Christianity

[Nick_A]

Is World Peace Possible(?)

Nick, I thought you were gonna start that one up here.

It needs a thread of its own. The ability to look up without being trapped in the weeds of dualism in no way opposes Deism

[henry quirk]

Is World Peace Possible(?)

Nick, I thought you were gonna start that one up here.

*It needs a thread of its own. **The ability to look up without being trapped in the weeds of dualism in no way opposes Deism

*Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about. Unless I'm mis-recollectin', up-thread you said you'd start a new thread, Is World Peace Possible(?).

**

I ain't got no clue what that has to do with me askin' you about startin' a thread titled Is World Peace Possible(?).

[Harry Baird]

Just out of curiosity how would you propose when we have ascertained thee One Truth?

Or, what would you say would be the deciding factor in KNOWING that we have finally obtained thee One Truth?

I don't know. Epistemic confusion seems to be part of the human condition - or at least of my condition. My hope lies in revelation: a revelation that contains within it the means of verifying its authenticity. I have no idea what that would be though, although some near-death experiencers report that during the experience they "knew everything". That knowledge seems to be lost to them when they return, and I have not yet encountered an NDE report where the experiencer explains *how* they knew that they knew, so to speak.

[Harry Baird]

Hello there Harry hope all is well. It is indeed impressive that you read the entire thread. However, and based on what you have said so far, and the dialog you submitted, I do not get the impression that you have grasped the nature of the problem.

The place to start, and here I mean the place for all of us to start, the only possible beginning point, is with the solid and undeniable truth that it has come about (and this is true in your own case) that we can no longer 'believe'. And when we try, say, to 'believe' we do so through imposing simulacra of belief. If you examine and think-through what I suggest here I believe you will recognize that it is true.

The prime example of 'simulacra of belief' is, for our purposes, Immanuel Can. In him the 'edifice' of belief is a forced contraption of what it originally was. It is even quite possible that he does not, really, 'believe' but contrives a whole internet personality as an 'enactment'. His 'belief' is expressed through a contrived certainty and, in the end, reduces to "you will soon be in Hell'. That's it! It has no other moving part. Immanuel Can is just as much a postmodern creature as we are such creatures: we who exist in a state where we cannot believe (in the former structure, the former story).

This is not a minor problem, it is a vast problem. And my assertion is that *we* have not fully seen the dimension of this problem. What it means, what it has meant, what very strange effects it has on our culture and as well on our personalities and how we act.

The only way (that I can tell) to have meaningful interchange is to identify the real problem. Then to talk about it honestly.

Go ahead Harry -- start with yourself!

I would make one suggestion, direct but as always friendly: identify the problem. I do not believe that you have in any subtantial sense got to the essence of what differences pertain between my perspective (which has evolved but more properly been solidified through involvement in this thread and principally through interaction with Immanuel) and that of Lacewing. I hope that you recognize that Lacewing did not and does not have a *position* per se but rather a reactive stance -- and this is a significant difference.

I will further say that if you were able to see more clearly the dramatic problem that we all face (a social, ideological and cultural we) your dialogue might have had some interesting force in it. As it is it is merely 'cute' and substantially vacuous.

G'day there AJ. Thanks for your response.

Starting with the play: it is intended to be "cute" as you put it, also being a bit of a farcical melodrama. It is not intended to deal too seriously in the issues of this thread - nor to be scrupulously faithful in its representation of its characters - although I hope that there is at least some food for thought in it and some recognisability in its characters.

Wasn't there a call for more entertainment only a few pages back? I hope to be providing a little, however vacuous.

Now, the problem, you say, is that we can no longer "believe", except as simulacra. You say that this is a vast problem. You then invite me to identify the problem... which you've just identified. Thank you for saving me the effort. This may seem snarky but what more could I say? I'm fairly agreeable with your formulation of the problem, so there doesn't seem much to take issue with or to reformulate.

As I wrote (in fewer words) in my first post to this thread, I've long since explained in past posts my position on Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, morality, what is and isn't believable for me with respect to all of that, and the general state of confusion or at least limited knowledge we (or at least I) have here on the earthly plane. I see no need to repeat that content, so I'll decline your invitation to "talk about [the real problem] honestly". Please feel free to elaborate on it yourself though, or to point out what you think I'm missing or have not yet addressed in my hundred or so posts from nearly a decade ago.

Please bear in mind that I'm working on a coding project at the moment and am loath to spare the time to get involved in an extensive conversation in this thread. I can get involved in a light fashion though. I've taken quite a few notes, so if you'd like me to provide a few prompts to further the talking points of yourself and others, or to assess the state of play of various debates that have taken place in the thread, then I'd be happy to do that.

