Consequences of Atheism

[Arising_uk]

...

You may not find them interesting or informative, but I certainly do.

Bob! Bob! Now this is how you do it.
http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-sta ... sal-father

[The Inglorious One]

Arising_uk seems committed to giving us an example of the typical, unreflective atheist in PN by latching onto a comment taken out of context. I mean, it must be pretty difficult for someone exposed to liberal ideology for so long they can no longer think.

[Arising_uk]

Arising_uk seems committed to giving us an example of the typical, unreflective atheist in PN by latching onto a comment taken out of context. I mean, it must be pretty difficult for someone exposed to liberal ideology for so long they can no longer think.

The Inglorious One like most his flock appears incapable of answering sentences with question marks and decides to attack the man rather than respond to a critique of his assertion that his culture is being overrun by some nameless foe and that jesus would have agreed with him. But it is no surprise given he is a typical right-wing christian godbotherer who ignores the parables and Jesus's message of love and neighbours.

[The Inglorious One]

Arising_uk seems committed to giving us an example of the typical, unreflective atheist in PN by latching onto a comment taken out of context. I mean, it must be pretty difficult for someone exposed to liberal ideology for so long they can no longer think.

The Inglorious One like most his flock appears incapable of answering sentences with question marks and decides to attack the man rather than respond to a critique of his assertion that his culture is being overrun by some nameless foe and that jesus would have agreed with him. But it is no surprise given he is a typical right-wing christian godbotherer who ignores the parables and Jesus's message of love and neighbours.

Not "incapable," just aware of the futility of discussing the meaning of value-lessons with dimwits.

Will you at least acknowledge that there is a cultural context to the parable?

[Arising_uk]

Not "incapable," just aware of the futility of discussing the meaning of value-lessons with dimwits.

Then what are you doing here, trolling? Why not head back to Blow Thyself and talk with the converted.

Will you at least acknowledge that there is a cultural context to the parable?

For sure, that he used a priest and a Levite as the bad neighbours and the Samaritan as the good was a nice shock-jock tactic but his message was pretty clear about what constitutes being a good neighbour and I hear very little of this from you with respect to these unnamed culture-destroying 'hordes' you say are upon us?

[The Inglorious One]

Not "incapable," just aware of the futility of discussing the meaning of value-lessons with dimwits.

Then what are you doing here, trolling? Why not head back to Blow Thyself and talk with the converted.

Will you at least acknowledge that there is a cultural context to the parable?

For sure, that he used a priest and a Levite as the bad neighbours and the Samaritan as the good was a nice shock-jock tactic but his message was pretty clear about what constitutes being a good neighbour and I hear very little of this from you with respect to these unnamed culture-destroying 'hordes' you say are upon us?

As Gustav said, "What a silly encapsulation!" So out of context! So simplistic! Is there something about "sentiment that leads to cultural suicide is tantamount to self-hate" that you do not understand? What part of "we can be compassionate without surrendering our way of life" don't you understand?

Samaritans were despised by the Judean Jews for religious reasons, not just because they were "different." Jesus used the parable of the "Good Samaritan" to dramatize the importance of ethics over religious formalism, not just to show how to be a "good neighbor." The Samaritan did not compromise his beliefs or his values by his willingness to help, nor did the Jew respond by imposing his beliefs and way of life on he Samaritan, and if he did, would he not be an ingrate? "Turn the other cheek" is not a lesson on passivity or surrender if you know the cultural context.

[Arising_uk]

As Gustav said, "What a silly encapsulation!" So out of context! So simplistic! ...

Does he indeed! And where did he say this? Don't tell me you and him are PM tarts.

Is there something about "sentiment that leads to cultural suicide is tantamount to self-hate" that you do not understand? ...

Glad you brought this up, as you appear pretty sparse upon what cultural aspects you think are being threatened by this sentiment and who this 'horde' are that is threatening it? As far as I can tell it would be Islam and the only threat to our cultural values they pose is to the cultural values of pluralism, religious tolerance, sexual equality, racial equality, etc, etc, all values that appear to arise from liberal secular humanism. Is this what you are afraid we are going to lose?

What part of "we can be compassionate without surrendering our way of life" don't you understand?

The part that involves not acting but just mouthing empty platitudes.

Samaritans were despised by the Judean Jews for religious reasons, not just because they were "different." Jesus used the parable of the "Good Samaritan" to dramatize the importance of ethics over religious formalism, not just to show how to be a "good neighbor.". ...

