Christianity

[Dontaskme]

I can't critique what I don't understand, DAM.

Ok, I understand.

As I reckon it, God created Reality. God is not the Creation. Each -- God, Creation -- currently exist independent of one another, just as the novelist and his embodied thought, the novel (as it's committed to paper) exist independent of one another.

The apparent appearance that there is an objective reality independent of you, is real insofar as an object doesn't have any agency to know it exists, so the object is always dependant upon it's creator to be known. ''The dependancy'' of the object to have autonomy is always controlled by you the subject, the object is always of the subject as a concept known. There has to be an interdependancy between subject and object for reality to make sense....a phenomena known as subject and object interfacing.

What that implies, is that every object which is just a concept known, is a direct appearance within the only knowing there is which is consciousness. Consciousness being just another word for God. This is a metaphysical answer. Reality is in fact metaphysical in nature, it is beyond, or for want of a better word, transcendent of all thought and experience, which are transient appearances of God.

On another note: referring back to what you mentioned about the novelist and it's story existing independent of one another....this is true only in the illusory sense of the meaning of the word ''separation''
The novelists 'work' committed to ''words'' have never left the creator to live an independent existence apart from the creator, simply because the totality of reality is seamlessly undivided. All that was, is and ever will be created will forever be appearances within the creator - appearances can never be anywhere else other than already couched within their creator. Creator and Creation are one reality, not two.

Reality cannot be cut in two, in the same context, a knife cannot cut itself. Duality is all there is. Non-dual is identical to duality, just as a mirror reflection is identical to the mirror itself.

You're welcome.

[Belinda]

It's impossible to make an idol of nature.

It's very easy, actually. All you have to do is use your imagination, and invest it with all sorts of cognitive features an powers. You can use phrases like "Nature intends," or "Nature arranges that..." or "Nature causes..." You can add to it imaginary moral properties, by calling anything you deem "Natural" also "good." And you can even use it as a kind of replacement "God," as if Nature has some purposes in mind for you, and that by esteeming Nature you're being more faithful to it. You can use it as your orientation point for ethics and teleology.

That's deifying Nature. Not only can you do it, it has been frequently done by others, as well. Just anthropomorphize the sucker and admire it.

Some people who are called theists believe that God ia what is the case plus that what is the case was intended and planned by a creator

I know no Theists at all who believe that God is merely whatever "is the case," nor any that say God is what was "planned and intended" by...the Creator, you say? The "Creator," which means "God."

So now you've said that God, in addition to being "what is the case," is His own plans. That also makes no sense whatsoever.

I think you've lost yourself, B.

You have ignored that I defined nature as all that is the case. "All that is the case" is not anthropomorphising nature.It is you who anthropomorphise nature when you call all-that -is -the -case 'God'.

[Sculptor]

I understand that you were brought up with the assumption of god existing and you have not managed to extend your thinking to consider that this might be false.

We can CLEARLY SEE and UNDERSTAND that you have CONCLUDED and BELIEVE that it is an IMPOSSIBILITY that God could exist and you have NOT managed to be at all OPEN to even just consider that this might be false, either.

I AM NOT SHOUTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Alexis Jacobi]

Has it never occurred to you that Torah is a very serious document? If for no other reason, you should treat it seriously because of its immense influence in Western society.

You seem to assert that if I do not take the description of Reality offered in Genesis as a perfect representation of reality that I doubt the importance of the Jewish scriptures. However, what I am doing, and what I think must be done, is to see the descriptions offered in these scriptures as pictorial organizations of perceptions about the world. They give an account which is not reality or even truth (as we now define truth) but this is not to say that different levels of meaning, and thus important things, cannot be or have not been revealed through them. What I notice that you do (and it surprises me) is to try to square the genesis story with the scientific story. You once spoke of Adam & Eve as possibly an original ‘mating pair’. You might also be put in a position of having to explain in rational, scientific terms Noah’s Ark and Heaven only knows what else.

Since I will never be able to *believe* these stories, and also believe it would be absurd to do so, I must abandon your *style* of belief. But that does not mean that I abandon the ensconced *meaning* contained in the story.

However, what should be more obvious, and what is of more vital concern, is that once one element in the Biblican stories has been, say, punctured, that for many the entire Story unravels from top to bottom. And this is what has happened of course. And this is why you constantly confront people on this forum who ‘cannot believe’ and will never be able to believe what I refer to as The Silly Story more proper to a child’s conceptual capacities, but also reject the inner dimensions of what the Story refers to. So, in my view, I am left in this sense with the task of defending, or explaining, the content of the Story which is metaphysical and transcendent, and is in any case just an organization of perception.

