Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Note to IC.

I am no longer going to respond to these sorts of posts of yours. I presented to you a post with a fully expressed set of ideas. My request is that you respond just as fully to the totality. Picking elements down into pieces results in a deviation from the fuller topic. (I know that you imagine yourself a master of logic and all that but from where I sit you are just playing childish games).

It would be far better if you'd respond with an independent essay that responds fully and intelligently to what I wrote. (While keeping those big boy pants tightly buckled I might add!)

[Immanuel Can]

Note to IC.

I am no longer going to respond to these sorts of posts of yours.

What? Posts that refuse to go along with false claims? Or do you mean posts that reject ad hominems and other attempts at character smearing in the place of discussing ideas?

I guess you and I are going to have a short conversation, then.

Picking elements down into pieces results in a deviation from the fuller topic.

You write waaaaay too long for that. You have a tendency to go into extended expositions from which one has to select, since doing otherwise would double every subsequent message. Good ideas are often concise, as well. And longer ideas can be developed over several posts.


My advice: be brief.

It would be far better if you'd respond with an independent essay

An "essay"? You think that's the same as a conversation? Or are you thinking that's what people come to discussion forums to get?

We don't. We come to have conversations about particular topics, to ask particular questions and exchange worthy ideas; not to listen in silence while some self-appointed sage expatiates. "Essays" are the form of things that belong in academic journals. And very few people read them nowadays, even in academia.

Here's a counterproposal: what's your definition of a "Christian"? Just give me that.

[Nick_A]

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."

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality, you are not open to experience the triune universe as expressed in the law of the INCLUDED middle, the integration of three forces, and its lawful levels of reality. Christianity offers the potential for the conscious evolution from a lower level of reality into a higher. Probably you've never heard of the law of the INCLUDED middle so just restrict yourself to binary associative thought. But what of those who are not so restricted? Are they condemned as elitist from your perspective?

[Nick_A]

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."

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality, you are not open to experience the triune universe as expressed in the law of the INCLUDED middle, the integration of three forces, and its lawful levels of reality. Christianity offers the potential for the conscious evolution from a lower level of reality into a higher. Probably you've never heard of the law of the INCLUDED middle so just restrict yourself to binary associative thought. But what of those who are not so restricted? Are they condemned as elitist from your perspective?

[Immanuel Can]

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality,

I don't think, from what you're saying, you know what "The Law of the Excluded Middle" is.

It's just a basic axiom of logic. It has no ideological content.

It's not the same as "the fallacy of the excluded middle," or "false dichotomy." See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

[Nick_A]

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality,

I don't think, from what you're saying, you know what "The Law of the Excluded Middle" is.

It's just a basic axiom of logic. It has no ideological content.

It's not the same as "the fallacy of the excluded middle," or "false dichotomy." See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

Contemplating the difference between these two laws opens the mind to experience the vertical level of thought which reconciles duality. At least there are some in the world who have transcended basic duality to experience the law of the included middle.

http://esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm

After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.

Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.

Nicolescu calls on us to rethink everything in terms of what quantum physics has shown us about the nature of the universe. Besides offering an alternative to thinking exclusively in terms of binary logic, and showing how the idea of the logic of the included middle can afford hitherto unimagined possibilities, he also introduces us to the idea that Reality is not something that exists on only one level, but on many, and maintains that only transdisciplinarity can deal with the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of Reality at once. It is for this reason that transdisciplinarity is radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, although it is often confused with both. Moreover, because of the fact that reality has more than a single level, binary logic, the logic that one uses to cross a street and avoid being hit by a truck, cannot possibly be applied to all of the levels. It simply does not work. Nicolescu explains it is only the logic of the included middle that can be adequate for complex situations, like those we must confront in the educational, political, social, religious and cultural arenas. As he writes, “The transdisciplinary viewpoint allows us to consider a multidimensional Reality, structured by multiple levels replacing the single-level, one-dimensional reality of classical thought.” (49).................

[Dubious]

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.

Discord was always the nature of the game even under the rubric of Christianity. Historically there was more violent dissension in interpretation than there is currently between theist and atheist resolving to a more philosophic stance since theism and theists are no-longer in control. We’re now in a situation where nihilism is simply another term for reset.

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.

What efforts and in what sense heroic? To accomplish a facsimile of that requires the ability to listen and respond. Have you noticed any of that because all I’ve noticed is blatant hypocrisy based on the 3 D’s: deceit, distortion, deception. His disgusting habit of intentionally misreading what he can’t or refuses to respond to should by now be obvious! In a court of law he would be ordered to answer questions naturally valid under the circumstances. As I said many times before you joined, IC is not the man to defend the faith.

