the perfect rhyme for Limbaugh

Still I will raise my glass to your toast
Not filled with wine, but with decaf Coke
And hope to heaven I�ll serve to live
[That�s a close enough rhyme for conservative]

re: I followed Brad's reflection on the founding father's reliance on providence and appeal to moral living to make things work, here. And I agree that a constitutional republic won't do well without an infusion of good-will.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I think it was a Superior General of the Jesuit Order, who, years ago, when quizzed on which socioeconomic-political system was the best, said that most are only as good or bad as the people who are running them. Personally, I prefer benevolent dictatorships. They're cleaner, more efficient. Their chief weakness is management succession.

re: And I think the 10 point summary and following reflections are charting the broad outlines of what could be a comprehensive ethcial philosophy--certainly a good dissertation on one, at least.

Actually, it is merely a recapitulatioin of an outline of my metaphysics, where, once having crossed the chasm between is and ought, my ontology became my deontology

re: But let's say that succeeds! We come up with a philsophical treatise that is fairly indisputable (impossible!), and strongly affirming of some basic, traditional ethical principles. Then what? What would motivate people to live accordingly? What makes people want to be good and do good?

This sounds very like the age-old question: Does right knowledge lead to right action? My experience resonates with St. Paul on this one. Still, I agree with the ancients and medievals who claimed intrinsic rewards for ethical behavior. And I positively agree that spirituality, as it is broadly conceived, is needed to loose us from our attachments, is needed to help us fully integrate and develop our instinctual, affective and cognitive faculties and to awaken us to our solidarity that authentic compassion might ensue.

pax,
jb

Phil said: That's where spirituality comes in, I think, and the answer that's always made the most sense to me is that being good and doing good is essential to human happiness

And if there is a God, if there is �more� to life than meets the eye (my eye anyway, I�m not sure JB�s doesn�t pick up most of it through his glasses) then doing good puts one in contact with it. I had an experience of that yesterday. There�s this woman (different from the one I mentioned elsewhere) who has two kids and as in the middle of a divorce. She is lost and alone and feeling helpless. Every instinct I had was anything but to counsel her but that�s what I did � lend her an ear. Let�s just say that some kind of �higher� power worked like salt peter and I found myself being extremely compassionate. There was a certain feeling of doing someone else�s bidding, and when one does that one gets a bit of an afterglow from it.

Don�t get me wrong. I�m a flawed, imperfect, son-of-a-bitch. It�s just nice to know that those moments can be there.

The problem is that we've so lost touch with even this deep desire that our basic moral and spiritual instincts for achieving it have become clouded over by attachments, which deliver short term thrills, but no lasting happiness. We've also excluded the happiness of others from the process, when helping others find happiness is part and parcel of realizing our own

Amen.

re: some kind of �higher� power worked like salt peter

thus keeping your counseling relationship purely platonic?

thus keeping your counseling relationship purely platonic?

Thus keeping my relationship purely plutonic. I don't know what it is right now but I'm attracting women who are in the MIDST of a divorce like flies. Doesn't matter though in the long run. I'm sure looking forward to those seventy virgins.

Phil wrote:

<<Bottom line to liberals and conservatives: are you happy? If not, would you like to be? If so, why not experiment with the traditional values to see how they enable you to realize what you really seek? Give it a try.>>

OK, this reminds me of what Ron Rolheiser has to say. A quote from him:

<<If someone comes and says, "Try to prove to me that God exists!" I would not spend much time trying. Instead, I would tell him or her to go out and live life in a certain way, to approach reality and relationships with a certain set of attitudes. My belief is that, by doing this, they would, like Mary, the mother of Jesus, eventually give birth to God in their lives. The solution to the atheism of our times is not finding better rational proofs for God's existence, but a proper way of living, a proper praxis. If we live in a certain way, in purity of heart, God will become real.>>

I think we would probably be pretty happy, too, don't you Phil???

(Boy, I'm sure glad this board has been active lately. My email groups have been really DEAD lately and you guys have helped picked up the slack. Besides that, whenever I talk about stuff like this in my email groups they think I'm nuts!!)

Anne

There was a certain feeling of doing someone else�s bidding, and when one does that one gets a bit of an afterglow from it.

For what it's worth, to me, this says it all. THIS is the key to raising the higher consciousness of morality. When one serves another, as Brad did, the end result is that not only does the one served benefit, but also the one serving. This in and of itself, completely disconnected from a "religious" application of it, is something that feeds upon itself and mulitiplies. Life is indeed circular...you DO get what you give. Sometimes it may not be as readily apparent as the afterglow. Sometimes it may even seem that the bad guy (generic term) is winning, but I would propose that if one follows the bad guy from beginning to end....they will see that the fruit of his life is as good as he gave.

