Christianity

[Janoah]

This is an idea, perhaps one would call it a *concern*, about an eternal life in a hereafter.

I think it is fair to say that all notions and ideas about an eternal after-life are completely speculative.

In my opinion, the idea of bliss in the afterlife with a good appetite is morally flawed.

WHY is this idea morally flawed to you?

Also, could you have an INTERPRETATION of that idea, which is NOT EXACTLY True, Right, AND Correct? And, the 'flaw' is ACTUALLY in YOUR INTERPRETATION and NOT in the idea, itself?

First of all, it is intuitively understandable - flawed, and even vulgarity of dreams of carnal pleasures, in particular, in the afterlife.
Explanation, true gladness - from overcoming own crookedness in heart, resting on laurels does not please for long, but turns into vulgarity.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Not a "vision." "Visions" are for dreamers and hallucinators. We're not chasing some picture in our heads. In fact, Christians have very little concrete to say about what the afterlife is actually like. As it is written, "Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him." It's simply beyond imagining, and beyond any vision a person can have. That's the Christian bottom-line on that.

I only meant ‘guiding idea’. A ‘vision of life’ is generally taken that way.

And I also do understand the importance of the sense you bring out with the scripture reference.

[Belinda]

I fail to see how that can possibly be the case. The parents who rear a child typically are the initial channels through which the child understands God, or anything else.. The child could not even learn his native language unless he was in a social situation.

For example I myself was reared in a Christian community, and I was Christened when I was a baby. The import of this ceremony was that my parents introduced me to the church community who would help them to rear me according to the Christian faith.

It's possible that some individuals at my Christening believed there was a mystical supernatural event happening, but such a belief would have been eccentric.

I believe I understand what you are saying. But to understand my social and cultural experience, which took place in California and in the post-Sixties, raised by fairly radical hippyesque parents who took we children to live in India for a year (among other radical activities) and who were also associated with the California 'human potential movement', that my entire experience has always and in a sense only been 'eccentric'.

But in this context I would have to introduce the sociological aspect of radical californianism, the influence of Ramakrishna, Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi) and then Carlos Castaneda within the context of social and political radicalism, the music scene, the turn away from 'conventional modes' in all areas, the 'search for religion', Jung, Campbell and so many others.

And to understand this, one would have to understand also the American 'great awakenings' (religious revivals that occurred culture-wide (1730s and again in the 1790s and again in the 1850s). California radicalism also became expressed in Pentecostalism right at the turn of the 20th century in Los Angeles. And Pentecostalism has, literally, swept the world. Very similar to the rapid spread of Islam.

These are *contexts* that have to be understood to then better understand successive evolutions in California. Most people do not have this conceptual/historical background (and as I previously said I got my understanding from Harold Bloom).

In what I see and what I write I am speaking as one who has experienced a great deal of this when I was growing up -- that is through the influence of my parents and their contexts. It was for me the norm to understand eccentricity as the proper and the good.

When I wrote "such a belief would have been eccentric" I did not mean to imply others in the church community would have thought the belief mad, or bad. I meant only to compare central belief style to beliefs on the outer periphery. I think that in a conventional Scottish Presbyterian kirk in the 1930s it would be proper and polite at least to give lip service to miracles and such like.

[Age]

In my opinion, the idea of bliss in the afterlife with a good appetite is morally flawed.

WHY is this idea morally flawed to you?

Also, could you have an INTERPRETATION of that idea, which is NOT EXACTLY True, Right, AND Correct? And, the 'flaw' is ACTUALLY in YOUR INTERPRETATION and NOT in the idea, itself?

First of all, it is intuitively understandable - flawed, and even vulgarity of dreams of carnal pleasures, in particular, in the afterlife.

Again, could YOUR INTERPRETATION of what the word 'afterlife' ACTUALLY means and is referring to be 'flawed'?

Explanation, true gladness - from overcoming own crookedness in heart, resting on laurels does not please for long, but turns into vulgarity.

Okay, if you say so. But, I have absolutely NO idea NOR clue what you are talking about and/or referring to.

[uwot]

That mind, free will, ownness, and conscience are real and have no source in the matter of man, that -- seems to me -- is a reason for others to mebbe consider they're more than a peculiar arrangement of materials...

What sort of person do you imagine doesn't?

...and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

Well it is if you're a deist, but I take your point

[henry quirk]

uwot,

Great that they work for you. Is that any reason they should work for others?

That they work for me is no reason at all. That mind, free will, ownness, and conscience are real and have no source in the matter of man, that -- seems to me -- is a reason for others to mebbe consider they're more than a peculiar arrangement of materials and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

What sort of person do you imagine doesn't?

