Christian apology by a non-Christian

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It may be that I have a mind that relishes the complex. And it may also be that I have a mind that also functions somewhat mathematically (as a 'thinking type'). But at an objective level, except perhaps for a true-believer, what Christ is and how Christ exists and of course what all of that means, for us in this world and within 'debated meaning', is complex. There is no way to simplify it. It is complex because it is fraught and contentious.

It is clearly possible for someone to side-step all of this and simply to function within their knowledge or their noknowledge and to do quite well, but for those inclined to think we are only doing what we are good at and what satisfied us.

But there is something else here, Felasco, and I don't think you are taking it into consideration and possibly because it is simply not interesting to you nor relevant. It is the notion of 'connecting with a current of ascension' in a 'spiritual sense'. This moves beyond courtroom debate and to matters of tremendous importance at least to certain individuals and at certain times.

If we study the nature of thought, we learn something about all points of view.

True indeed. And then what?

[Felasco]

But at an objective level, except perhaps for a true-believer, what Christ is and how Christ exists and of course what all of that means, for us in this world and within 'debated meaning', is complex. There is no way to simplify it. It is complex because it is fraught and contentious.

I hopefully politely disagree. It's only complex if we want it to be complex.

God is love. Christ taught us to love. A thousand times a day we have a simple choice of whether to make that moment about "me" or about them.

Simple. Not easy for sure, but simple. If we want it to be simple.

If complexity was required, lots of people would be shut out. The genius of Christianity is that there is complexity there for those who need it, and simplicity there for those who need that.

It is clearly possible for someone to side-step all of this and simply to function within their knowledge or their noknowledge and to do quite well, but for those inclined to think we are only doing what we are good at and what satisfied us.

Fair enough.

But there is something else here, Felasco, and I don't think you are taking it into consideration and possibly because it is simply not interesting to you nor relevant. It is the notion of 'connecting with a current of ascension' in a 'spiritual sense'.

Ok, I don't know what connecting with a current of ascension' in a 'spiritual sense' is, and would welcome your thoughts on that.

If we study the nature of thought, we learn something about all points of view.

True indeed. And then what?

Well, if we learn that all ideologies will be inherently divisive because what they are made of is inherently divisive, then a search for unity will turn it's focus elsewhere.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

God is love. Christ taught us to love. A thousand times a day we have a simple choice of whether to make that moment about "me" or about them.

While love may indeed by a big challenge, or joy, or obligation, and a necessary thing to bring into the world, I do not at all think this is the only *meaning* or *message* or implication of the Idea of God incarnating into flesh. It would be I think, at least in one sense, too easy to reduce it to just that, though 'that' is a great deal. You can propose Love but there will then be the necessity of converting that 'love' into 'how love will function'. It then becomes a vast ethical issue. Moral, ethical, legal, jurisprudential, artistic, existential, philosophical and even perhaps alimentary (!) In my view it is just 'too easy' to stay at this level of 'it's just about love … so simple!'

It's only complex if we want it to be complex.

It is complex. In implication. It is everything that life and existence is for us now. It is hugely difficult even to the point of being overwhelming. And that is another aspect of the Idea or perhaps the Presence of 'Christ'. If there were no sense of responsibility perhaps we wouldn't care?

The genius of Christianity is that there is complexity there for those who need it, and simplicity there for those who need that.

It is not that I don't see your point but I think you are confusing 'making something difficult' with 'difficult issues'. The issues to be solved are complex, then. Does this work better for you? I think that what you are referring to is a person who complicates something, through attitude, that you imagine is 'simple'.

[Felasco]

While love may indeed by a big challenge, or joy, or obligation, and a necessary thing to bring into the world, I do not at all think this is the only *meaning* or *message* of the Idea of God incarnating into flesh.

I'm not disagreeing, I have no idea about the God and incarnating stuff. I'm just saying meaning and message are optional, for those who need them.

You can propose Love but there will then be the necessity of converting that 'love' into 'how love will function'.

You want to turn it in to something that can be analyzed, because analyzing is something you like to do. We are alike in that way. I am Mr. Analyze! Our need doesn't create a necessity for anybody, except perhaps for us.

