Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Imagine how most all of history is dependent on whose perspective it's told from.

That axiom is as good an example of half-truth/half-falsehood as you will find.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Some rambling thoughts & musings (as a way to contextualize the present conversation)
____________________________________________

When beliefs mutate into certainties in the process of forging one's identity, i.e., your innermost sense of self, any arguments against those beliefs becomes an attack upon the person, which is why those who succumb to that kind of disorder forever claim ad hominems when confronted. It becomes a case of identity infringement. So if one calls a spade a spade it becomes an affront to those who think otherwise engendering a severe reaction of cognitive dissonance.

On this site one can call it the ICan syndrome.

That is an important point to bring out. I am interested in the issue in a larger sense since my real interest is not so much personal differences that are bickered over on a philosophy forum but an understanding of the causal factors that have led to a cultural and even a civilizational crisis. Many pages back (in some exchanges with RC) I brought up the fact that we no longer share agreements. He did not seem to grasp the implications and ramifications of a cultural situation in which the people comprising the culture do not share any longer a common metaphysics. Perhaps I am being overly dramatic but it seems to me that this is really a crucial problem. Obviously, the way that I tend to think about it is through references to Nietzsche's articulation of the problem. That the collapse of an agreed-on metaphysics (this seems to be the core and origin of the problem of discord) produces, without people being aware of it, endless currents and appearances of conflict and discord. Curiously, those who are swallowed up in this maelstrom of conflict do not have enough awareness of the history of ideas that have led to the outcome: nihilism.

So what is curious to me is that though it should not play out like this, yet it is playing out like this: Immanuel Can is on the receiving end of what looks (and feels) like a good deal of ire as he makes heroic efforts to defend the fortress of belief. The attacks on the metaphysical foundations of Christian belief are brought out through various forms of rationalistic discourse. That is to say they are not irrationalist by any means. And this exercise of rationalism is, in fact, exactly what has undermined the possibility of belief in a full-throated manner in the Christian religion as a metaphysical explanation. In terms of causal chains it all turns back to the fin-de-siècle when not just a solitary person, but the awareness and consciousness of groups of intellectuals discovered that following the intimations of reason and reasonableness they could no longer quite *believe in* the supporting ideas that upheld the Christian belief-system. What a conundrum.

What I find interesting here is that IC choses to see himself as 'the lone voice of reason' and a voice of reasonableness as he defends the entire edifice of Christian belief against the unruly hordes who seek to overrun the castle. What is odd in my case is that I sympathize and indeed empathize with his defensive posture. It is not that I am an 'unbeliever' but I am one who cannot (obviously) believe in the vessel which carries the *truths* that are essential to Christian belief and, as well, to many other religious belief constructs (sorry for the use of that vulgar term construct). But the fact of the matter must be faced: there are so many of these religious constructs, and each one of them is like an 'edifice' that one can enter and, literally, live within for the duration of one's terrestrial life. Once one has stepped out of the natal edifice, or once one has been expulsed from it, how can one get back in? When one metaphysical system has *died* (collapsed is the world I use) and the New Metaphysics is hard on the threshold -- indeed is so demanding and imperious that it rocks the soul's tranquility -- the individual does seem to get lost. Or, is that perdition only temporary until one is situated in a total repudiation of any sort of metaphysics? (Thinking of the ur-happy residents of the Nordic countries who are said to have entirely thrown off the Olden Metaphysics and now live in pure existential tranquility . . .)

I tend to think in the expanded terms which some study of the Vedic religions (Indian Subcontinent) have provided. For someone interested in the history of religious ideas I cannot think of a better area to focus one's attention. Those Indian religionists and philosophers developed really expansive metaphysical models. But what in fact is a 'metaphysical model'? It is a conceptual model constructed by our perceptual and conscious selves -- a foundation and an edifice that allows us to *live* and even to thrive within the structure.

There is a curious fact about the Vaishnava (Vishnu worshipping) temples and communities. When they set the figure (statue) of the divinity [Vishnu-Krishna] in the temple they know that it is *just a dolly* and as such has no particular significance or importance. But when the metaphysicians of the religious modality install the deity what they do is, through ritual and mantra, to beseech the Supreme Lord to come and reside in the statues. He sends down a facsimile of himself. He agrees to reside there in a way, to receive the worship of the devotees. He does this for their benefit and through the grace of kindness.

And the way they explain this, or justify it, is by saying, and believing, that God has granted them the grace, the right and the power to do this. God cooperates with man. The idea that stands behind this comes from Tantric traditions (I do not mean anything sexual and Tantra is completely different) and these Tantric ideas are quite similar ('of a kind' I might say) to the notions behind The Great Chain of Being. That is to say that what is *above* and of the godly and angelical realm shows itself in correspondences to the 'here-below'. The terrestrial sphere in which we are incarnate is then a drama of correspondences. One way to understand this notion of correspondence is to consider that gems -- diamonds or emeralds for example -- were seen (and still are seen by some) as corresponding to the Sun and Mercury which were so much more than mere chunks of rock but 'beings' of a nearly transcendental sort. That correspondence was made possible in a real sense by the Grace of God. This is just one example among myriads of correspondences. Consider Sir John Davies:

This substance, and this spirit of God's owne making,
Is in the body plact, and planted heere,
That both of God, and of the world partaking,
Of all that is, Man might the image beare.

