Christianity

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can, and all of us who post here should protect ourselves by keeping private what is too precious to ourselves to reveal. IC has a moral right to retain as much privacy as he likes and has no duty to reveal his personal background.

There is no way people can exchange points of view unless the baseline is that these points of view originate with the individuals who express the points of view. To make this more clear, the perspective must be that of a unique Dasein or number of unique Daseins or the perspective does not exist.

IC clearly does not agree with the matter of my second paragraph as IC believes Omniscient God is a Dasein Who feels and a acts like a big Person. I don't of course mean IC uses or has ever used 'Dasein' , and sadly he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

[attofishpi]

Immanuel Can, and all of us who post here should protect ourselves by keeping private what is too precious to ourselves to reveal. IC has a moral right to retain as much privacy as he likes and has no duty to reveal his personal background.

There is no way people can exchange points of view unless the baseline is that these points of view originate with the individuals who express the points of view. To make this more clear, the perspective must be that of a unique Dasein or number of unique Daseins or the perspective does not exist.

IC clearly does not agree with the matter of my second paragraph as IC believes Omniscient God is a Dasein Who feels and a acts like a big Person. I don't of course mean IC uses or has ever used 'Dasein' , and sadly he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Very true Belinda, but I would certainly like to know what church IC believes worthy of his presence!! Me thinks it's a mega-"church" at this stage. It's very strange how ugly God has made the pastors (rot_sap) of these ""churches"" - look at the joker Joyce Meyer as a prime example.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can, and all of us who post here should protect ourselves by keeping private what is too precious to ourselves to reveal. IC has a moral right to retain as much privacy as he likes and has no duty to reveal his personal background.

There is no way people can exchange points of view unless the baseline is that these points of view originate with the individuals who express the points of view. To make this more clear, the perspective must be that of a unique Dasein or number of unique Daseins or the perspective does not exist.

IC clearly does not agree with the matter of my second paragraph as IC believes Omniscient God is a Dasein Who feels and a acts like a big Person. I don't of course mean IC uses or has ever used 'Dasein' , and sadly he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Very true Belinda, but I would certainly like to know what church IC believes worthy of his presence!! Me thinks it's a mega-"church" at this stage. It's very strange how ugly God has made the pastors (rot_sap) of these ""churches"" - look at the joker Joyce Meyer as a prime example.

If Immanuel passively believes what all too human tricksters tell him about how he must interpret Scripture, then IC is wrong- headed. He has a duty to himself and his God to actively be as sceptical as he can be.

[attofishpi]

Immanuel Can, and all of us who post here should protect ourselves by keeping private what is too precious to ourselves to reveal. IC has a moral right to retain as much privacy as he likes and has no duty to reveal his personal background.

There is no way people can exchange points of view unless the baseline is that these points of view originate with the individuals who express the points of view. To make this more clear, the perspective must be that of a unique Dasein or number of unique Daseins or the perspective does not exist.

IC clearly does not agree with the matter of my second paragraph as IC believes Omniscient God is a Dasein Who feels and a acts like a big Person. I don't of course mean IC uses or has ever used 'Dasein' , and sadly he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Very true Belinda, but I would certainly like to know what church IC believes worthy of his presence!! Me thinks it's a mega-"church" at this stage. It's very strange how ugly God has made the pastors (rot_sap) of these ""churches"" - look at the joker Joyce Meyer as a prime example.

If Immanuel passively believes what all too human tricksters tell him about how he must interpret Scripture, then IC is wrong- headed. He has a duty to himself and his God to actively be as sceptical as he can be.

That's the position I take, since God 'introduced' itself to me way back in 1997, and I think I have considered things from my empirical experience rather wisely! viewtopic.php?f=11&t=33214

[attofishpi]

If I had 'an apologetics project' (and mine is that we should not merely dismiss Christianity and on the other should have for it an immense respect -- and this is what I have said all bloody along!) I would go about the process of closer examination more thoroughly. My assumption is that most people do not understand well enough why Christianity, as such, came to be seen as insufficient (as well as also *untrue* in some aspects).

Easy. US mega-church evangelist pastors, enough to turn any (intelligent) person off of the notion of Christianity and what being a christian is all about.

I honestly believe that those pastors are atheists!! - just see the money $$$

[Immanuel Can]

...he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Define it, B.

[Immanuel Can]

mega-"church"

*Barfing noises.*

[attofishpi]

mega-"church"

*Barfing noises.*

Lol, I is relieved!!

[Belinda]

...he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Define it, B.

Dasein is like you are thrown into a course of events which you experience in your own unique way. True, you find that certain others' experience is very similar to your own, however your life can never be the life of another individual.