I really liked that statement, Brad..and I feel sure that the person whom you served was blessed by your action.

When one serves another, as Brad did, the end result is that not only does the one served benefit, but also the one serving. This in and of itself, completely disconnected from a "religious" application of it, is something that feeds upon itself and mulitiplies.

I agree completely, and all of this takes us back to the golden rule, in a way.

Only, let's see what happens when you try to apply it to a tricky situation like abortion, or cloning. One of the first things you have to do is get a sense of when life begins. If you're not destroying a human life in abortion, then the golden rule does not apply; same for embryos produced outside the womb.

How does your approach address this, JB? What can the natural philosophy you're outlining say about when life begins?

Brad will no doubt recall a "spirited" (understatement) discussion I was in on another forum with a group of very post-modernish liberals. One guy was pressing me hard as to why I don't consider sperm or eggs human life worthy of protection by law, and claimed there was no way to distinguish between them and a zygote. Yep. I can point you to the links if you're interested. Aside from the haploid-diploid distinction, which is quantum, the one I came up with it that a zygote has a human genome and, given the right developmental conditions, a future as a human being. As that holds true for a baby, a girl, or a man, this makes the zygote a human life. Nothing else in the universe but human life will fit this definition, and a zygote cannot be excluded from it. No mention of God, soul, etc. And my dialogue partners could not get around it.

Problem is, I just kind of pulled that definition out of the air, as it were, and don't exactly know how it would fit in a natural philosophy or ethical framework. Ad-hocking philosophical and ethical distinctions is something I do well, only my brain turns to mush when I try to see what kind of conceptual paradigm is suggested by such insights. They seem to come from the intuitive function, and are no doubt drawing from my intellectual formation. But that's the best I can do with it.

Oh well . . .

Only, let's see what happens when you try to apply it to a tricky situation like abortion, or cloning. One of the first things you have to do is get a sense of when life begins

I can give my stance on when life begins, although, I don't know how it will fit in with JB's approach. (JB you're so far ahead of me on all that stuff, I can't wrap my brain around it..lol..way too high above my intellect on that kind of thing) I believe that a sperm by itself or an egg by itself is not life...it has the potential to BE life, but must be joined in order to be considered life itself. However, the minute that joining occurs..whether it be 2 minutes or 2 months, it is life and should be treated as such. I think abortion is wrong...period. This does not mean that I think the government has the right to say yes or no to it. To me, this is a decision that the individual has to make. I know it gets dicey when you start saying...well should the government pay for it under Medicaid or State funding. I have many thoughts about that, but haven't completely reconciled it all yet. My main objection to government having the say so is the control over life it gives the government. My lil brain can conjure up all kinds of things like..deciding by genetics who's allowed to be born and who isn't, government proposed sterilization of the mentally or physically challenged, deciding at what age a life should be terminated so that they are no longer taxing the fund of the country for their health care..on and on and on. Scary stuff, that.

As for cloning, it raises some serious questions to me. A friend, who claims to be atheist, and I were discussing this once. The discussion came around to the soul of the cloned being. My question was...how can they have a soul? If you use the theory that they are cloned from DNA and will take on the characteristics as well as the soul from that person, then why doesn't a child have the soul of one or the other of their parents...or a combination soul derived from the both of them? If you say they have no soul because they are cloned, then how can they be human? If you say they will develop their own soul, how is this to be? If we simply develop a soul, then why do children raised by very spiritual parents in a very spiritual surrounding completely deny anything spiritual...or why do children raised by parents who love drugs or alcohol or thievery and deceit more than life become very spiritual beings?

In these two topics is where I cannot get around the Creator. It's pretty evident by scripture that life begins at the moment of conception. The most striking, in my opinion, being John's response to Jesus even as both were in the womb. The scripture, to me, also says who it is that gives us a soul...we are knit together in the womb. Granted, this argument wouldn't hold water in a debate because I am using scripture as well as my belief. But, for me personally, there is just no question that our Creator God exists and so, of course, my opinions will always be influenced by that.

re: Only, let's see what happens when you try to apply it to a tricky situation like abortion, or cloning. One of the first things you have to do is get a sense of when life begins