In my view it is just 'too easy' to stay at this level of 'it's just about love … so simple!'

Yes, for you, and very often for me as well, it's too simple, too easy. We want something to chew on, as is our right. That's different than some kind of global statement that applies universally etc.

A friend of mine who is a nurse recently said to me that all this boils down to lots of little acts of kindness. That's her entire sermon. She is wiser than we, which is why you don't see her here, she's too busy being kind to have anything much more to say on the subject.

Have you noticed we appear to be almost entirely men here? Women are generally too wise for this game, apologies to those in attendance.

It is complex. In implication. It is everything that life and existence is for us now. It is hugely difficult even to the point of being overwhelming.

Yes, if we think about it, instead of just doing it.

It is not that I don't see your point but I think you are confusing 'making something difficult' with 'difficult issues'.

Or maybe I'm just being difficult. I um, do that.

The issues to be solved are complex, then.

Not if we don't try to solve them.

I think that what you are referring to is a person who complicates something, through attitude, that you imagine is 'simple'.

I propose that both love (the West) and silence (the East) are simple, and that is their genius. Not easy, I completely grant you that, but simple.

Imho, we create the complexity to dodge the challenge presented by the simpleness.

You know...

"I can't love or be silent right now, maybe later, cause I have to figure all this out first!"

Simpleness is challenging because it gives us no where to run to, no where to hide. When it's simple, we love right now, or we don't. We are silent right now, or we aren't. Do it now, or don't. Simple.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

You want to turn it in to something that can be analyzed, because analyzing is something you like to do.

We are not, I don't think, speaking to the same thing. I am speaking of a whole historical chain of dealing with the implications of the Judean religious form, also the municipal and social forms and institutions, and all the thinking that goes along with that. I think that you are thinking about one lone individual who 'complicates' his relationship (to life…)

In essence I am speaking to: the Judean revelation, the Greek analytical method, and Roman practicality. The base of 'our' civilization. It is that wide. This is not easy and non-complex.

I have no idea about the God and incarnating stuff.

Right, then we are not really speaking to the same thing. The notion of Incarnation of God into human culture has vast implications. If one rejects that possibility then perhaps not. But if one entertains it the implications are vast. All of culture will need to be brought into relationship with that.

A friend of mine who is a nurse recently said to me that all this boils down to lots of little acts of kindness. That's her entire sermon. She is wiser than we, which is why you don't see her here, she's too busy being kind to have anything much more to say on the subject.

I have little doubt that your friend is a good person and a good woman. She may also be evolved and you may admire her very much. You may emulate her and I may too. But this is simplistic, womanish advice. It is good praxis, no doubt. But it all has to be taken to other levels.

Have you noticed we appear to be almost entirely men here? Women are generally too wise for this game, apologies to those in attendance.

I sense that you have a sort of prejudice that favors women, women's approach or 'woman's wisdom'? It may tie into some common themes: Men are the problem. If men would only listen to women and perhaps act like women that things would get better. I don't buy any of this, myself, but I do recognize that it is quite another conversation.

It is part of a man's work to operate and function within the mental world, which is also the world of defining values, and constructing within this world on that basis. A woman's work is to be, to gestate, to care for, etc. Not that women cannot be engaged in other, more 'masculine' pursuits. They have, but rtather late in the game and only in a masculine environment that allows and encourages it. But I do not think that men should imitate women. And I also think that it is a destructive activity when they do.

*Let the games begin!*

Yes, if we think about it, instead of just doing it.

You have said as much and a number of times. I respect you if this is where you stand but I think this point is entirely arguable. And not because I am argumentative. You have to define what is to be done, first. And that places you squarely in the center of the problem. It is a struggle. But I won't keep repeating this since, perhaps, the idea is not of interest to you or doesn't as they say 'resonate'.

Simpleness is challenging because it gives us no where to run to, no where to hide. When it's simple, we love right now, or we don't. We are silent right now, or we aren't. Do it now, or don't. Simple.

This is actually where the creation of an ethic begins, for you! This is where an idea is converted into a working hypothesis and is 'personal'. If I take issue with your conclusion or your ethic, I am getting personal with you, and usually, not always but often, conversations go off the track.

