Christianity

[Dontaskme]

The point is very simple: there's nothing irrational or unusual about saying that the human race began with an original mating pair.

Who was the very first human? where did the very first human come from? or was the human race you are talking about conceived by a two headed entity?



You are talking to yourself again aren't you IC?

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, I'm not that ambitious. And I would never try to "reconcile" a lie with the truth.

You have involved me in something truly weird but I resolve to carry on through it.

What I will say is that the Adam & Eve story is a mythological story but mythological stories are not 'lies' for the simple reason that a mythological tale often seems to reveal great truths. Consider the Platonic Myth of Er, the Symposium Myths, the Myth of the Earth-Born and numerous others that most are aware of. So when you assert that the view I present -- that the Adam & Eve story is a mythology -- is a lie, it is you and not me who gets wrapped up in a lie or a mistruth. I do not declare it a 'lie' I declare it as being a mythology.

You attempt -- bizarrely really -- to reconcile two explanatory systems: one mythological and an Origin Story, and the other extremely modern and scientific. I do not think the two versions can be reconciled yet it is exactly this effort that I focus on in order to expand on the idea of our living in the dusk of one metaphysical explanatory story and the dawn of another, competing and superseding one. In my own case -- I try to make this plain -- I am certainly not interested in doing away from all that is connoted in the former metaphysical system (we have discussed it here as The Great Chain of Being). If I did that I would place myself outside of the capacity to recognize the profound value, for example, in Shakespeare's works, but really in a line of thought and perception that runs through all 'our traditions'.

So, and this is what I think becomes plain for all to see, my effort is not destructive but is rather a constructive one. But I think this must be contrasted with those who, for a host of reasons, seek to radically undermine the metaphysics by poking holes in the story-line. And that effort is visible all across this forum. So in this sense those who engage in that project correspond to those men described in the Bhagavad-Gita: "They say 'The world has no moral foundation, no abiding truth, no God or Ruler; is produced not by a systematic causal order; its sole purpose is lustful desire'.

So I see the issue as one of dealing with both the Twilight of the Idols as well as the Dawning which, I think it fair and relevant to say, does not come particularly easily.

Now if you said to me (as you imply) "Well, you are not a real Christian!" I would not so much disagree with you as I would try to use that assertion as a starting point to examine what, in fact, I actually am and what I am actually attempting. How should me effort and my *project* be seen in relation to the orthodoxy expressed in the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita for example? Is my work divine or demonic?

But that involves a whole other range of questions and explorations -- what does 'demonic' and what does 'divine' mean anymore? How will we speak about those things? Should the entire structure of thought and perception be abandoned? Or should it be re-explored and redefined?

The other question is really How are we to look upon the intensely active and seemingly highly committed atheists who inhabit this forum? I find it interesting to notice where their 'philosophy', as rubber that hits the proverbial road, leads. On all levels really. I noticed this in the thread in Aesthetics where one contributor spoke of his hopelessness and faithlessness and many of the others chimed in with similar notes. The musical analogy is not merely aesthetic! These are 'notes of discord' that reverberate through consciousness. Ideas have consequences. And here the consequence of nihilism make their influence felt -- lived in fact.

And what then are the harmonizing notes?

What I'm doing instead is simply refuting the claim that believing in an original mating pair is somehow unscientific or irrational. It is, in fact, the only plausible thing one can believe in. And I merely point out that even the Evolutionist ends up doing the same thing.

Actually, you are doing far more than just that. And my suggestion, welcome or unwelcome, is to turn the Lens of Examination around and focus it on you just as I and we are advised to do the same in regard to ourselves. But that involves, as I have said, developing in oneself some capacity to see things as a Master Metaphysician might. That is, as someone who can span the two epistemological systems but not lose the metaphorical ground within our own selves. That is, become lost, disconnected, certain within destructive certainties that seem, as those who examine nihilism say, to act on us like poisons, not life-tonics.

Because in this sense, when we examine the intense burrowing activity of those we define as atheists and nihilists, I think that we cannot but describe them as seeking after solid truths -- those truths necessary for good living. So on one hand they seek through radical redefinitions to undermine and expel a religious understanding (what we refer to when we say *Christianity*) in order to clear the ground of what they see as 'false', but simultaneously they seem, at least from my angle of view, to cut the branch that supports them.