[uwot]

If you can admit that you are incapable of sustained impartial attention...

Is that something you can admit to?

Yes. My advantage is that I have verified it and realize the value of what has been lost and make efforts to acquire it

Why should anyone, who isn't you, accept what you have verified and realised the value of as the product "of sustained impartial attention?"

[uwot]

Please bear in mind that I'm working on a coding project at the moment and am loath to spare the time to get involved in an extensive conversation in this thread.

Well yes, I imagine you are short of time having read all 339 pages of this thread.

[Harry Baird]

Please bear in mind that I'm working on a coding project at the moment and am loath to spare the time to get involved in an extensive conversation in this thread.

Well yes, I imagine you are short of time having read all 339 pages of this thread.

Ha. Fair call. I was hoping it would be something of an end rather than a continuation. The reading had become something of a diversion for procrastination.

[allautin@gmail.com]

I will explain the Trinity

First - ALL Religions are immortality ideologies

The trinity is a trite immortality tale as I will explain in a few sentences

—> There is no biological generation; there there is no degeneration . There is no sex . . . The Virgin Mary

There is no (biological) generation therefore no degeneration - therefore the generations are conflated

The father and son are one

This is yet another ghost story as a ghost is a nice vehicle for these stories; a ghost doesn’t die, a ghost by definition defies death.

This trite tale also serves as a vehicle to get gods presence on earth. This effort dates at least to Moses

QED

But some are awed by the word transcendent/transcendental- they should not be. It is a psychological defense (denial) with an added element, because denial flat out is very energy consuming. Can’t keep saying, No no no. Well one can, but is denial + is easier, more attractive

[Nick_A]

Is that something you can admit to?

Yes. My advantage is that I have verified it and realize the value of what has been lost and make efforts to acquire it

Why should anyone, who isn't you, accept what you have verified and realised the value of as the product "of sustained impartial attention?"

There is no reason to. There is only one reason for seeking to escape from Plato's Cave. If a person is satisfied with living in an absurd world lacking meaning, why look for escape? If a person wants to escape, it requires first the need to escape, the will to escape, and the courage to buck the tide to sustain conscious attention. Without it conscious impartial attention is impossible. How many have this? Christianity for me offers the help of grace to make escape possible

[Age]

Just out of curiosity how would you propose when we have ascertained thee One Truth?

Or, what would you say would be the deciding factor in KNOWING that we have finally obtained thee One Truth?

I don't know.

The answer is REALLY VERY, VERY SIMPLE. If ANY one is interested.

Epistemic confusion seems to be part of the human condition - or at least of my condition. My hope lies in revelation: a revelation that contains within it the means of verifying its authenticity.

This is IN the 'process' of being SHOWN, or REVEALED.

I have no idea what that would be though, although some near-death experiencers report that during the experience they "knew everything".

The WAY to KNOW 'things', is SHOWN, to those who Truly WANT to KNOW.

That knowledge seems to be lost to them when they return, and I have not yet encountered an NDE report where the experiencer explains *how* they knew that they knew, so to speak.

Okay.

[uwot]

There is only one reason for seeking to escape from Plato's Cave.

There is no need to escape from Plato's Cave if you don't chain yourself to it in the first place. Anyone who has read philosophy will know all about the veil of appearance - no competent philosopher is a naïve realist.

If a person is satisfied with living in an absurd world lacking meaning, why look for escape?

If your world is absurd and lacks meaning, I really don't think the best way to cure that is to latch onto ancient mythology.

If a person wants to escape, it requires first the need to escape, the will to escape, and the courage to buck the tide to sustain conscious attention.

You may be better served by directing your conscious attention at something that will make a material difference, rather than moping about how awful everything is.

Without it conscious impartial attention is impossible. How many have this?

Almost everyone. The trick is to use it to cheer yourself up.

Christianity for me offers the help of grace to make escape possible

See above; there is little evidence that your christianity makes you happy.

[Nick_A]

There is only one reason for seeking to escape from Plato's Cave.

There is no need to escape from Plato's Cave if you don't chain yourself to it in the first place. Anyone who has read philosophy will know all about the veil of appearance - no competent philosopher is a naïve realist.

If a person is satisfied with living in an absurd world lacking meaning, why look for escape?

If your world is absurd and lacks meaning, I really don't think the best way to cure that is to latch onto ancient mythology.

If a person wants to escape, it requires first the need to escape, the will to escape, and the courage to buck the tide to sustain conscious attention.

You may be better served by directing your conscious attention at something that will make a material difference, rather than moping about how awful everything is.

