Christianity

[henry quirk]

When a person cannot understand what an awakened person experiences, they react with negative emotion. These reactions are irritating. I'm not sure that it is hate but rather think it is an unfounded egoistic feeling of superiority.

Mebbe so, Nick.

[Immanuel Can]

You need to watch this little animated video, if you want to understand just how problematic what you just wrote really is.
It's only about five minutes, but it really covers it nicely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIorXcloIac

I watched that video, and it seems it's just more theorising about what we cannot know.

Not quite.

Rather, it points out that there are HUGE gaps in the theory of evolution that need to be filled, such as the one iam pointed to...namely, how do we get living matter to appear from non-living? It does not say that the questions cannot be answered, but that they need to be.

After all, the theory of evolution is presented as if it's "scientific." But if it is, it surely needs to include such questions, rather than just pretending the problems do not exist. And if it doesn' t have an answer for them, the honest thing for Evolutionists to do would be to admit they have nothing on that, and work on the problems until they do.

Likewise with the three other huge gaps the video points out. The answers aren't simply to be treated as unimportant and glossed over. They're serious problems with the theory that need to be addressed. And that's in the interest of the theory itself, not merely in the interests of its critics.

That is, if one is a scientist or a rational thinker. If one is only an Evolutionism-ideologue, then one can go on as usual.

[Alexis Jacobi]

He claims he wants a rational and virtuous font but he lies. He's a dirty dealer. There's no good faith in him.

See here.

[Nick_A]

When a person cannot understand what an awakened person experiences, they react with negative emotion. These reactions are irritating. I'm not sure that it is hate but rather think it is an unfounded egoistic feeling of superiority.

Mebbe so, Nick.

Consider why Socrates had to be killed:

Socrates explains that his behavior stems from a prophecy by the oracle at Delphi which claimed that he was the wisest of all men. Recognizing his ignorance in most worldly affairs, Socrates concluded that he must be wiser than other men only in that he knows that he knows nothing. In order to spread this peculiar wisdom, Socrates explains that he considered it his duty to question supposed "wise" men and to expose their false wisdom as ignorance. These activities earned him much admiration amongst the youth of Athens, but much hatred and anger from the people he embarrassed. He cites their contempt as the reason for his being put on trial.

Socrates admits his ignorance of worldly affairs. This knowledge of facts to argue over is considered intelligent but lacks wisdom.

1 Corinthians 2:14
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Socrates allows us to experience the limitation of facts for the person interested in the love of wisdom or philosophy. To the secularists they are the same. They believe the multitude of worldly facts leads to wisdom. Yet it doesn't and a person beginning to awaken sees why. Socrates understood and became an influence on the young. So he had to be killed as disruptive.

When I first experienced what it means to be third force blind, rather then being irritated I was grateful. I saw that without it I knew nothing. I was governed by duality; the eternal argument between yes and no. Now I experienced the vertical third force which reconciles duality from a higher perspective. I began to understand the purpose of the essence of religion and sacred scripture. It is to open the mind in a manner secular writings limited to duality is incapable of.

[henry quirk]

He claims he wants a rational and virtuous font but he lies. He's a dirty dealer. There's no good faith in him.

See here.

Yeah, I'm just a dumb caveman, not a crafty mafioso. I hit enemies...with my club.

[henry quirk]

Nick,

Consider why Socrates had to be killed:

I always thought it was becuz he was too dumb to fight.

Drink hemlock? Get bent.

[Alexis Jacobi]

From Belief Unbound: A Promethean Religion for the Modern World

by Wm. Pepperell Montague, 1930

Supernaturalism

THE MODERN ATTACKS upon the authoritarian method
of traditional religion and upon its ascetic and other-
worldly conception of ethics are closely related, at
least in the minds of those who make them, to the
objections to that metaphysics of supernaturalism
which pervades not only the specific teachings of the
Bible but its generic faith in a power that makes for
good.

