redgreenvines said:

emptiness is form
form is emptiness

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Rahz said:

If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain.

We also have to some degree, feelings about such actions. Not sure I would call that a higher power, just powers. Maybe the problem with you and Kant is that you try and work God into the story.

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Rahz said:

If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain.[...]

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BlueCoyote said:

Rahz said:

If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain.[...]

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I tend to disagree.
It is reasonable to argue that no one wants to be harmed, cheated or damnified, because it is those (kind of) things that lead to (personal/general) war(fare)...

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Advocate said:

BlueCoyote said:

Rahz said:

If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain.[...]

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I tend to disagree.
It is reasonable to argue that no one wants to be harmed, cheated or damnified, because it is those (kind of) things that lead to (personal/general) war(fare)...

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Nobody wants to be harmed, that is true. That fact alone does not ensure virtue, however.

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Ensure virtue ?
Someone just should start to make reasonable and rational laws which really enclose the wellbeing of all creatures nationally and interstellar

BlueCoyote said:

Ensure virtue ?
Someone just should start to make reasonable and rational laws which really enclose the wellbeing of all creatures nationally and interstellar

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Quote:

For logic tells us that all things in this universe are bound by cause and effect:

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falcon said:

Quote:

For logic tells us that all things in this universe are bound by cause and effect:

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I think this is a big jump from what logic tells me about what is bound by cause and effect. There can be many causes that intersect to create an effect, and there can be many effects from the same cause, but we cannot isolate  whether we have all the causes for any effect, or all of the effects from a cause or causes or whether there are things that arise without a cause. Logic applied to natural phenomenon is based on the assumption that we control for and eliminate those causes which do not contribute to an effect to define the relationship between an effect and its causes. But this does not tell us whether there are unseen causes, whether there is a random component beyond our perception. That all things are bound by cause and effect oversteps what can be, by assuming that what we test for is all there is.

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Quote:

even without a Bible I would think some great force was behind it all.

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Quote:

It's unreasonable to try and solve these questions apart from God. It leads to logical circles and frustration.

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Advocate said:

BlueCoyote said:

It is reasonable to argue that no one wants to be harmed, cheated or damnified, because it is those (kind of) things that lead to (personal/general) war(fare)...

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Nobody wants to be harmed, that is true. That fact alone does not ensure virtue, however.

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MarkostheGnostic said:

I first read Kant as an undergraduate, maybe 1974, Critique of Pure Reason. Then, in seminary in 1976, I read Religion Within the Boundary of Pure Reason, Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition For Upbuilding and Awakening. In the following years I read other Kantian works, the last one I read after I lost my job (which ended my career) was The Concept of Anxiety. In response to your post (which, btw,  I appreciate as a truly philosophical post). I found this article, that I found interesting. Although the author of it denies that Kant is a mystic, he affirms simultaneously a notion of transcendence (the Noumenal transcends even the axiom of Unity). This IS mystical. Pseudo-Dionysus, for example, in The Mystical Theology, speaks of the Super-essential Godhead transcending the trinitarian God, and if I'm not mistaken, transcending any human conception of Unity as well.  http://www.integral-religion.org/KantandMysticism.html

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Thanks for sharing that! I'll need to read this when I have more time so I can do you the proper justice in making a good response! In general, I suppose I'm saying that human reason by itself is what's dangerous more than Kant himself. But then, given that so much of our modern philosophical thought goes back to Kant, I would say that any mystical intentions he may have had were lost to time, so modern philosophy only picked up his humanist, existential ideas.

Thanks again for contributing to the discussion, my good man!