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.

...indeed! A very dead-end Kafkaesque type of castle where all you need to do is submit to the divine bureaucracy!

What is odd in my case is that I sympathize and indeed empathize with his defensive posture.

He doesn’t defend! He ignores, denounces and claims ad homs as a method to detour questions.

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.

I agree. My thoughts on that are as follows…

I think that which makes us more intelligent and spiritual in the process are not only the truths we claim to discover but the games we play with and within reality itself. There is a potency to this which unmoors the mind from any fixed mental frame and thoughts no-longer conjoin to the simple act of experiencing life only. It, in effect, becomes a leveraging, hyperbolizing medium moving the mind forward in a universe which remains mystical regardless of how much is discovered. It becomes the means of organically advancing into a new, future metaphysic which is never the same because it flows continuously, thoughts and systems being as much subject to entropy as everything else in the universe.

This and the saying by Max Müller - who was an expert in Sanskrit - that comparatively knowing only one religion is equivalent to knowing none annuls all the stringent and fixed formulations of theism causing more truth in its wake than any assumed ultimate which is only absolute in its limitations virtually to the point of becoming autistic in some which no amount of communication can penetrate.

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.

Why not just conclude with the obvious fact that IC is a literal dead end. To elevate a puerile absurdity into an insurmountable argument in the belief that god is going to save your soul by believing in him is not only an insult to god (if such exists) but really to the human race itself!

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'.

As I mentioned a few times, just because beliefs are on the wane doesn’t imply that the traditions defined by those erstwhile beliefs are in the same recession. Ritual still serves a purpose in keeping a group or even a whole society glued in its performance. The psyche may not require the biblical kind of belief once so ubiquitous and impervious, especially so as the “modern mind” is much less deeply grooved in that direction having become much more secular. In that sense the “placebo effect” of traditions are still valid in conveying order and a quasi sense of purpose.

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.

I don’t think it was pulled away. It instead became a glass floor showing a far greater horizon underneath it. For some it offered exhilaration and release; for others vertigo! Our prior horizon became stagnant within the cusp of a single belief.

Nietzsche was well aware that only by the strength of our mental sinews can we successfully advance into an era which offers none of the old biblical claims of comfort and salvation. The void remains profound in its indifference; it’s only in the strength (Kraft) of our inner will to remain separate from that encompassing void by means of which we obstruct its power to level...at least for a time!

All this verbosity having come to an end, here’s some identifying music which specifically emphasizes Kraft in its conclusion…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCsNlSMAq44

[attofishpi]

Note to IC.

I am no longer going to respond to these sorts of posts of yours. I presented to you a post with a fully expressed set of ideas. My request is that you respond just as fully to the totality. Picking elements down into pieces results in a deviation from the fuller topic. (I know that you imagine yourself a master of logic and all that but from where I sit you are just playing childish games).

Welcome to what I call the very un-Christian, non ethical manner by which IC operates a philosophical debate...it is extremely frustrating and we ALL feel your pain.

[Belinda]

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."

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality, you are not open to experience the triune universe as expressed in the law of the INCLUDED middle, the integration of three forces, and its lawful levels of reality. Christianity offers the potential for the conscious evolution from a lower level of reality into a higher. Probably you've never heard of the law of the INCLUDED middle so just restrict yourself to binary associative thought. But what of those who are not so restricted? Are they condemned as elitist from your perspective?

Freud also envisaged a triunity.

Id=body

Ego= integrated body and superego

Superego= demands of social norms such as local moral code.

Christianity is a religion that elevates the poor and the dispossessed and the failures into the select circle of people who are socially okay. Nick's sort of Christianity is elitist in its intent and its effect.

[Immanuel Can]

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality,

I don't think, from what you're saying, you know what "The Law of the Excluded Middle" is.

It's just a basic axiom of logic. It has no ideological content.

It's not the same as "the fallacy of the excluded middle," or "false dichotomy." See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

Contemplating the difference between these two laws opens the mind to experience the vertical level of thought which reconciles duality.

You're not getting it. The LEM does not tell a person what to believe; it only shows what rational belief requires.

It can be illustrated in relation to religions very simply. Here are two beliefs:

Islam -- "There is one God..."

Atheism -- "There is no God."

Now, keeping the word "is" meaning exactly the same thing, i.e. "to exist in reality," and not playing any Clintonesque games with it (like saying that "is" can mean "exist as a delusion, concept or idea instead of a reality), the two claims are mutually exclusive and, as sociologists say, "incommensurable." In other words, for the Atheist claim to win, the Islamic one has to loose; and for the Islamic one to win, the Atheist one has to lose. There is no middle position between those two: if there is any kind of God or gods that "is" at all, then Atheism is 100% false. If there is absolutely no God, as Atheism requires, then Islam is false.