The stories of the Creation and the Fall and of
the relations of the supernatural yet all too human
Yahweh with his favorite People, contain just that
blend of history and legend, fact and poetry, that
is typical of an evolving tribal folklore. The Jews
had more of the zeal for righteousness than the
Greeks or any other nation, and their great contribu-
tion to the human race as a whole is their recognition
that goodness is the highest form of good. The Old
Testament is the immortal epic of the evolution of a
deity, and the progressive moralization of Jehovah
from the fantastic and vengeful demon of the earlier
legends to the sublimely idealized God of justice and
mercy of whom the Prophets sang, is the record-
albeit written upon the sky-of the Jewish conscience
in its progress from Moses to Jesus.

To trouble one's self with a serious refutation of
the literal and historic truth of the narrative is only
less absurd than to accept it. While to attempt to
save its authenticity by distorting its beautiful and
simple cosmogony into a deliberately concocted alle-
gory is an insult not only to our modern intelligence
but to the sincerity and literary clarity of its writers.
It would have been perfectly easy for the author of
Genesis to have recounted the order of creation in
such a way as to harmonize roughly with the evolu-
tionary order as we now know it, had he possessed
any inkling of that order. And if by “the evening
and the morning were the first day” he had meant
the end and beginning of a long period of time --a
geological epoch --he could have simply said so, in
perfect confidence that his hearers, no matter how
mistaken their notions about the world, could have
comprehended so plain a conception.

If we will for a moment imagine the Bible to have
come suddenly to our attention today, unencumbered
by a tradition of divine authority, and with no more
sacredness than a newly discovered writing of ancient
China or Egypt,we can see quite readily that it
would occur to nobody who took the work merely on
its merits either to accept it as scientifically and his-
torically true,or to twist its statements into a far-
fetched allegory of the truth.

When we turn from the Old Testament to the story
of Christ that is contained in the New Testament,
and also in the elaborations and supplementations of
churchmen, we find a different and more extended
supernaturalism. To the contribution of the Jews
preoccupied with their own history, there is added a
Hellenic contribution in which scientific and meta-
physical interests take precedence over the merely
historical. A simple Jewish teacher with a mystic
sense of his mission implores all men to dedicate their
lives without reserve to the ideal of universal love
and thereby gain eternal life. The teacher further
gives assurance that whoever wills to have this in-
finite boon may gain it regardless of worldly status,
strength, or learning-regardless even of past wicked-
ness. His teaching puts the most high glory within
the reach of the most lowly. This is, it seems to me,
almost all that matters in the Christian ethics. To
have discovered and proclaimed the way of absolute
beauty and at the same time to have shown that it is
free to all, and then to have lived gently and ardently
and died terribly as a supreme exemplification of his
own teaching, is enough for a son of God born of
woman. For us to try to better the picture by orna-
menting its frame with biological and psychological
anomalies, such as a virgin birth and a miraculous
absence of all sin and all ignorance, verges on the
tawdry. For his immediate successors, however, it
was understandable and pardonable enough, for they
could see no better way of honoring their friend and
celebrating the glory and solace of his message, than
by following the well-worn path of mythological cus-
tom-first imputing to him a monopoly of all virtue
and all wisdom, and then loading down his birth and
life and death with physical signs and wonders.

It is not that the miraculous events in the narra-
tive are necessarily impossible, and it is even prob-
able that some of the miracles of healing took place.
We could indeed go further, and on the assumption
of a cosmic life or soul which pervades all individual
lives, we could conceive of a miraculous fertilization
of the cell from which the body of Jesus grew on the
analogy of the life force of an organism directly
stimulating some one of the organs or cells. But no
such towr de force in speculative biology could really
add to the honor of him for whose benefit it was in-
voked. Moreover, if a physically divine genesis of
Jesus is desired, it could be had more simply by as-
suming his body to have had a natural bi-parental
origin and postulating a concomitant influx of the
world soul at the moment of conception. Yet even
this hypothesis is not requisite to an essential Chris-
tianity,for the fundamental basis of Christ's divinity
must rest upon the quality of his life rather than
upon anything physically peculiar in connection with
its origin. If his life had started at the ordinary hu-
man level and he had made it into what it was, he
would have been a no less significant figure. To earn
divinity with the handicap of a complete humanity
is at least as inspiring as to have inherited it as an
initial gift.

[Immanuel Can]

He claims he wants a rational and virtuous font but he lies. He's a dirty dealer. There's no good faith in him.

See here.

Yeah, I'm just a dumb caveman, not a crafty mafioso. I hit enemies...with my club.