Guy, this place, for example, is lousy with folks who think mind is just a process of the brain, morality is just opinion, free will is an illusion, and the universe is a rudderless affair.

That sort of person.


...and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

Well it is if you're a deist, but I take your point



I'm a deist, I don't see it as a rudderless affair. Quite the opposite, actually.

Serious question: why would I, as a deist, see Reality as a rudderless affair?

[uwot]

That mind, free will, ownness, and conscience are real and have no source in the matter of man...

How did you work that out? What is it about 'the matter of man' that precludes those things?

...that -- seems to me -- is a reason for others to mebbe consider they're more than a peculiar arrangement of materials and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

What sort of person do you imagine doesn't?

Guy, this place, for example, is lousy with folks who think mind is just a process of the brain, morality is just opinion, free will is an illusion, and the universe is a rudderless affair.

That sort of person.

Maybe 'consider' doesn't translate very well. Granted there are a few here who are certifiably batshit, but even some of those will have considered, as in 'thought about', different possibilities before drawing their conclusion. From where I'm standing, this place is just as lousy with people who believe that their god is the answer to everything. It is intellectual snobbishness to presume that people who have reached different conclusions haven't thought as deeply.

Serious question: why would I, as a deist, see Reality as a rudderless affair?

Is your god steering this thing? Even some theists insist that god doesn't interfere with our free will.

[henry quirk]

How did you work that out? What is it about 'the matter of man' that precludes those things?

Well, instead of me writin' an essay (I really don't wanna), let me ask: where in our physicality does mind originate? Why should any man feel outrage at bein' property? Why should good and evil concern man when good old utilitarianism ought be enough? Why, in an apparent cause & effect world, does it seem man can choose, often for reasons that have nuthin' to do with with prior circumstances (the causal chain he's mired in)?

Not tryin' to be diversionary: just wanna present the *minimal evidence (it's cold and my hands hurt).


Maybe 'consider' doesn't translate very well. Granted there are a few here who are certifiably batshit, but even some of those will have considered, as in 'thought about', different possibilities before drawing their conclusion. From where I'm standing, this place is just as lousy with people who believe that their god is the answer to everything. It is intellectual snobbishness to presume that people who have reached different conclusions haven't thought as deeply.

Point taken.


Is your god steering this thing? Even some theists insist that god doesn't interfere with our free will.

Oh no, but He set the initial conditions with, it seems to me, a intent to produce mind and free will. A universe of just automation woulda been simpler. So, no, He doesn't steer it, or even involve Himself in its workings, but He set it in motion with a purpose, and mebbe the hope of a particular outcome.




*teasers: neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield's research with epileptics, and, hemispherectomies

[Janoah]

WHY is this idea morally flawed to you?

Also, could you have an INTERPRETATION of that idea, which is NOT EXACTLY True, Right, AND Correct? And, the 'flaw' is ACTUALLY in YOUR INTERPRETATION and NOT in the idea, itself?

First of all, it is intuitively understandable - flawed, and even vulgarity of dreams of carnal pleasures, in particular, in the afterlife.

Again, could YOUR INTERPRETATION of what the word 'afterlife' ACTUALLY means and is referring to be 'flawed'?

Explanation, true gladness - from overcoming own crookedness in heart, resting on laurels does not please for long, but turns into vulgarity.

Okay, if you say so. But, I have absolutely NO idea NOR clue what you are talking about and/or referring to.

If you said what exactly you do not understand, I could explain.

[Age]

First of all, it is intuitively understandable - flawed, and even vulgarity of dreams of carnal pleasures, in particular, in the afterlife.

Again, could YOUR INTERPRETATION of what the word 'afterlife' ACTUALLY means and is referring to be 'flawed'?

Explanation, true gladness - from overcoming own crookedness in heart, resting on laurels does not please for long, but turns into vulgarity.

Okay, if you say so. But, I have absolutely NO idea NOR clue what you are talking about and/or referring to.

If you said what exactly you do not understand, I could explain.

But I did NOT say I do not understand ANY thing here. I said what I said, and this was because I asked you if you KNEW WHY your INTERPRETATION was flawed?

I was waiting for an (Honest) answer to that OPEN CLARIFYING question, and so ANY thing else you started talking about here I had absolutely NO idea NOR clue what that was about nor referring to.

I was and still am just WAITING for your answer to my clarifying question, posed to you.

[Belinda]

uwot,

Great that they work for you. Is that any reason they should work for others?