Without it conscious impartial attention is impossible. How many have this?

Almost everyone. The trick is to use it to cheer yourself up.

Christianity for me offers the help of grace to make escape possible

See above; there is little evidence that your christianity makes you happy.

Is the purpose of Christianity to make you happy or to experience meaning from a higher perspective. Do you find happiness from the eternal dualistic battle between and no? From the world pace thread:

But peace for you is a theoretical impossibility. I am suggesting that without the experience of meaning as explained in the OP by Simone, it remains an impossibility. Why must humanity be fixated on the duality created by shadows oblivious of a higher perspective in which they are experienced as one.

The reason is that Man is not a unified whole but rather a tripartite soul of three parts held together by imagination to make our hypocrisy tolerable for ourselves. For those aware that peace is impossible for the human condition, the question becomes if our species can open to meaning from a higher perspective putting the tripartite soul in balance? Unfortunately it requires impartial conscious attention which only now exists in our being as a potential.

So for the great beast, world peace is an impossibility. Like all other beasts, it follows natural and cosmic cycles. All potentials remain for individuals with the need to be human rather then for justified unbalanced tripartite souls.

[Nick_A]

There is only one reason for seeking to escape from Plato's Cave.

There is no need to escape from Plato's Cave if you don't chain yourself to it in the first place. Anyone who has read philosophy will know all about the veil of appearance - no competent philosopher is a naïve realist.

If a person is satisfied with living in an absurd world lacking meaning, why look for escape?

If your world is absurd and lacks meaning, I really don't think the best way to cure that is to latch onto ancient mythology.

If a person wants to escape, it requires first the need to escape, the will to escape, and the courage to buck the tide to sustain conscious attention.

You may be better served by directing your conscious attention at something that will make a material difference, rather than moping about how awful everything is.

Without it conscious impartial attention is impossible. How many have this?

Almost everyone. The trick is to use it to cheer yourself up.

Christianity for me offers the help of grace to make escape possible

See above; there is little evidence that your christianity makes you happy.

Is the purpose of Christianity to make you happy or to experience meaning from a higher perspective. Do you find happiness from the eternal dualistic battle between and no? From the world pace thread:

But peace for you is a theoretical impossibility. I am suggesting that without the experience of meaning as explained in the OP by Simone, it remains an impossibility. Why must humanity be fixated on the duality created by shadows oblivious of a higher perspective in which they are experienced as one.

The reason is that Man is not a unified whole but rather a tripartite soul of three parts held together by imagination to make our hypocrisy tolerable for ourselves. For those aware that peace is impossible for the human condition, the question becomes if our species can open to meaning from a higher perspective putting the tripartite soul in balance? Unfortunately it requires impartial conscious attention which only now exists in our being as a potential.

So for the great beast, world peace is an impossibility. Like all other beasts, it follows natural and cosmic cycles. All potentials remain for individuals with the need to be human rather then for justified unbalanced tripartite souls.

[Dontaskme]

For those aware that peace is impossible for the human condition, the question becomes if our species can open to meaning from a higher perspective putting the tripartite soul in balance? Unfortunately it requires impartial conscious attention which only now exists in our being as a potential.

The human condition is consciousness, to be conscious of the horror that is this meatgrinder called nature.
Consciousness was natures biggest blunder.

So for the great beast, world peace is an impossibility. Like all other beasts, it follows natural and cosmic cycles. All potentials remain for individuals with the need to be human rather then for justified unbalanced tripartite souls.

Where there is consciousness there is no peace. Peace is a place called Mars, or the Moon.

To shake people up, to wake them from their sleep, (unconsciousness) while knowing you are committing a crime and that it would be a thousand times better to leave them alone, since when they wake, too, you have nothing to offer them...


Sleep, the dream from which we never awaken. To awaken from UnConsciousness is the the dream of every consciousness sick of itself.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It is an interesting page and it would have been a splendid exhibition to go to 16 years ago had I been in LA at the time. Yeah, Christian iconography is beautiful and fascinating. I have a Madonna and child triptych above my telly as I watch the Wimbledon final and respond to you.

There are moments -- here in this present conversation -- where I notice things and desire to make some comment but then find that organizing what I am perceiving seems quite difficult. It is really my own problem to solve of course. But I will try to address 'the surface' first and then move to 'the depth'.