It is a peculiar problem. The other implication is that I have to go beyond the simplified Christian story and seek a more complete model to explain similar *meaning* — and for this reason the Vedic conceptions have importance. Yet you rather violently dismiss them for a group of different reasons. I am aware of various philosophers — Rene Guenon is one — who have left the Christian tradition because it is too small, too restricting, and expanded their metaphysical model in the East. Then, they come back to examine the Christian model with a more expanded outlook and explain it better.

Obviously I offer some part of this view in what I write. Christianity is extremely limited in metaphysical description, but infinitely more complete in the translation of values down into the domain of human life. Christianity surpasses many other religions and metaphysical models, and yet its terms remain those of children (Edenic gardens, snakes, exile, curses, floods, arks, wandering, time spent in a whale’s belly, etc.)

These stories *no longer function* except of course among people in the Third World with a more primitive conceptual order. But then the reason for Christianity’s notable expansion (through Pentecostalism) is a sociological issue and can also be regarded through sociological lenses.

So if you (I will take you as an example) hope to communicate the Christian message in any effective sense among people who will not be able to believe The Silly Story (ever), I simply note that the apologetics will have to shift to another level.

The problem is that rigid conceptual structures have a very very difficult time adjusting. So what happens is that the traditional faction seeks with all its power to hold to the Story that supported the revealed meaning and must fight tooth-and-claw against those who seek to expand the concept-order.

In the end it is the Gnostics who will survive best (and I say this with some humor and irony given your contempt for gnosticism).

[Immanuel Can]

So now you've said that God, in addition to being "what is the case," is His own plans. That also makes no sense whatsoever.

I think you've lost yourself, B.

You have ignored that I defined nature as all that is the case. "

Obviously I did not. Look above. I saw exactly what you said. It just made no sense.

[Immanuel Can]

Has it never occurred to you that Torah is a very serious document? If for no other reason, you should treat it seriously because of its immense influence in Western society.

You seem to assert that if I do not take the description of Reality offered in Genesis as a perfect representation of reality that I doubt the importance of the Jewish scriptures.

You said you weren't sure you could take it "seriously." I think you can.

What I notice that you do (and it surprises me) is to try to square the genesis story with the scientific story.

Let's not call it "the scientific story." It's not. And giving it that title surrenders to it the pole position in the discussion without it having earned it. Let's call it "the Materialist story," which is what it really is.

Torah begins with a simple claim: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Those are its opening words. But that is also a serious claim, and one of signal importance.

Either God created the heavens and the earth,
or
Materials (inexplicably already somehow in existence) made themselves (by no dynamic we know) into the heavens and the earth.

You have to choose one of those claims to believe, and believe literally, because they are absolutely contradictory of each other on the point of the origin of the observable universe.

Now, you can affirm one, and make the other as somehow allegorical for the one you've affirmed; but you can't affirm both as the objective truth about the origin of the earth. That should be quite obvious.

That's a serious difference, one with all the consequences in the universe.

Since I will never be able to *believe* these stories, and also believe it would be absurd to do so,

What would cause you "never to be able to believe" that God created the heavens and the earth?

But that does not mean that I abandon the ensconced *meaning* contained in the story.

In this case, it certainly does. You can't say, "God created the heavens and the earth, but really it just happened by chance." That's a denial of the first claim.

...once one element in the Biblican stories has been, say, punctured, that for many the entire Story unravels from top to bottom.

I think "the many" are reading rather naively, then.

What sort of "puncture" did you have in mind? Let's look at whether or not it's really a "puncture," or just the first thing they are personally failing to understand.

But let's begin with that first Torah claim: "God created." Is it true, or is it false?

...the Vedic conceptions have importance. Yet you rather violently dismiss them

"Violently"? Well, let's not have any "violence" here. And "rather violently" -- I think that means, "with all the polite violence of an Englishman." I like that a lot. (Sorry, I'm not ridiculing you; I'm just very entertained by the imputation of my state of mind. It's very entertaining to imagine.)

You're right in this much: I don't believe what you call "the Vedic conceptions" for the simple reason that they contradict the Torah just as much as the Materialist story does. And of course I don't believe them: if I did, I'd choose to be a Hindu or a Materialist. But I think they're just myths, so I go with what I believe is the truth.

That's what we all should do, no?

...they come back to examine the Christian model with a more expanded outlook and explain it better.

I think what you'll find (and I've read lots of similar attempts to deconstruct Torah) is that they don't "explain" Torah at all; they rather attempt to "explain away" Torah.

They do the very think I pointed out above: they make the truth their own story, and tell us that Torah is merely metaphorical for that story. That being so, we no longer need Torah, since it's merely an allegory for their story, and as such, suffers by being less direct and clear than their tale.

Of course, they can never make the claims of Torah quite fit. For example, how do they manage to turn "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" into "There was no beginning (everything being eternal), and no personal or volitional God, and everything just already existed"?

That doesn't work...even as a mere allegory.

Christianity is extremely limited in metaphysical description, but infinitely more complete in the translation of values down into the domain of human life.

