Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

No. There is something in the truths of religious princIples that compels many to attack them with negative emotions.

Sure, but Harry is not *many* Harry is Harry. As I said your comment was unfair and very inaccurate.

People try to judge Christianity by human standards which can't be done so devolve it into Christendom. What I find disturbing is most cannot contemplate it but just drift into secular condemnation. Why? Is it just stupidity or something else even more dangerous?

What has been condemned is one dubious assertion within standard Christianity and one tightly bound up with Christendom (to use your term). It is not necessarily a notion pertinent to a higher-dimension Christian conception.

Your question is rhetorical. I vote "not stupid" and "pertinent".

[seeds]

Consciousness cannot push atoms around - certainly not by your example!

Of course it can.

Wiggle your toes, and then realize that that's an instance of the "fluid-like" essence of your mind and consciousness extending down from your brain and "saturating" the ubiquitous network of your body's nervous system in such a way that not only provides you with your general awareness of your body from head-to-toe,...

No idea what a "fluid-like essence of your mind and consciousness" is supposed to be. We know the neurological process by which one wiggles one's toes. Calling it a "fluid like essence", explains nothing.

Here's how I foolishly imagine the above conversation should go:

Dubious: I have no idea what a "fluid-like essence of your mind and consciousness" is supposed to be. Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?

seeds: No, I don't mind at all. Thank you for asking.

But then I realized that no matter how much detail I put into explaining what I mean, your almost hostile opposition to anything with a metaphysical sounding tinge to it would prevent you exerting any effort in trying to understand what I say.

In which case, it would be a waste of time for both of us.

Whether instinct or intent, the physical brain initiates the processes by which it happens. In effect, your brain is the controlling agent in any movement your body makes.

Okay, then how about when a lucid dreamer willfully (and consciously) chooses (desires) to transform her dreams from an experience of shopping in a city mall to that of lying on the beach of a beautiful tropical island, again, is that also just "instinct, triggering nerve impulses"?

I think you will admit that moving one’s arm (for whatever reason) is not the same as lucid dreaming. These are two separate domains not to be conflated....

No, Dubious, if you are a hardcore materialist, then you must concede to the assumption that the substance from which your dreams are created is simply an inward extension of the same fundamental substance from which your arm is created.

Therefore, if hardcore materialism is true, then conflating the two "domains" is unavoidable.

...One thing they have in common...the will to move one’s arm and the will to reorder one’s dreams – for those so capable – are both brain centered. You’ll never escape the physicality of the brain as the commanding instrument in whatever you do, think about or imagine.

How in the world could a "brain" (an arrangement of unconscious atomic particles) have the "will" (i.e., the "personal desire"), not only to create, but then "frolic about" on the sands of a dream beach?

In other words, what is "it" that's "frolicking" (enjoying itself) on the sands of a dream beach?

No, Dubious, the one thing they have in common is that the "will" to move one's arm, and the "will" to shape one's thoughts and dreams into anything one wishes, is instigated by something that is conscious and "self"-aware (and not by an amalgam of unconscious atoms).

Granted, the conscious and self-aware "it" may indeed be an epiphenomenal creation that arose (emerged) as a result of the unique arrangement of those unconscious atoms, however, the "it" is something wholly other than the substance from which it emerged (as is theorized in the concept of "Strong Emergence," as opposed to "Weak Emergence").

It never ceases to amaze me how skeptics such as yourself rigidly assume that just because you personally have never experienced a reason for believing that God exists, it therefore unequivocally means (or proves) that no one else - in all of history - has ever had such an experience.

This is a truly absurd statement! How could I or anyone ever claim that no one ever had a deeply mystical, godlike experience?

You're kidding me, right?

Here you are in the following quote, clearly claiming (or implying) precisely what you now claim no one can claim...

The world needs more science and less Bishop Berkeley who knows nothing of the mind of god or whether god even exists.

I've always respected your opinion, Dubious, but are you completely oblivious of the implications of your own statements?

And furthermore, I don't know how many times I've brought this up in other threads, but if you weren't so closed-minded about this stuff you would realize that science (quantum science) seems to be suggesting (to the metaphysician) that universal matter appears to be constructed from a "mind-like" substance that is capable of becoming absolutely anything "imaginable" (just like the substance that forms our thoughts and dreams).

So, if I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Bishop's theory.

...yes! To the metaphysician certainly but not to a physicist.

Well, that kind of depends on the physicist.

Please forgive me for being repetitive in the quotes I use, but how about uber physicist Max Planck (one of the founding fathers of quantum physics), who allegedly stated the following...

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”...

..."All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter."

Or how about the alleged words of another founding father of quantum physics, Werner Heisenberg...

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

Perhaps the physicists you are referring to are the ones who are too focused-in on the trees and are thus unable to see the proverbial forest.

There is way too much hocus pocus surrounding quantum theory that views like yours are quite ubiquitous. Quantum theory is a description of everything in the universe from a microscopic perspective. It’s true that things can get really weird down there but imagining that the laws of quantum physics would allow for mind-stuff capable of transforming itself into “absolutely anything imaginable” is a stretch beyond what quantum theory really describes.

Really, Dubious? "hocus pocus"? Can you be any more cynical and unphilosophical about this?

It is quite obvious (to me, anyway) that hardcore materialists such as yourself,...

(and this includes many of the physicists who do the experiments)

...simply do not understand the metaphysical implications of quantum science.

Now, I'm pretty sure you're not, but if you are even remotely interested in what those implications are, then check out my thread - "Is the universe created from an "informationally-based" substance?" at this link: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34537

As for Berkeley he comes across as absurdly solipsistic in believing that everything is mind-dependent. If it isn’t perceived it doesn’t exist in spite of us being an infinitesimal addition within the entire spectrum of existence who have only recently existed on its stage!

