Christianity

[Belinda]

We are not in "the perfect" yet. So for now, doubt is going to remain a reality for all of us; but so is the possibility of faith. And they are companions, not adversaries. Both are healthy or unhealthy, depending on the particulars of the situation in which they are exercised, or the object to which they are directed.

Speaking as someone with not the slightest tendency towards religion, I can't help seeing doubt as being preferable to faith; it certainly seems the safer of the two. My lack of spiritual feeling makes it difficult for me to understand why someone would resist doubt, and strive for faith. I'm not judging, I am just saying it doesn't make sense to me.

Doubters need faith that there may be a truth to be gained from doubting. I view faith that tomorrow will come as a basic psychological necessity without which I would spend my life staring at a wall.

[Belinda]

"Or as Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?"

Naw homie we ain't tryna hear that propaganda they made up to keep the Roman slaves and peasants happy with owning nothing. We ain't with being broke no more, cuz.

When politicised by those who aim to conserve a rigid class system, Xianity has been and is as you describe.
Politicians who are greedy men twist any religious or imaginative impulse if it suits them to do so.

[henry quirk]

But the war is the same as it always was: no more or less intense, no more or less sharp & real.




*it ain't got nuthin' to do a contest of ideas: strip away jargon, ideology, philosophy and you have the free man contesting with the slaver...again: same as it always was

Strong echoes of the Marxian analysis. Kudos.

Marx didn't invent strippin' it down to the bone, he just misused it.

[Harbal]

But in the matter of God, cynicism is perhaps more urgent. There's too much at stake in our being wrong about that, and we feel (perhaps) that faith in that area would be too extreme, too trusting, too demanding of us. And yet, in that one thing, God drops the bar of faith to its lowest level for us. He asks very little faith...only as much as a mustard seed's worth, or only as much as a smoking flax produces smoke...it is enough. He lets us keep most of our cynicsm, yet says, "Do not come with no faith at all; but short of that, you may come."

Still the offer is too much for many. The stakes seem too high. Yet, at that point, what is left to lose? One's freedom, perhaps, for a few years...a few forbidden indulgences...a few moments of temporary elation...in exchange for forever. So it's hard to see what one ultimately gains by a life of cynicism, as Browning suggests, especially in that area.

I think there will always be a difficulty in our discussions on this. I will always be looking at it from the outside, and you from the inside. You say there is too much at stake when it comes to the question of belief or faith in God, yet I get no sense of anything being at stake. It fascinates me how that can be. I know what it feels like to have an intense love for another person, yet also be aware that other people will have an attitude of indifference towards them, so I can understand how you could feel strongly, while I have no feelings. What I can't imagine my way into is how one could have strong feelings towards a non-physical being. Just as I don't see how one could fall in love with someone they had never seen, never heard or never had any direct contact with in any real sense. You could describe God to me in the most wonderful terms imaginable, but I couldn't form a strong emotional attachment to a description, and the idea of purposefully striving to do that gives me an uncomfortable feeling.

Don't take this as an attempt to devalue your perspective on it all, I am just trying to explain my perspective, and explain why the prospect of my ever seeing things in the same way as you is so remote.

[henry quirk]

When have we ever not been at war in this sense? Isn't the ongoing contest of ideas (and even "narratives" as you put it) a huge part of the history of humanity? Are you perhaps suggesting that the contest is especially intense at this moment in history compared to all prior moments, such that it uniquely qualifies as a war?

Harry,

The immediacy of the *war, today, is solely becuz, in real time, on the device of your choice, you can watch pieces and parts play out via raw feed.

But the war is the same as it always was: no more or less intense, no more or less sharp & real.

That's a big difference: the internet.

Even more than television did, it makes image the measure of all things, not quality of ideas. People love or hate the person who looks good or bad, based on a visceral reaction to them, not on the basis of the quality of their policies or values. Controlling image has become everything, so emitting the images that serve certain power brokers, and eliminating as many of the images being issued by others has become the name of the game. So it's a war of appearances, much more than it is any battle of intellects.