Why would we think this is true? What "values" do we know need to be "translated into the domain of human life," since all that's behind our reason for existing is Materials, on the one hand, or an indifferent Divine Force with no particular volition, on the other? What grounds our claim that these "values" are actually "valuable"? What are they "valuable" for? Why should anybody have to "translate them into the domain of human life"?

I don't think that's remotely plausible. I've seen it before as an explanation, but it seems so completely flimsy and incoherent with the basic assumptions of Materialism or the Gita that I cannot imagine what line of reasoning one could use to support it. But if you think you do, then I'm all ears.

Christianity surpasses many other religions and metaphysical models, and yet its terms remain those of children (Edenic gardens, snakes, exile, curses, floods, arks, wandering, time spent in a whale’s belly, etc.) These stories *no longer function* except of course among people in the Third World with a more primitive conceptual order. But then the reason for Christianity’s notable expansion (through Pentecostalism) is a sociological issue and can also be regarded through sociological lenses.

Okay, so you have some questions about how long a man can survive in the belly of a whale, or whether or not there are spiritual beings, say. Okay. Let's wait on those. Let's start with Torah's first and most basic claim: did God create the heavens and the earth, or are we here thought some kind of cosmic accident?

In the end it is the Gnostics who will survive best

"In the end" of what? I'm not sure of your powers of prophecy there, but I accept that the Gnostic error is one that pops up from time to time. Have you tried to integrate the Gnostic story with life? I think you'll be surprised at the consequences if you do.

One thing the Gnostic story denies immediately is Genesis 1:1. In Gnosticism, it was not "God," not the one Supreme Being that created the heavens and the earth at all; it was, instead, a dude called "the Demiurge," a lower being that, depending on which version of Gnosticism you take, was not "good" as Torah says, but was rather either incompetent or even deliberately malevolent. And the creation this "god" made was not "good," as Torah says, but was a prison for the spirit of man, since all materiality is evil.

Are you really going to go with the Gnostic story? If you do, you have to detach yourself from material existence, denying both Torah and the Materialist Story of origins. Are you really committed to that?

[Belinda]

So now you've said that God, in addition to being "what is the case," is His own plans. That also makes no sense whatsoever.

I think you've lost yourself, B.

You have ignored that I defined nature as all that is the case. "

Obviously I did not. Look above. I saw exactly what you said. It just made no sense.

It makes no sense because nature being all that is the case there is no supernature sitting up on high making plans.

[Immanuel Can]

You have ignored that I defined nature as all that is the case. "

Obviously I did not. Look above. I saw exactly what you said. It just made no sense.

It makes no sense because nature being all that is the case there is no supernature sitting up on high making plans.

Then what you said is merely anthropomorphic language or Nature-worship. For "nature" if we mean merely, "stuff" has no plans, no wishes, no intentions, no purposes, and no meanings, or anything else in the mind it doesn't have.

[uwot]

...in the irony void between Mr Can's ears:

What I notice that you do (and it surprises me) is to try to square the genesis story with the scientific story.

Let's not call it "the scientific story." It's not. And giving it that title surrenders to it the pole position in the discussion without it having earned it.

That position rightfully belongs to the biblical story, of course.

Let's call it "the Materialist story," which is what it really is.

Very well:

What I notice that you do (and it surprises me) is to try to square the genesis story with the materialist story.

One more for the road:

Either God created the heavens and the earth,
or
Materials (inexplicably already somehow in existence) made themselves (by no dynamic we know) into the heavens and the earth.

Because god's already somehow existence is entirely explicable, and everybody knows the dynamic by which she made heaven and earth.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Torah begins with a simple claim: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Those are its opening words. But that is also a serious claim, and one of signal importance.

As is often the case, when we begin from a point of error everything that follows is erroneous. I said that I do not believe in elements in the Biblical Story and I named them. I doubt that you believe in them either, though they come out of Torah. So, Gardens, encounters with snakes (though we will need eventually to discuss Satan and the diabolic because, in Christianity, the demonic figure looms very large), Arks, Soujourns in the belly of a whale and so much more that is part-and=parcel of Biblical story (which even the Jews don’t usually take literally and to explain the texts they resort to extraordinary exegetical feats and of course to Kabbalah) — a fantastical speculative realm.

But when the notion of creation is brought out — now that is a different matter. And it is a very serious matter for anyone who has awareness and who thinks. How is it that existence exists? Where is this occurring? If existence exists now, and is emanated from wherever it is emanated, Being must always exist. Or are we to imagine (and so much depends on the faculty of imagination!) that at some point it will all cease to Be? Since that appears to us impossible we must see Existence, and Being, as eternal. So whatever that is — this eternal being, this eternal necessary Being state, is what I gather we all are forced to suppose is God.