Being somewhat Biblically literate yourself, you will no doubt already know that the name "Adam" means "earth man," and the name "Eve" means "living." The first man is a creature of the earth, and the first woman, being essential for procreation, is the mother of all the living. So nothing in those names is anything but accurate.

Here you are engaging with the Story through allegory which is, of course, how the Talmudists generally speaking approach it and *interpret* it. You are now offering a 'midrash' or in any case it tends toward that:

Midrash (/ˈmɪdrɑːʃ/; Hebrew: מִדְרָשׁ; pl. מִדְרָשִׁים midrashim) is expansive Jewish Biblical exegesis using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The word itself means "textual interpretation", or "study", derived from the root verb darash (דָּרַשׁ‎), which means "resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require", forms of which appear frequently in the Hebrew Bible.

Midrash and rabbinic readings "discern value in texts, words, and letters, as potential revelatory spaces", writes the Hebrew scholar Wilda Gafney. "They reimagine dominant narratival readings while crafting new ones to stand alongside—not replace—former readings. Midrash also asks questions of the text; sometimes it provides answers, sometimes it leaves the reader to answer the questions". Vanessa Lovelace defines midrash as "a Jewish mode of interpretation that not only engages the words of the text, behind the text, and beyond the text, but also focuses on each letter, and the words left unsaid by each line".

Now Adam is 'the first man' and Eve has become 'life'. These are essentially poetic references and this is usually what mythology deals in: allegorical notions.

However, if you desire to remain committed to the idea that God dropped those two persons, the *mating pair* Adam & Eve, into the world He had just created -- essentially the literalist version of the Genesis story -- I can only step aside and let you go at it.

However, I simply try to elucidate what my own plan and intention is within this entire matrix. And it is quite fair for you, as a strict and absolute 'believer' in an absolutely strict rendition of the Story, to oppose what I do. And effectively to see me not as an ally in your struggle but rather as just one more adversary. Or one more that you must try to convince of the veracity of your view and your method.

[Immanuel Can]

The point is very simple: there's nothing irrational or unusual about saying that the human race began with an original mating pair. Take the Biblical narrative or take your "ascent of man" theory, and you have to begin with the same assumption. In fact, it's irrational and implausible to believe anything else.

For that to be true we would have to know the exact time we became human in order to identify the original mating pair.

No, there's a difference between knowing THAT they had to exist, and knowing WHO they were precisely. We can leave the latter unspecified, in deferences to your preferences, with no harm to the claim.

Only through intentional creation, as declared in myth and religion, can there be an original mating pair.

I think that's true. But even an "ascent of man" ideologue has to believe it's true. There's simply no other way for biological "evolution" to have taken place, either.

[Immanuel Can]

Being somewhat Biblically literate yourself, you will no doubt already know that the name "Adam" means "earth man," and the name "Eve" means "living." The first man is a creature of the earth, and the first woman, being essential for procreation, is the mother of all the living. So nothing in those names is anything but accurate.

Here you are engaging with the Story through allegory which is, of course,

"Of course"? Nothing of the kind. That's not obvious.

You're making the old mistake of supposing that a story can only be either literal or metaphorical, and that if it is one, it cannot possibly also be the other, and that to use it as one eliminates the possibility of the other. All that is untrue, of course, as such noteworthies as C.S. Lewis and Jordan Peterson have pointed out on various occasions: a narrative can be both literal and metaphorical.

Here are some examples: Constantine at Milvian Bridge, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, Napoleon meets his Waterloo, going on a witch hunt, a bridge too far...all these refer to events that are metaphorical today, but are also literal historical happenings.

So when we say that the first man was called "Adam," we can be speaking both literally and metaphorically. There is no dichotomy there...or at least, there need not be, even if you decide to make one. That's your choice, of course.

[Immanuel Can]

You are talking to yourself again aren't you IC?

If you say something interesting, maybe I'll talk to you.

Maybe not, if you don't.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You're making the old mistake of supposing that a story can only be either literal or metaphorical, and that if it is one, it cannot possibly also be the other, and that to use it as one eliminates the possibility of the other. All that is untrue, of course, as such noteworthies as C.S. Lewis and Jordan Peterson have pointed out on various occasions: a narrative can be both literal and metaphorical.