There are some things that require a simplicity. And there are many situations where love is the best and even perhaps the only position to have. And it may be that not having that love is part of the problem. But there are many other things that require 'love translated into activity', and the conceptualization of intricate ideas, in problematical areas of human life. And some part of the activity required for 'love' to function may be radical and also (to push forward with the implication) violent. How would one equate 'violence' back to 'love'? It is rather complex indeed.

One might say that 'love' is a mystic's revelation (and also a mother's), but duty and discipline and definition is that of a theologian and is also masculine in essence. And we will arrive at the tension between two modes of being. I place my coin, as it were, on that of theology. I understand and trust love in close relationships, where it makes sense. But making decisions and acting in this world requires other and more … complex arts! I do however accept that you don't see it like that.

[Felasco]

We are not, I don't think, speaking to the same thing. I am speaking of a whole historical chain of dealing with the implications of the Judean religious form, also the municipal and social forms and institutions, and all the thinking that goes along with that. I think that you are thinking about one lone individual who 'complicates' his relationship (to life…) In essence I am speaking to: the Judean revelation, the Greek analytical method, and Roman practicality. The base of 'our' civilization. It is that wide. This is not easy and non-complex.

I don't disagree. I'm only saying that the experience of religion does not depend on any of this.

What you're referring to is an optional inquiry for those interested in such things. Of course anyone has every right to be so interested, and I'm not making any objection to that at all.

But this is simplistic, womanish advice. It is good praxis, no doubt.

Agreed. Except that I don't view "simplistic" or "womanish" as a negative, as perhaps you do.

But it all has to be taken to other levels.

No, it doesn't. This is our main point of disagreement it seems. The experience of love does not need to be elevated to a study of the complex factors involved in the history of western civilization and so on. In fact, most people are not nerds like you and I, and they ignore philosophy, history, analysis etc, and their lives are no worse for it.

I sense that you have a sort of prejudice that favors women, women's approach or 'woman's wisdom'?

Yes, that's correct.

It may tie into some common themes: Men are the problem.

Turn on your TV and observe who is committing 95% of the violence in the world, and you will learn who is the problem.

If men would only listen to women and perhaps act like women that things would get better.

Yep.

I don't buy any of this, myself.

Of course not, you're a man, and thus not wise enough to get it. I just barely get it on every third odd numbered day.

You have to define what is to be done, first.

I already have. In any given moment, we love, or we don't. In any given moment, we are silent, or we are not.

[Harry Baird]

The Perl of Wisdom, eh, Felasco? Good luck to you, and may you find as many ways to express yourself as possible...

For me, professionally, it's mostly PHP, Javascript and SQL, but in the past I've used various others, including Object Pascal, and my main private, free project is based on that language.

I understand why a nature-lover would propound on the value of "reunification with nature". I don't spend enough time out there. If Nature is your God, then I wish you redemption through the forest canopy...

-------

Gustav, how could you? Whiskey? My goodness, man, that's like drinking gasoline, and I don't care how many carefully-shaped glasses you "nose" it out of.

You make a point of "The Four Functions", and even link to them, so I took a little gander at your link. What I saw led me to the notion (which I have encountered before) of a "Myers-Briggs test", one of which I found here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp. My results were as follows:

ISTJ
Introvert(67%) Sensing(1%) Thinking(1%) Judging(33%)

You have distinctive preference of Introversion over Extraversion (67%)
You have marginal or no preference of Sensing over Intuition (1%)
You have marginal or no preference of Thinking over Feeling (1%)
You have moderate preference of Judging over Perceiving (33%)

Apparently, amongst the "four functions" to which you referred (sensing, intuition, thinking and feeling), I'm pretty much evenly balanced, as much as that test and my own answers to it can be trusted.

I take heart in these results, because they accord with my sense that you misjudge my approach. Yes, I have a strong "mathematical/logical" bent, but it is tempered with intuition and feeling. I think that we can "pull in" information from all sorts of different places, most especially personal experience, but that, if we ultimately want it to be meaningful and useful, we have to subject it to (to use your term) "mathematical/logical" analysis. In other words, it has to "make sense". As I have said in past posts, I don't see an alternative to objective truth, and I believe that our task is to approximate it as best we can.