What does *creation* mean in this eternal context? A cosmogony of course, an explanatory story. There are dozens if not hundreds and they tend to follow similar lines.

But that is not the real issue, and it is not the difficulty. Existence and Being must be presupposed as being surrounded with impenetrable meaning. Anyone can make the assertion because it is intuitively necessary. Can you see any way around it? Whatever Being is, whatever Existence is, is inexplicable, and it seems to me that the mind balks at the very idea. The mind may also go a bit numb or go into an overloaded state. How can the mind (the conceiving mind and man’s imagination) take in the notion of Eternal Being?

So in this sense — and I note qualities of my own mind and tendencies of imagination — I have no issue at all with the primary assertion En arche hos logos kai logos hos pros theon.

But the real difficulty is in defining, quite literally, everything else. And I mean everything. So what I have been trying to say, because I think it is true, and the truth is an important one to grasp, is that any man (any person) who confronts the reality of Being will have to answer the question. And in my experience (intellectual) it is curious to note that how the question is answered shifts and mutates with time. Each explanation, or in any case those that I have encountered that are more involved than ‘we crawled out of a hole from the underworld into this world that we now inhabit’ — which indeed serves at least something of a function — always involves the weavings of extraordinary imagination. Things are intuited, and what is intuited has a necessary explanatory value, but nothing is ever concluded with absolute certainly. In the sense of provability. All metaphysics is speculative and intuitive and by saying this I do not mean to minimize metaphysical thought or render it irrelevant.

It is simply that metaphysical systems are explanatory systems and, perhaps unluckily, do not seem to coincide with our present, dominant material-scientific explanatory model. However, what is explained is of course limited to the domain of measurement of substance. And as an explanatory system material science explains, effectively, nothing at all.

We are stuck then, because we are beings that must have, that cannot do without, sophisticated and believable explanations as to where we are, what and who we are, what it means, and what we are to do here, and indeed what we should and must do.

For an explanatory system to have convincing power, it must seem final and indeed absolute and final. But if an explanatory system does not really answer the core question (or questions) another effort is required.

Everything that you wrote in the post I quoted from, as I hope you can see now, was based on a faulty assumption. You seem to imagine that I am trying to propose a ‘materialistic model’? That is not quite right. What I am saying is that each model — and the Christian model is among them — is obviously steeped in the former metaphysics. And in certain substantial senses it has been superseded by another model. Absurdity arises, as I think all can recognize, then the two systems are forced to cohabit.

So as I said you indeed made a serious effort to *explain* the Garden of Eden and Adam & Eve in that primeval garden by reference to an *original mating pair* and that is an example of absurdity.

When I refer to ‘gnosticism’ (I did clearly explain this) I do not mean historical Gnosticism. I mean the employment of a subtle form of mind that can examine both Systems from an adequate distance. It is in some sense a form of intellectual amphibiansim.

[Immanuel Can]

Torah begins with a simple claim: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Those are its opening words. But that is also a serious claim, and one of signal importance.

As is often the case, when we begin from a point of error everything that follows is erroneous.

That, as I pointed out earlier, was precisely Nietzsche's problem.

I don't think it's Torah's.

I said that I do not believe in elements in the Biblical Story and I named them.

Right: I know. But I think they're a whole lot less of a problem than you may think at the moment. However, to see that, you have to get ahold of the right end of the problem. And that's why I pointed you to Genesis 1:1, first.

I wasn't going to ignore the question: I want to address it. But we need that "beginning point" of which you spoke, because that's going to make all the difference, really.

But when the notion of creation is brought out — now that is a different matter.

No, you were right the first time: it's all important. But Genesis 1:1 is fundamental.

It is, in fact, Torah's own starting point. That's clearly not accidental. It lays the fundamental assumption from which every other conclusion is to be rightly drawn.

And it is a very serious matter for anyone who has awareness and who thinks. How is it that existence exists? Where is this occurring? If existence exists now, and is emanated from wherever it is emanated, Being must always exist. Or are we to imagine (and so much depends on the faculty of imagination!) that at some point it will all cease to Be? Since that appears to us impossible we must see Existence, and Being, as eternal. So whatever that is — this eternal being, this eternal necessary Being state, is what I gather we all are forced to suppose is God.

That's not a bad way of reasoning the thing through -- by no means the most conclusive one, and it raises significant questions, such as "How is a mere "being state" going to be capable of "creating" anything? But it's very indicative of the kind of philosophy one owes this question, and it's certainly in the ballpark.

What does *creation* mean in this eternal context?

One thing it certainly means is the absolute unavoidability of there having been some uncaused Cause that precipitated all the things we call "the Creation." If we posit that there was no such uncaused Cause, no Starting Point, if you will, then we get into the problem of infinite regress of causes. In other words, the chain of prerequisites to any event becomes eternal and infinite...and those prerequisites can thus never all be met.