The fallacy of appeal to authority.

A narrative may indeed be both literal and metaphorical -- good work there.

However, your assertion is that the Adam & Eve story pertains to two persons, manifested out of the nothing, who were established in a garden, protected from disease and death in a primeval garden, who at some tragic point disobeyed, were thrown out of the garden and, somehow, produced humanity and dragged all Creation down into a degraded state, are concomitants that all question.

To believe the story literally binds one down into a whole range of other necessary and ancillary beliefs that must be defended like a proverbial junkyard dog. One must 'hold together the fabric of a system of belief' and keep it from unraveling. One has to patch it up here, and then there, or alternatively, to believe by a willed decision the literal story in exactly literal terms, despite any opposition.

But my view is that it is not the Story that contains the truths we seek. The truths that I would define as Truths exist independently of any specific Story. It is not a view without some problematic elements but it is the only way I see to move forward creatively.

[Immanuel Can]

You're making the old mistake of supposing that a story can only be either literal or metaphorical, and that if it is one, it cannot possibly also be the other, and that to use it as one eliminates the possibility of the other. All that is untrue, of course, as such noteworthies as C.S. Lewis and Jordan Peterson have pointed out on various occasions: a narrative can be both literal and metaphorical.

The fallacy of appeal to authority.

It's not a fallacy here. Both were/are experts in mythology.

A narrative may indeed be both literal and metaphorical -- good work there.

Thank you. But it's not an original insight. I borrowed it from greater minds than mine.

However, your assertion is that the Adam & Eve story pertains to two persons, manifested out of the nothing, who were established in a garden, protected from disease and death in a primeval garden, who at some tragic point disobeyed, were thrown out of the garden and, somehow, produced humanity and dragged all Creation down into a degregated state, is the concomitant that all question.

However, that's a secondary concern, not the primary one. The question was whether or not the very positing of ANY original mating pair was rational and scientific or not.

The answer turns out to be "Yes: there is no other rational possibility."

And my claims (so far) have not extended any further. And the advantage of that is that you get to see that each phase of my argument is actually well-rationalized and solid before we move on to anything more complicated.

So here we are: we have a solid reason to believe in an original mating pair.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It's not a fallacy here. Both were/are experts in mythology.

I referred to the fallacy of an appeal to authority argument because you dropped names but did not present how, and why, and what precisely they argued. And with 'they were both experts in mythology' you do the same again.

However, that's a secondary concern, not the primary one. The question was whether or not the very positing of ANY original mating pair was rational and scientific or not.

What is more interesting than your (bizarre) assertion is the general fallaciousness of all your argument on this topic in this part of this thread. Respectfully, I played along with you since you ask for this, but I do not agree at all with what you are trying to do and to establish.

You are trying to bolster the mythological (obviously this is my view) Genesis story in which one prefabricated human was dropped into the world, and then split in two, and lived in a garden where deathlessness reigned. The entire Cosmos must have shared in this deathless, protected state, but with an act of disobedience those two were exiled and, as punishment, death introduced into their world but moreover into the entire cosmos which degenerated with them.

These are metaphors and allegories and as I say attempts to organize a way of understanding the way things are. You can of course believe what you choose to believe, but my point is that 1) only the simple-minded will actually be able to believe such a thing which means that to believe it requires an act of the will which is also described as *having faith*, and 2) that those who do the best work with the myth are those who allegorize it and draw a wide range of meaning from it.

I do not have the impression that those who try to enforce its literality get much benefit or a comparable benefit.

And my claims (so far) have not extended any further.

This cannot be but disingenuous. For the simple reason that you are attempting, through strange sophistic tactics, to explain why the Genesis story should be seen as a description of a natural history.

If you are not then please come out and say so.

The reason you defend your thesis that the story is not an allegory, is real and yet has an allegorical possibility, is because you genuinely believe that the story describes what it purports to describe. That is, the Genesis story.

All I can say is 'have at it'.

I have explained that what I find genuinely valuable within the belief-system of Christianity does not depend on the story-elements, though it does seem (to many) that by undermining them as pillars that the essential meaning collapses. I disagree with that conclusion.

So I work a very very different angle than you seem to. And again I say it is not without problematical aspects.