So, whilst you satirise me as "looking into the clouds" to find your "higher spirits", and "looking through the cracks in the floor" to discern your "dark and subterranean entities", and whilst I see the humour and rhetorical cleverness in that satire, at the same time I don't think that it's at all fair or constructive. It is more like: you talk about "higher spirits", and I ask not about the physical location of these spirits, since I recognise that in the spiritual realm, there might not even be such a concept as physical location, but instead I ask about the *relationship* of these spirits to your mind. I ask, in what way are these spirits connected to you? Are they a product of your mind, or are they independent of it? Are they from the same "realm" as us (you have spoken of our realm as one beholden to eroticism, which suggests the possibility of other realms *not* so beholden), or are they from a different realm? Are they beholden to your will, or to the will of God, or do they have their own will? Do you see that questions like these are very relevant and not so amenable to satire?

No matter *what* your result on the Myers-Briggs test might be, these are, I believe, perfectly sensible questions, and I would be... troubled... if you did not have an answer to them. Well, maybe "troubled" is a little over-dramatic; it's more like, I would hope that if you had no answer to these questions, you would at least be a little less "aggressive" in suggesting that my own answers to questions like that are incorrect. If you don't know, then why are you acting like you do, at least so far as your assessment of what you think *I* don't know goes?

All of that said, I find it fascinating that you failed to address my question! You satirise my response to your views, but you struggle to even begin to clarify those views of your own - the very views which I was questioning: whether or not you believe in "external" or "internal" spirits! It's not until later on in your post that you *start* to address this issue: you refer to my "limited" "interpretation" by which I have said that according to you "it is all in our mind", and you suggest that instead "it is all within our bodily self and in consciousness strangely wedded to physical structures". Really, this doesn't seem to me to be a significant distinction: the distinction I'm interested in is that of dependence/independence from the person, whether that be the person as a mind, "bodily self" or even as a "consciousness strangely wedded to physical structures". You mention a dream of a "huge Wheel" turning in the wrong direction, and question "where" this dream is. That is indeed the question: is the dream "wedded" to your consciousness, or does it have origins external to it? You ask me, when you ought to be (gosh, I'm an imperative fucker, aren't I?) clarifying your *own* answer.

As far as referring to "other conversations, not wholly successful conversations, where the wall has been hit, though you do not see it like this" goes: certainly, I do not see it like this! I really have no idea what you mean by this. Presumably, you have privately floated an idea, which I have evaluated and decided doesn't work for me, and you have interpreted this as my "hitting a wall". But, really, this is your perception, and yours alone! I wish you would provide an example, so that I could understand what you are referring to.

Regarding Stephen T. Davis, I read the link to which you referred. Let me first say that I am neither an inerrantist nor even an infallibilist. I will, though, simply because you included them in a post ostensibly in reply to me, reply in turn to your take on each of the four points listed in the breakdown at that link.

#1 "The Bible is inerrant".

Your take: "'The Bible' is not really the question or the problem here. The real question is Is it possible for man to receive (perceive) and to record truth or meaning, and to communicate that meaning through any gesture (word, tune, body movement, touch, look)? And is it possible to record in those forms, and to express so that another can receive from it, deep truths about ourselves, the nature of our being here, the nature of the place, etc?".

I think, though, that in a way, the Bible *is* the question here, or at least very relevant to it. You talk about merely "recording truth or meaning" as to "the nature of our being here, the nature of the place, etc", whereas the proposition that those who place supreme value in the Bible would put forward is that of the *ultimate* truth or meaning contained in the Bible. You, through your "non-literal" view of spiritual reality, probably don't even recognise this as a possibility, but I think that the question in this context is more like: "Is it possible that there exists *some* communication, however received or recorded, directly from the Source of All that Exists, that 'explains all'?" This leads to a whole set of fascinating ancillary questions like: if so, and if it exists, then why is it so unheard-of? Why has that Source so privileged the recipient to the exclusion of all others in Creation? Naturally, you will detect that I do not believe that the Bible is "it", just as you do not, but the fact that so many do suggests to me that we ought to pay particular attention to this scripture.