And manifestly, that's impossible, because if the causal chain were infinite, then nothing at all would ever get started, and being would not exist. It does, so something "got this party started." And it, itself, whatever it was, inherently cannot stand in need of any causal explanation of its own, or the infinite regress occurs again.

But that is not the real issue, and it is not the difficulty.

Oh, I think it certainly is a big one. We can't rush past the problem of the inescapability of the necessity of an Uncaused Cause lightly. However, we can go on to think cogently about what kind of Cause fits the bill.

Whatever Being is, whatever Existence is, is inexplicable, and it seems to me that the mind balks at the very idea. The mind may also go a bit numb or go into an overloaded state. How can the mind (the conceiving mind and man’s imagination) take in the notion of Eternal Being?

It cannot, really. And if it could, it is not that there would be no Supreme Being; rather, it is that we, being capable of understanding all things, would BE the Supreme Being.

And since we aren't, we're going to have to live with our limited knowledge. Still, we can always make our own limitations better than they presently are.

So in this sense — and I note qualities of my own mind and tendencies of imagination — I have no issue at all with the primary assertion En arche hos logos kai logos hos pros theon.

Wait.

That's a BIG step. Are you sure you're ready for what it means? It would mean Torah's first claim is correct. And that would mean a whole lot of other things that might have seemed difficult to believe before lose all justification for skepticism. So are you declaring that as a definite position? Or are you even admitting it as a possibility? Because when we push our thinking farther, either one's going to turn out to end up at essentially the same place.

But the real difficulty is in defining, quite literally, everything else.

I'm not sure that I see that. Maybe you can develop that thought for me.

It is simply that metaphysical systems are explanatory systems and, perhaps unluckily, do not seem to coincide with our present, dominant material-scientific explanatory model.

Again, we don't want to conflate "Materialist" with "scientific." Materialism is assumptive...science eschews and challenges such assumptions. We shouldn't mistake Materialism and science for being compatible. As astute a Theist as Oxford's John Lennox and as committed an Atheist as Thomas Nagel have both made this point recently.

Materialism seriously undermines all confidence in science, actually; and that case is not hard to make. (If you're curious, I'll expand; if not, I'll subside.)

So what's in conflict is rather the assumption that no metaphysical entities can possibly exist. Science will obligate us to accept the existence of metaphysical properties, but scientific method, having no tools for dealing with such, remains mute on the question. And I think that's what fools so many people: they think that if science has trouble analyzing something, it must be unreal, automatically. But that's not at all true. It just means that science, properly understood, is a tool with a defined range, outside of which it lacks means to investigate.

It's silence on metaphysics, then, betokens nothing.

However, what is explained is of course limited to the domain of measurement of substance.

In science, you mean? Yes, that's the problem. Science is wonderful stuff for materials. It's no good at all when it gets to metaphysical things.

And as an explanatory system material science explains, effectively, nothing at all.

Well, to give science it's credit, it does really do wonderful stuff in explaining the material relations among things. It only starts to look lame when we ask of it things that science, as a method, never promised us it would deliver. Apart from such things, it works great.

We are stuck then, because we are beings that must have, that cannot do without, sophisticated and believable explanations as to where we are, what and who we are, what it means, and what we are to do here, and indeed what we should and must do.

Precisely. Because these are metaphysical questions.

Science cannot tell us about meaning, morals, consciousness, identity, teleology, rationality itself...and so on. Science cannot even be used to prove to us that science "works," since we have to already have that assumption even before employing the science to do that. And science, of course, can't deal more than indicatively with past events, and can only give us probabilities about future ones...even though all of us know we have a past and can expect a future.

So much for the idea that science is the business of explaining everything. Clearly, it's not. It's great in its realm, but either hamstrung or no good at all outside of it.

Everything that you wrote in the post I quoted from, as I hope you can see now, was based on a faulty assumption.

What "assumption" do you think that is?

You seem to imagine that I am trying to propose a ‘materialistic model’?

No, I didn't think that. I was merely pointing out that "science" is not identical or coextensive with "Materialism." I did not mean to imply I was indicting you with Materialism, at all.

So as I said you indeed made a serious effort to *explain* the Garden of Eden and Adam & Eve in that primeval garden by reference to an *original mating pair* and that is an example of absurdity.

I think you mistook my intent. At that point, my interlocutor had asserted that to believe in an original mating pair was (for some reason never explained) "absurd." But not only is it NOT absurd, it's the only plausible account. And that basic fact is true whether one goes with Torah or with the Evolutionary account of things.

What I was not saying was that the Evolutionary account of things was at all correct; only that it was bad grounds from which to try to launch the objection that an original mating pair is "absurd." Because even Evolutionism still has to believe that. There is only one alternative Evolutionary story, and it is far more problematic, since it requires the inexplicable appearance of thousands of suitably-evolved mating pairs.