There is no "middle." There cannot be, because of the nature of the meaning of "is," when it is understood as "to exist in reality."

So there are some propositions in which there are inevitably winners and losers, and it is utterly impossible to rationalize the idea that everything can be universalized into any single belief. There is, as I say, no logician that does not believe in the LEM, and no knowledgeable sociologist who does not believe that incommensurability of belief is an empirical fact.

What the "inclusivists" are reallly doing is just denying the truth of all exclusive relgions, claiming that Islamists don't understand Islam, Jews don't understand Judaism, Christians don't understand their Christianity, Hindus don't understand Hinduism, and so forth, and imposing their own imperialistic metanarrative over all their competitors.

In other words, the "inclusivists" and universalizers are themselves proof of the LEM. They just don't realize that they are.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Islam -- "There is one God..."

Atheism -- "There is no God."

Now, keeping the word "is" meaning exactly the same thing, i.e. "to exist in reality," and not playing any Clintonesque games with it (like saying that "is" can mean "exist as a delusion, concept or idea instead of a reality), the two claims are mutually exclusive and, as sociologists say, "incommensurable." In other words, for the Atheist claim to win, the Islamic one has to loose; and for the Islamic one to win, the Atheist one has to lose. There is no middle position between those two: if there is any kind of God or gods that "is" at all, then Atheism is 100% false. If there is absolutely no God, as Atheism requires, then Islam is false.

It seems to me very easy, as well as needful and necessary, to point out that each declarative statement can be understood, at the outset, to be insufficient as statements. Therefore, if one takes them as logically coherent in and of themselves, one is making right there a 'fatal mistake'. I believe that shining light on this error will likely shine light on what I have noticed as a large defect in your reasoning process; what I see as voluntary subservience to too strict binaries.

It certainly seems to me proper and necessary to apply Aristotelian predicates to math formulations and so there is obviously an area in which the middle must be excluded. But in the example that you have chosen I think it is quite easy to demonstrate that your strict application not only does not function well but misleads substantially.

So, it is logically possible to say 'There is one God'. It surely makes sense, and in this sense monotheism tends to make sense when people are introduced to the idea. However, the real question is What sort of 'god' is one proposing to exist (to be) and how will that god be shown to truly exist in a way that is absolutely clear -- as clear for example as a Euclidian geometry proof is clear and undeniable.

When atheists make their declarations, at least this has been my impression, they are often objecting to the assertion of the existence of specific gods -- for example the Christian god. Their entire objection (again this is what it has seemed like to me) arises out of a cultural criticism. So what they seem to be saying is: There is no god like the god that has been presumed to exist and which, among Christians for example, is asserted to absolutely and without doubt to exist -- as if no tangible proof is even needed.

In this conversation (this thread) those who make the argument (Iambiguous for example) that if there is a god that exists, the Christian description of god does not match 'the world' said to be produced by that god. It is an extremely coherent observation. In fact it is rather devastating to the entirety of the projected and concocted conceptual model that is essentially Judaic in origin and further developed through Christian metaphysics. To me, this seems like a simple surface fact.

So -- and here I might refer to Gary Childress -- what happens once the 'picture' of such a Christian god collapses, the visualization of such a god and the model of conceptualization falls to pieces or collapses as I say. The god that is said to exist absolutely is not commensurate with the physical and manifested world. And so where shall I place my 'faith' then? What must I choose to be the really real and what must I dismiss as the unreal real? The answer is the concocted, but now understood to be defective, world-model as visualized by Christians certainly but also most religionists whose religious metaphysics are antique and born in and pertaining to another temporal modality.

So yes! There certainly is a god, and yes There certainly is not a god!

Inevitably, and this has been my position and one that I cannot avoid having, we are in a time when it is now inconceivable to hold to and maintain *belief in* the sort of god-picture that had the capability of arresting attention and inspiring *belief*. Yet there are most people (frankly a majority as IC points out if the CIA fact-book is to be trusted) who live, comfortably or with increasing discomfort, within the edifice and structure of their belief-system: their contrived perceptual model, or one that had been handed to them.

These are 'conceptual homes'. If one can shun away all the information thrusts that could, if received and listened to, topple the house of one's belief-structure, one can live quite comfortably, and even decently, within such a conceptual home. Indeed, children not only need but must have a safe worldpicture that they can visualize and which encases, encloses and protects them. Seen from another angle, if you were to undermine such a conceptual picture in an average child you would disorient them and, disoriented, they would likely manifest many symptoms.