#2 "We are lost and need redemption".

You ask in response: "How might we conceive and understand 'lostness' and 'need of redemption'?" I would suggest that "need of redemption" is universal, and is based on a "falling away from righteousness" that might occur *anywhere* in any of the billions if not trillions of planets in our universe that you mention. And what is righteousness? Compliance with Law. And what is Law? Essentially, "the details of how one should treat oneself, one another, and one's spiritual betters, correctly". You say that the "essence" goes beyond "laws", but I suggest instead that there are *universal* laws. Christ was quite assertive about the nature of those laws.

#3 "Christ rose bodily from the dead".

You assert in response that it gets "complex" here, yet (fascinatingly!) you do not offer a view, however qualified, as to the (un)truth of this proposition. I can only gather from your response and your general approach (that modernity has destroyed the possibility of belief in the miracles in the Bible) that you have no truck with such a notion. Also, not surprisingly, I *do* have more truck with the "limited behavioural goals" that you suggest are not so important (*hic*). I also wonder how you would elaborate on your "non-literal" view of Christ. Do you believe in the man as an historical figure? I would assume so. Would you then suggest that his life was "mythologised" into an "archetype" that represented something more universal than it could ever have been literally? (I really don't expect answers to these questions. You seem to ignore most of the questions I put to you, selecting those to which to respond according to your own desire, which is, of course, your prerogative)

#4 "Persons need to commit their lives in faith to Christ".

You suggest that, in fact, we "don't need to do fucking anything!" In relation to this, may I offer a little "mathematical/logical" analysis? "Needs" are always (it seems to me) relative to goals and objectives. We "need" to eat relative to our goal of physical survival. We "need" to visit the newsagent relative to our goal of obtaining the latest issue of our favourite magazine. In this sense, we "need" to commit our lives in faith to Christ relative to our goal of salvation (assuming that that truly is the only way to salvation, which, of course, I don't know to be true). If, as you seem to be suggesting might be the case for some of us, we do not have the *goal* of salvation, then, sure, we don't "need" to do anything. We might well choose to do the opposite. But if I am right that lack of redemption results in negative personal consequences, we'd be foolish not to have that goal, don't you think?

-------

Oh! There's a whole further page of discussion of which I've been ignorant until now, when I picked up Felasco's latest post. Let me briefly weigh in on it:

I can see things from both sides but basically I am more in tune with Felasco: that the basis of Christianity is love, and that all we need to do is to keep it simple with that in mind. Yes, as Gustav notes, sometimes life is complex. Sometimes, in our civilisation, it *seems* that we are dealing in issues far removed from love, but, I would suggest that even apparently disconnected areas (areas of creative, mechanical or technical pursuit) are (or should be) ultimately about love: about creating *for* others, out of love for them, and that *all* of our interpersonal relations can (should) reduce to an expression of love. The very point of having an ethic is so as to treat others fairly, which in itself (wanting to treat others fairly) is an expression of love, and, in my view, all of our interactions with others have such an ethical component to them.

As for whether men should favour a female approach, or "strive to be like women", I'll hold my tongue for now, and simply wait for the debate to unfold...

[Felasco]

The very point of having an ethic is so as to treat others fairly, which in itself (wanting to treat others fairly) is an expression of love, and, in my view, all of our interactions with others have such an ethical component to them.

As I see it...

The fundamental human condition which religions try to address is that the stuff we are made of (thought) is inherently divisive in nature, and thus we experience reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else".

This is an isolating perspective which leads to fear, and fear is the well spring from which most of the other personal and social problems flows.

Imho, love is not really about others, but about us. Surrendering ourselves to others helps liberate us from "me", the tiny little prison cell where we spend most of our lives. As I understand it, Jesus came to save us, and this is how it works. It's the surrender that really matters, not the other person we are surrendering to. They have their own surrender to attend to.

Love is a form of death, and death is what we really want, that is, we seek surrender from the separateness which is the definition of life.

Silence performs much the same purpose, by reducing the volume of thought, that which is creating the division in the first place. Silence is a form of death too.