Try telling the Evolutionary version of the story without an original mating pair, if you think you can do it. I think you'll see immediately what I mean. You're going to need to explain how more than two...plausibly even thousands or maybe millions, had the same sudden evolutionary "leap forward." And that, in itself is going to posit a mechanism you can neither explain nor demonstrate. It's going to requie you to invoke some kind of miracle, I think...or to prophesy the future emergence of an explanation we simply do not have now.

So now, what's easier to explain: one miracle, or a thousand all happening at the same time?

There is a (now dead) theory that was once called the "Punctuated Equilibrium Theory," or derisively, "The Magic Monster Theory. It tried to float the idea of Evolution not moving progressively or smoothly, by genetics and survival-of the-fittest and other such things, but rather in inexplicable leaps of sudden forward creativity, where multiple members of one species suddenly, and all together, "magically" became interfertile and all possessed of the required characteristics and DNA for the next big Evolutionary step....but I think nobody is still floating that theory today.

When I refer to ‘gnosticism’ (I did clearly explain this) I do not mean historical Gnosticism.

Oh, I see. Well, perhaps we ought to use a different word for that. Maybe...I don't know...do you mean "skepticism"? Or something else?

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's a BIG step. Are you sure you're ready for what it means? It would mean Torah's first claim is correct. And that would mean a whole lot of other things that might have seemed difficult to believe before lose all justification for skepticism. So are you declaring that as a definite position? Or are you even admitting it as a possibility? Because when we push our thinking farther, either one's going to turn out to end up at essentially the same place.

‘What it means’ is, and you are inferring this, something like intelligent design. Personally, I have already worked through this one to the degree I feel I need to: no matter what the event was — ex nihilo or some incomprehensible seed out of which everything comes — the fact remains that within that *something* everything that occurred was encased in *it*, present in *it*.

So, to say En Arche hos logos (In the beginning was the Word) seems to me to refer to that. It is a basic and I think inescapable notion: How could it possibly be? Everything that happened had to be intelligently expressed, if only as potential, prior to it happening.

So, while it is extremely easy in my view to accept the premises of ‘intelligent design’, what was designed, and what it all means, and the situation we find ourselves in (as fragile, mortal beings with awareness that must face death and annihilation, as well as all the ills that are attendant to our biological condition, including our limitations and ignorance in interpreting what we *see*)(which in truth means what we are not seeing since all perception is contingent to extremely imperfect *tools*), none of this is necessarily explained by either the Christian mythos nor any other mythic, metaphysical, speculative model.

Or to put it another way: any description can only be a sort of interpretive guess. However, the most important thing in my own view, which I claim only as my own, is that the specific Story of Torah, or any other explanatory model, even if any one of them arrives at correct conclusions about existential, moral and ethical questions, is still only a model, only a Story.

The Story is not the Truth, and the Story is not the meaning behind the story.

This is why I have, in a sense, a certain luxury: the sense of the Story, or what remains behind the Story, has not necessarily changed. What may have changed is that I do not require the Story in quite the same way. Because I can recur to meaning.

This: “And that would mean a whole lot of other things that might have seemed difficult to believe before” does not follow. So, for example, if I say that the Story of a primeval garden, if I am to take it as *reality*, is absurd, does not mean however that the notion of a Fall is not therefore real, or consequent in what it in fact indicates. What it actually indicates, therefore, is more important than the vehicle through which the meaning is conveyed.

But I cannot necessarily know, that is factually, what Fall means. There are different ideas and they have been expressed by different peoples at various times. The soul that ‘falls’ into a material entanglement, a biological/material entanglement, is a useful explanatory picture. But it also must entail something, if indeed, as the story goes, the Fall is a punishment, which indeed it is. So then, the notion of what comes along to restore man (here the idea of salvation enters) must be thought-through. The implications are not small and not irrelevant. Whether you accept it or not, and whether or not it can be *seriously* considered, the Vedic people could only see Jesus Christ as a manifestation of Vishnu. It is the same idea: an avatar of God that descends into the material condition.

When I said before that you *violently* reject even the comparison I was not referring to violence per se. But your contempt for the Krishna-Vishnu pictogram is palpable. In my view Eastern metaphysics can offer a great deal to Western metaphysics (if only in this realm of religious models, ethics, etc.)

My point though is that other peoples, in other times, have confronted exactly the same problem. How could it be otherwise? Because that is the problem that we face. It is ur-existential.

[Age]

I understand that you were brought up with the assumption of god existing and you have not managed to extend your thinking to consider that this might be false.

We can CLEARLY SEE and UNDERSTAND that you have CONCLUDED and BELIEVE that it is an IMPOSSIBILITY that God could exist and you have NOT managed to be at all OPEN to even just consider that this might be false, either.

I AM NOT SHOUTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I NEVER said you were. And, I am NOT shouting either, as I have explained MANY times previously.

