Ronald Beiner and his book "Dangerous Minds"

[Alizia]

Many Europeans dislike supernatural-themed myths. We should seek revised myths that don't include powerful supernatural persons.

But you are obviously one who does not believe in, perhaps cannot believe in, such a supernatural being. Naturally, any conversation about such would be evidence of a deluded view of things. I think I understand the trajectory of understanding that have led to that point.

Frankly, I have rather large difficulties in 'defining God' and I also have some problems when face to face with the established forms (the symbol-sets through which God is pictured). So I am well in the problem (the intellectual problem of Europe).

Oddly, I do not have a significant problem with Supernatural Divine Being is I understand God as non-physical, non-material and beyond intellectual comprehension. That is somewhat easy! I can also fairly well describe Christianity through its (rather lofty and laden) symbols. That is also not hard.

But perhaps like you, or if not you others similar to you, I stumble over the specificity of the Incarnation (and many other specificities that depend on it). The Catholic 'reformers' of Vatican ll (there was a longer causal chain that led to that reform) effectively ruined Catholicism though. Traditional Catholicism seeks a restoration and a reintegration with the original theology. But I am aware that in my own case there is a 'forced' element. But, I stay with it to respect the form and because, I notice, a good deal comes to me by holding to a faith position.

Not very scientific, I admit!

[Alizia]

Well, here's the problem with "scholarly distance." Usually, it's a good thing: especially when one is dealing with physical objects and phenomena -- keep any agendas out of it, until after the inquiry's done. Good plan.

The problem is that "religion" doesn't work like that. Take the beliefs and suppositions out of it, and it stops being a thing at all.

Yes, this is a good point. I have not read the man's books so, of course, I based my assessment on reviewing things that came up on Google (his Evangelicalism). Actually, it would be good to read a man who had converted from that religion to Christianity.

I also agree that only a practitioner of a religion can 'really' understand it. Therefore, one must turn to the best and brightest exponents of that religion to get information. It will mean that someone outside of the religion cannot be a part of the 'real conversation' and that the conversation can only take place among practitioners: those who have a 'religious-oriented mind'. (Those on the outside will not like that, or accept it of course.)

[Immanuel Can]

But you are obviously one who does not believe in, perhaps cannot believe in, such a supernatural being. Naturally, any conversation about such would be evidence of a deluded view of things.

Good point.

What Belinda's apparently arguing for is the "useful delusion" idea. People who hold to this idea observe that we have a need for a belief system to ground ethics, or a set of common assumptions that will help us orient law. They know that atheism won't provide this -- the belief that there is no inherent order or meaning in the universe gives no direction for such things, of course. And to believe in them arbitrarily -- that is, to hold onto the product while denying any value to the metaphysics that produced them -- well, that's just a recipe for cognitive dissonance and best, schizophrenia at worst. But in any case, it doesn't look durable at all.

And we do need ethics, human rights and law to be durable. They will have to survive many skeptical challenges and still provide the compass direction for these things, or what are they worth? Why bother at all?

So their solution is to say something like, "Well, let's deny the objective reality of Christianity, but let's keep it as a body of 'myths' around which we can organize some of these things we value, like ethics, human rights, and law." We'll throw out the literalities, but keep the "message," they think, and use the residue as the organizing principle of our society.

But who's going to buy that? After all, it requires us to believe in something we are assured is nothing but a delusion. Were we not told by all the atheists that that was the worst thing we could do -- to buy into "the God delusion," to parrot Dawkins? How then are we going to turn around and agree that what we rejected as being objectively real is now the very thing by which our society is to be durably organized?

The point is that nobody gets the goods without paying the piper. If we're not prepared to believe that man is dignified by being made in the image of God, we will not have any reason to believe he's dignified at all. If we're not going to believe in divine law and judgments, we're not going to have any basis from that for human law. And if we don't believe that right and wrong are objective properties of the universe, because the universe is a sphere of God's moral arrangement, then we are not going to have any durable ethics either.

Meaning, morals, human rights and law -- all will only prove as durable as our residual belief in the objective reality of God. A mere "myth" simply cannot hold that kind of weight. So the project of clinging to myths is doomed before it even begins, no matter how advantageous that might momentarily seem.

[Immanuel Can]

Those on the outside will not like that, or accept it of course.

