Pragmatism

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I'm wondering how you view pragmatism. A common complaint about theism is the benefits can be had through non religious means. Pragmatism makes this issue irrelevant. If someone gets more of a benefit from praying to a specific god, let them! Sure we know certain ideologies can lead to negative out comes, but that doesn't allow us to ignore the positive ones. In all this talk of what's true and false, we need to consider what benefits individuals.

 

[George-ananda]

I'm wondering how you view pragmatism. A common complaint about theism is the benefits can be had through non religious means. Pragmatism makes this issue irrelevant. If someone gets more of a benefit from praying to a specific god, let them! Sure we know certain ideologies can lead to negative out comes, but that doesn't allow us to ignore the positive ones. In all this talk of what's true and false, we need to consider what benefits individuals.

Pragmatism is certainly not for the likes of me. My mind is too curious and challenging and wants to understand reality as best I can. For others, it might work.

I looked up 'Pragmatism' in Wikipedia and I saw Buddha as one of the examples of a pragmatic. This makes sense because the Buddha was disinterested in the ultimate metaphysical questions and suggested we do what works to prevent suffering and not spend our days on all that metaphysical stuff. I see Buddhism as pretty much the same as my beliefs (Advaita Hinduism) except Advaita does address the metaphysical questions which my curious mind demands be addressed. I and others have had 101 debates on here with Buddhists and our debates invariably involve metaphysical questions, and not pragmatic questions of how to relieve suffering. My point is that most of us today have been exposed to so much questioning and information that our minds can not leave these big metaphysical questions unexamined.

 

[buddhist]

Everyone is pragmatic to a great extent - we all go by what "works" for us. Even if someone believes in some dogma by blind faith, then that "works" for them.

 

[Sees]

I do think prioritizing of views, beliefs, theories, etc. should be done with a heavy focus on usefulness and benefit.

An old quote I would use, paraphrasing a Rabbi whose name I can't remember - "It's not how much Truth you got in your pocket, it's what you do with it." You can find similar sentiments in lots of traditions.

 

[Quintessence]

I'm wondering how you view pragmatism. A common complaint about theism is the benefits can be had through non religious means. Pragmatism makes this issue irrelevant.

It does. Other things also render this issue irrelevant, most notably that putting things into the boxes of "religious" and "not religious" is an arbitrary, subjective exercise to begin with. There are a bunch of things that are "religious" to me that most in my culture would call "not religious." Like planting trees.

In all this talk of what's true and false, we need to consider what benefits individuals.

Nonsense. What works for me also works for all other humans on the planet, so if it doesn't benefit me, it can't benefit anyone. That's how it works, you know. Everyone wears the same kind of underwear, because there's only one sensible choice.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

I'm a pragmatist. I am interested more in "the fruit of the tree" than anything else.