I hear you but I think you're off the mark a bit. Appearances? No. Intellect? No. Rationalizations is what it is. Rationalizations no one ought listen to. Who gives a damn why the slaver wants to leash? He, the slaver, can cobble together a dozen good reasons why you oughta be on all fours wearin' his collar. He might even truly believe some of those reasons. Nuthin' he sez, or believes, however, changes the fact he wants you leashed.

As I say: there can be no accommodation, no compromise, between the free man and the slaver. Such things always favor the slaver.

[Harbal]

Question: Where did I (first) notice the 'evidence' of the 'decadence' I refer to? Answer: In myself. Thus, the issue, for me, became one of moral dimension. And because I was, allow me to say, forced to make a probing self-analysis of myself when I discovered, in my own self, the fruit of decadence (which I would describe as moral decay), I was forced to go through a review-process. How did this come about? And when I did that I realized, as all who do something similar will realize, that I am an outcome of processes that I did not myself begin and initiate, but rather an effect or a consequence of *choices* that others made.

I am aware of how people have become more decadent, but whether we mean the same thing by that term, I don't know. People have always wanted stuff, but they recognised that sometimes they couldn't have it, and sometimes they would have to wait for it. All too often these days folks seems to think that all their desires come with the right to have them fulfilled. Popular culture also seems to have dumbed down greatly. I don't think I could be accused of being too decadent, though, and I am probably far less so now than I used to be. I run a very old car, I don't go on holiday and I don't surround myself with useless matereal possessions. I don't even have a TV set to watch all the mindless crap they broadcast these days. So, while I won't join you in your campaign to reform society, you can rest assured that I am doing very little to contribute towards its decline.

[attofishpi]

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When is SUM 1 gonna start getting down to being a BIT more objective about GOD?

I can never get a serious, rational debate with you - you chop change contort to your own ridiculous notions from the buy bull book.

I'm actually serious. I'm just answering your question. There's been no "contorting."

IF the bible is to be taken literally as God's word....as per your lie above, so why were the key questions here below cut out by you?

...then why in his omnipotence did he allow the title "bible" to be phonetically identical to "buy bull"?

Don't you think HE wants the bible to be questioned by intelligent minds, hence the phonetic perfection!?

[Immanuel Can]

...then why in his omnipotence did he allow the title "bible" to be phonetically identical to "buy bull"? ...

That can't possibly be a serious question, can it?

Well, I'll treat it as one, though it's really not deserving of it, since it has such an obvious error in it, one you could have looked up yourself so easily. But here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible.

In other words, if that question is at all sincere, you're simply confusing the ancient word with a crass neologism with a weak phonetic comparability. And you're attributing something profound to that.

Seriously?

[Immanuel Can]

But in the matter of God, cynicism is perhaps more urgent. There's too much at stake in our being wrong about that, and we feel (perhaps) that faith in that area would be too extreme, too trusting, too demanding of us. And yet, in that one thing, God drops the bar of faith to its lowest level for us. He asks very little faith...only as much as a mustard seed's worth, or only as much as a smoking flax produces smoke...it is enough. He lets us keep most of our cynicsm, yet says, "Do not come with no faith at all; but short of that, you may come."

Still the offer is too much for many. The stakes seem too high. Yet, at that point, what is left to lose? One's freedom, perhaps, for a few years...a few forbidden indulgences...a few moments of temporary elation...in exchange for forever. So it's hard to see what one ultimately gains by a life of cynicism, as Browning suggests, especially in that area.

I think there will always be a difficulty in our discussions on this. I will always be looking at it from the outside, and you from the inside.

So far, that may be true; but there's no necessity of it being forever.

You say there is too much at stake when it comes to the question of belief or faith in God, yet I get no sense of anything being at stake.