True. The reason is that it suggests there's something real there that from their own cherished perspective they just cannot know about. It will deny them that they can ever have a useful view while they're standing on safe, familiar, neutral-seeming territory, and force them to make a personal commitment or be shut out forever. It's pretty insulting to be told you are just not capable of knowing something, and worse still to be told that your own attitude is the problem. So I understand the initial offence, and why they would not want to accept that.

But the case does get worse: Jesus Christ says, "Unless a person is born again he/she cannot see the Kingdom of God." In other words, He makes the extremely offensive claim that people are not at all on an epistemological level-playing-field when it comes to this issue, and will be permanently cut out of the loop unless they change their own personal attitude and relation toward God.

I really can't imagine how it could be more confrontational and offensive.

However, it is not my idea about it; it's how it's framed by the Originator. If they don't like what He says, that's something they'll have to take up with Him.

[Belinda]

Alizia wrote:

Frankly, I have rather large difficulties in 'defining God' and I also have some problems when face to face with the established forms (the symbol-sets through which God is pictured). So I am well in the problem (the intellectual problem of Europe).

As soon as one defines God one is naming one's own conceptualisation of God. God is nameless. Here the doctrine of the Incarnation of God makes sense, and God's incarnation in a man is better than incarnation in a book of rules.The former can move and understand like we understand whereas a book of rules is a battlefield of varying interpretations and none.

The "symbol sets" are aids to understanding the import. In this way the symbol sets of a religion are just like the symbol sets of any art form. They point to an idea but the receivers of the symbol sets understand them subjectively.

Alizia, 'supernatural' and 'eternal' are not the same . The eternal does not stand above the natural but is the natural conceived as undifferentiated.
My words sound absurd because philosophical language is not suited to the nameless. Symbol sets are needed.

[Alizia]

As soon as one defines God one is naming one's own conceptualisation of God. God is nameless.

In one sense to think in these terms is to assert that the meaning of reality is unknowable. I specifically said 'meaning' because it seems to me that everything depends on the question of meaning.

I do not mean to get too theologically abstract, and to move too far away from the political and social questions of our day, but I would say that we have no choice but to define God. And yet you are right: when we do so we reveal how we define 'what reality (life) means'. I don't see any way around it. Well, except not ever to think about it or to 'converse' it.

One of the impressions I have about our present generally is that it seems to ask that one stop thinking about the most important definitions, and to become comfortable existing within the mutability of things.

In frankness I see this as a devilish trick. This observation would connect back to my understanding of what materialism combined with Marxian philosophy will result in for the individual, and of course the individual as 'soul': the individual winds up captured by the forces of mutability with no access to transcendental concepts.

I would have to suggest -- as a necessity! -- that God can be known in some aspect. While it is simultaneously true that God must be, as existence seems to be, and being seems to be, beyond our capacity to describe, there is such a thing as revelation, and when this is looked into there is an Intelligence that is perceived and translated into human terms. There is no way round the 'translation', and in this way the meaningful Symbols come to exist. And obviously as I write this and think about it I am thinking specifically about things Christian and also Catholic.

So, within 'our' traditions the notion of God -- what God means and what God 'wants' (or even 'demands') -- has been structured into sound theology. But at that point you might be inclined to say 'Yes but it is all arbitrary'. That would be an introduction of the subjective supposition, wouldn't it?

Now, since what interests me is 'the restoration of Europe' in a wide sense, I am somewhat forced to say that these definitions, the basic theology that we all share (and it is shared among all the cultures and nations of Europe and the former colonies), needs to be rediscovered, reactivated if you will. In the abstract I do not think this is hard nor inconceivable. It is a question of being exposed to the source materials out of which our civilization, to speak of it in grand terms, has been constructed.

I think that the individual needs to resist the seductive influence of a range of stimuli that lull that individual into falling away from the 'transcendental link' and losing herself and himself in 'mutability' and 'existential drowsiness' (I am inventing these terms as I go in case you're curious!) My understanding is that the machinations of our present world (that is a Heideggerian use of the word) unseat the individual from a 'proper platform' within her- himself, and when that platform is lost the individual is lost. I would define 'perdition' in these ways, and that Modernity, in many ways, with conscious intention (which I suspect) or perhaps only thoughtlessly, brings people en masse into a state of perdition. (But at this point I would introduce the notion of 'sin' which, perhaps, you would not like. Sin as I understand it is not just a 'sinful act' but a form of nescience that is also a willful 'turning away' from Value).