And here again -- in my developing view -- we have to turn our attention back to the fin-de-siecle era when, on one hand, the antique and outmoded notion of god collapsed and, as a result, the reaching and grasping conceptual and perceptual *hands* reached out toward what substance was there to fasten onto. Now why is this so? It has to do with the necessity of interpretation. We are interpreting creatures. We have to interpret this existence. We cannot ever not interpret. And once the interpretation concretizes we then have a view-system that can be, and indeed must be, presented to our children (paideia).

And what was reached out for? Another means, or an adaptation of existing means, in order to be able to live with some degree of comfort, or even in comfortable uncomfortableness, in this world.

It does seem to require (as Basil Willey suggested) a master metaphysician to discern and to explain coherently such a vast shift in perspectives as we are now, inevitably, living in.
______________________________

Did I ever tell the story of when the Kingdon of the Blind and the Blind King invited me, the only one who could see, to come to court to describe The Elephant? When I got there, obviously, I saw there was no elephant. It was their phantasy! But the money was very good and, seduced, I played along with them for all it was worth! I described every detail of that imagined elephant with consumate skill. I even put some of my more poetic descriptions to music which 'went viral' throughout the Kingdom of the Blind. Very krafty of me, I admit.

[Immanuel Can]

Islam -- "There is one God..."

Atheism -- "There is no God."

Now, keeping the word "is" meaning exactly the same thing, i.e. "to exist in reality," and not playing any Clintonesque games with it (like saying that "is" can mean "exist as a delusion, concept or idea instead of a reality), the two claims are mutually exclusive and, as sociologists say, "incommensurable." In other words, for the Atheist claim to win, the Islamic one has to loose; and for the Islamic one to win, the Atheist one has to lose. There is no middle position between those two: if there is any kind of God or gods that "is" at all, then Atheism is 100% false. If there is absolutely no God, as Atheism requires, then Islam is false.

It seems to me very easy, as well as needful and necessary, to point out that each declarative statement can be understood, at the outset, to be insufficient as statements. Therefore, if one takes them as logically coherent in and of themselves, one is making right there a 'fatal mistake'. I believe that shining light on this error will likely shine light on what I have noticed as a large defect in your reasoning process; what I see as voluntary subservience to too strict binaries.

It certainly seems to me proper and necessary to apply Aristotelian predicates to math formulations and so there is obviously an area in which the middle must be excluded. But in the example that you have chosen I think it is quite easy to demonstrate that your strict application not only does not function well but misleads substantially.

Let's see that.

It's very easy. Show that there is a plausible middle premise between "exists" and "does not exist" (or "is," and "is not," used in exactly the same sense).

But there isn't one.

If any god(s) of any kind exist, then it is simply not true that there is "no" god(s). If none at all exists, then it is simply not true that at least one does exist.

So, it is logically possible to say 'There is one God'. It surely makes sense,

That's not the point. It is logically possible to say "Unicorns and pixies exist." The problem there is not logical but ontological. The words themselves are logical: the problem is one of actual existence.

...the real question is What sort of 'god' is one proposing to exist

Not at all.

You're mistaking a secondary question for the primary one. The primary one has to be "Does ANY God or gods exist?" If that has been answered in the negative, then the secondary question becomes completely unnecesssary. It's only if the primary question has been answered "Yes" that one can logically go on and say, "Yeah? What kind?"

When atheists make their declarations, at least this has been my impression, they are often objecting to the assertion of the existence of specific gods -- for example the Christian god.

I'll let them speak for this.

Atheists (if any are paying attention) would it be fine with you if we say the Jewish and Christian God does not exist, but Zeus, Odin, Baal, Brahma, Crom, Ashtoreth, Set, Apollo and the Yoruban "gods", or at least one of them, do exist? Is that the sort of disbelief you actually have? Are you prepared to accept as a given that SOME God or gods exist, and move on happily to debating HIs/their nature?

My suspicion is that they will say, "No, that's not good enough. No gods. None."

But we can see.

In this conversation (this thread) those who make the argument (Iambiguous for example) that if there is a god that exists, the Christian description of god does not match 'the world' said to be produced by that god.

That's the secondary question, not the primary.

Let's see if Biggy believes in Zeus, Odin, Baal, etc. first.

[Nick_A]

I C

Islam -- "There is one God..."

Atheism -- "There is no God."

“When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.” ~ Simone Weil

I C has given us a contradiction which cannot be resolved by duality so requires a lie to resolve it. The law of the excluded middle reveals how they cannot both exist.

