The argument is well made, but it has a major flaw. The idea that metaphysics is based on lived experience and the authority of tradition doesn't invalidate universalism, unless you can successfully argue that the traditions are so disparate that they lack any common foundation. But the very existence of Christianity (and Islam) refutes this idea, as very disparate peoples are clearly capable of having shared beliefs and shared practices. Whether you put this down to God or shared biology, there are clearly practices and beliefs that are universally encourage healthy human societies.
It's not so much that people can't have shared beliefs and practices. If the "ought" is relative to a class of agent, we can say that there are "oughts" relative to the class of homo sapiens. It's that the "oughts" for mankind are so general as to give no real moral guidance. Universal prescriptions are the least rich, least relevant, and least important, but universal religions treat them as the highest. This has a distorting influence that, among other things, eventually erases folkhoods altogether.
Brilliant, as usual, and extremely timely; I'm in the throes of assembling an initial Gaelic analogue to the eddas and theological material published by Noroenna Society, using medieval manuscripts.
Authority as foundation of tradition and knowledge, undeniably true. It occurred to me that “aptness” can be applied to politics and culture as well as religion. As in that the policy must be apt for some people and not for other peoples. If true, then there can be no universal empire or civilization, because no policies can by apt for everyone beyond food, water, space, and hardly anything else. This could be a start of a new political understanding.
Philosophically demanding stuff here. I guess it comes down to, who is the ultimate authority: the individual, or the folk? If you choose the individual, that leads to Liberalism, Progressivism, and the atomized absurdity of Clown World. If you choose folkishness, you choose what is healthy and right.
This ties into the Euthyphro dilemma brought up in another article: are things inherently good, or are they good because the gods say so? But as you explained, there's an implicit presumption: that the individual can know what is inherently good, and thus know better than the gods! Thus, the individual is crowned god, which again, leads to the destruction of family, tribe, nation, sex, and basic common sense, as we're living through.
Or as you said in the penultimate paragraph: "By claiming the right to decide the ultimate authority, they have made themselves the ultimate authority. They are just liberals who haven’t got the memo yet." And so, anyone who believes in the Enlightenment lie of the individual as god (including cuckservatives) is on a slippery slope to the current mess.
The correct answer is that the folk and the gods are the highest authority; the good is in accordance to folkish tradition, because we ultimately must live by commands.
Speaking of John 14:6 and Jesus as the way to knowing God. In my early twenties I trusted in Jesus and in the middle of the prayer my eyes flew open in surprise at the sudden face to face closeness of God. I had been brought near. The God spoken of below from the Encyclopedia Britannica?
“High God, in anthropology and the history of religion, a type of supreme deity found among many nonliterate peoples of North and South America, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia. The adjective high is primarily a locative term: a High God is conceived as being utterly transcendent, removed from the world that he created. A High God is high in the sense that he lives in or is identified with the sky—hence, the alternative name. Among North American Indians and Central and South Africans, thunder is thought to be the voice of the High God. In Siberia the sun and moon are considered the High God’s eyes. He is connected with food and heaven among American Indians.
Though the pattern varies from people to people, the High God usually is conceived as masculine or sexless. He is thought to be the sole creator of heaven and earth. Although he is omnipotent and omniscient, he is thought to have withdrawn from his creation and therefore to be inaccessible to prayer or sacrifice. Generally, no graphic images of him exist, nor does he receive cult worship or appear in the mythology. If he is invoked, it is only in times of extreme distress, but there is no guarantee that he will hear or respond. His name often is revealed only to initiates, and to speak his name aloud is thought to invite disaster or death; his most frequent title is Father. In some traditions he is conceived to be a transcendent principle of divine order; in others he is pictured as senile or impotent and replaced by a set of more active and involved deities; and in still other traditions he has become so remote that he is all but forgotten.”