In my own case -- and all of this is 'my own case' -- the question becomes What to serve? But in order to answer that question, as I have come to conceive the problem, one requires the initial definitions. And I do mean theological ones. Those are 'first principles' are they not?

Are they 'random'? Are they 'subjective'? Do they depend on human decisions or is 'God' involved in them? For me, I answer these question by reference to the 'dark glass through which something is seen'. We know that there is distortion -- the mind we have can only distort as it interprets -- but we sense that there is a pure source and -- I see no way round this -- we are forced to make decisions and to concretize our values, which is also to say our sense of what has meaning and is meaningful.

Now again, I think that some part of the rise of a New Right and especially a Traditionalist Right, that some of these people are going back over the relevant material -- the stuff of our civilization -- and then looking at the 'monstrous present' as a drowsy-making machine and a machination, and they ask What sort of a world (or community) do we want to live in? which is the same as saying What does life mean and what is of value in it?

[uwot]

I also agree that only a practitioner of a religion can 'really' understand it. Therefore, one must turn to the best and brightest exponents of that religion to get information.

Yeah but, by the same token, you should turn to the best and brightest exponents of astrology, alchemy, dowsing, homeopathy, string theory, etc, etc. What people do is create a story based on a few axioms they either believe, or wish to be true. All philosophy can tell you is whether a narrative is coherent. It is not in the business of determining whether those axioms are true; that's the job of scientists and historians. As it stands, there is no scientific evidence that God exists, and no historical evidence that the key events in any religious text actually happened.
None of this would matter if nutcases didn't insist that their ghastly political views were mandated by the nonsense on stilts cooked up by ancient and medieval writers. David Hume is brilliant on this: religion is proof of at least one miracle-that anyone believes it.

[Alizia]

None of this would matter if nutcases didn't insist that their ghastly political views were mandated by the nonsense on stilts cooked up by ancient and medieval writers. David Hume is brilliant on this: religion is proof of at least one miracle-that anyone believes it.

I can say that I understand what you are saying. Though it would be helpful if you would cite specifically where Hume said that as I would like to see if I have it and to read it.

It also seems to me that many religious types no longer depend on 'ancient and medieval writers' to support their claims. Many of them do not even require an explanation of the metaphysics of the beliefs.

What interests me -- it is in some sense a contradiction of the critical stance against religious metaphysics -- is that hundreds of thousands, millions of men, give/gave their life within a monastic setting of discipline and worship (I am referring only to Catholicism as, I recently learned, though it is obvious, that Protestantism has no monastic traditions) to developing a 'relationship with Christ'.

Since you seem ever-so-slightly (!) to be opposed to the nutcases, how would you explain what these monastic types do? And when they assert that they receive something (as they certainly do) what is it that they receive? When they feel the exchange has been a good one? (Interior life exchanged for the exterior life or 'the world'?)

What in your view is the most ghastly manifestation of religiously inspired political views?

[Alizia]

Yeah but, by the same token, you should turn to the best and brightest exponents of astrology, alchemy, dowsing, homeopathy, string theory, etc, etc.

I see. Well, I am a triple Leo so I have my own cross to bear (so to speak). (That is a joke BTW, though I am a triple Leo according to that system, though I pay no attention to astrology).

Naturally, I see what you are saying. Once upon a time, the alignments of the planets in the constellations was seen as being relevant to existence in the 'here-below' and a sort of science was made out of it. If I am not mistaken homeopathy is based on a similar 'old interpretation' of reality. That like and unalike substances could be used to affect the organism (and even the mind).

These are the 'old sciences' aren't they? The old conceptions of how reality was constructed. Both interpretive and practical?

And you place the structure of Christian religious conception -- say for example that a divine intelligence exists and can be communicated with as a basic 'assertion' -- in the same category of belief (as it does seem to fall)?

[uwot]

I see. Well, I am a triple Leo so I have my own cross to bear (so to speak). (That is a joke BTW, though I am a triple Leo according to that system, though I pay no attention to astrology).

Well, enough to know what "triple Leo" means.

Naturally, I see what you are saying. Once upon a time, the alignments of the planets in the constellations was seen as being relevant to existence in the 'here-below' and a sort of science was made out of it.