However, the law of the included middle reveals the door Simone alludes to. Here is a simplified version:

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27155

..........The Included Middle is a theory proposing that logic has a three-part structure. The three parts are the positions of asserting something, the negation of this assertion, and a third position that is neither or both. Lupasco labeled these states A, not-A, and T. The Included Middle stands in opposition to classical logic stemming from Aristotle. In classical logic, the Principle of Non-contradiction specifically proposes an Excluded Middle, that no middle position exists, tertium non datur (there is no third option). In traditional logic, for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true (there is either A or not-A). While this could be true for circumscribed domains that contain only A and not-A, there may also be a larger position not captured by these two claims, and that is articulated by the Included Middle.

Heisenberg noticed that there are cases where the straightforward classical logic of A and not-A does not hold. He pointed out how the traditional law of Excluded Middle has to be modified in Quantum Mechanics. In general cases at the macro scale, the law of Excluded Middle would seem to hold. Either there is a table here, or there is not a table here. There is no third position. But in the Quantum Mechanical realm, there are the ideas of superposition and possibility, where both states could be true. Consider Schrödinger’s cat being possibly either dead or alive, until an observer checks and possibility collapses into a reality state. Thus a term of logic is needed to describe this third possible situation, hence the Included Middle. It is not “middle” in the sense of being between A and not-A, that there is a partial table here, but rather in the sense that there is a third position, another state of reality, that contains both A and not-A. This can be conceptualized by appealing to levels of reality. A and not-A exist at one level of reality, and the third position at another. At the level of A and not-A, there are only the two contradictory possibilities. At a higher level of reality, however, there is a larger domain, where both elements could be possible; both elements are members of a larger set of possibilities.

hence the Included Middle. It is not “middle” in the sense of being between A and not-A, that there is a partial table here, but rather in the sense that there is a third position, another state of reality, that contains both A and not-A. This can be conceptualized by appealing to levels of reality. A and not-A exist at one level of reality, and the third position at another. At the level of A and not-A, there are only the two contradictory possibilities. At a higher level of reality, however, there is a larger domain, where both elements could be possible; both elements are members of a larger set of possibilities.


Christianity is this way. Where Christendom follows the law of the excluded middle, Christianity, with the help of the spirit, calls us to consciously evolve into a higher level of reality and freedom from the prison of the world governed by the attractions of animal duality

[Nick_A]

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."

Limiting yourself to basic duality as in the law of the EXCLUDED middle and one level of reality, you are not open to experience the triune universe as expressed in the law of the INCLUDED middle, the integration of three forces, and its lawful levels of reality. Christianity offers the potential for the conscious evolution from a lower level of reality into a higher. Probably you've never heard of the law of the INCLUDED middle so just restrict yourself to binary associative thought. But what of those who are not so restricted? Are they condemned as elitist from your perspective?

Freud also envisaged a triunity.

Id=body

Ego= integrated body and superego

Superego= demands of social norms such as local moral code.

Christianity is a religion that elevates the poor and the dispossessed and the failures into the select circle of people who are socially okay. Nick's sort of Christianity is elitist in its intent and its effect.

John 15: 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you

Christianity is not elitist. It is hated and rejected as it devolves into Christendom to make it acceptable. Of course Christianity is beneficial in ways the world or the great beast cannot understand. Instead they demand the world to "give us Barabbas". So nothing changes

[Alexis Jacobi]

Atheists (if any are paying attention) would it be fine with you if we say the Jewish and Christian God does not exist, but Zeus, Odin, Baal, Brahma, Crom, Ashtoreth, Set, Apollo and the Yoruban "gods", or at least one of them, do exist? Is that the sort of disbelief you actually have? Are you prepared to accept as a given that SOME God or gods exist, and move on happily to debating HIs/their nature?

As per usual I think my points sail over your head.

The real issue -- and this is the issue we Moderns face (I am speaking of those participating in this thread) -- is that we are in a situation where it is not possible to arrive at a definition of what sort of 'god' (an absolute, originating intelligence, the background of and the originator of all things as well as our consciousness, and the possibility of consciousness) does actually exist. I would submit that the reason this is so is because it is only very recently that entire new vistas have opened to our (man's) view. These are so overwhelming, so incomprehensible, and yet so incommensurate with almost any *idea of god* that I am familiar with. That is to say a god who is the bringer of civilization, or a god of social justice, and then also the god that, if you do thus-and-such, whisks you off to an eternal heavenly paradise.

There seems to be an irreconcilable contrast between that sort of god (like Jesus or like Krishna -- avatars of the Supreme Lord) and that sort of god that is the one that created the physical and biological world. Thus a chasm opens up -- indeed opened up -- which has not been closed.