I can give my stance on when life begins, although, I don't know how it will fit in with JB's approach. (JB you're so far ahead of me on all that stuff, I can't wrap my brain around it..lol..way too high above my intellect on that kind of thing) I believe that ...
+++ +++ +++

Everyone, Most of my discussion has been on what they call metaethics or what we do as human beings prior to actually doing ethics. Meta-ethics in an enterprise that involves building a framework within which ethical exercises can be conducted. It involves building a consensus for the methodology and philosophical presuppositions that will form the foundation for doing ethics or morality. Now, certainly, the meta-ethic one works from in doing ethics will have implications for the ethical conclusions one will draw. For the most part, however, meta-ethics is not quite the sticky widget that ethics and morality are (and I use those interchangeably). I would say that the meta-ethic I propose is, in essence, pluralistic, that is to say it suggests we draw from many viewpoints in a multidisciplinary manner in attacking concrete problems. Let me further clarify that I have been mostly constructing an apologetic for a natural moral philosophy and for a natural theology, which both suggest that humankind can distinguish good from evil and can live the good and moral life without reference to the contents of revelation. I believe we should empower the natural theologians and natural moral philosophers with the best processes and methodologies we can derive from our human sciences and see how far they can go in their ethical formulations --- but only because I believe in a radical Fides et Ratio, that faith and reason are in complete partnership and will not find conflicts in their truth claims. So, I like to say that I desire to assist those who want to pursue their natural moral philosophies and who want to be natural theologians. If they do things right, they will get the same answers in their praeambula fidei (what can be discovered about God from natural reason) as we have recieved in our mysteria fidei (what has been revealed to us, some of which is consistent with what we already know, most of which we could not have discovered without Divine Revelation).

Therefore, if one accepts a particular Revelation, especially one which claims some Divinely-inspired Authority in matters of both faith and morals, in order to be internally coherent and logically consistent with respect to one's belief system, then, at the very least, one's default position on moral issues would be to accept "the Church's teaching". One also has the grave responsibility to continually seek to build an upright and mature conscience, to conscientiously seek ongoing moral formation in the light of divinely revealed truths. When one does wish to dissent from official teaching, one must have carefully studied, prayerfully deliberated and open-mindedly consulted others who are of large intelligence and profound goodwill. Once doing that, the Church teaches that we are BOUND to follow our consciences EVEN if they conflict with the official moral teachings. This is called primacy of conscience and it is often overlooked.

Now, to get practical. Divine Revelation didn't directly address cloning and such, even some of the nuanced issues surrounding abortion. The Church has formulated and will continue to reformulate teachings and viewpoints in the light of faith and the discoveries of science. It uses experts. Since I don't have the time nor the inclination to formulate every modern moral issue from scratch, my default position is to accept whatever the magisterium comes up with, knowing it will be respectful of human dignity, from conception to resurrection. The downside of accepting things solely on authority is that it doesn't put you in the position of being an apologist to unbelievers or those of different faiths, since they don't recognize YOUR authority but perhaps lay claim to another. This is a BIG problem with authoritative or foundational ethics, those who claim an extrinsic or external validating factor to ground their decisions. There are so many folks invoking authority that such invocation holds little sway and is therefore not compelling. Hence, my thrust to advance nonauthoritative, nonfoundational approaches and to seek consensus between them best we can. You can see that the problem with authoritative approaches is that they put off the evil day when one must find an authority to choose between authorities (for instance, radical Islam or The Friends?). I trust I haven't fully answered everyone's question to their satisfaction.

pax tibi,
jb

Hey JB,
Thanks....that did indeed answer some of the questions..lol. If I'm understanding right (this could be a big if.. ), I think I agree with what you are saying...or explaining. I believe that we are all indeed born with a sense of right and wrong. From a biblical standpoint, I believe it is what we inherited as a result of eating the fruit...thereby we "died" in our perfection, as once the recognition of the thing called evil surely opened the door for the killing of us all in our inner man. However, I also believe that even discounting a biblical standpoint all humans have the capacity to live a good and moral life and in reality, most truly desire that kind of life, and in desiring that kind of life, if they pursue it they will find the Truth. I know that it doesn't always happen that way, but in many instances it does.
Not being Catholic, I don't have all the teachings that are provided by the Church, but in everything I've read, I pretty much nod my head to most things. Although, I'm of the type that I balk at accepting what others have to say unless I have sought the answer myself and listened to the witness of the Spirit in such matters. (Hmmm does that fit into my MBTI personality thing?..lol)

Thanks again!