And yet, it's such a refined club. More like a 2 wood than a baseball bat.

It seems to "get the ball on the green" most of the time.

[henry quirk]

See here.

Yeah, I'm just a dumb caveman, not a crafty mafioso. I hit enemies...with my club.

And yet, it's such a refined club. More like a 2 wood than a baseball bat.

It seems to "get the ball on the green" most of the time.

I wouldn't know one wood from another, but I know tire knockers.

[Nick_A]

Nick,

Consider why Socrates had to be killed:

I always thought it was becuz he was too dumb to fight.

Drink hemlock? Get bent.

It could be; but at the same there could be a deeper meaning here often overlooked.

Matthew 5:38-40

Eye for Eye

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

What is worth fighting over? Is Jesus proposing cowardice or pacifism or is there a deeper meaning. What is your opinion?

[henry quirk]

Nick,

Consider why Socrates had to be killed:

I always thought it was becuz he was too dumb to fight.

Drink hemlock? Get bent.

It could be; but at the same there could be a deeper meaning here often overlooked.

Matthew 5:38-40

Eye for Eye

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

What is worth fighting over? Is Jesus proposing cowardice or pacifism or is there a deeper meaning. What is your opinion?

Well, while I respect Christianity, this is one of those things I can't back.

Free men ought not submit to unjust treatment: abuse me and I'll reciprocate. I do not understand passivity in the face of violence. Mebbe I'm not large enough to accept such things, literally or figuratively.

I don't think it's an advocacy of cowardice, but it's not my way.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Beiner [in Dangerous Minds] is only one of many who lives up to Nietzsche's fear of being used for all the wrong reasons.

I have been going through his book again (I read it a couple of years ago) and as I said I find his general concerns credible. Here is a quote which is sensible and asks good questions. He is speaking of our itinerant dyspeptic of Sils Maria, Turin and Nice:

How do we respond, humanly speaking, to a thinker who
simply doesn't believe in human dignity or the equal rights
of all human beings? Who self-consciously denounces the
whole moral universe conjured up by the French Revolu-
tion and believes that it didn't secure a higher status for
humanity but on the contrary incalculably diminished
our stature? Who believes that in order to redeem such a
thing as human dignity, we need to strive for something
far beyond our current humanity, and in order to do that,
need to restore the conceptions of radical hierarchy that
were banished by the French Revolution and the whole
post-French Revolution moral universe? We would barely
know what to make of such a creature -- we wouldn't really
be able to comprehend him even if he were staring us in
the face! Stranger still, imagine that such a thinker went
on to become one of the most influential thinkers of the
twentieth century and was championed to a very large
extent by intellectuals of the left! Bizarre! Yet I am not
sketching some hypothetical philosopher on Mars; this
is Friedrich Nietzsche, who has influenced and shaped
contemporary culture and intellectual life to a staggering
degree.What do we make of all this?

[Dubious]

Beiner [in Dangerous Minds] is only one of many who lives up to Nietzsche's fear of being used for all the wrong reasons.

I have been going through his book again (I read it a couple of years ago) and as I said I find his general concerns credible. Here is a quote which is sensible and asks good questions. He is speaking of our itinerant dyspeptic of Sils Maria, Turin and Nice:

How do we respond, humanly speaking, to a thinker who
simply doesn't believe in human dignity or the equal rights
of all human beings? Who self-consciously denounces the
whole moral universe conjured up by the French Revolu-
tion and believes that it didn't secure a higher status for
humanity but on the contrary incalculably diminished
our stature? Who believes that in order to redeem such a
thing as human dignity, we need to strive for something
far beyond our current humanity, and in order to do that,
need to restore the conceptions of radical hierarchy that
were banished by the French Revolution and the whole
post-French Revolution moral universe? We would barely
know what to make of such a creature -- we wouldn't really
be able to comprehend him even if he were staring us in
the face! Stranger still, imagine that such a thinker went
on to become one of the most influential thinkers of the
twentieth century and was championed to a very large
extent by intellectuals of the left! Bizarre! Yet I am not
sketching some hypothetical philosopher on Mars; this
is Friedrich Nietzsche, who has influenced and shaped
contemporary culture and intellectual life to a staggering
degree.What do we make of all this?