Well, it makes two kinds of difference. Firstly, of course, it makes an eternal difference. That one, you may doubt...yet, if true, it certainly makes the stakes ultimate. But the second, even you can't doubt...that is, that knowing God should change one's life. For better or worse, it makes all the difference to how one continues, including what one's goals and motives are, what gives one joy or concern, how one uses one's resources and time, how one invests oneself in relationships, how one speaks, where one goes, what one does...

Those are high stakes, even if we consider merely this present life. Being a Christian takes everything one has. And if one doesn't see that sort of level of personal commitment in some who profess to be Christians, then on authorization of Jesus Christ Himself, you have permission to doubt their sincerity and the truth of their claim.

The stakes are high, whether we sense they are or not.

What I can't imagine my way into is how one could have strong feelings towards a non-physical being. Just as I don't see how one could fall in love with someone they had never seen, never heard or never had any direct contact with in any real sense.

For very good reason. Jesus Christ Himself said, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." What you're experiencing is exactly what he said would be the case.

You could describe God to me in the most wonderful terms imaginable, but I couldn't form a strong emotional attachment to a description, and the idea of purposefully striving to do that gives me an uncomfortable feeling.

Well, may I make a suggestion? Chase that. Track down for yourself why that is.

Ask yourself why it "gives you an uncomfortable feeling." There is something there, something behind that unease...is it the same kind of unease you feel in other circumstances? Or does this very topic give you a special kind of apprehensiveness you're not accustomed to experiencing in other contexts? Or is this "uncomfortableness" you experience qualitatively different?

Don't take this as an attempt to devalue your perspective on it all, I am just trying to explain my perspective, and explain why the prospect of my ever seeing things in the same way as you is so remote.

No, no...no offense taken. I understand the spirit in which you're speaking, and have no anxiety about answering. In fact, what you're saying is exactly what we should expect to be true: you should have the feeling of being on the outside of something you're not sure at all that you want to get into, and that feeling should be fairly strong.

After all, there are stakes.

[Immanuel Can]

Harry,

The immediacy of the *war, today, is solely becuz, in real time, on the device of your choice, you can watch pieces and parts play out via raw feed.

But the war is the same as it always was: no more or less intense, no more or less sharp & real.

That's a big difference: the internet.

Even more than television did, it makes image the measure of all things, not quality of ideas. People love or hate the person who looks good or bad, based on a visceral reaction to them, not on the basis of the quality of their policies or values. Controlling image has become everything, so emitting the images that serve certain power brokers, and eliminating as many of the images being issued by others has become the name of the game. So it's a war of appearances, much more than it is any battle of intellects.

I hear you but I think you're off the mark a bit. Appearances? No. Intellect? No. Rationalizations is what it is. Rationalizations no one ought listen to.

I'd agree with you Henry, except for the fact that "reason" plays such an alarmingly small role in the formation of these particular opinions. I don't see that it's the data or the facts that people are being led by, at all. I see them as having been emotionally mobilized, irrationally stimulated and directed to unfortunate loyalties and antipathies in ways in which "rationalization" actually plays a subordinate role, when it plays any role at all.

I don't think the believers on both sides, but particularly on the one, take much time to prove to themselves by way of reasons and evidence that their view is precise or correct. I think they quickly seize on party spirit, and think no further. And after that, "reasons" are only used to excuse the emotional enthusiasm or frenzy, not really to motivate it.

Who gives a damn why the slaver wants to leash? He, the slaver, can cobble together a dozen good reasons why you oughta be on all fours wearin' his collar. He might even truly believe some of those reasons. Nuthin' he sez, or believes, however, changes the fact he wants you leashed.

I'm sure you'll remember that Bastiat has an interesting insight on that. He says that the enslavers always flatter "the ordinary man" excessively, fawningly, abundantly, so long as they remain merely in the position of the opposition to the status quo. But once the slavers gain power, they treat the ordinary man as completely devoid of personal potential, incapable of self-direction, proper volition, good intention, or any ability to direct his own life or shape his social situation; and they put themselves as the omnipotent prophets who alone can guide these "dead counters" into the good society.