Religious Naturalism as Enterprise � antidote for radical fundamentalism

Introduction

I think the Merriam-Webster definitions of "enterprise" are suggestive of the manner in which Religious Naturalism might clarify its distinctly theological and religious endeavors. Insofar as it is "a project or undertaking that is especially difficult, complicated, or risky" (and I would say complicated moreso than difficult and both of these over against risky), then the unraveling and articulation of its intricasies comprise its descriptive agenda. To the extent it that it is a "systematic purposeful activity" (and by that I'd suggest both meaningful and intentional), then the setting forth of its intentions constitutes its prescriptive agenda. There is yet another definition, which is the "readiness to engage in daring action", and I intend this as suggestive of the notion that Religious Naturalism might have an evangelical agenda (and I mean that strictly in the sense of "initiative-taking" with a "crusading zeal"). For now, I will limit my scope to the theological agenda, which is the explanatory, descriptive and interpretive outline of tasks, and to the religious agenda, which is the motivational, prescriptive and experiential program.

Background and Purpose

I suppose that, foremost, I see, in Religious Naturalism, the opportunity to discover a more compelling methodology for doing natural theology and doing it right, that is to say 1) strictly as
derivation of what nature can teach us 2) independent of the content of putative revelatory processes (though mindful of same as a certain type of anthropological data) 3) restricted to praeambula fidei (though mindful that they find coincidental correspondence with various subsets of the allegedly mysteria fidei) 4) independent of apologetic goals.

It is to be expected that our distinctions between tasks will blur inasmuch as the theological task of "experience seeking understanding" (the naturalist's version of "fides quaerens intellectum") is so very intertwined with its religious task, which includes the experiential, itself. Also, inasmuch as Religious Naturalism, itself, may still be coming to grips with its own identity, I don't presume to engage in a descriptive enterprise with respect to it, in and of itself, but only to engage in a prescriptive enterprise, which will be my own hegemonistic attempt to shape and
influence what Religious Naturalism, itself, may eventually be about (the latter endeavor actually requiring more hubris than the first).

Scope

I will set forth the specific products of my own natural theological tasking, firstly, such that I can, later, better inventory the generic categories which Religious Naturalism might use to set forth its descriptive agenda, secondly, to hold my own methods and substance out for correction as to whether or not they meet the
criteria of an authentic religious naturalistic approach in the first place (vis a vis its current state of development).

The Theological Tasks � a personal inventory

In my own theological tasking, I have taken my own experience in the world and have been confronted by 1) an ontological undecidability,
leading to 2) a pluralistic epistemology, which is 3) nonfoundational and holistic regarding metaphysical presuppositions but which affirms
4) natural reason and uses 5) a critical realism to employ 6) its pancritical processes of alternating conjecture and criticism, as
elucidated by 7) an evolutionary epistemology and coupled with 8) a probabilistic approach which is 9) nonreductionistic and cognizant of
10) emergence dynamics which inhere in 11) chaos and complexity theories, all with 11) an openness to the theoretical possibility of a non-natural ground while maintaining that any 12) value and choice discovered by a natural theology are emergent and not inherent (such as in some forms of process thought).

The Segue � from is to ought

This is not to say a priori that the "oughts don't inhere in the is" but only that the methodological constraints of a natural theology
can only lead us to a morality grounded in a natural understanding of human nature and ecology, an understanding which directly reveals
only non-telic emergence dynamics.

The Prescriptive Tasks � a personal inventory

And this sets the stage for an inventory of my prescriptive tasking, my attempt to 1) close the gap between cosmology and morality 2)
reassociate is and ought, the descriptive and prescriptive, the given and the normative by turning to 3) an evolutionary epistemology in
order to 4) distinguish between needs and wants, real and apparent goods to 5) formulate that self-evident prescriptive judgement as "We
ought to desire whatever is really good for us and nothing else." which when combined with a descriptive premise will give us 6) the basis for reasoning to our moral conclusions, which I have found to be grounded in 7) an essential pragmatism, which is capable of 8) dismissing hedonism and epicureanism 9) exposing those forms of relativism which have hoisted themselves on their own gallows and 10) nuancing absolutism with a deabsolutizing yet constructive post-
modern critique. Admittedly, an essential pragmatism does not find its purposes in the given, but mindful of our 11) openness to the
theoretical possibility of a non-natural ground we can 12) hypothesize a telic meta-ethical framework which hints at these purposes and 13) propose a putative consonance between our nature and its hypothetical ontological ground as a criterion to 14) test this hypothesis, at least indirectly, using inferences from our
experience, suggesting that 15) this consonance might be measured 16) in degrees of how compelling we feel a moral proposition is and
17) in terms of how successful we are in our struggle to concretize same in a moral stance. What we know from anthropology ,and what
religions provide as insight, is that 18) moral education and cultural formation occur through narratives first and principles second, therefore if 18) the Epic of Evolution is going to provide
us the basis for 19) a new myth which motivates, then we must do everything possible 20) to incorporate the precepts of the great
traditions, accepting and affirming their 40,000 years of traditional wisdom as an integral part of our Epic Journey. Thus we can recover
21) a natural moral philosophy.