There is plenty of evidence that shows your date of birth affects your life outcomes. It is a fact, for instance, that admissions to university are weighted towards people who were born in autumn. The drop off is almost linear from the peak of September, to the doldrums of August. The fact that in the first year of school, 5 year olds are in the same class as kids who are barely 4, apparently affects their opportunities for life. It is also the case that there is a similar weighting in international footballers, the peak being those born in January, again with an almost linear drop off to December. It just happens that football authorities take New Year's Day as the cut off point. It's the Relative Age Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect You might also consider how a child born in winter might be informed by being wrapped up, compared to a summer child. So yeah, your time of birth affects who you become, but linking that to the stars is almost certainly cobblers.

If I am not mistaken homeopathy is based on a similar 'old interpretation' of reality. That like and unalike substances could be used to affect the organism (and even the mind).

'Homeo/Homo' anything just means 'the same'.

These are the 'old sciences' aren't they? The old conceptions of how reality was constructed. Both interpretive and practical?

String theory? Not really. It's probably bollocks, but that will be determined by experiment. Maybe. Creationism and Flat Earth still have their adherents. Frankly, there isn't anything so obviously batshit bonkers that you can't find at least one fruitloop who believes it.

And you place the structure of Christian religious conception -- say for example that a divine intelligence exists and can be communicated with as a basic 'assertion' -- in the same category of belief (as it does seem to fall)?

Divine intelligence is not unique to christianity, and if the stories are to be believed, virgins were extruding sons of gods all over the mediterranean until 2000 years ago. What is a bit special about christianity is that, apparently, nailing someone to a piece of wood turns out to be a good thing.

[Alizia]

String theory? Not really. It's probably bollocks, but that will be determined by experiment. Maybe. Creationism and Flat Earth still have their adherents. Frankly, there isn't anything so obviously batshit bonkers that you can't find at least one fruitloop who believes it.

String Theory is a theory arising out of modern physics though. It is not comparable to belief in astrology which was, if my understanding of it is correct, based in an old proto-scientistic view, a system of interpretation of reality. At that time though, given the limits of understanding and the structure of the world as it was conceived, it was not illogical and therefore not a 'bat-shit' belief. It was the cutting edge of 'proper belief' at that time (again if I understand things correctly).

There are many different strange theories about physics, aren't there? String Theory would be a speculative theory, but it would not necessarily be believing something that had been scientifically disproven. Do you see my point? Astrology is believing that a planet, flowing through a particular constellation, can have some effect on the affairs on Earth. Or that the conjunction of two planets in a constellation will have some effect. Or the appearance of a comet (understood to be freakish and dangerous). Or the sign of the moon or the phase of the moon . . .

Also, I assume you know what astrological sign you are. Knowing that, does that mean that you agree to the system? I don't think so. I mentioned being a triple leo and all that it means is that one's sun, moon and ascendent were all in the constellation of Leo when I was 'extruded' from my non-virgin mother . . .

[Alizia]

I wrote:

And you place the structure of Christian religious conception -- say for example that a divine intelligence exists and can be communicated with as a basic 'assertion' -- in the same category of belief (as it does seem to fall)?

You responded:

Divine intelligence is not unique to christianity.

No, of course not.

What I was trying to get at is if, even in modernity and ultra-modernity, if the belief in divine intelligence with its various concomitants has been rendered absolutely impossible by the modern view itself?

I have registered and recorded your view that any such belief is absurd. That scientific view is the only proper means of seeing, investigating and interpreting reality.

But the larger conversation is about how people manage to renovate their metaphysical description of the world to accord with the new information that modernity avails. Does that make sense?

[Belinda]

Alizia wrote:

I think that the individual needs to resist the seductive influence of a range of stimuli that lull that individual into falling away from the 'transcendental link' and losing herself and himself in 'mutability' and 'existential drowsiness' (I am inventing these terms as I go in case you're curious!) My understanding is that the machinations of our present world (that is a Heideggerian use of the word) unseat the individual from a 'proper platform' within her- himself, and when that platform is lost the individual is lost. I would define 'perdition' in these ways, and that Modernity, in many ways, with conscious intention (which I suspect) or perhaps only thoughtlessly, brings people en masse into a state of perdition. (But at this point I would introduce the notion of 'sin' which, perhaps, you would not like. Sin as I understand it is not just a 'sinful act' but a form of nescience that is also a willful 'turning away' from Value).