God first made angels bodilesse, pure minds,
Then other things, which mindlesse bodies be;
Last, He made Mn, th'horizon 'twixt both kinds,
In who, we doe the World's abridgment see.

So, when I try to explain to IC that about 150 years ago it became impossible to *believe in* the conceptual structure that for so long had been an adequate home for European man, and that this came about not by thoughtlessness but by thoughtfulness, that the commotion it caused set in motion a revolution in conception of a vast scale. I know that IC gets this, I know that he has enough familiarity with the progression of ideas to understand these shifts (largely brought about through Protestantism I should add!), and nevertheless IC cannot and will not be moved from his position within the Fortress and the Edifice of the former metaphysics.

But here it has to be said (again) that he actually substantially leaps over the former metaphysics. He is a Modern, even an ultra-modern, who has rejected everything that composed the culture brought into existence by the metaphysical understanding, and has reoriented himself back into a strict Gospel *world*, which is also to say an 'interpretation' that hardly seems to depend on a belief in the metaphysics. There is no talk of angels and demons and miraculous healings and even the notion of Hell is oddly reinterpreted by him into a state of *alienation* which seems to have so little to do, conceptually and visually, with Hell as Hell had been conceived. Heaven is in fact even more vague.

I wonder if what I see is clear to others? That is, that we now live in a *world* in which hardly anyone sees the same world! I suppose that the atomization, loneliness, separation and anomie which the sociologists note and talk about and say is so much upon us is a result of the breakdown of any ordered sense of 'reason for existence'. When the 'horizon' was erased (note that Sir John Davies used this term) the ground under our feet was also pulled away. Where do we now live? That is the curious problem, isn't it? There is no way around going forward since, as it appears, there is no going back.

“You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.” -- Samuel Beckett

[seeds]

...Personally, and perhaps it could be said to be a different visualization (you mean a creative fantasy of course), I cannot logically, rationally and fairly conceive of an absolute and eternal hell-realm. We have covered this in the past! It would seem to me that if a God exists within the schema of strict and traditional Christianity, that instead of 'eternal punishment' he would simply cease the existence of those errant souls. They would be annulled. That is, soul who could not be reached or who had committed so many wrongs that they could not be forgiven, would simply be eliminated. What is the advantage of creating a place of permanent punishment with no possibility of redemption? It is a sick vengeance phantasy if looked at in a certain way.

So the sort of terrible God that you visualize (the one who would relegate a soul to perpetual punishment) is in my view a mistaken perception....

Right you are, Alexis!

A year ago I was in a similar argument with Mr. Can in an alternate thread. And rather than posting a link to it, I've taken the liberty of copying and pasting a portion of it here...

If such were the case that God knew ahead of time (even before the person was born) that he was going to have to cast a particular soul into the proverbial "lake of fire,"...then don't you think it would be a wee bit kinder and loving of God to just not awaken that soul into existence in the first place?

That depends. It depends on what is at stake. There are some things worth the risk of that.

One, many people believe, is freedom. Another is love. People die for these things all the time, actually, and many more risk it. Maybe you don't believe in either, so maybe there's no reason for anything.

What in the world does any of that have to do with "what's at stake" for an infant who dies, say, one hour after being born, and suddenly finds itself in hell for no obvious reason other than God knew it would do something wrong had it lived a little longer on earth?

We're talking about a totally clueless (yet conscious) entity that was just awakened into life a few minutes earlier, whose only primal urge was to try and locate its mother's nipple. Yet, before it even had time to taste its mother's milk, or to give its diaper a good soiling, there it is, writhing in the agony of hell.

The bottom line is that if your ridiculous depiction of God is actually true, then it would mean that the universe is presided-over by a horrifyingly evil fiend who creates billions of souls for the express purpose of populating a realm of eternal misery that he could put an end to at any moment he wishes.

And the point is that if God is truly that evil, then you, Mr. Can, would not be safe in heaven, for he could sense your displeasure of him torturing one of your loved ones in hell and thus condemn you to join them.

Forgive me for constantly uploading my own illustrations, but from reading your justifying apologetics as to the nature of the Christian depiction of heaven and hell, then it would appear that the guy (the "dad") standing on the cloud in the following image is actually you...



And just in case the dialogue in the caption bubbles is too small or blurry to read, then here is a rundown of what is being said:

Little girl: “Please help me daddy, they’re hurting me! Please daddy, help me!”

Dad: “Sorry punkin, but daddy’s in heaven now and heaven wouldn’t be ‘perfect’ if I had to worry about you....Besides, we told you what would happen if you didn’t believe in ‘our’ concept of God....By the way, how’s your grandma doing?...Oh never mind, why should I care?...I’m in heaven.”

God: “After she has suffered a billion years of unspeakable burning agony, she’ll be sorry she ignored me....I will then continue her torture throughout all eternity....Does anyone doubt the fairness of my judgment?”

1st angel: “Your fairness and mercy are without equal.”

2nd angel: “In the name of love she’s getting exactly what she deserves.”

And, of course, beneath the daughter and the demons is not Satan, but God; the creator and sustainer of all realities - including Hell.

