Is there such a thing as an absolute value??

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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Do we integrate certain values from transcendent sources?

Yes
4
36%
No
2
18%
We cannot know
5
45%
 
Total votes: 11

honjaku
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Post by honjaku »

Fishy Phil wrote:
Billymack1949 wrote:That's kind of my question . . . why should we love everyone? That would be an absolute value, Why shouldn't I compete with you for resources, or take your wife? Why is compassion the universal response instead of self-preservation at all costs?
Well I think that's where the Hippie, New Age and positive thinking movements hit a brick wall. The tried to lock in an absolute value "Love", "One energy", "Positive thinking" to reach some sort of Utopia. They ignore the dark forces of life until they come back at you with avengance. As Jung points out, what you ignore becomes a shadow following you everywhere. That's what I love about Campbells writing. He doesn't shy away from the brutal, destructive, heart breaking side of existence. He says something like "when the world blows hard on you, you need to have your anchor in the depths". You need to see the big picture (transcendent world) to make sense of all the pain (and pleasure)
Hello everyone, yes I agree Fishy Phil, I've spent enough time in new age life and can see what you are saying. However it can be said that intention does matter. The new age stuff one energy stuff seems inauthentic yes, but having accepted the dark forces, tilting towards the light can be done and does have value.
Have you read Dawkins "The Selfish Gene"?. He makes the case that all altruistic behaviour is actually just genes ensuring their own survival (individuals don't really matter, self replicating genes are the true drivers of evolution). We are controlled by our bodies to fair degree, more than most people admit I think. According to Dawkins it makes evolutionary sense to be nice to people.
Can't really relate here, don't like Dawkins he pretty much writes whatever is convenient to satisfy his theories. There is enough to show either way, being nice/being not nice are good for survival. But that isn't the question is it. The question is if we do say that it is an evolutionary instinct where did the evolutionary instinct come from in the first place. This of course the theory of evolution cannot answer. But this is a rabbit role that we at jcf have gone done many times so I'll stop here :)

Back to new age then and the issue of one love, one energy etc etc. To me it seems that (perhaps clemsy will have a fit for me saying so) this expression is often a substitute for more substantial feelings. Actual feelings for others are hard and we can get hurt. Expressing a goozy woozy one love feeling can be a convenient defense and the space is a fertile ground for narcissists.

Still there is value in positive thinking. We must separate the wheat from the chaff. Amidst the fakeness we need to find the truth isn't that correct?

romansh
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Post by romansh »

My initial instict was to say no, but then I looked at your don't know option.

Interestingly you phrased it in the form of strong or perhaps gnostic agnosticism ... we cannot know. Interesting.

Anyway, what evidence do we have that "God" does not have the same constraints as humans do when it comes to things absolute? Or is this a definitional thing that God has access to the so called absolute?
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zoe
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Post by zoe »

Where do we get our absolute values then?


This seems to me to be tied to duality and non duality as it concerns the relative and absolute. This encompasses all values...... good and evil are shades of black and white.

In western expression
“That all opposites—such as mass and energy, subject and object, life and death—are so much each other that they are perfectly inseparable, still strikes most of us as hard to believe. But this is only because we accept as real the boundary line between the opposites. It is, recall, the boundaries themselves which create the seeming existence of separate opposites. To put it plainly, to say that "ultimate reality is a unity of opposites" is actually to say that in ultimate reality there are no boundaries. Anywhere.”
― Ken Wilber

Zen like
“I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.”― Shih-t'ou
In this view there are no absolute values so the poll question answer is obviously yes and no. 8)

Billymack1949
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Post by Billymack1949 »

romansh wrote:My initial instict was to say no, but then I looked at your don't know option.

Interestingly you phrased it in the form of strong or perhaps gnostic agnosticism ... we cannot know. Interesting.

Anyway, what evidence do we have that "God" does not have the same constraints as humans do when it comes to things absolute? Or is this a definitional thing that God has access to the so called absolute?
Well I don't personally think of God and Human as different things. To me it would be God/Human . . . one "thing" with both natures.

If "God" has access to the absolute, then I have access to the absolute. If I have a particular (almost irrefutable) value here, such as "Do children no harm", then why wouldn't someone on the other side of the world have the same interior, human value? This would then be the definition of the "God/Human/Absolute value. Are the any? Or are all values relative?
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Billymack1949
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Post by Billymack1949 »

zoe wrote:
Where do we get our absolute values then?


This seems to me to be tied to duality and non duality as it concerns the relative and absolute. This encompasses all values...... good and evil are shades of black and white.
How is it that as a human race, we've arrived at an almost perfect consensus as to what is good and what is evil, at the extreme ends. For instance, donating a kidney to save someone's life: GOOD, The Holocaust: EVIL. This doesn't seem to be a matter of rational discourse, where we "prove" the Holocaust to be evil, we simply have a heart, or gut reaction . . . . it feels evil. We recoil from it. It violates a deep interior value that we share, not through being raised in a common way, or being taught the same thing, but in the same way that we all have two eyes and one nose. i.e. The Holocaust is not a shade of grey
zoe wrote: In this view there are no absolute values so the poll question answer is obviously yes and no. 8)
:shock: :shock: <<<bows>>>
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zoe
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Post by zoe »

The Holocaust is not a shade of grey
No it is was a very dark shade not unlike Hiroshima.
"Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone. You are the one who gets burned." - Budda
“It is important to not see one’s oppressors as nonhuman—even in the face of inhumane treatment.” - Dalai Lama

romansh
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Post by romansh »

Billymack1949 wrote:
romansh wrote:My initial instict was to say no, but then I looked at your don't know option.