The "transcendental link" can be experienced only by a mystical elite. I am not a fan of secret knowledge. Every person needs a good to trust to, and mystical experience is too undemocratic to serve. To trust to revealed truth is inauthentic behaviour and that's what I'd call "existential drowsiness". The proper platform then is for the individual to assume responsibility for his own choices. Inevitably there follows the freedom and the angst that accompanies responsibility for one's own choices. The alternative to personal responsibility is 1) trusting priests or 2) trusting a mystical elite. How can either of those be authentic choices?

I can't understand sin as a turning away from value, because I can't see how any man or beast could be alive and not value. I'd like to read some more of your ideas about value, as I suspect that I am missing something.

What do you think about Nietzsche's saying that Christianity is Platonism for the masses? For myself, that is not in itself derogatory about Christianity or the Christian narrative. Do some Christians and other religionists pay over much attention to theory and myth when it's more authentic to be benevolent, or even to observe religious rituals?

[uwot]

String Theory is a theory arising out of modern physics though. It is not comparable to belief in astrology which was, if my understanding of it is correct, based in an old proto-scientistic view, a system of interpretation of reality.

No one can prove that astrology is wrong. We know that there are seasonal variations that affect how our lives turn out. It could be because of the position of the stars, but there are much more plausible explanations, in my view. Yes, string theory is 'modern', and there is a bunch of mathematics to support it, but there is no more evidence to back it up than there is to support any god hypothesis.

At that time though, given the limits of understanding and the structure of the world as it was conceived, it was not illogical and therefore not a 'bat-shit' belief. It was the cutting edge of 'proper belief' at that time (again if I understand things correctly).

Logic is just a tool. Philosophers argue passionately, but impotently amongts themselves about the soundness of premises. It's all good fun, but meaningless. On the other hand, if a case is presented that is illogical-that can't even conform to basic Aristotelian syllogisms-it has no chance of being taken seriously.

There are many different strange theories about physics, aren't there?

Oh yeah!

String Theory would be a speculative theory, but it would not necessarily be believing something that had been scientifically disproven. Do you see my point?

If it is that anything that can't be proven false could be true, then yes.

Astrology is believing that a planet, flowing through a particular constellation, can have some effect on the affairs on Earth. Or that the conjunction of two planets in a constellation will have some effect. Or the appearance of a comet (understood to be freakish and dangerous). Or the sign of the moon or the phase of the moon . . .

So I gather. Bear in mind though that a passing bus, or even pigeon, has more demonstrable effect on your environment than balls of rock or gas that are so distant that they only show up as points of light when it's dark and it is really difficult to believe that heavenly bodies have any material effect on planet Earth.

Also, I assume you know what astrological sign you are. Knowing that, does that mean that you agree to the system? I don't think so. I mentioned being a triple leo and all that it means is that one's sun, moon and ascendent were all in the constellation of Leo when I was 'extruded' from my non-virgin mother . . .

I'm a 'Libran'. I don't wish to give you a hard time about it, but clearly you know at least three times more about astrology than I do.

[uwot]

What I was trying to get at is if, even in modernity and ultra-modernity, if the belief in divine intelligence with its various concomitants has been rendered absolutely impossible by the modern view itself?

Philosophy has the advantage over science in that it has discovered two things which are undeniably true.
1. There is not nothing, which we owe to Parmenides.
2. There is experience/thought, which was Descartes' insight.
You cannot state 'There is nothing', without demonstrating that it is false. Nor can you think there is no thought without thinking it. Beyond that, nothing is certain. There could be a divine intelligence, and if it were determined to remain hidden, you have to wonder what we mortals could possibly do to winkle it out.

I have registered and recorded your view that any such belief is absurd.

No you haven't, because nowhere have I said that. That's just you pigeon-holing. Fair enough; life is easier if it is digitised, then pixilated if necessary, but it becomes very complicated when it's a blur.

That scientific view is the only proper means of seeing, investigating and interpreting reality.

Well, seeing and investigating are science. Interpreting is philosophy. My background is philosophy, so I like a good story, but if what you see and investigate contradict your story, dump the story.

But the larger conversation is about how people manage to renovate their metaphysical description of the world to accord with the new information that modernity avails. Does that make sense?

Totally. I would just recommend that people be prepared to jettison their metaphysics if physics proves it wrong.