[Immanuel Can]

It's not a fallacy here. Both were/are experts in mythology.

I referred to the fallacy of an appeal to authority argument because you dropped names but did not present how, and why, and what precisely they argued. And with 'they were both experts in mythology' you do the same again.

Then you've mistaken for a "fallacy" something that was not.

To appeal to recongized experts in a field is not an illegitimate appeal, but a legitimate one; and if you wanted me to cite them specifically, all you had to do was ask.

However, that's a secondary concern, not the primary one. The question was whether or not the very positing of ANY original mating pair was rational and scientific or not.

I do not agree at all with what you are trying to do and to establish.

Great.

Then explain to me how the human race evolved to its present situation without the expedient of any original mating pair. That will no doubt make a very interesting story.

These are metaphors and allegories

That's true; but that does not mean that's ALL they are. The specifics of that have not yet been a subject of my discussion here. And we have yet to see if it makes a difference which you believe.

But we shall see, all in due time...

But as I said, everything in good order. We begin with the mating pair.

And my claims (so far) have not extended any further.

This cannot be but disingenuous.

Sure it can. Show where I've done otherwise.

The reason you defend your thesis that the story is not an allegory, is real and yet has an allegorical possibility, is because you genuinely believe that the story describes what it purports to describe. That is, the Genesis story.

Wow, you are slow to figure things out.

Of course I believe that. But I haven't even asked you to believe it yet. All I've tried to defend so far is that there was an original mating pair. And it seems you're not even ready to concede that point to me, so we're stuck there.

Or are you now ready to concede it? If not, please give me your "evolutionary" story of how human beings came about without such a pair. I'll be most interested.

All I can say is 'have at it'.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Of course I believe that. But I haven't even asked you to believe it yet. All I've tried to defend so far is that there was an original mating pair. And it seems you're not even ready to concede that point to me, so we're stuck there.

In a sense you could say "we're stuck" and you'd be right, yet I do not feel stuck here. I have other fish to fry, as it were. What I see, in contradistinction, is that you are stuck trying -- sophistically -- to engineer an argument that supports an absurd claim. So I ask you and I imagine that others might ask you as well (?) to come right out in the open and make a statement about what you really & truly believe.

Forget 'mating pairs' since, for the sake of the argument that you hold to, and which may perhaps be also asserted by evolutionary biologists, you assert that a specific mating pair from which homo sapiens arose is settled science. (This is not my domain of knowledge nor do I have much interest in it).

But your "mating pair" I assume, according to the one who says "of course I believe that", had no predecessor and was dropped down into the Creation (our hero Adam) and into a deathless world where all that we understand of biological function as well as ecological function did not in fact go on. That is, life forms did not feed off of other life forms in the natural battle that I have described as 'terrible'. So in a sense you also 'deny' the reality of biological function. Oy veh ist mir.

And if you would kindly affirm, since you do say "of course I believe that", that it was the act of disobedience that jarred the entire Creation in such a way that, all on a sudden, all living forms were subject to death and dissolution just as Adam & Eve were. In fact, if I understand correctly, they were the cause of it. So that the whole Cosmos fell with them.

When you say "of course I believe that" shall I fairly assume that you believe this also?

Then explain to me how the human race evolved to its present situation without the expedient of any original mating pair. That will no doubt make a very interesting story.

I do not have any specific statements to make about how human beings developed. Or all of life for that matter. I have no reason not to believe that a mating pair, as you assert, was necessary, or probable.

But the rest of the edifice that you construct around the scientific assertion of a mating pair becomes absurd when, in the story, there was no mating pai,r as a mating pair is seen as being necessary in biological, anthropological science ( a specific episteme). Because it was a single individual, Adam, who was created out of nothing and dropped into the garden-world and then divided so as to produce from one, two.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Maybe you're mistaking the term "Christian" for meaning, "Having a sense of morality." I think the Atheists and agnostics, to say nothing of Muslims or Zoroastrians, would probably be unhappy if we were to suggest they lack awareness of the sorts of things you quote above.

I think we all know that stuff. Don't we? And I don't think it's only "Christian," but rather reflective of universal moral conscience.