'Just' eh! Still, this appears to still apply to you, as you appear to be putting your religious formalism over your ethics?

The Samaritan did not compromise his beliefs or his values by his willingness to help, nor did the Jew respond by imposing his beliefs and way of life on he Samaritan, and if he did, would he not be an ingrate? "Turn the other cheek" is not a lesson on passivity or surrender if you know the cultural context.

I know, its an example of the power of non-violent resistance, something that won a whole empire.
What are these beliefs and values that you think are being compromised?
p.s.
My apologies,
I see the quote from Gustav was to uwot but you are just reusing it.

So my take is that pretty much any interpretation is apt or wrong if we're going to second-guess what Christ meant to say rather than what he said, barring mistranslation that is.

[uwot]

I say: I can see that something amazing is going on, I don't know the cause.
You say: I can feel something, that I believe is responsible. What a coincidence; it thinks like me.

What a silly encapsulation! I don't blame you: We encapsulate based on our perceptions, and our perceptions are quite often projections.

Really, Gus?

Really, it is quite different. At a tender age I had experiences in relation to the world (the amazing going on) which revealed to me the operation of intelligence and consciousness in it and through it. This happened at a pre-intellectual stage.

In other words, you had a feeling. QED.
I would quite happily enter into a discussion of the empirical, logical foundation of your operational predicates, but by your own admission, you don't have any. I am not in a position to challenge your pre-intellectual experiences, but any time you feel you can have a grown up conversation, you know where to find me.
Funny you should mention projection; I was thinking of starting a thread, working title 'What's wrong with right-wing religious nuts?' and arguing, among other things that you do exactly that. You, I would argue, project your own projection. Interesting.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Our being, our self, our organism, our consciousness: these are what we have to work with Esteemed Uwot. So, in one way or another, we will be and are working with a subjective instrumentation. Though it does not surprise me it does disappoint a little that after various essays on various themes all that I get from you is the dismissal that the experiences which moulded my early years are 'feelings'. You are right in some sense of course, but what is more noteworthy is to examine what it is that you'd have to oppose what I will call 'the operation of self' with. If you cannot rely on your self, or employ your self in life and in living, what this means is that you will require an AI instrument over to which you will assign your human self. Then, the instrument can 'read life' and tell you not what it means but only what it 'is'. You make really strange statements that when pushed toward their logical outcomes reveal - in fact - what is happening. These are some of the consequences of surrendering over self, of losing faith in self, in losing faith in the capacity to interpret, and of course in being able to make any statement at all about life, meaning and value.

Meaning and value - if these are feelings for you so be it - are only communicable through themselves (if I can put it like this). But yes, and quite strongly, meaning and value was communicated to me in intense ways and, very definitely, my life has been about responding to that. What you propose is, apparently, a life for man where this human person is subjected to a specific 'rational' and 'empirical' training and I suppose that you hope that that human person would then function like the AI instrument - a computer, an instrument designed and purposed simply to read mechanical value. I suggest that taken to the logical extreme you quite literally will no longer at all see through the eye but will transform yourself into a mechanical eye.

• “This life's dim windows of the soul
  Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
  And leads you to believe a lie
  When you see with, not through, the eye.”

What you are - by your admission! - quite available for is conversation that is empirical and logical, and this is of course your focus, and the focus of your blog. Such a focus - exclusive focus I should say - follows from your predicates. And this is what I have tried to demonstrate by the references to Basil Willey and his tracing of the sweep of an historical shift in ideation. In this, your and my project differs quite a bit. And as I said I can easily enter into the tenets and regulations that govern yours - there are few or no moving parts - but you are locked out of mine. Yet I know that you are not, not really. Because you certainly have an inner life, and all the tools of perception that make up a human person.

What I am attempting to do is to stand before each predicate system and neither fully embrace one nor the other. I think we need to stand back and examine each and to attempt to see how each, in different ways, carried flaws or leads to flaws. True, I tend to think that a man who can hold on to his 'lyrical self' and to a sort of feeling self which is also intelligent and introspective has an advantage over the man of scientism.

'What's wrong with right-wing religious nuts?'

Again, I have been very open and precise as I describe myself, my political shifts, my general understanding of things. It would be innaccurate to label me a right wing nut since, in fact, I am a product of the left. I am a product of 'radical liberalism'. But what happened is that I decided to step out of that current when I discovered how intensely ideologically driven it all is! And when I began to ask questions about 'the other side of the equation', I soon understood the disadvantages of being locked into polarity. Once you are locked into a polarity you really cannot say that you think freely. So, what is there to be done? Just exactly what I have been stressing: Make the effort to research, label, expose and then dialectically consider the predicates which drive each valuation-system.