I find it highly ironic in a truly postmodern sense that you refer to an image of Mary over your TeeVee while you simultaneously watch a tennis match and comment on a philosophy forum! This is an *image of your life* or it could be taken as such. I know that in our day and time that such blank contrasts are nothing unusual, and I know that in your understanding of things -- completely and thoroughly on the 'other side' of any religious or mystical affiliation with former symbols -- that the irony I notice could not be irony for you. But the point I want to make has to do with the Image of Mary as having had a profound depth. My point of reference is Gertude von le Fort's The Eternal Woman which is a depth meditation on the mysterious aspect of symbolic woman from a Christian/Catholic perspective. As I was trying to widen my understanding of Catholicism I read it some years back. I was impressed by its connotations which are so contradictory to the modern *image of woman*. I cite this as just one example of 'shifting metaphysics' but certainly not a minor one.

When The Eternal Woman was first published in Germany, Europe was a battlefield of modern ideologies that would sweep away millions of lives in war and genocide. Denying the Creator, who made male and female, Nazism and Communism could only fail to appreciate the true meaning of the feminine and reduce woman to a mere instrument of the state. In the name of liberating her from the so-called tyranny of Christianity, atheism, in any form, leads to woman's enslavement.

With penetrating insight, Gertrud von le Fort understood that the war on womanhood, and consequently on motherhood, always coincides with an attack on the faith of the Catholic Church, which she embraced at the age of 50 in 1926. In The Eternal Woman, she counters the modern assault on the feminine not with polemical argument but with perhaps the most beautiful meditation on womanhood ever written.

Taking Mary, Virgin and Mother, as her model, von le Fort reflects on the significance of woman's spiritual and physical receptivity that constitutes her very essence, as well as her role in both the creation and redemption of human beings. Mary's fiat to God is the pathway to our salvation, as it is inextricably linked with the obedience unto death of Jesus her Son. Like the Son's acceptance of the Cross, Mary's acceptance of her maternity symbolizes for all mankind the self-surrender to the Creator required of every human soul. Since any woman's acceptance of motherhood is likewise a yes to God, when womanhood and motherhood are properly understood and appreciated, the nature of the soul's relationship to God is revealed.

I realize that it appears that I have been edging toward a position that denies the essence of Christian revelation, and therefore appear to have been mocking my own former *commitments*, and this is true in one sense and untrue in another. My position is that 'the picture' (that is the structural edifice of Christianity) is the vehicle through which invisible and even ineffable truths enter man's world of perception. As the Stories are undermined by variegated processes -- those that have produced modernity -- the first order of effect is that intellectuals and those leaders of culture lose the capability of receiving and grasping those *truths* to which I refer.

Especially on lower planes of intellect -- among 'the masses' -- the loss of relevant Symbols is a veritable loss because, it seems, without the restraining symbol the most vulgar appetites rise up and consume the individual's consciousness. This individual is then *empowered* by many gross impulses and simultaneously becomes a victim or a pawn of a range of powers & forces that seek to dominate and control him since there is so much to be extracted from him in a 'consumer culture'. The extent of this abuse and manipulation has no limit. And one end-point is an administrative state through which absolute forms of coercion are manifest and become real possibilities.

I am working with some ideas proposed (in too dense prose which I find annoying) in Phillip Rieff's book The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1965).

What interests me is, as well, your incapacity to grasp what Nick is trying to communicate. I am interested in exploring (obviously for my own benefit) why this is. My view is that you, Uwot, as a philosophical intellect are yourself an outcome of the destruction of the capability to grasp symbols, symbolic content, and thus the metaphoric content that these encase. Your world is therefore a bit like the image you presented: a man writes superficial commentary, a sort of debased philosophical commentary, while the former image of the Mother of God hangs over the TeeVee on which the Wimbledon tennis-match plays. You must admit it is a ripe image!

This will seem as if it is some type of attack against you personally (though you seem capable to shrug anything off and have always a cleverish retort) but it is not. It is a commentary on the loss of capacity to grasp complex meaning. Once the symbolic is undermined the natural result is that the meaning encased in it and expressed through it is seen as *unreal* and also without value. In any case this is how the Vulgar Mind reacts.

So what I try to express is what happens -- what is happening -- when The Culture loses its former moorings within and to symbolical structures through which these *meanings* were conveyed. Once Vulgar Man has lost the connection it seems to me that it is hard indeed for it to be reestablished in him. And as I say there are so many forces and powers that have an interest in 'taking him over' and (as Nick makes plain) keeping him in that Cave in which he is controlled and not free.

Thus culture as 'beast' is a meaningful metaphor.

Instruments of the State, the cave of disempowered thralldom, those 'cages of subjective assertion', the loss of a unifying metaphysics, and the atomization of individuals into varying forms of empowered meaninglessness -- it is these things that stimulate a range of concerns about our present which, as I often perceive, you seem to have no concern for at all.