Two different approaches, one from the East, and one from the West, both of which address the same fundamental human condition, with the same goal of helping to provide some relief from the price tags that come with that condition.

[Felasco]

For me, professionally, it's mostly PHP, Javascript and SQL, but in the past I've used various others, including Object Pascal, and my main private, free project is based on that language.

Would enjoy hearing about your projects some day Harry, should you care to share. I made a choice that Perl was enough to learn for me, and my skills are pretty basic. Still, one can do lots of useful stuff with basic perl or php skills, and that's enough for me.

[Harry Baird]

The fundamental human condition which religions try to address is that the stuff we are made of (thought) is inherently divisive in nature, and thus we experience reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else".

This is an isolating perspective which leads to fear, and fear is the well spring from which most of the other personal and social problems flows.

But do you think that fear is a necessary, or even the primary, consequence of individual existence? It seems to me that there are as many positive aspects to individuality as negative ones: for example, the possibility of *interaction* with others, which can be (as a married man you would know this) particularly joyous rather than fearful.

Imho, love is not really about others, but about us. Surrendering ourselves to others helps liberate us from "me", the tiny little prison cell where we spend most of our lives. As I understand it, Jesus came to save us, and this is how it works. It's the surrender that really matters, not the other person we are surrendering to. They have their own surrender to attend to.

Hmm. That smacks suspiciously to me like a transmuting, or at least the warping, of selflessness into selfishness, or at least of a selfless attitude into one based in self-seeking: seeking for oneself to "liberate oneself from the pain of individuation" rather than seeking to give to others without expectation of personal reward. But maybe (probably) I'm being unfair on you, Felasco, putting my own "selfish" slant on your message. I guess I simply have a more traditional understanding of the love Christ taught, and the reasons for it.

Would enjoy hearing about your projects some day Harry, should you care to share.

I would be happy to share, only it would break my anonymity (my projects are accessible via a personally-identifiable website).

I made a choice that Perl was enough to learn for me, and my skills are pretty basic.

I've dabbled in Perl, and even written a little Perl script to import a static website into a dynamic one, but it's been some time now, and I've forgotten the vast majority of what I once knew. The neat thing about programming is that once you've learnt a few different languages, it's easy enough to pick up (and put down and later pick up again, ad infinitum) a new one. But Perl is pretty cool, it's very expressive, there are so many different ways to do the same thing.

[Felasco]

It seems to me that there are as many positive aspects to individuality as negative ones: for example, the possibility of *interaction* with others, which can be (as a married man you would know this) particularly joyous rather than fearful.

Yes, that's true of course. But, um, half of marriages result in divorce, and half of those who stay together probably wish they were divorced.

Hmm. That smacks suspiciously to me like a transmuting, or at least the warping, of selflessness into selfishness, or at least of a selfless attitude into one based in self-seeking: seeking for oneself to "liberate oneself from the pain of individuation" rather than seeking to give to others without expectation of personal reward.

Well, all of nature is built upon self interest. Billions of species over billions of years. I see morality as enlightened self interest. I believe that's the most realistic way to look at it. Self interest is not evil, but misunderstanding our self interest can be. I see the Christian message as one of helping us to better understand our self interest.

But maybe (probably) I'm being unfair on you, Felasco, putting my own "selfish" slant on your message.

The way I write, I really deserve no mercy, so feel free to say anything you feel anyway you want, no problem.

I guess I simply have a more traditional understanding of the love Christ taught, and the reasons for it.

Ok, no problem. But we might ask, why did Jesus say "love thy neighbor as thyself"? And why did the message resonate with so many?

I would be happy to share, only it would break my anonymity (my projects are accessible via a personally-identifiable website).

Oh, ok, no problem, I respect that. But, I should add that if you don't Paypal me 3,000 rubles by the end of business today, I'm going to tell your family, friends and employer that you've been chatting with crazy old hippy wackos on the Internet. You know, just sayin....

The neat thing about programming is that once you've learnt a few different languages, it's easy enough to pick up (and put down and later pick up again, ad infinitum) a new one.