I said:

...when I refer to Christian metaphysics I am referring to Mediaeval metaphysics and the *world-picture* as it was conceived at that point in time. There are similarities, naturally, between the various world-visualizing systems of the era, and so it makes sense that the Christian picture of the world -- divided as it is into celestial (heavenly) realm and a dense, possessive Terrestrial realm -- correspond one to the other in certain ways.

The statement -- sound and coherent -- stands.

[Immanuel Can]

Of course I believe that. But I haven't even asked you to believe it yet. All I've tried to defend so far is that there was an original mating pair. And it seems you're not even ready to concede that point to me, so we're stuck there.

In a sense you could say "we're stuck" and you'd be right, yet I do not feel stuck here. I have other fish to fry, as it were. What I see, in contradistinction, is that you are stuck trying -- sophistically -- to engineer an argument that supports an absurd claim. So I ask you and I imagine that others might ask you as well (?) to come right out in the open and make a statement about what you really & truly believe.

I'm doing it. But I'm taking my time, laying down the groundwork, and making clear my reasoning.

Now, I can see you'd just love me to jump forward to some more arguable point, something perhaps more capable of controversy, without having done the groundwork. Then it would be much easier to imagine you could dismiss my reasoning; for an argument without groundwork is baseless, by defintion. But for me, that's counterproductive.

So no, I'm not forgetting "mating pairs," or skipping steps in the reasoning. I'm asking you again what your alternate theory is. And if you don't have one, then maybe it's time to ask yourself why you've been so quick to be skeptical. Maybe your reasoning wasn't as thoroughly formed as you had taken for granted that it was...

So in a sense you also 'deny' the reality of biological function.

That's an absurd conclusion, I have to say. And I see no warrant for you thinking that: it would take a huge leap of illogic for you to end up there. Are you trying to funnel me into some kind of statement you've prefabricated for me, in the hopes of then decaring it irrational? That's what it seems like.

However, I'm not inclined to let anybody write my argument for me, far less end up defending a position I don't hold, so if that's the plan, let's drop it.

But do I think that human beings "evolved" to their present state asexually and in a group? Well, I'm ready to hear your narrative of how that would even be possible. However, for some reason, you don't seem to be able to manufacture one...

the whole Cosmos fell with them.

Of course.

I have no reason not to believe that a mating pair, as you assert, was necessary, or probable.

But do you now have some inkling of the reason why any sane person would HAVE to believe there was an original mating pair? If you're still foggy on that, let's hash it out. Because we really shouldn't skip that step.

[Immanuel Can]

...it makes sense that the Christian picture of the world -- divided as it is into celestial (heavenly) realm and a dense, possessive Terrestrial realm -- correspond one to the other in certain ways.

"In certain ways," you say.

Can you be "certain" enough to say what you think they are?

[uwot]

So I ask you and I imagine that others might ask you as well (?) to come right out in the open and make a statement about what you really & truly believe.

I'm doing it. But I'm taking my time, laying down the groundwork, and making clear my reasoning.

Could be a long wait Gus:

Oh, come on...have a little fun.

Don't you even want to play, "What has it got in its nasty little pocketses?"

Then in my "pocketses" the answers will stay.

[Dubious]

The point is very simple: there's nothing irrational or unusual about saying that the human race began with an original mating pair. Take the Biblical narrative or take your "ascent of man" theory, and you have to begin with the same assumption. In fact, it's irrational and implausible to believe anything else.

For that to be true we would have to know the exact time we became human in order to identify the original mating pair.

No, there's a difference between knowing THAT they had to exist, and knowing WHO they were precisely. We can leave the latter unspecified, in deferences to your preferences, with no harm to the claim.

Only through intentional creation, as declared in myth and religion, can there be an original mating pair.

I think that's true. But even an "ascent of man" ideologue has to believe it's true. There's simply no other way for biological "evolution" to have taken place, either.

Within the continuity of creation re evolution, there is no such thing as an original human mating pair that specifically stands out as a confirming event. Even the transition from prehuman to human took millions of years. At what time did the prehuman emerge into the human to create the original mating pair? Even the term "original mating pair" in context, denotes a separate supernatural event distinct from any biological process.

Your mind rides without bifurcation on a mono rail of linear time toward one goal only starting with an Adam and Eve event concluding in some kind of teleological apotheosis named the Last Judgement. For that purpose, an original mating pair concept demands credence which marks a beginning and encloses an ending.