This is so doltishly simplistic it's not even worth commenting on. Beiner clearly has an axe to grind.

Stranger still, imagine that such a thinker went
on to become one of the most influential thinkers of the
twentieth century and was championed to a very large
extent by intellectuals of the left! Bizarre! Yet I am not
sketching some hypothetical philosopher on Mars; this
is Friedrich Nietzsche, who has influenced and shaped
contemporary culture and intellectual life to a staggering
degree. What do we make of all this?

Indeed! What are we to make of all this? It's not a Beiner question on Nietzsche; it's a question of Beiner's intentional willingness to misunderstand, emerging instead as a question of motive. How does one become a thinker who has influenced and shaped contemporary culture and intellectual life to a staggering degree based on such a simplistic summary? It makes no sense at all! He doesn't even notice the irony, and evidently neither do you. To conclude with that kind of question without a retroactive examination of N's considerable influence in the 20th century and beyond appears based not on any objective view but on a highly foreshortened prejudgemental subjective one.

The more one reads - since you mention you read a lot - the more necessary it becomes to think and critique...which you don't seem to be very good at. Nietzsche himself made that affirmation regarding his own works, namely to examine, not merely accept or take bits and pieces out of context. Only intellectual cowards to do that.

I tried to find some interest in your posts but find very little interesting or relevant. Of course, you have the right to consider mine in the same light.

[iambiguous]

What I attempt to expose are the objectivists among us. Moral, political and/or spiritual. Those who argue it is their God, their ideology, their deontological assessment, their understanding of nature, that reflects the optimal or the only rational understanding of the human condition. And then the inherent danger embedded in communities where they come into power and get to decide which behaviors are rewarded and which are punished. And are in turn able to enforce their moral, political and/or religious agenda.

Well, the way that my own interests dovetail with what I gather you are saying -- filled to the brim as you must be with declarations and assertions (or do you avoid such things in your *concern* about, say, the myriad daseins?) -- is through my concern for certain modern situations and events. The one I'll mention is present day France and the political, social, cultural, philosophical, and ideological issues that are strongly at play in that culture and in the on-going election.

I find that your stated concerns are not possible to consider and talk about unless they are brought down out of the abstract (bringing down/coming down is something you often recommend to IC). So I think that we could definitely, and quite concretely, consider Heideggerian concerns, since it seems this is a primary influence for you, within the context of a specific people and their specific struggle.

Take your terms moral/political/spiritual as a starting point. What is going on in modern France today? A return to a set definition of what *being French* means. This is a complex and laden proposition! Because to define oneself, and for a people to define themselves, requires a very strong sense of cultivated historicity, wouldn't you say? And as it is taking shape -- I refer here to a movement within French culture today that sure looks as though it is desirous of 'recovering identity' and anchoring identity within what one might call hyper-liberal fluidity that inhibits such identity from coalescing -- such a movement requires philosophical tools.

To all appearances there are s significant number within France today that are willing to stake out a position, quite rigorous and demanding, in order to 'preserve' or 'recover' that which they feel is slipping away and threatened (one aspect of this being their fear of being replaced, that is of a new people supplanting the people they say they are, or modifying or dilution their peopleness. (The 'great replacement' is a general topic of conversation and debate in France).

Again, my interest in all this revolves less around what any particular citizen believes "being French" means, and more in how, given the life they lived, a specific trajectory of experiences, relationships and information/knowledge inclined them to believe one set of historical/cultural/political prejudices rather than another. Just as with Christianity, it's not what people believe about it but why they came to believe what they did while others believe something different.

And then given that individuals do have different [conflicting] assessments of "being French" or "being Christian", how, as philosophers, might we be able to pin down what in fact the most rational -- the "wisest" -- assessment is.

Can that be done? Is there a philosophical equivalent of the "scientific method" in exploring such things as culture and ethnicity and race and class? The immigration issue is of particular importance re Brexit and the French election. Tell me that doesn't revolve around certain racist convictions.

Now how could God be spoken of in such a context? Well it is an interesting issue. But I may share something in common with you insofar as I think that one is obligated to locate oneself within a given people and when located there ask questions about what God they worship (I mean define, imagine, conceive, etc.). This follows the Heideggerian mode of turning conventional understandings on their head. So normally the definition of God comes first. But as I see it one is better off starting with the people one is concerned with and their handling of the definition of God.