I am just POINTING OUT that BOTH of you have NOT been considering that BOTH of your BELIEFS are False.

[Immanuel Can]

That's a BIG step. Are you sure you're ready for what it means? It would mean Torah's first claim is correct. And that would mean a whole lot of other things that might have seemed difficult to believe before lose all justification for skepticism. So are you declaring that as a definite position? Or are you even admitting it as a possibility? Because when we push our thinking farther, either one's going to turn out to end up at essentially the same place.

‘What it means’ is, and you are inferring this, something like intelligent design.

Yes, I thought that might be it. But I didn't want to jump to any conclusions without asking.

Intelligent Design is Theism, of course. So that would accord with Torah; but it would also be a denial of the Materialist-Evolutionary story.

So, to say En Arche hos logos (In the beginning was the Word) seems to me to refer to that. It is a basic and I think inescapable notion: How could it possibly be? Everything that happened had to be intelligently expressed, if only as potential, prior to it happening.

Yes, I see that. "Logos" is, of course, not merely "word" but "logic" and also a sort of divine guarantee, as we use the term "word" in a phrase like, "I want you to give me your word that you will..." As such, it definitely implicates not only intelligence (which it does, of course, but rationality and a personal level of investment in what is "worded."

That's pretty thorough Theism.

So, while it is extremely easy in my view to accept the premises of ‘intelligent design’, what was designed, and what it all means, and the situation we find ourselves in (as fragile, mortal beings with awareness that must face death and annihilation, as well as all the ills that are attendant to our biological condition, including our limitations and ignorance in interpreting what we *see*)(which in truth means what we are not seeing since all perception is contingent to extremely imperfect *tools*), none of this is necessarily explained by either the Christian mythos nor any other mythic, metaphysical, speculative model.

Well, that's the next step...but I wanted to see if we had the first step right, before I presumed we'd go to that question.

In other words, the question, "Is there a God?" comes before "What kind of God?" which comes before "Why did that God make what He made?" There's a logical progression there, for sure.

Or to put it another way: any description can only be a sort of interpretive guess.

Christians and Jews have long recognized just that fact. And it accounts for the proliferation of myths and stories around the world...lots of guesses. But Judaism and Christianity deal with that through another postulate, also implied in the use of the word "Word" in John 1 -- that is, the implication of communication. For one does not issue "words" to nothing. One speaks TO somebody...a recipient, a hearer, a receiver, somebody who benefits from the "word" communicated.

So Judaism and Christianity say, "Not only does God exist, but He communicates." His first "communication" was Creation itself; but beyond that, God Himself communicates in propositions and language. The nature of the Creator God is such that He makes Himself known. He reveals Himself in His Word.

If God does speak, then we are no longer only dealing with guesses. We have the propositional revelation of God. And all the human "guesses" that don't conform to that "word" are not worth any more than any other guess...only if to whatever extent they're lucky enough to capture, by accident or intuition, some element of the truth are they valuable; and to the extent they depart from God's self-revelation, they are not truth at all.

However, the most important thing in my own view, which I claim only as my own, is that the specific Story of Torah, or any other explanatory model, even if any one of them arrives at correct conclusions about existential, moral and ethical questions, is still only a model, only a Story.

That's taking an assumption that all stories are equal, and no story can be history.

Do we have any reason to think either is true?

This is why I have, in a sense, a certain luxury: the sense of the Story, or what remains behind the Story, has not necessarily changed.

Let's test that theory. We should be able to find it in two works as influential as the Torah and Gita, no?

What elements of the Gita do you think "remain" in Torah, and "remain" in "the meaning" behind both "stories"? What's that larger "meaning" that transcends the particulars of both Torah and Gita?

This: “And that would mean a whole lot of other things that might have seemed difficult to believe before” does not follow. So, for example, if I say that the Story of a primeval garden, if I am to take it as *reality*, is absurd, does not mean however that the notion of a Fall is not therefore real, or consequent in what it in fact indicates. What it actually indicates, therefore, is more important than the vehicle through which the meaning is conveyed.

I don't think "garden" is a problematic concept at all. It just means a collocation of plants...we see those every day. Are we to think that the God who we have already postulated created everything would have some difficulty with that? I can't see why.

But the Fall is interesting. For if there was no initial disobedience, then there was no Fall. If, for example, Evolutionism is posited, then there was never an event in which mankind chose to disobey God. The present conditions are, instead, merely the gradual outcome of billions of years of the movements of nature, and are neither more "good" nor more "evil" than that...and if man is out of step with his Creator now, there is no explanation for that fact in Evolutionism.

In short, Evolutionism offers no basis at all for a concept of sin.

But I cannot necessarily know, that is factually, what Fall means. There are different ideas and they have been expressed by different peoples at various times. The soul that ‘falls’ into a material entanglement, a biological/material entanglement, is a useful explanatory picture.