Dasein is analogous to physical space: one tennis ball can't possibly occupy the same space as another tennis ball.

[Dontaskme]

Dasein is like you are thrown into a course of events which you experience in your own unique way. True, you find that certain others' experience is very similar to your own, however your life can never be the life of another individual.

Dasein is analogous to physical space: one tennis ball can't possibly occupy the same space as another tennis ball.

Very good - it's also analogous to solipsism - also ponder the fact that space is everywhere at once one without a second - space is the infinite container of all occupancy, indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Neither space nor occupancy is possible on it's own. If reality is to be anything at all, it must manifest the appearances as they are conceptually known.

What does Parmenides say about God?
God (if God exists) was not born. Parmenides seems to assume that a thing can come into existence either (a) from being or (b) from not-being. He would rule out (a) on the grounds that a thing can't come into being from itself; he would rule out (b) on the grounds that nothing comes from nothing.


For helplessness in their chests is what steers their wandering minds as they are carried along in a daze, deaf and blind at the same time: undistinguishing crowds who reckon that being and non-being are the same but not the same. And, for all of them, the route they follow is a path that keeps turning backwards on itself.

''Solipsism'' the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. And to know one self, is to know all selves. When one self is known, all selves are known.


Christianity of course rejects the solipsism theory. Why, because they need to justify the unjust. It's a tyrannical way of exercising power in a cruel or arbitrary way. Rather sad actually.

It's just so easy for Christians to say God did it, saves them having to think outside the box. Their failure to grow a frontal lobe is their own downfall, and no one elses. Most intelligent people see through the sham and charade that is the Christain belief structure for what it is, which is a mind control mechanism. But people are more than welcome to cling to their delusions as long as they are not telling others how to live their lives according to what will always be their own delusional beliefs.

[Belinda]

Dasein is like you are thrown into a course of events which you experience in your own unique way. True, you find that certain others' experience is very similar to your own, however your life can never be the life of another individual.

Dasein is analogous to physical space: one tennis ball can't possibly occupy the same space as another tennis ball.

Very good - it's also analogous to solipsism - also ponder the fact that space is everywhere at once one without a second - space is the infinite container of all occupancy, indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Neither space nor occupancy is possible on it's own. If reality is to be anything at all, it must manifest the appearances as they are conceptually known.

What does Parmenides say about God?
God (if God exists) was not born. Parmenides seems to assume that a thing can come into existence either (a) from being or (b) from not-being. He would rule out (a) on the grounds that a thing can't come into being from itself; he would rule out (b) on the grounds that nothing comes from nothing.


For helplessness in their chests is what steers their wandering minds as they are carried along in a daze, deaf and blind at the same time: undistinguishing crowds who reckon that being and non-being are the same but not the same. And, for all of them, the route they follow is a path that keeps turning backwards on itself.

''Solipsism'' the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. And to know one self, is to know all selves. When one self is known, all selves are known.


Christianity of course rejects the solipsism theory. Why, because they need to justify the unjust. It's a tyrannical way of exercising power in a cruel or arbitrary way. Rather sad actually.

It's just so easy for Christians to say God did it, saves them having to think outside the box. Their failure to grow a frontal lobe is their own downfall, and no one elses. Most intelligent people see through the sham and charade that is the Christain belief structure for what it is, which is a mind control mechanism. But people are more than welcome to cling to their delusions as long as they are not telling others how to live their lives according to what will always be their own delusional beliefs.

Dasein is not solipsism because Dasein is impossible without an environment of Dasein .

[Dontaskme]

Dasein is not solipsism because Dasein is impossible without an environment of Dasein .

Now that's just Semantics.

Dasein : existence : self-conscious human individuality.

In other words SELF : the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

Self: solipsism.


Never mind, make up your own story. We all do it.

[Immanuel Can]

...he may not ever understand what Dasein means.

Define it, B.

Dasein is like you are thrown into a course of events which you experience in your own unique way. True, you find that certain others' experience is very similar to your own, however your life can never be the life of another individual.

Dasein is analogous to physical space: one tennis ball can't possibly occupy the same space as another tennis ball.

That's your definition? Okay.

Well, the term actually means "being there," or "being in place." Heidegger had particular applications for it, but others have invented their own. The problem is that there is no stability or objective meaning in the way diverse people try to apply that word, which is why I had to ask you for your own definition.

It looks to me like what you mean is not "dasein," but either "thrownness" or "positionality." I can't quite tell, though, because those are somewhat different terms. You sort of suggest both and neither.

Let's speak English instead. It's so much clearer when speaking to English speakers.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If I had 'an apologetics project' (and mine is that we should not merely dismiss Christianity and on the other should have for it an immense respect -- and this is what I have said all bloody along!) I would go about the process of closer examination more thoroughly. My assumption is that most people do not understand well enough why Christianity, as such, came to be seen as insufficient (as well as also *untrue* in some aspects).