The Enterprise

Using my personal inventories as a catalyst, or your critique of same, or perhaps using your own inventories, what's your version of the possible theological, religious and evangelical agendas of
Religious Naturalism?

The Theological Enterprise � criteria for a critique

1) The Ontological Stances
2) The Epistemological Frameworks
3) The Metaphysical Presuppositions
4) First Principles, Axioms, Foundations, Grounding
5) An Approach to Natural Reason
6) Critical Realism or Pancritical Processes
7) Conjecture and Criticism
8) The Evolutionary Perspective
9) Probabilism and Empirical Methods
10) Nonreductionism and Emergence Dynamics
11) Theoretical (if not practical, also) Openness to Non-natural
Ground
12) Mechanisms for Discovery of Value and Choice

The Religious Enterprise � criteria for a critique

How does Religious Naturalism propose to:
1) close the gap between cosmology and morality?
2) reassociate is and ought, the descriptive and prescriptive,
the given and the normative?
3) distinguish between needs and wants, real and apparent goods?
4) to formulate any self-evident prescriptive judgement?
5) establish a basis for reasoning to our moral conclusions?
6) articulate a pragmatism, which is capable of dismissing such
as hedonism and epicureanism?
7) avoid becoming hopelessly relativistic?
8) answer the post-modern critique?
9) in its pragmatism, find its purposes in the given?
10) hypothesize a meta-ethical framework which hints at these
purposes?
11) test this hypothesis?
12) measure, in degrees, how compelling a moral proposition is?
13) measure how successful we are in our struggle to concretize
propositions in moral stances?
14) incorporate the precepts of the great traditions?
15) recover a compelling natural moral philosophy?

Boot-strapping Our Way Back to Mysteria Fidei - why a telic approach is more compelling

From above, one can see that at the end of my natural philosophical jouney, my pragmatism suggested that I accept the necessity of investigating the precepts and truth claims of the great traditions as anthropological data. Once investigating same for logical consistency, internal coherence and external congruence, I found a consonance with hypthetical telos in Roman Catholicism that was rather compelling.

Few traditions and denominations making various truth claims, seem as open, even today, to natural theology and there is much in Aristotle
& Aquinas that feed my catholic analogical imagination - for definition of analogical imagination see
http://www.whiterobedmonks.org/schem2.html

For a more complete exposition of a what I consider a valid Catholic hermeneutic toward the Cosmos see
http://www.religion-online.org...howbook?item_id=1948 And for an example of how the pre-modern and modern might converge see http://www.innerexplorations.com/catchmeta/the.htm

In short, there aren't many religions whose metaphysical groundings are as conducive to my naturalistic worldview, and, understandably,
once I realized I was born into one of them, I stayed home.

I think most telic approaches are demonstrably better science than the non-telic. Here�s why.

If ontology models epistemology and if it is not how things are but that things are which is the mystical and if reality can give no account of why there should be something rather than nothing,

then, in principle, there can be no a priori supposition which grounds being and there is no self-justifying proposition which can account for the fact of existence and there is no self-evident postulate regarding primal being and there is no warrant, justification, confirmation, proof, ground, certainty, assurance,
stipulation, sanction or authority, maxim, postulate or axiom which can demonstrate the primal origin, primal source, primal support,
primal ground or primal destiny of being, existence or reality,

and therefore,

ontology, as a branch of metaphysics, is thwarted at its very foundation from urging forcefully and irresistably any solutions to metaphysics' most salient problems, urgent concerns and irresistable questions

and joins

cosmology and quantum mechanics, as branches of physics, as they, too, are thwarted at their very foundations from urging forcefully and irresistably any solutions to problems regarding the earliest moments after the Big Bang or cosmological t = 0 or regarding the deep structure of matter

and since

these problems of physics and metaphysics are insoluble in principle
and
these ontological and cosmological questions are unanswerable in principle

then the great telic hypotheses, which often conjecture the existence of God,
and the great non-teleic hypotheses which conjecture that nothing, as an initial system, is inherently unstable and has a tendency to
decay into something, both admit to no a priori presuppositions and can offer no self-evident propositions

and since

they are insoluble, preeschatologically, in principle, then temporally, they can not be submitted to a posteriori testability
and no inductive reasoning processes can yield direct confirmation of these hypotheses although they can gain indirect confirmation,
temporally, by their offering of increased intelligibility to our understanding of our experience of finite reality.