The argument is well made, but it has a major flaw. The idea that metaphysics is based on lived experience and the authority of tradition doesn't invalidate universalism, unless you can successfully argue that the traditions are so disparate that they lack any common foundation. But the very existence of Christianity (and Islam) refutes this idea, as very disparate peoples are clearly capable of having shared beliefs and shared practices. Whether you put this down to God or shared biology, there are clearly practices and beliefs that are universally encourage healthy human societies.
It's not so much that people can't have shared beliefs and practices. If the "ought" is relative to a class of agent, we can say that there are "oughts" relative to the class of homo sapiens. It's that the "oughts" for mankind are so general as to give no real moral guidance. Universal prescriptions are the least rich, least relevant, and least important, but universal religions treat them as the highest. This has a distorting influence that, among other things, eventually erases folkhoods altogether.
Brilliant, as usual, and extremely timely; I'm in the throes of assembling an initial Gaelic analogue to the eddas and theological material published by Noroenna Society, using medieval manuscripts.
Looking forward to that.
Authority as foundation of tradition and knowledge, undeniably true. It occurred to me that “aptness” can be applied to politics and culture as well as religion. As in that the policy must be apt for some people and not for other peoples. If true, then there can be no universal empire or civilization, because no policies can by apt for everyone beyond food, water, space, and hardly anything else. This could be a start of a new political understanding.
This makes sense because politics and culture are expressions of tradition, which is itself the reified commands of our forefathers.
Philosophically demanding stuff here. I guess it comes down to, who is the ultimate authority: the individual, or the folk? If you choose the individual, that leads to Liberalism, Progressivism, and the atomized absurdity of Clown World. If you choose folkishness, you choose what is healthy and right.
This ties into the Euthyphro dilemma brought up in another article: are things inherently good, or are they good because the gods say so? But as you explained, there's an implicit presumption: that the individual can know what is inherently good, and thus know better than the gods! Thus, the individual is crowned god, which again, leads to the destruction of family, tribe, nation, sex, and basic common sense, as we're living through.
Or as you said in the penultimate paragraph: "By claiming the right to decide the ultimate authority, they have made themselves the ultimate authority. They are just liberals who haven’t got the memo yet." And so, anyone who believes in the Enlightenment lie of the individual as god (including cuckservatives) is on a slippery slope to the current mess.
The correct answer is that the folk and the gods are the highest authority; the good is in accordance to folkish tradition, because we ultimately must live by commands.
Speaking of John 14:6 and Jesus as the way to knowing God. In my early twenties I trusted in Jesus and in the middle of the prayer my eyes flew open in surprise at the sudden face to face closeness of God. I had been brought near. The God spoken of below from the Encyclopedia Britannica?
“High God, in anthropology and the history of religion, a type of supreme deity found among many nonliterate peoples of North and South America, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia. The adjective high is primarily a locative term: a High God is conceived as being utterly transcendent, removed from the world that he created. A High God is high in the sense that he lives in or is identified with the sky—hence, the alternative name. Among North American Indians and Central and South Africans, thunder is thought to be the voice of the High God. In Siberia the sun and moon are considered the High God’s eyes. He is connected with food and heaven among American Indians.
Though the pattern varies from people to people, the High God usually is conceived as masculine or sexless. He is thought to be the sole creator of heaven and earth. Although he is omnipotent and omniscient, he is thought to have withdrawn from his creation and therefore to be inaccessible to prayer or sacrifice. Generally, no graphic images of him exist, nor does he receive cult worship or appear in the mythology. If he is invoked, it is only in times of extreme distress, but there is no guarantee that he will hear or respond. His name often is revealed only to initiates, and to speak his name aloud is thought to invite disaster or death; his most frequent title is Father. In some traditions he is conceived to be a transcendent principle of divine order; in others he is pictured as senile or impotent and replaced by a set of more active and involved deities; and in still other traditions he has become so remote that he is all but forgotten.”
It can be argued that the primal god of the Chinese culture was the above. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdi
As it says in the NT - “In him we live and move and have our being”