(Note: The only reason I am laboring over this issue is not to pick-on or to ridicule Immanuel Can's "religious mindset," but more at trying to get down to the real nitty-gritty of just how absurd the Christian depiction of heaven and hell truly is.)
_______

All of which, of course, fell on deaf ears.
_______

[Immanuel Can]

So what is curious to me is that though it should not play out like this, yet it is playing out like this: Immanuel Can is on the receiving end of what looks (and feels) like a good deal of ire as he makes heroic efforts to defend the fortress of belief.

No problem.

As a Christian, I've come to expect it. It's how things go.

In terms of causal chains it all turns back to the fin-de-siècle when not just a solitary person, but the awareness and consciousness of groups of intellectuals discovered that following the intimations of reason and reasonableness they could no longer quite *believe in* the supporting ideas that upheld the Christian belief-system.

That's an old story. It's not entirely untrue, except the part that they "could not believe." Of course they could have, and many intellectuals did. But those who had a loose grasp on faith were more easily shaken from their hold. It speaks the fact that nominal "Christianity" tends to give way in the key moment. But that's always been true: as a nominal belief, it's not worth anything.

What's contradicted this story is how very religious the modern world has turned out to be...and not just to remain so, but to generate new forms of personalized "religion" that never even existed before. (One cannot help but think of examples like the Beatles' flirtations with pseudo-Hinduism, or the techno-religiosity of the Extropians; these things simply weren't around when Nietzsche was writing.) In any case, the CIA factbook states that 92% of the world remains identifiably "religious" in some form, and half of the remainder (4%, of course) are agnostic. That means that actual transition to Atheism could plausibly describe about 4% of the world's population, and mostly in the affluent West.

What I find interesting here is that IC choses to see himself as 'the lone voice of reason' and a voice of reasonableness as he defends the entire edifice of Christian belief against the unruly hordes who seek to overrun the castle.

I don't, but I understand your mistake. One who speaks for the truth is not necessarily wrong, but if he actually believes it, he's often firm on his position. Not always: some cave in. But some don't.

In fact, everything you say, you could have said of Galileo. He was "the lone voice of reason" against the Aristotelian "scientific" orthodoxy of his day, and against the Papacy's iron hand. But I would hardly see that as a concern, would you?

...there are so many of these religious constructs, and each one of them is like an 'edifice' that one can enter and, literally, live within for the duration of one's terrestrial life. Once one has stepped out of the natal edifice, or once one has been expulsed from it, how can one get back in?

One can't and shouldn't.

If you've looked intensely at a particular system -- say, as you've looked at Catholicism, perhaps -- and you've found it wanting, there's no way you should believe it unless your objections can be overcome by some new fact or evidence. But this falls short considerably of the fear that one doubt makes a whole "edifice of belief" crumble. It may, or it may not, depending on how serious the objection is, and whether or not it can be rationally overcome, as well as on how strong and well-informed one's belief was in the first place.

So there's a bit of soul-searching needed: one needs to ask, "Am I loosing a 'belief' that I really believed and had good reasons for?" And if I am, "Why did I believe something so vulnerable?" And again, "If I lose my 'faith' so easily, did I really have faith at all, and did I even understand what I was claiming to believe?" Moreover, one must ask, "How sure am I that my present concern or objection cannot be overcome by something I haven't discovered yet?" So there are a lot of serious personal questions that should arise when one departs a belief one has held for awhile. And I would say the same questions apply equally to a person leaving a religious faith in order to become a skeptic, and to an Atheist who doubts his Atheism. These are occasions of self-examination for all, equally.

I tend to think in the expanded terms which some study of the Vedic religions (Indian Subcontinent) have provided.

Yeah, that's what the Beatles obviously wondered, too. But you can judge the results by where they are now.

Of course, it's fair to ask just how "religious" in a Western way the Beatles had ever really been.

There is a curious fact about the Vaishnava (Vishnu worshipping) temples and communities. When they set the figure (statue) of the divinity [Vishnu-Krishna] in the temple they know that it is *just a dolly* and as such has no particular significance or importance. But when the metaphysicians of the religious modality install the deity what they do is, through ritual and mantra, to beseech the Supreme Lord to come and reside in the statues. He sends down a facsimile of himself. He agrees to reside there in a way, to receive the worship of the devotees. He does this for their benefit and through the grace of kindness.

Isn't it funny how people who reject Christianity tend to seize on some even less plausible and rational tradition, and to hold it up as the best alternative? I've met Atheists who are not just skeptical about Christianity or Judaism, but wildly passionate about Hinduism, astrology, numerology, neo-paganism, occultism or some other "-ism" that is much wilder and more genuinely "superstitious" than any Western metaphysics ever purports to be. And I've wondered at this phenomenon.

It's almost like that those who loosen their grip on the truth often don't end up believing nothing -- instead, they end up believing practically anything.

So, when I try to explain to IC that about 150 years ago it became impossible to *believe in* the conceptual structure that for so long had been an adequate home for European man,

I agree with you in this way, Alexis: what European people were believing wasn't worth believing. But then, it wasn't Christianity. It was pseudo-Christian legalism. And this is why I'm not at all surprised that they lost it. It wasn't worth having in the first place.