They're all about "the nobility of the worker" until they win. After that, without compunction, they treat him as a mindless drone they can move, use and sacrifice on the altar of their personal social-engineering ambitions.

As I say: there can be no accommodation, no compromise, between the free man and the slaver. Such things always favor the slaver.

Well, yes. The worker is a lamb to the slaughter. He serves his enslavers as they make him into their helpless pawn, because he flatters them unctuously beforehand. Once he wins, they lose everything.

[attofishpi]

...then why in his omnipotence did he allow the title "bible" to be phonetically identical to "buy bull"? ...

That can't possibly be a serious question, can it?

Well, I'll treat it as one, though it's really not deserving of it, since it has such an obvious error in it, one you could have looked up yourself so easily. But here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible.

In other words, if that question is at all sincere, you're simply confusing the ancient word with a crass neologism with a weak phonetic comparability. And you're attributing something profound to that.

Seriously?

U IDIOT.. GOD JUST TOLD ME NOT TO BOTHER WITH U.

ps. Christ is a man, he actually dislikes arse kissing sycophants like you..you will be wiped clean of thought and reborn into ???

MEN like us like MEN. (not arse kissers surrounding us)

..such is a Knights Watch of Time

[Immanuel Can]

...then why in his omnipotence did he allow the title "bible" to be phonetically identical to "buy bull"? ...

That can't possibly be a serious question, can it?

Well, I'll treat it as one, though it's really not deserving of it, since it has such an obvious error in it, one you could have looked up yourself so easily. But here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible.

In other words, if that question is at all sincere, you're simply confusing the ancient word with a crass neologism with a weak phonetic comparability. And you're attributing something profound to that.

Seriously?

U IDIOT..

It was not I who made the error, and not I who cannot deal with the very simple answer. So I will let the comment speak for itself.

[attofishpi]

That can't possibly be a serious question, can it?

Well, I'll treat it as one, though it's really not deserving of it, since it has such an obvious error in it, one you could have looked up yourself so easily. But here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible.

In other words, if that question is at all sincere, you're simply confusing the ancient word with a crass neologism with a weak phonetic comparability. And you're attributing something profound to that.

Seriously?

U IDIOT..

It was not I who made the error, and not I who cannot deal with the very simple answer. So I will let the comment speak for itself.

But U contorted again to not include this:-

U IDIOT.. GOD JUST TOLD ME NOT TO BOTHER WITH U.

ps. Christ is a man, he actually dislikes arse kissing sycophants like you..you will be wiped clean of thought and reborn into ???

MEN like us like MEN. (not arse kissers surrounding us)

..such is a Knights Watch of Time

[Immanuel Can]

U IDIOT..

It was not I who made the error, and not I who cannot deal with the very simple answer. So I will let the comment speak for itself.

But U contorted again to not include this:-

It was manifestly empty, vituperative and ridiculous.

If you wish to stoop that low, you may; I feel no obligation to join you in the mud, thank you.

[attofishpi]

That can't possibly be a serious question, can it?

Well, I'll treat it as one, though it's really not deserving of it, since it has such an obvious error in it, one you could have looked up yourself so easily. But here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible.

In other words, if that question is at all sincere, you're simply confusing the ancient word with a crass neologism with a weak phonetic comparability. And you're attributing something profound to that.

Seriously?

U IDIOT..

It was not I who made the error, and not I who cannot deal with the very simple answer. So I will let the comment speak for itself.

But U contorted again to not include this:-

U IDIOT.. GOD JUST TOLD ME NOT TO BOTHER WITH U.

ps. Christ is a man, he actually dislikes arse kissing sycophants like you..you will be wiped clean of thought and reborn into ???

MEN like us like MEN. (not arse kissers surrounding us)

..such is a Knights Watch of Time