Now, however relevant, intelligible and meaningful its predictions, explanations, interpretations and insights may be, in order to be scientific, an hypothesis must be testable, open to confirmation, subject to verifiability and falsifiability.

The eschatological telic hypotheses meet these criteria, open as they are to direct confirmation, eschatologically, and further, can
be tested indirectly by the verification and falsification of their assertions based on their implications for understanding the whole of finite reality.

The non-telic hypothesis, that nothing, as a system, is unstable and has a tendency to decay into something, does not make eschatological
assertions and would never advert to the possibility of atemporality and, furthermore, excludes, in principle, the nonspatial, the
atemporal, the immaterial or nonenergetic which would lie outside of the realm of space-time-matter-energy and, hence, coupled with the
reasons cited above, remains untestable, not open to direct confirmation, nonverifiable, nonfalsifiable and insoluble, in principle, a priori and a posteriori, atemporally and temporally, eschatologically and pre-escahtologically. While the auxiliary non-
telic hypotheses can be tested indirectly by the verification and falsification of their assertions based on their implications for
understanding the whole of finite reality, their very core commitment does not meet the criteria of a scientific hypothesis.

Ironically, the telic hypothesis may remain compelling because it is more scientific in its articulation of both core and auxiliary
hypotheses than the non-telic hypothesis and because both its core and its auxiliary hypotheses remain relevant, intelligible and
meaningful and their predictions, explanations, interpretations and insights are testable, open to confirmation, subject to verifiability and falsifiability and, importantly, are fecund.

The non-telic hypothesis, however unscientific, may remain compelling because its auxiliary hypotheses remain relevant, intelligible and meaningful and their predictions, explanations,
interpretations and insights are testable, open to confirmation, subject to verifiability and falsifiability and, importantly, are fecund.

My hypothesis is that it is in the very articulation of the God hypothesis, that is, in its grounding, in its hypothesized
foundationalism, that it demonstrates its scientific methodology, both in its core commitment and auxiliary hypotheses, that it thus
derives its cognitive consonance and tenacious mass appeal, and that

it is in the very articulation the non-telic hypothesis, with its lack of grounding, in its inherent nonfoundationalism, that it
generates just enough cognitive dissonance, seeming paradox and apparent arbitrariness with its unjustified fundamental trust in
uncertain reality, to keep the masses confused and skeptical, this notwithstanding its unparalleled contributions in so many
disciplines of human endeavor.

I don't offer the non-telic hypothesis as a straw man for every other nontheistic and atheistic formulation, those which would be more heavily nuanced and which would more successfully evade any logical fallacies. I offer it in the spirit of Emerson, such that, when the half-Sagans depart, the Sagans will appear. So long, Dawkins.

Neither is it my intention to disparage science-proper over against theology. I do advocate a nonfoundational essential pragmatism, myself, and I do affirm both the efficacy and fecundity of
reductionistic materialist approaches.

My main point has less to do with arguing the metaphysical and philosophical approach to science and theology (although that is
certainly much of the substance above) and much more to do with putting forth some putative psychosocial hypotheses to explain the tenacity of most people's core commitments to the telic and non-telic and theistic and nontheistic hypotheses.

Furthermore, might there be a neurocognitive substrate for what I often call a "rush to closure" by fideism and scientism and other
isms, in between? that would, perhaps, be a maladaptive artifact of the gestalt process? as hunches and inspirations and epistemologies
lead to worldviews, resisting both modification or nonclosure? especially in a system which is internally coherent, externally congruent and logically consistent? notwithstanding the existence of other such systems with equal epistemic and ontologic footings?

Hence my pluralistic epistemology and essential pragmatism which boot-strapped me into Roman Catholicism, nonfoundationally even.

This is my antidote for radical fundamentalism in any tradition, including scientific materialism.

Science without God is demonstrably irrational.

Agree?
pax,
jb

*looks at the above post* Smarty pants!
lol....lemme get back to ya on this one...errr after I've had time to get my brain off "laundry" mode and into "think" mode...lol.