...these shifts (largely brought about through Protestantism I should add!),

Maybe you should think about that: what was it about Protestantism that represented such a shattering challenge to the Catholics? Was the problem in Protestantism or in Christianity itself, or was the problem that Catholicism had become nothing more than pseudo-Christian legalism, and was ripe for destruction? And since Protestantism, as you insist, is a form of "Christianity," how is it that one form was so able to challenge the other, if, indeed, Catholicism itself was genuinely "Christian"? What was the issue?

And you'll find the answers in the "solas" of the Reformation, I think.

I wonder if what I see is clear to others?

Apparently not. The world remains largely "religious." And the old narrative about the fin-de-siecle has proved wrong. The alleged "loss of faith" in the Victorian Period turned out not just to be merely local to the West, but also local to a certain set of privileged nominalists and thin religionists. For everybody else, the "loss of faith" really never happened at all, it would seem.

[Nick_A]

These debates on Christianity remind me of the Tittha Sutta in Buddhism. A group of men all blind from birth are brought in by the king to describe an elephant. Some touch the tusks, others the ears and trunk etc. All describe their perceptions of parts of the elephant. Of course being blind, no one can describe the wholeness of the elephant.

This thread reminds me of our situation. We live in the darkness of Plato's cave attached to shadows on the wall and expect to be able to experience the wholeness of perennial Christianity. We cannot anymore then these blind people could describe an elephant. For this we need new eyes to see and ears to hear which the secular world must reject. Only those who have sensed the human condition will make the necessary efforts to find such people and learn from them if they exist.

[Alexis Jacobi]

No problem. As a Christian, I've come to expect it. It's how things go.

Yes, this is another thing I'd intended to bring out: the way that Christian belief is set up, and the way that God on one side and the Devil on the other (literally a Manichean picture) is that you have no choice but to see things through those strict binaries. And since you align yourself with Jesus and God you partake of Jesus and God, and therefore all the opposition that you receive here is, literally, the Devil's intricate operations against God Himself.

And you -- the God-Man Immanuel Can, the one who Jesus right at this moment is noticing as you fight His noble battle -- smiles on high and sends His rays down to you. The tremendous Sword of Truth you wield with such skill!

As you well said "All bullets miss" and they must always miss. No devilish bullet can strike God's angelic truth. They can do none else but miss! Because you are associated with God and you are doing His work.

This is what I describe as 'the cat bird's seat'.

Isn't it funny how people who reject Christianity tend to seize on some even less plausible and rational tradition, and to hold it up as the best alternative? I've met Atheists who are not just skeptical about Christianity or Judaism, but wildly passionate about Hinduism, astrology, numerology, neo-paganism, occultism or some other "-ism" that is much wilder and more genuinely "superstitious" than any Western metaphysics ever purports to be. And I've wondered at this phenomenon.

It's almost like that those who loosen their grip on the truth often don't end up believing nothing -- instead, they end up believing practically anything.

.... to quote GK Chesterton -- or did you come to that independently?

Everything with you involves unending deconstruction. I have to admit that it is very tiring. Your religious fanaticism dominates you and to the point that you, literally, cannot conceive the degree to which you operate in and out of a construct.

It is true that people (referring to fin-de-siècle) did reject the Christian construct based on its specific metaphysics. But it is not so that they rejected the essence of, or the good sense of, Christian ethics. So notice again how your binary interpretive structures always intrude. One could be largely Christian in so many senses and not bother with the metaphysical construct that brought it about.

They may have 'seized on' some other tradition, and certainly many did try this, but this could merely have been a stepping-stone from point 'A' to point 'B'. And point 'B' is likely to have been pretty much where people, many people, now stand: they have no real and tangible access to the old metaphysics but cannot define a new metaphysics except in a shadowy form. OTOH, some people did successfully 'migrate'. And then (if a third hand were available) there are those who have regenerated Christian concepts through theopoetics. If you ask them do they really believe in, say, Adam & Eve and Noah's Ark and all the rest, they'd say no. But they do 'believe in' an essence that shines through. (And this is why I say it is not the Story that is important but the content of which the story is a vessel).

The point is that there is no way for Moderns to return to the Olden Metaphysics except through an entire array of intellectual manouevres and semi-rational gymnastics.

You are absolutely incapable of explaining Christianity in any terms that anyone would consider, or could consider as rational. Except in your missionary work among the Mesoamericans. Largely uneducated peasants who you can influence through a form of domination. Here, I refer to the intense and rapid spread of Pentecostalism of which you are well aware -- having attended the workshops on the spread of Christianity into the Third Millennium.

But you cannot explain to or convince to the people who seem to comprise the denizens of this thread. But what you can do, and what you do do, is to cut and paste Bible passages and color-code them in red and blue. And when your message doesn't get across as you wish it to, you then tell them that they will shortly be in Hell. That is the extent of your apologetics!

As I say you seem to be an ultra-modern who has returned to the edifice by a negation of what made the edifice possible. That is to say the actual and real history of Christianity.

One can easily hold to and value a great deal that Judaism and Christianity have created (in this sense an edifice) and yet not be able to believe in the metaphysics that stood behind it.

Can you understand this? Are you capable of grasping the import of this thought?

What's contradicted this story is how very religious the modern world has turned out to be...and not just to remain so, but to generate new forms of personalized "religion" that never even existed before. (One cannot help but think of examples like the Beatles' flirtations with pseudo-Hinduism, or the techno-religiosity of the Extropians; these things simply weren't around when Nietzsche was writing.) In any case, the CIA factbook states that 92% of the world remains identifiably "religious" in some form, and half of the remainder (4%, of course) are agnostic. That means that actual transition to Atheism could plausibly describe about 4% of the world's population, and mostly in the affluent West.