What I wish to suggest to you, Uwot, is that you yourself are now locked into determinants even when you see yourself as free of restraint. You have really very little fluidity in your view and so when you reveal what really operates in you, it is easy to discern how unfree you are. You are not in this sense a free-thinker, but one who reverts to mental routines to organise perception.

I would so much relish the conversation you envision! Yet at every turn you opt-out of the challenge of conversation, as you have done here, again.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

This goes out to Arising UK.

[The Inglorious One]

LOL! Ya know, I almost feel sorry for Auk. 'Radical liberalism' has him so discombobulated he's unaware of of the real world around him. Matthew 13:15 is as true today as it was two thousand years ago. I can't help but think of it as willful ignorance engaged in drunken song and dance because it hasn't the spine or wherewithal to see with open eyes and ears. Having no foundation, no foresight, no character and no genuine self-respect, he and others like him are like a frog that that allows itself to be slowly boiled to death.

How many of the rescued 'hoards' refuse to assimilate into the culture that rescued them and instead make demands on their host countries? They flee from the world that brings them misery only to bring it with them, while the cowardly 'Good Samaritan' who rescued them slowly surrenders his values and way of life to them.

The saddest part is that I really don't care. Not any more. I have come to believe that the frog is beyond redemption; it has been fatally wounded by hearts waxed gross, ears that are dull of hearing, and eyes that have been closed.

[Arising_uk]

This goes out to Arising UK.

Sorry but I can't be bothered to sit through an ad nor appreciate large pop-up banner ads just to hear a song, ironic given what you say.

Do you have another link? As I'm sure it must be hysterical and I like a good laugh.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I understand. Banner ads and such. I can't find the exact scene I was looking for in a short clip, but it is from the Kurosawa film The Lower Depths. The part I wanted to link to - a very remarkable and highly rehearsed scene though it looks natural, in fact they rehearsed for 2 weeks - is 'The Song' they all sing toward the end. Here and then go to about 0:40. Unfortunately this is overdubbed in Russian. It is worth watching though. Are you much of a film fan?

Don't really mean anything by it, except that in a sense these 'conversations' we are attempting, or not attempting, remind me of the overall impossible and somewhat tragic failure to communicate. It is really not 'our fault' and is a result of a breakdown or a falling-apart of entire conceptual orders. I feel at times that here I am in a Lower Depth.

Here's the scene that should be enacted here, for me, and Uwot and you and Lacewing and Bob the Baptist, and certainly Leo and Hex and even Jaded Sage (the Stoned Hippy) should parade down and bestow verbal awards and homages to honour and celebrate my contributions. Or do you think that's over the top somewhat?

Are you any good on the snare drum?

[The Inglorious One]

The first video is apropos, IMV.

[Arising_uk]

LOL! Ya know, I almost feel sorry for Auk. ...

Save your pity, I'd prefer if you'd just answer my questions but like most 'radical liberals' you avoid such things and prefer to speak vaguely.

'Radical liberalism' has him so discombobulated he's unaware of of the real world around him. ...

Which 'Radical Liberalism' are you referring to? Radicalism or are you just using it as a euphemism for Fascism?

Matthew 13:15 is as true today as it was two thousand years ago. ...

And yet you are blind to the message Christ gives?

I can't help but think of it as willful ignorance engaged in drunken song and dance because it hasn't the spine or wherewithal to see with open eyes and ears. Having no foundation, no foresight, no character and no genuine self-respect, he and others like him are like a frog that that allows itself to be slowly boiled to death.

And yet I have the character to respond to questions when asked, unlike yourself. What values is it that you are afraid we are losing? What is it you fear?

How many of the rescued 'hoards' refuse to assimilate into the culture that rescued them and instead make demands on their host countries?

Precious few, as most have made a valuable contribution to their host societies, at least over here in the UK they have. So where are you thinking of and who are you thinking about? Did you even bother to look at the actual numbers I provided or are you still with Matthew?

They flee from the world that brings them misery only to bring it with them, while the cowardly 'Good Samaritan' who rescued them slowly surrenders his values and way of life to them.

Who are you talking about, you are very coy on this matter?

The saddest part is that I really don't care. Not any more. I have come to believe that the frog is beyond redemption; it has been fatally wounded by hearts waxed gross, ears that are dull of hearing, and eyes that have been closed.

Boo Hoo! The saddest thing is that you think this worth sharing.