Easy. US mega-church evangelist pastors, enough to turn any (intelligent) person off of the notion of Christianity and what being a christian is all about.

I honestly believe that those pastors are atheists!! - just see the money $$$

What you say here has a good deal of merit. But the 'mega churches' of the US are a late phenomenon and, additionally, everything about the American modifications and wild interpretations of the Christian form (Mormonism, Pentecostalism, Christian Science, etc.) would need to be studied separately from, but also as an evolution of, an earlier and general rejection of Christianity. For the simplest way to refer to the necessity of rejection we need look no further than these various pages in this specific thread. And the prime example is -- and here IC is the culprit -- the way the Adam & Eve story is rhetorically handled. I refer to one example but there are of course dozens. For true-blue and ideologically committed Christians, and this in the face of evidence that cannot be put aside, the core lie has to be held to, or explained in a new, creative way, in order to hold the fabric of the story together.

So a curious thing happens. A rational and grounded person realizes that there are structures of mythology that form the core story -- in this case of Christianity -- and realizes that many ‘believers’, in order to maintain the story-structure, must prevaricate to do so. This then becomes a broad and necessary tactic that cannot be abandoned since if the truth is told the Story will collapse. The only way therefore to preserve the valuable content or the larger sense in the Story is to tell the truth about the function of the story. And largely this is what I write about when I suggest that, no mater what or how, the Story is never the truth contained in the story. Because *Truth* at these levels is, in its essence, metaphysical. These truths do not and in fact cannot pertain to what we mean when we say 'physical fact'. These represent two distinct epistemological orders and they cannot be reconciled except through elaborate prevarication.

So there is simply no way to salvage the Adam & Eve story except through elaborate mental gymnastics performed by Moderns who, as consummate liars and jugglers, even if very well intentioned, attempt to reconcile our modern method of gaining and assessing knowledge with that of a radically different epistemological system. But here I must point out that this is what Immanuel Can directly did and what he indeed must do. I use the phrase 'can only do' because, obviously, if the truth is told the story collapses. That is, if a pillar falls other pillars are in danger. And once one or two fall, and once the sound of their crashing down is heard widely, the entire system is understood to be in danger.

I must explain why Immanuel Can's context is not only relevant but essential to talk about. He desperately resists this focus, and whines about ad hominem (though the filibuster strategy seems to have been abandoned), but this is all an attempt to avoid focus on the social-psychological aspect of the undermining of the Christian story. These Stories, and religious metaphysics and ideology generally (within all religious structures) are not only the foundation of *ideas* in a neutral sense (such as those ideas that IC wishes to discuss 'rationally') but are supports and explanatory systems on which the individual depends. The worldview that Christianity (and all religious structures) offer are a platform upon which the individual constructs existential identity -- literally his reason for being.

Now it happened, and it was inevitable, that the stories themselves were undermined and could not, by responsible, thoughtful, rational and upstanding persons be any longer believed (and here it must be stated that this was (and still is) because of an essential sense of personal integrity) it needs to be understood that to have the ground shift under one's feet, to have the supporting pillar threatened or removed, to have the 'horizon' erased, is a terrifying threat the the structures within the individual.

What happens to the individual who has the ground removed? Well, that is a question for sociologists and psychologists, isn't it? But it is no small thing and is a thing of tremendous consequence. And here a curious and noteworthy tactic emerges: the construction of the lie and the reinvention of another level of story in order to 'patch together' the shredding or shredded belief-system.

Here I have no choice but to introduce Immanuel Can as a chief protagonist and apologist in this specific conversation and I must examine his context. That context is social and psychological. And therefore it is relevant and fair to discuss his specific church -- the place and the assembly where the phantasy is explained and bolstered and maintained in order to keep the System from falling down. It is therefore imperative to see these religious environments as 'salvage stations' having immense relevance and importance for people who genuinely feel threatened.

This is why I posted the videos which show the religious performance as it operates. I cannot see any way around seeing these sort of events as enactments, as participatory performances, as deeply social and also psychological events. And certainly the fact that they are 'mass events' and are given to mass audiences cannot be negated or dismissed. I have been thinking about Benny Hinn's peformance and reading the commentary. Many people write that they are genuinely moved and affected. Maybe their 'lives are transformed' as Christians, and as IC, says that our lives must be transformed. Maybe these events produce 'born again transformations' in many people. Well if that is true how is it then that IC for example disassociates himself from the transforming event? That is within the individual? In that crowd surely many were 'born again'.