Yes, that's true, good point. My coding mentor friend is more like you in that regard. I'm more interested in creating interfaces than programming really, and once I have a tool to do that, I'm happy. To each their own of course.

But Perl is pretty cool, it's very expressive, there are so many different ways to do the same thing.

I've never been quite sure if that's a benefit or not. It makes it rather hard to read other people's code sometimes, at least for those of us with mid level skills.

[Harry Baird]

But we might ask, why did Jesus say "love thy neighbor as thyself"? And why did the message resonate with so many?

Because it makes so much *sense*. :-) (but more than that I think it wise not to say: I can't speak for Christ)

But, I should add that if you don't Paypal me 3,000 rubles by the end of business today, I'm going to tell your family, friends and employer that you've been chatting with crazy old hippy wackos on the Internet. You know, just sayin.... :-)

Don't worry, I've done my fair share of consorting with "crazy old hippy wackos" in the past, it's nothing new. :-) Some might even accuse me of being one myself (although I'm not sure I *quite* qualify as "old" yet - just don't ask the teenagers at the supermarket).

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I already have. In any given moment, we love, or we don't. In any given moment, we are silent, or we are not.

And there is nothing more to say.

[Felasco]

My wife and I had a conversation today that seems relevant here.

She's a movie buff, and somehow we got on the topic of the movie Castaway, with Tom Hanks. As you may recall, Hanks is shipwrecked on a remote island by himself for years. As the plot proceeds, he starts to go batty. He finds a volley ball, paints a face on it, gives it a name (Wilson), turns it in to his friend, and starts talking to it. He is heartbroken and hysterical when the volley ball is washed off his escape raft in a storm.

The story was a very well done illustration of the deep human need for connection, for escape from the separateness created by, yep, that again.

And then we started talking about how people often form a personal connection with their cars. I never understood this, as I never used to give a shit about cars, but then I got one I really like, and um, it's name is Ralph. It's more than just a van, it's a buddy, a pal.

I realized I have a personal type connection with favorite spots in the woods. I don't give them names and talk to them (yet) but it's much like visiting friends. I can be in the woods all day for a week by myself,and it's not lonely, because that connection is there, it's just not a connection with other humans, but with pine trees and places. It seems it's the connection that matters, more than what one is connecting to.

This need to connect, to transcend separateness is a key part of what we've been discussing.

It occurred to me that a difference between mystics and the religious is that religious folks require a story line to make the personal connection with God, reality, whatever name one prefers.

In theory mystics are content to skip the story line and get right on to the connection part, but it must be said mystics often invent story lines too.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I think, though, that in a way, the Bible *is* the question here, or at least very relevant to it. You talk about merely "recording truth or meaning" as to "the nature of our being here, the nature of the place, etc", whereas the proposition that those who place supreme value in the Bible would put forward is that of the *ultimate* truth or meaning contained in the Bible. You, through your "non-literal" view of spiritual reality, probably don't even recognise this as a possibility, but I think that the question in this context is more like: "Is it possible that there exists *some* communication, however received or recorded, directly from the Source of All that Exists, that 'explains all'?" This leads to a whole set of fascinating ancillary questions like: if so, and if it exists, then why is it so unheard-of? Why has that Source so privileged the recipient to the exclusion of all others in Creation? Naturally, you will detect that I do not believe that the Bible is "it", just as you do not, but the fact that so many do suggests to me that we ought to pay particular attention to this scripture.

Again, I would back away from the specific to consider the general. Additionally, I cannot imagine how we can approach that question or issue, now, without bringing to bear on it all and every advance 'we' have made in the organization and pursuit of knowledge, and certainly knowledge of literary forms, philology, exegesis. It doesn't, to me, matter much what any person, believer, unbeliever, agnostic, thinks about the Bible as offering *ultimate* truth, because by posing a larger question ('How would this truth or these truths function in all possible worlds, in all possible universes, in all possible time-frames?'), one will have in this sense flushed the pheasant.