Interestingly you phrased it in the form of strong or perhaps gnostic agnosticism ... we cannot know. Interesting.

Anyway, what evidence do we have that "God" does not have the same constraints as humans do when it comes to things absolute? Or is this a definitional thing that God has access to the so called absolute?
Well I don't personally think of God and Human as different things. To me it would be God/Human . . . one "thing" with both natures.

If "God" has access to the absolute, then I have access to the absolute. If I have a particular (almost irrefutable) value here, such as "Do children no harm", then why wouldn't someone on the other side of the world have the same interior, human value? This would then be the definition of the "God/Human/Absolute value. Are the any? Or are all values relative?
Hi Billy
This is all fair enough .. and frankly was not the bit that interested me.

The bit that did was your "don't know" ... you expressed your option as an absolute
  1. we cannot know
You could have said:
I cannot know (implying others may know or may be able to know)
I don't know (not excluding what others may know or I may know in the future)

I just saw an interesting irony in your absolute cannot know option.

Have fun.
Last edited by romansh on Sat Dec 21, 2013 5:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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romansh
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Post by romansh »

zoe wrote: Zen like
“I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.”&#8213; Shih-t'ou
In this view there are no absolute values so the poll question answer is obviously yes and no. 8)
I like the quote ;)
"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

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Post by captsunshine »

The only absolute value that I can think of is 'nought'
&#128527;
Non-violence ... requires greater heroism than of brave soldiers ... The world does not accept today the idea of loving the enemy. Even in Christian Europe the principle of non-violence is ridiculed ... Christians do not understand the message of Jesus. It is necessary to deliver it over again in the way we can understand ...

- Gandhi - speech -1925

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Post by Roncooper »

I would say the absolute value for Buddhism is happiness. To me absolute values are not about right and wrong but about goals. Transcendent values like reason, love, beauty, honor, and happiness. When these values become manifest they become relative.

To answer the question as to whether they affect us, I can only say we pay a lot of money to experience beauty through art, or give up a lot of money to be honorable.

Perhaps the real question of this thread is are there "real world" absolute values? There is Kant's generalization of the golden rule, that if I can remember correctly goes something like:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

I would add protecting the weak from tyranny, being honest, being fair, etc. The fact that there are cultures that don't follow these does not condemn them. It points out the weakness of the culture.

As an animal I must accept that I am a parasite that lives off other living things. From my personal experience, if someone told me this was hell, I wouldn't argue.

But I still experience love and beauty in various forms. I try to be reasonable and honorable, and someday I may be happy.

Billymack1949
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Post by Billymack1949 »

Roncooper wrote: I would add protecting the weak from tyranny, being honest, being fair, etc. The fact that there are cultures that don't follow these does not condemn them. It points out the weakness of the culture.

As an animal I must accept that I am a parasite that lives off other living things. From my personal experience, if someone told me this was hell, I wouldn't argue.
I totally agree. I don't want to condemn other cultures, because their values AND my values are relative to each of us. My judgment is irrelevant. That's why Jesus said "there is only one judge, and that is God". Yet when trying to find a "value" that someone was promoting by bringing on the Holocaust it is just a bit too much for me. Then I switch positions and think, there is an absolute evil. Rounding up, starving and ultimately gassing men, women and children because of their ethnicity is evil at it's core and not relative. . . . . but if I judge that, then I can judge any act, just with a lesser degree of condemnation. This presents a dilemma! :roll:
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romansh
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Post by romansh »

I think, what you like and dislike will correlate pretty well with what you think is good and evil. Well at least it does for me.

That we tend to dislike the holocaust is because our mirror neurons managed to fire up and we have not had the "societal brain washing" that post first world war Germany experienced. I suspect given the right circumstances each of us could succumb just like the guards at the camps.

ps I don't think Buddhism is about happiness. It is closer to finding Bliss than happiness.
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Post by Clemsy »

I suspect given the right circumstances each of us could succumb just like the guards at the camps.
The research says most of us, Rom. Not all. No indeed.
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romansh
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Post by romansh »

Clemsy wrote:
I suspect given the right circumstances each of us could succumb just like the guards at the camps.
The research says most of us, Rom. Not all. No indeed.
I said "the right circumstances", I am aware of research that has "under certain circumstances" where some succumb, but not all.

I suspect given the right 'currency' it would be nearer to all than not all.
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Post by Roncooper »

Rom posted
ps I don't think Buddhism is about happiness. It is closer to finding Bliss than happiness.
Rom, I agree with you, but from what I have read I have found both goals. I interpret happiness as the goal that can be reached through practice with a high probability of success, and is therefore presented to the general population. The goal of reaching higher states of consciousness is not a given, and so it is not promised. Zen may be the exception, where they advertise a direct path to awakening.

Being truly happy in this miserable world is not a trivial accomplishment, however.

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