There are a few things that could be said here. One is that it is likely that of those who are religious, they are religious simply and perhaps only because they were brought up in it. That produces a unique form of religiosity than, say, one who consciously crawls back into a religious structure (like CS Lewis, GK Chesterton and even Christopher Dawson) and choses to 're-inhabit' the edifice. When this re-inhabitation occurs, it occurs for varying reasons. Not necessarily because the essential and core metaphysics are *believed in* but because the religious system is, in so many ways, a highly inhabitable home.

The other factor is about man's apparent need of religious structure. This is not an easy topic. It seems to be true that we do need, and we must seek, a wide-ranging and ample metaphysics through which we explain our existence here. It is possible -- that is some do it -- to abandon all such conceptualizations and models, but as Chesterton pointed out when you abandon an edifice that had been constructed over 1,000+ years, and which had many sound foundations and was viable and sturdy for many reasons, what then would you have been left with?

The notion of migration from one edifice to another does not seem to work or it often works rather badly. It is not *authentic*. Each religious home is far more than just the shell a hermit crab resides in. It is a whole cultural construct.

[Alexis Jacobi]

These debates on Christianity remind me of the Tittha Sutta in Buddhism. A group of men all blind from birth are brought in by the king to describe an elephant. Some touch the tusks, others the ears and trunk etc. All describe their perceptions of parts of the elephant. Of course being blind, no one can describe the wholeness of the elephant.

My position is an inversion of this. I have been brought before the Court of all blind people and before the blind King. He says *Here is an elephant* and then they all explain the elephant to me. Some pont to the tusks, some to the trunk, the ears, etc. but these do not really exist! The elephant is their phantasy! And I am the only one who sees!

I am aware that they cannot see and are *blind*. I try to get them to understand but they can't.

Selah I say ruefully . . .

[Immanuel Can]

...you have no choice but to see things through those strict binaries..."

Now you're just making me laugh.

I get it: when "binarisms" of truth and falsehood are against you, claim that being "binary" is immoral.

Nope. Not buying. And you, funnyman, are being binary yourself.

Do you doubt it? Do you object?

Well, EITHER you're saying that being "binary" is worse/bad/wrong in some way, OR your non-binarism is not better/good/right. So even your plea for non-binarism is...(drum roll, please)...BINARY!

Isn't it funny how people who reject Christianity tend to seize on some even less plausible and rational tradition, and to hold it up as the best alternative? I've met Atheists who are not just skeptical about Christianity or Judaism, but wildly passionate about Hinduism, astrology, numerology, neo-paganism, occultism or some other "-ism" that is much wilder and more genuinely "superstitious" than any Western metaphysics ever purports to be. And I've wondered at this phenomenon.

It's almost like that those who loosen their grip on the truth often don't end up believing nothing -- instead, they end up believing practically anything.

.... to quote GK Chesterton -- or did you come to that independently?

I noted a similar observation in C.S. Lewis, actually...but if it's in Chesterton, I would not be surprised. Both were very smart men, of course, and both spent a lot of time thinking on these issues.

But no, I was speaking from personal experience. I spent many years among people who claimed to be Atheists, and Atheists at the "highest" level, too. And this was a frequent phenomenon -- that a person would declare himself too skeptical, to wise, to knowing to consider Theism, but was really keen on some kind of metaphysical monstrosity like astrology charts or engrams.

It is true that people (referring to fin-de-siècle) did reject the Christian construct based on its specific metaphysics.

No, they didn't. That's the point.

Christians remained Christians. Nominalists dropped their nominalism. Statistically and factually, that's all that happened.

The point is that there is no way for Moderns to return to the Olden Metaphysics

You mean, "there is no way for Modern nominalists to go back and reconsider their nominalism. Perhaps you're right about that. But it wouldn't do them any good if they did.

You are absolutely incapable of explaining Christianity in any terms that anyone would consider,

You don't know what I'm capable of. What you do know is you want me to adopt your terms, and assume the civilizational "Chrstendom" nonsense, or you're not going to play. And that's fine: you can stick to your guns. But I'm not coming to your way, because it's manifestly incorrect. And it doesn't even have a criterial definition of "Christian."

A theory which cannot even define its terms at the start is bound to be a bad theory.

One can easily hold to and value a great deal that Judaism and Christianity have created (in this sense an edifice) and yet not be able to believe in the metaphysics that stood behind it. Can you understand this? Are you capable of grasping the import of this thought?

You mean the idea of the "beneficial delusion."

Nope, I can't party with you on that one. Truth is always the way to go.

What's contradicted this story is how very religious the modern world has turned out to be...and not just to remain so, but to generate new forms of personalized "religion" that never even existed before. (One cannot help but think of examples like the Beatles' flirtations with pseudo-Hinduism, or the techno-religiosity of the Extropians; these things simply weren't around when Nietzsche was writing.) In any case, the CIA factbook states that 92% of the world remains identifiably "religious" in some form, and half of the remainder (4%, of course) are agnostic. That means that actual transition to Atheism could plausibly describe about 4% of the world's population, and mostly in the affluent West.