So that if you extract from the story a synthesis and a pattern, you can see how the general idea or pattern---or even archetype if you wish---would function in another, radically different environment. In order to understand Christianity, as I grasp the issue, one has to understand the very core of it: Salvation from materialism. The model begins with 'enslavement in Egypt'. This has to be explained and understood in its widest dimension. Slavery does not only mean being held and repressed by a person or some people, in my view. It is an entire condition and will involve ignorance, powerlessness, lack of defining knowledge and lack of capacity to organize that knowledge pointedly; contentment or perhaps 'stupor' within material conditions and incapacity to conceive of possibilities that lie beyond and outside (or 'above') that state of stupor. (But I guess that salvation from materialism does not mean escape from the material. I begin to think that it is a mistake to see it like that).

The 'call' to come out of that condition, if it is widened outside of the specificity of a specific history-bound story, has implications that extend far beyond the rather quaint, and totally improbable, and highly embellished story of casting spells against a King, parting of the Red Seas, and a God who, like a benevolent real estate agent, 'gives' a land to a people. It is obvious that even if one were not in those sorts of conditions of overt slavery (though there are indeed people who are still and for whom the notion of Exodus in a political sense is very real) that the 'model' or the paradigm extends far beyond the specificity and reveals---if one accepts the possibility---a wider group of general laws. Those wider principals apply at many different points and many different levels.

So, with this in mind I am forced back onto the viewpoint I shared earlier: It is not, in fact, the Bible in itself that is at stake, but the possibility that there is or is not some sort of Divine Order which necessarily stands outside and above nature to which man can ally himself and, as a result of the application of the 'skills of liberation', bring himself to all that is symbolized by 'Promised Land'. One would have to be able to conceive of, say, the 'Bible' of a totally different planet with a totally different social and physical dimension, and to imagine what would be the 'core principals' in it. And then link this back to the Johannine 'universal God', he who 'was, is, and will be'. If you are going to grandiosely play a Universal Game you are, I think, going to have to accept the consequences on it. It is almost latent with Christianity (and Judaism) that it must extend far beyond itself and become an iconoclast of itself.

My 'non-literal view' of spiritual reality, I wish to suggest, is in certain ways more real than yours (if you'll permit me to be so bold) because it extends the notion of liberation from a parochial model, with all the attractiveness of false or misplaced piety, not to mention a literally impossible metaphysical circumstance in which your theologies are ensconced, to one that can occur and will have to occur in this present and very real world. It always has seemed to me that your theologies function in theoretical abstraction.

...if so, and if it exists, then why is it so unheard-of?

You will please excuse me from taking advantage of additional opportunities to push farther on points previously made … but I wish to suggest that without a wider model, which is to say 'expanded interpretation' of just what exactly IS the content, the essence, and the universal sense of what 'liberation' is, that you would not be able to recognize it if it came and perched on your head. But this really is all our problem. We all really and truly want to define value and we wish to see ourself in it and as having discovered it. But I am not sure if we can actually 'locate' it. This ties back, somewhat objectively if a little rhetorically and with some definite flourishes, to my insistence on the prime importance of our own traditions, those of the West.

In reduced and intensified form 'our traditions' are about extracting the essence of the Judean message of 'liberation', isolating it is a rational principal, and extending it into all fields of activity but especially tangible activity. (Judea, Greece, Rome). I sense that one has to understand this ESSENCE and the ethic that propels it, in order to understand just how very much it is present and how much of it has already been 'uncovered', if you will. That is one reason why I myself value that book I recommended. It demonstrates that essence functioning on all levels. There is nothing I have found in other traditions that quite compares, in my view. Ideas move the world and these ideas have functioned as an Archimedean Lever.

If we begin to lose our grasp first on the notion of 'spiritual liberation', and I personally, if also conveniently, begin to conceive that all advanced and higher knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is as a result of 'spiritual liberation' and opening up, really and factually, to the possibility of 'liberation', I suggest that one of the first things we lose is an aspect or perhaps even the *origin* of intelligence. I have the sense that this is the point where one begins a movement back into so-called materialism, but essentially to a form of barbarism. There is a certain sort of *light* or luminousness that is present in those who are really bringing forward liberating ideas. But if one is confused about what that 'light' is, what it should be and what it should do, how would one be able to distinguish what is 'false' from what is 'true'?