But the idea, suggested by IC, is that these are the Biblical 'wolves in sheep's clothing' who will lead many astray. So then let us now imagine some of those who were 'genuinely transformed' as a result of being moved by Benny Hinn's performances. They have now come face-to-face with God himself. "Answer for yourself!" God thunders to the just-dead individual. "I was moved in the most sincere way that I had available to me! I did the very best I knew how to do under my circumstances! I heard the Word -- what I thought was the Word of Isaiah that would move through time and history and transform everything, and I was transformed! I did my best!"

"No no no no! You were led astray! And now you will pay the price for all eternity. To Hell you go!"

But now we have to turn back to the fin-de-siècle period, but it is hard to assign a precise date, in order to understand what happened in European culture when 'the story' did in fact fall down. We have to focus on this time and ask 'What did people do?" and we also have to ask ourselves "What are we doing now?" because we are all living in the consequence of this 'falling down' and of this collapse.

What happened in European culture was that people began to consider, from new angles and with a different perspective, what religiousness and spirituality actually mean. There was a shift from the conceptual picture of a god 'out there' to the realization that if god is anywhere, or is in any sense perceived and understood, it occurs on an inner level. Obviously then a shift took place where the focus becomes the individual and the individual's internal structures. And where might someone turn for information on this 'internal level'? Suffice to say that whole arrays of avenues opened up, and must inevitably have opened up. Nature, psychology, a return to more Earth-centered conceptions of what spirituality is or must be, social relationships, certainly the entire therapeutic movement (and these are extremely varied), and of course the seeking of new modalities in, let's say, the spiritual forms and ideologies of the Indian subcontinent, in Buddhism, and all the rest.

See for example: Mountain Of Truth: The Counterculture Begins, Ascona, 1900-1920 by Martin Green

"In 1900 a group of disaffected intellectuals, preoccupied with their own unhappiness in a rapidly industrializing Europe, built the Nature Cure Sanatorium on a small hill outside the tiny Swiss fishing village of Ascona. Soon others joined them, erecting ramshackle cabins and villas on the hill, which they called "Monte Verita," the Mountain of Truth. During the next twenty years Ascona became the place for many of Europe's spiritual rebels to visit, including D. H. Lawrence, Hermann Hesse, C. G. Jung, Rudolf von Laban, Isadora Duncan, Paul Tillich, and Mary Wigman. Seeking an alternative to the "iron cage" of European civilization, they embraced anarchism, pacificism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and nature worship, and developed new art forms, including Modern Dance, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Although their idealistic pursuit of the alternative life eventually was interrupted by the reality engulfing Europe, the ideas that emerged from Ascona lived on to inspire later counterculture movements and art forms. In this first thorough account in English of life in Ascona, its remarkable inhabitants, and their counterculture experiments, Martin Green apprached the Mountain of Truth from three perspectives. First, he describes the lives of the three most interesting and representative Asconans: Otto Gross, Gusto Graser, and Rudolf von Laban. He then surveys the whole phenomenon of Ascona, showing who was there at different times and how their variety of interests and enterprises led them to invent a new religions, ethics, psychology, diet, art, and above all new relations between men and women. Finally, he examines the ideas developed at Ascona at their later influence on arts, culture, and politics. In particular, Green relates the counterculture in Ascona to the Gandhian movement in India nd the 1960s counterculture in America. Because the story of Ascona is inseparable from the ideas embraced by its inhabitants -- from paganism to Freudian psychology -- this is a wide-ranging and evocative study in culture history and the history of ideas.".

These are giant shifts in the way people approach being and existence as well as interpretation of existence. All that we might refer to as manifestations of the shifts have a cultural, ideological and metaphysical origin that needs to be better understood through processes of being seen.

[Dubious]

If I had 'an apologetics project' (and mine is that we should not merely dismiss Christianity and on the other should have for it an immense respect -- and this is what I have said all bloody along!) I would go about the process of closer examination more thoroughly. My assumption is that most people do not understand well enough why Christianity, as such, came to be seen as insufficient (as well as also *untrue* in some aspects).

Easy. US mega-church evangelist pastors, enough to turn any (intelligent) person off of the notion of Christianity and what being a christian is all about.

I honestly believe that those pastors are atheists!! - just see the money $$$

That's not so unusual. There were popes who proved that one can be a Catholic and an atheist at the same time, though they wouldn't want to advertise it! That would be like killing the golden goose! Selling indulgences then, for example, is hardly different from selling holy water now. Both require that you be sinful to be effective. Without sin, the salvation business is screwed.

You gotta understand...religion is religion and business is business! If you can use the former to lucratively transact the latter consider it another form of a successful enterprise of the "Jesus loves you and wants to help you variety."

In short...

Evangelists love those who love Jesus who will love you even more if you send them money!