So in respect to France I could ask "What is their God, their ideology, their deontological assessment, their understanding of nature" which is expressed by them, valued & privileged by them, bolstered by them, and this frankly for their own defined purposes? Within their context they might then declare that their way of being reflects the optimal or the only rational understanding of the human condition but within their specific context. That is to say that *what they are* cannot be imposed on or transferred to some other.

With religion comes the "transcending font". And, for many, Judgment Day. This way belief in "being French" or "being Christian" leads back to the authority on, well, everything, right?

With God you not only pin down "French-ness", but also have access to a Scripted morality on this side of the grave. And then immortality and salvation on the other side of it. You merely insist that your own interpretation of The Word is the only legitimate interpretation. And, from my frame of mind, that is rooted existentially in dasein.

But not for the political and religious objectivists. For them everything comes back to their own arrogant and self-righteous interpretations of Scripture; and their own political prejudices deemed not to be subjective prejudices at all but the objective truth. The rest, of course, being history writ large.

Thus...

And then the inherent danger embedded in communities where they come into power and get to decide which behaviors are rewarded and which are punished. And are in turn able to enforce their moral, political and/or religious agenda.

This is an odd statement when you examine it. What you note here as taking place, must take place, and always takes place. It is in Classical Liberalism that defines the possibility of disparate peoples with disparate goals & aspirations, who yet opt to live and get along together under one general political roof, is it not? Apparently, we are living within a historical period where that form of liberalism is in danger of collapsing.

What it depicts [from my vantage point] are those who construe the best of all possible world as one in which governments are formed that revolve around democracy and the rule of law...around "moderation, negotiation and compromise".

Well, taking into account "political economy" of course. What some call the "ruling class", what others call the "deep state".

What is in danger of collapsing is this. Replaced by the Vladimir Putins and the Xi Jinpings and the Donald Trumps and the French equivalent of them.

Now I must address what I think is your primary objective and one shared by many (most) who have strong opinions about Christianity. You wish to see it dissolved. You really have a problem that *it* believes it is right in defending the moral code it defines and defends, and you really do not like that it exerts itself through its moral, political and religious agenda.

No, I only wish to see those Evangelical denominations [here in America] linked to Trumpworld and fascism pared down to size. Christianity itself is just one of many religious fonts that many believe in but are unable to demonstrate as in fact the "real deal". Religion itself will almost certainly always be around because nothing "soothes the soul" better.

What do the atheists have to replace it? Humanism? Okay, but which ideological/deontological rendition of it? And even if they can one day all come to agree there's still the part about tumbling over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Me, I'd embrace the Christians God's immortality and salvation in a heartbeat if someone could convince me that it is the "real deal".

[Dontaskme]

Rather, it points out that there are HUGE gaps in the theory of evolution that need to be filled, such as the one iam pointed to...namely, how do we get living matter to appear from non-living? It does not say that the questions cannot be answered, but that they need to be.

Thanks for discussing stuff with me IC...in a normal human to human respectful way, without what can sometimes feel like a fight to be right from an egoic hostile dominant position... I do appreciate your patience and capacity to engage with my ideas, so thanks.

So in your opinion..''how do we get living matter to appear from non-living?...'' is the one main question, we so far have no answer for...and yet there seems to be a human NEED for an answer to this question...right?


In response, I would say ok, supposing the answer to that question does eventually somewhere down the line become known to us all..Surely, won't that mean humans will be able to then recreate a whole new separate universe apart from the one that we already are? ( I know I do tend to think very deep and extreme thoughts ) but I'm just trying to fathom what would happen if we really did come to know what we do not yet know, but are still trying to know, what we do not yet know. . . but strongly believe there is a human NEED to know..

I suppose I'm saying, what will that mean for humanity...fully knowing HOW or and maybe why, living matter appears from non-living matter? .... (... or in other words...how or why did the universe become conscious of itself? ...) Was/is there a purpose or reason for this event?


What IF there's no such matter as a living or non-living matter...what if matter is neither alive or dead, what if matter is totally unknowable? what if there is NO awareness higher or more ''intellectually intelligent'' than that of human sentient awareness ?

Could you personally handle that IF ....IC ?