There are a few things that could be said here. One is that it is likely that of those who are religious, they are religious simply and perhaps only because they were brought up in it. [/quote]
There you go! You've figured it out.

That's what's called a "nominalist," a person who is "religious" in name only, and not in deep understanding at all.

'That produces a unique form of religiosity than, say, one who consciously crawls back into a religious structure (like CS Lewis, GK Chesterton and even Christopher Dawson) and choses to 're-inhabit' the edifice.

Oh, you're far too unkind to these men.

Lewis began as an Atheist. He figured out his Christianity rationally. You should read his "Mere Christianity," or perhaps his story of his conversion from Atheism, "Surprised by Joy." You'd see this.

The other factor is about man's apparent need of religious structure. This is not an easy topic. It seems to be true that we do need, and we must seek, a wide-ranging and ample metaphysics through which we explain our existence here.

Pause on that thought.

Think it through further.

What would it tell us, if "man" had "an apparent need of religious structure"? How would such a thing even develop if he were, as the Evolutionists think, just some late kind of ape? How would survival of the fittest be served by him deluding himself as to the very nature of reatity? And how could it write into the human genetic code a "need" for something that man simply can never have? Would that not instantly make him maladaptive relative to reality, and thus issue in his elimination on the very next evolutionary cycle? And how would such a thing persist, and be so universal, if in some way, this "apparent need for religious structure were not actually written into human DNA?

How did the indifferent and uncaring universe instill in "man" a "need" of this kind? See if you can work out any explanation that makes sense.

It is possible -- that is some do it -- to abandon all such conceptualizations and models, but as Chesterton pointed out when you abandon an edifice that had been constructed over 1,000+ years, and which had many sound foundations and was viable and sturdy for many reasons, what then would you have been left with?

Nietzsche saw exactly what one is left with: amorality, nihilism, no structure for society, chaotic relations of power, situations of domination, and extinction at the end. It's all there in his "Madman's Speech."

The notion of migration from one edifice to another does not seem to work or it often works rather badly. It is not *authentic*. Each religious home is far more than just the shell a hermit crab resides in. It is a whole cultural construct.

This isn't wrong. What you've discovered is called, secularly, Lebenswelt thinking, or in Christian philosophical terms, Worldview Analysis. It realizes that every metaphysic is a complex of answers to fundamental existential issues, and they all form a kind of matrix of belief, such that all depend on each other to generate a way of life. And in this area the Christians are actually way ahead of the secular scholars, you'll find. They're on the cutting edge of Worldview Theory. Many secularists are still labouring under the delusion that something like "reason" of a neutral kind will eventually produce an explanation for their personal beliefs; Christian scholars seem to have figured out why this isn't ever going to happen.

You might say that the famed "loss of meaning" in the Postmodern world, and the loss of things like truth and moral grounding as well, are symptoms of the failure of secular thought to abandon its belief in its own ultimacy, and failures as well to connect secularism intelligently to its own discontents.

[Immanuel Can]

These debates on Christianity remind me of the Tittha Sutta in Buddhism. A group of men all blind from birth are brought in by the king to describe an elephant. Some touch the tusks, others the ears and trunk etc. All describe their perceptions of parts of the elephant. Of course being blind, no one can describe the wholeness of the elephant.

Good heavens, man. Are you still living under that delusion? It's called "commensurability": it's the idea that all beliefs could end up being the same, at the deeper level.

No sociologist of religion, or any sociologist worth his salt today holds to that idea. There is now knowledge of the particulars of far too many and too diverse belief systems to hold to any such idea. Instead, they all speak about "incommensurable pluralism," which they regard as the chief problem facing democracy today...how do you get people who DON'T believe in even the same basic values to survive in a common political structure? That's what they're all talking about now.

It might be time to update your references. The "elephant" has been dead and stinking for a long while now.

If you're interested, you should read James Sire's book, "Naming the Elephant." He makes the situation much more clear.

[iambiguous]

ME:

Of course "let's not". Why? Because you don't have a clue as to how to respond intelligently to the points I raise here.

Instead, you have to come up with a way of wiggling out of it. How about this: make it all about me!

I've seen how you treat every evidence you get. I'm no longer confident in your ability -- or perhaps your willingness -- to track a line of thought.

I shall let you be whatever it is you have determined to be.

Note to others:

Again, he throws this video out at me. Practically dares me to watch it. I do. I comment on it.

Now he has the chance to give us his own interpretation of it. A chance to comment on this:

1] demonstrable evidence that this God is the Christian God and not one of the other ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
2] the sort of proof that would [again] be on par with proof that the Pope does in fact reside in the Vatican

But he won't. It's back to being Mr. Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle.

Now, I'm not arguing that I can demonstrate that, objectively, he ought to be embarrassed in being reduced down to substance-less posts like the one above.

I'm merely speculating that it seems reasonable to me that he ought to be.

HIM:

You're so funny. Yes, you're so smart I have trouble dealing with your smartitute. That's the problem. You nailed it. Your points are too intelligent. Like you think the Pope's in Rome because people told you he was, and you assume he was. Yep, tough epistemic standard, that.

Here's the challenge I propose:

Coming up with a convincing argument that, in fact, IC has no reason to be embarrassed by posts like this.