That's kind of the Vedas angle. But it doesn't work with Torah.

Remember that Torah is very definite about saying, reapeatedly in the opening chapters of Genesis, that the Creation was "good' and "very good." And that human embodiment, far from being a curse or a prison for the soul, was a gift from God, an instrument of action for man and an instrument of obedience and co-creativity with God Himself.

For Hindus, the "fall" is the "entanglement with the material world," (samsara, kharma, dharma, reincarnation, caste, and so on). But for Torah, mankind was unfallen and in relationship to God in the beginning. It was his act of disobeience that changed that. For Hindus, the "fall" is something that was done to us. In Judeo-Christian thought, it's something we did against God, and thus also against ourselves.

But it also must entail something, if indeed, as the story goes, the Fall is a punishment, which indeed it is.

It isn't that in Hinduism. And even in Judaism and Christianity, punishment is only one aspect of a complex thing. Yes, the Fall was a punishment; but it was also a natural consequence, since man had severed himself/herself from the only Source of life, health, goodness, light, and so on. And in a strange way, it had some positive sides as well. For in that God allowed man the choice, it was an affirmation of the human right-to-choose. And man was, as Torah says, going to "know good and evil" from then on; he would have means to choose his moral actions: autonomy was then affirmed, even at the cost of allowing evil. And the Fall also forms the backdrop of the story of salvation; for one does not need to be "saved" from that which is not a "fall" at all.

If "punishment" were the whole story, I think Torah would have ended at chapter 3. It wasn't, obviously.

...the Vedic people could only see Jesus Christ as a manifestation of Vishnu....

That's what happens when people try not to give up their myth in order to face the truth...they end up having to mash the truth to fit the narrative; they want to retain; and often, as in this case, they mash so hard they effectivley destroy the thing they were at pains to integrate and explain.

No Jew or Christian is going to recognize HaShem or Jesus in Vishnu, anymore than they would ever recognize Him in Allah or Ahura Mazda. And that's sensible: because you can tell who somebody's talking about by their descriptions, can't you?

So, for example, if somebody were to ask you, "Do you know IC?" You might say, "Yes: he's tall, male, middle-aged..." But if you said instead, "He's a five-foot, teenage trans-woman with one leg, then anybody sane is going to think one of two things: either...

A. You don't know IC at all, or

B. You know somebody named "IC," but it's certainly not the same IC they know.

Obviously, those are the logical conclusions from that sort of difference in the two accounts.

And if God is also real, and has a real identity and character of HIs own, and is not something we simply make up to please ourselves, and God is described one way in Torah and the New Testament, but differently in other accounts that talk about a "god," then a reasonable person is drawn to the same two possibilities: either the second speaker does not know God at all, or it's a very different "god" they're thinking of.

That's pretty common-sensical, isn't it?

In my view Eastern metaphysics can offer a great deal to Western metaphysics (if only in this realm of religious models, ethics, etc.)

"A great deal," you say?

Specifically, what? I'd be interested in knowing what specifics have struck you on that point: I'm assuming you must have something in mind...

My point though is that other peoples, in other times, have confronted exactly the same problem.

The "problem" being...what?

[Dontaskme]

Obviously I did not. Look above. I saw exactly what you said. It just made no sense.

It makes no sense because nature being all that is the case there is no supernature sitting up on high making plans.

Then what you said is merely anthropomorphic language or Nature-worship. For "nature" if we mean merely, "stuff" has no plans, no wishes, no intentions, no purposes, and no meanings, or anything else in the mind it doesn't have.

The FACT that the universe has absolutely no purpose or meaning, other than to just simply be, for no reason at all, is terrifying to someone like you IC

Your own personal 'Christ Worshipping' story is a local conscious direct human authored fictional story, believed to be real within the universal mind. So in your own personal illusory mind appearing within the universal God mind, the story is believable, real and true.

Language appears to make what is primarily Unknowable seem knowable. Human Language is an unreal fiction upon real nonfictional reality. The seemingly two 'opposite positions' are in fact a superimposition upon each other that are totally Indistinguishable from one and other, they are mirror images of the imageless.

The Nondual God is transcendent of anthropomorphic language. . Anthropomorphic language is the exact same image, aka imagined identified 'thought' thing upon God's imageless mind.

It's not the 'thought thing' known as the concept 'human' that is doing the worshipping. It's God's imageless mind appearing to itself as and through an image.

This is Nondual understanding, something that seems to go right over your head every time it is presented to you.
It doesn't make sense to you because you fail to make the distinction that the thinker and the thought are the same one unitary agent.

You also ignore my posts because you cannot compute that reality is absolutely nonsensical and that is why you will never understand nonduality. Newsflash, reality doesn't NEED to make sense, it doesn't need such a NEED...the need is purely a human attribute, in other words, illusory.





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