That they work for me is no reason at all. That mind, free will, ownness, and conscience are real and have no source in the matter of man, that -- seems to me -- is a reason for others to mebbe consider they're more than a peculiar arrangement of materials and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

What sort of person do you imagine doesn't?

Guy, this place, for example, is lousy with folks who think mind is just a process of the brain, morality is just opinion, free will is an illusion, and the universe is a rudderless affair.

That sort of person.


...and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

Well it is if you're a deist, but I take your point



I'm a deist, I don't see it as a rudderless affair. Quite the opposite, actually.

Serious question: why would I, as a deist, see Reality as a rudderless affair?

Henry, deism is the belief that God did indeed create it all and set it all in motion, and then left it all to get on with what it does without His intervening ever again.

[Janoah]

Again, could YOUR INTERPRETATION of what the word 'afterlife' ACTUALLY means and is referring to be 'flawed'?


Okay, if you say so. But, I have absolutely NO idea NOR clue what you are talking about and/or referring to.

If you said what exactly you do not understand, I could explain.

But I did NOT say I do not understand ANY thing here. I said what I said, and this was because I asked you if you KNEW WHY your INTERPRETATION was flawed?

I was waiting for an (Honest) answer to that OPEN CLARIFYING question, and so ANY thing else you started talking about here I had absolutely NO idea NOR clue what that was about nor referring to.

I was and still am just WAITING for your answer to my clarifying question, posed to you.

If you understood my words, then I would be interested to know if you agree with them?

[henry quirk]

uwot,

Great that they work for you. Is that any reason they should work for others?

That they work for me is no reason at all. That mind, free will, ownness, and conscience are real and have no source in the matter of man, that -- seems to me -- is a reason for others to mebbe consider they're more than a peculiar arrangement of materials and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

What sort of person do you imagine doesn't?

Guy, this place, for example, is lousy with folks who think mind is just a process of the brain, morality is just opinion, free will is an illusion, and the universe is a rudderless affair.

That sort of person.


...and that Reality may not be a rudderless affair.

Well it is if you're a deist, but I take your point



I'm a deist, I don't see it as a rudderless affair. Quite the opposite, actually.

Serious question: why would I, as a deist, see Reality as a rudderless affair?

Henry, deism is the belief that God did indeed create it all and set it all in motion, and then left it all to get on with what it does without His intervening ever again.

Yep, that's what vanilla deism sez.

(I'm havin' deja vu, B: seems to me, we -- you and me -- talked about the strains of deism before.)

[Age]

How did you work that out? What is it about 'the matter of man' that precludes those things?

Well, instead of me writin' an essay (I really don't wanna), let me ask: where in our physicality does mind originate? Why should any man feel outrage at bein' property? Why should good and evil concern man when good old utilitarianism ought be enough? Why, in an apparent cause & effect world, does it seem man can choose, often for reasons that have nuthin' to do with with prior circumstances (the causal chain he's mired in)?

Not tryin' to be diversionary: just wanna present the *minimal evidence (it's cold and my hands hurt).


Maybe 'consider' doesn't translate very well. Granted there are a few here who are certifiably batshit, but even some of those will have considered, as in 'thought about', different possibilities before drawing their conclusion. From where I'm standing, this place is just as lousy with people who believe that their god is the answer to everything. It is intellectual snobbishness to presume that people who have reached different conclusions haven't thought as deeply.

Point taken.


Is your god steering this thing? Even some theists insist that god doesn't interfere with our free will.

Oh no, but He set the initial conditions with, it seems to me, a intent to produce mind and free will. A universe of just automation woulda been simpler. So, no, He doesn't steer it, or even involve Himself in its workings, but He set it in motion with a purpose, and mebbe the hope of a particular outcome.




*teasers: neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield's research with epileptics, and, hemispherectomies

When you work out what the 'purpose' IS, EXACTLY, which has been set, then you will have garnished the PROOF, AS WELL.

Also, WHY do you refer to "your" God as a "he"?

[Age]

If you said what exactly you do not understand, I could explain.

But I did NOT say I do not understand ANY thing here. I said what I said, and this was because I asked you if you KNEW WHY your INTERPRETATION was flawed?

I was waiting for an (Honest) answer to that OPEN CLARIFYING question, and so ANY thing else you started talking about here I had absolutely NO idea NOR clue what that was about nor referring to.

I was and still am just WAITING for your answer to my clarifying question, posed to you.

If you understood my words, then I would be interested to know if you agree with them?

If this was what you were interested in, then it would have been better and much simpler for both of us if you just expressed this.

Now, would you like me to answer your clarifying for you here while completely rejecting the clarifying question I asked you earlier?