Imagine that you are submitting it to Philosophy Now for publication.

[iambiguous]

This thread reminds me of our situation. We live in the darkness of Plato's cave attached to shadows on the wall and expect to be able to experience the wholeness of perennial Christianity. We cannot anymore then these blind people could describe an elephant. For this we need new eyes to see and ears to hear which the secular world must reject. Only those who have sensed the human condition will make the necessary efforts to find such people and learn from them if they exist.

In other words, the Christian God works in mysterious ways and we mere mortals are ultimately blind to what that means.

On the other hand, no one doubts the existence of the elephant. And with the elephant we don't come back to morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side.

Not much is at stake no matter where you touch it.

No, with the Christian God, either inside or outside of the cave, for most it comes down to an existential leap of faith. More or less blind.

Then, for me, back to the Pope. Given one's understanding of "the wholeness of perennial Christianity", how would one go about not merely having faith in God, but, as with IC, insisting that you know the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven.

Evidence for the Pope in the Vatican vs. evidence for the Christian God in Heaven.

And, for me, the existence of a God, the God is always a possibility. Perhaps not the Christian God, but the existence of existence itself might be connected all the way back to a Creator.

No, for me, in taking a leap of faith to God or in believing it goes beyond faith, the far more important questions revolve around theodicy.

This part:

...the existence of earthquakes, tsunamis, super-volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and the extinction events brought on by asteroids and comets and other "Heavenly bodies". Not to mention the AIDS and Covid 19 viruses, the bubonic plaque and hundreds and hundreds of terrible health afflictions.

How to reconcile these ghastly horrors with a God said to be loving, just and merciful. Said to be omniscient and omnipotent. Instead, given the world as it really is all around us, it just makes more sense [to some] that the Christian God, if He does exist, is a sadistic monster.

Or, sure, cue Harold Kushner.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Now you're just making me laugh.

I get it: when "binarisms" of truth and falsehood are against you, claim that being "binary" is immoral.

Nope. Not buying. And you, funnyman, are being binary yourself.

Do you doubt it? Do you object?

Well, EITHER you're saying that being "binary" is worse/bad/wrong in some way, OR your non-binarism is not better/good/right. So even your plea for non-binarism is...(drum roll, please)...BINARY!

I do not think that you can read, or read well, what I write. I believe the reason is because you see yourself, and represent yourself, as the *Christian* fighting in the Fields of the Lord against the rising infidel currents. You are the Christian 'hammer' that bangs on anything that seems to you to be a Satanic nail. What else could those who oppose you be? and how else could you conceive of the ideological struggles going on today except in binary terms? You have the *correct* position and posture, of this there is no doubt. Why? Because you quote the proper Bible passage when it is required.

First, I am very happy that you are laughing. I hope it is authentic. Because when someone says *I'm laughing at you!* it often means they are snarling inwardly but feigning laughter. For my part I am super-happy that you put on your big boy pants and have abandoned the guilt-slinging mode.

Second, I did not ever say that your binary tendency (a tendency of the mind and also perhaps of psychology) is immoral in and of itself. My own view is that the binary tendencies in most all religious structures -- some are worse than others of course -- needs to be transcended. But it is best if that transcendent manoeuvre results in a better or higher position within one's religion.

I do not recommend abandoning the Christian religion of Europe! I recommend better understanding it. And once that is achieved I also recommend attempting to remain a supporter of it. But here's the difficult part: someone with my viewpoint has to deal with someone like you! You are not a helper here. You are, to be quite honest, an obstacle and a block.

So when I refer to your 'rigidity' or your tendency to operate within binaries, I am critical of what this results in. You are only capable of preaching to a converted choir. You do nothing to develop an appreciation for 'our Christian traditions' because with your unique brand of fundamentalism, which seems arrogant and hubristic, you occupy the Cat Bird's Seat where you judge and dismiss all those who occupy and inhabit a Christian interpretive sphere which you hold in contempt. I'd imagine that even other factions of Christians would find you intolerable!

The reason why I speak like this to you-singular is because I am far more concerned about the you-plural.

But is this tyrannical streak in you immoral? I could not say that but what I could say is that it is ethically defective.

Well, EITHER you're saying that being "binary" is worse/bad/wrong in some way, OR your non-binarism is not better/good/right. So even your plea for non-binarism is...(drum roll, please)...BINARY!

Now you are playing rhetorical games. I explain very carefully and fairly what my critique is . . . but you cannot entertain the idea.

To be 'binary' in the sense I use the term will result, and seems to result, in precluding and inhibiting making the headway that you seem to wish to make. That is, in your apologetics project among people with a different sort of mind-set than the Mesoamericans you have success with.

Obviously, those who are really & truly captured by ferocious binary tendencies are, for the purposes of religious philosophy, lost to us. They would be incapable of carrying on in any analytical discussion of their religiosity.

Now what could I offer as a contrast? That is, an apologetics that could make headway? I've mentioned Christopher Dawson's The Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life. Ah but he writes from a Christian/Catholic historical perspective, and you act as if you despise this approach and those who see things in this way.

So, it is not that I see your binary tendencies as immoral, what I notice principally is that you do not seem able to influence people to appreciate the traditions, or the philosophy of Christianity, that is the topic of this on-going thread. I find that I (to speak personally) have to battle against your tendencies which seem less than constructive.

[Nick_A]

These debates on Christianity remind me of the Tittha Sutta in Buddhism. A group of men all blind from birth are brought in by the king to describe an elephant. Some touch the tusks, others the ears and trunk etc. All describe their perceptions of parts of the elephant. Of course being blind, no one can describe the wholeness of the elephant.

Good heavens, man. Are you still living under that delusion? It's called "commensurability": it's the idea that all beliefs could end up being the same, at the deeper level.

No sociologist of religion, or any sociologist worth his salt today holds to that idea. There is now knowledge of the particulars of far too many and too diverse belief systems to hold to any such idea. Instead, they all speak about "incommensurable pluralism," which they regard as the chief problem facing democracy today...how do you get people who DON'T believe in even the same basic values to survive in a common political structure? That's what they're all talking about now.

It might be time to update your references. The "elephant" has been dead and stinking for a long while now.

If you're interested, you should read James Sire's book, "Naming the Elephant." He makes the situation much more clear.

This isn't the thread to argue it. But the book: "The Transcendent Unity Of Religions" explains how religion originating with a conscious source devolves into the exoteric level of reality. For some it evolves into the vertical esoteric path with the hope of reaching the transcendent level where there is one truth

https://integralscience.wordpress.com/1 ... religions/

Frithjof Schuon, a scholar and an authority on Comparative
Religion and the Sophia Perennis, has written a book called
The Transcendent Unity Of Religions. As its title
indicates, the book is about the unity of religious wisdom.
And as the use of the definite article indicates, this unity
is unique. But it is essential to observe that this unity is
also transcendent, i.e., the unity is in the spirit and not
in the letter.

Schuon uses the terms esoteric and exoteric to distinguish
the transcendent spirit of religions from their diverse
formal expressions. A useful diagram can be made which helps
illustrate the essence of this idea:



As Huston Smith writes in the Introduction to Schuon’s book,
“the defect in other versions of this
[esoteric/exoteric] distinction is that they claim unity in
religions too soon, at levels where, being exoteric, true
Unity does not pertain and can be posited only on pain of
Procrusteanism or vapidity.” Once we identify any
particular thought system, no matter how comprehensive, as
the truth, then we have excluded other thought
systems and denied the Truth its unity and its infinite
possibilities for expression. The unity of Truth must
therefore be a Transcendent Unity. “The fact that it
is transcendent,” Smith writes, “means that it
can be univocally described by none.” Thus, while
there is one and only one Truth, there are many expressions
of it.

[Immanuel Can]

Now you're just making me laugh.

I get it: when "binarisms" of truth and falsehood are against you, claim that being "binary" is immoral.

Nope. Not buying. And you, funnyman, are being binary yourself.

Do you doubt it? Do you object?

Well, EITHER you're saying that being "binary" is worse/bad/wrong in some way, OR your non-binarism is not better/good/right. So even your plea for non-binarism is...(drum roll, please)...BINARY!

I do not think that you can read, or read well, what I write.

I don't think you can think through what you say...so that makes us even.

Second, I did not ever say that your binary tendency (a tendency of the mind and also perhaps of psychology) is immoral in and of itself.

Oh. Then it's not wrong to think in binaries?

Good to know.

...needs to be transcended...

But it's not "good" to "transcend"?

Then you've done a bad thing...or merely a neutral one. But not "transcending" isn't bad?

I do not recommend abandoning the Christian religion of Europe!

Europe can't. Europe is a continent, and continents don't "believe" things.

...your tendency to operate within binaries, I am critical of what this results in.

Ah; so binaries are "not bad," but binaries cause things that are "bad." And it's not good to "transcend," but you still think you're better off doing it.

This is making less and less sense by the minute.

But is this tyrannical streak in you immoral? I could not say that but what I could say is that it is ethically defective.

But not "bad"?

Gee, thanks.

Well, EITHER you're saying that being "binary" is worse/bad/wrong in some way, OR your non-binarism is not better/good/right. So even your plea for non-binarism is...(drum roll, please)...BINARY!

Now you are playing rhetorical games.

Nope. Just using logic.

You cannot recommend non-binarism without also implying it's "better." You cannot decry binarism without implying it's "worse."

Very binary of you, I must say.

So, it is not that I see your binary tendencies as immoral,

No, just "unethical" and "tyrannical," but not "immoral."

Charming.

[Immanuel Can]

The Transcendent Unity Of Religions.

Now, there's an idea that won't stand up to the empirical facts, if ever there was one.

The irony is that the "transcenders" will tell you that to take the "transcendent" view is the right thing to do, and the "exclusive" view, the view that respects the data, is "wrong," or "uninformed," or "narrow," or some such twaddle. It's as if they've become so open-minded their heads have emptied. Not only will the data not support them, but their own view is, ironically, exclusionary of all exclusionary views.

What they're really saying is, "You poor literalist Hindus, or Jews, or Islamists, or Sikhs, or Christians don't know what you really believe -- you all imagine you have some special value in your religion, some special truth to offer the world that others do not have; but we transcenders know better what you really believe, and it's all the same thing."

Arrogant? Not half. Exclusionary? You bet. Imperialist and dogmatic? Yes. Counterfactual? That, too. But that's the script they're running, and running in the name of "unity."