Since you’re so impressed with Berkeley, whose philosophy I regard as one of the most immature of all philosophies, it’s best to leave that subject alone.

From what I can tell, there is absolutely nothing solipsistic about Berkeley's theory, for there is no ruling out the existence of multiple autonomous minds.

Furthermore, the only thing I draw on from Berkeleyanism is the claim that the universe is the MIND of a higher consciousness. Whatever else Berkeley may have believed is of no concern to me.
_______

[Immanuel Can]

Oh. Well, that was a short answer. The rest was irrelevant.

Naturally and obviously I knew that no part of what I'd say would be intelligible to you!

I understand it completely. That's how I know it's empty.

You have a knack for not answering the simplest of questions and just dancing around as if they were irredeemably complex, and at the same time, treating complex matters as if they didn't deserve any thought, and that the answers were simply given as common knowledge already. This makes your posts wordy and long, but with no payoff. The experience of reading copious material that lacks progress in any direction is utterly fatiguing.

You punish your readers in return for their courtesy of paying attention to you, by being extraordinarily windy and circumlocutious. Don't expect them to thank you.

[Nick_A]

People try to judge Christianity by human standards

That's probably because most people are human, Nick.

True, but if human standards are defined by life in Plato's Cave, is it possible for a higher form of standards a human being has the potential to understand and adopt?

[Alexis Jacobi]

You have a knack for not answering the simplest of questions and just dancing around as if they were irredeemably complex, and at the same time, treating complex matters as if they didn't deserve any thought, and that the answers were simply given as common knowledge already.

First, the question of what *god* is, is not at all an easy question and not simple. Not at all.

“Dancing around” for you is any answer not your own.

[Harbal]

True, but if human standards are defined by life in Plato's Cave, is it possible for a higher form of standards a human being has the potential to understand and adopt?

I think that coming out of the cave is about leaving things like Christianity behind.

[Nick_A]

True, but if human standards are defined by life in Plato's Cave, is it possible for a higher form of standards a human being has the potential to understand and adopt?

I think that coming out of the cave is about leaving things like Christianity behind.

Or it could mean leaving the cave enables us to understand the purpose and value of Christianity.

"The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.” ~Simone Weil

What if she is right. Buddha said life is suffering. We don't know how to suffer for our benefit. Suppose a person can carry their cross? What does it mean and how do they benefit?

[Harbal]

Or it could mean leaving the cave enables us to understand the purpose and value of Christianity.

I'm sure that any value in Christianity is attainable in other ways.

"The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.” ~Simone Weil

What if she is right. Buddha said life is suffering. We don't know how to suffer for our benefit. Suppose a person can carry their cross? What does it mean and how do they benefit?

I have no idea what she means, and I don't know what you mean, Nick.

I don't know what drew Simone Weil to Christianity, nor what she saw in it. Whatever she did see, I'm afraid I don't.

[Immanuel Can]

You have a knack for not answering the simplest of questions and just dancing around as if they were irredeemably complex, and at the same time, treating complex matters as if they didn't deserve any thought, and that the answers were simply given as common knowledge already.

First, the question of what *god* is, is not at all an easy question and not simple. Not at all.

Maybe not. But that wasn't my question.

In contrast, to ask for the identification of your god should be an extremely simple matter. Just say, "Baal," or "Thor," or "Zeus," or "One I made up from an assemblage of bits, like Frankenstein's monster." Any of those answers would have been responsive to my question.

What you provided, instead, was a long, indirect excursis on nothing. You were avoiding actually answering. You were like Orwell's description of a cuttlefish, squirting ink while making an escape.

So have you got a real answer...yet?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Maybe not. But that wasn't my question.

Had you more of a sound, intuitive mind still present, you'd have understood better. But you are somewhat of a dimwit -- for all that you seem to have mental capacity. If you were capable of reading, and you seem not to be, you would be able to read my post and understand what I was talking about. But here is the key: according to you, during your university years, you gave yourself over to the brand of Christianity you hold to. Yes? At that point your growth seemed to have stopped. But, in the surrounding culture, and for necessary reasons, exploration, evolution and development continued on. I do not say that all of this was *positive*, but I also do not say that it was *negative*. But about all of this you know nothing. This is very simple: you have locked yourself into Evangelical Christianity and religious fanaticism. This is not really Christianity but a form of Judaism. And to understand you better allow me to quote here:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you -- and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

I make the effort to get right to the core of your *belief system*. You must smash all other god-conceptions! No other way of seeing, or acting, or living, can be seen by you as valid. You essentially mimic the old Hebrew formula.

So it definitely and logically follows that no part of what I said -- literally no part of it -- is intelligible to you. It is in fact intolerable to you.

In contrast, to ask for the identification of your god should be an extremely simple matter. Just say, "Baal," or "Thor," or "Zeus," or "One I made up from an assemblage of bits, like Frankenstein's monster." Any of those answers would have been responsive to my question.

I would not use any of those symbol-pictures, you galoot! Or I could say that no one of those pictures will really help us. If you could read what I wrote you might understand. But you -- quite literally -- cannot read and comprehend. It is something amazing to me. I have not encountered someone so intelligent in a surface sense and yet so dim at the same time.

What you provided, instead, was a long, indirect excursis on nothing. You were avoiding actually answering. You were like Orwell's description of a cuttlefish, squirting ink while making an escape.

You are projecting. The cuttlefish metaphor fits the way you have side-stepped all that has been brought to your attention recently. No one of us does anything similar.

So have you got a real answer...yet?

Have you got a mind and a consciousness capable of receiving it?

Maybe not. But that wasn't my question.

You are not the director of the conversation going on. You are the subject of it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

double

[Dubious]

Here's how I foolishly imagine the above conversation should go:

Dubious: I have no idea what a "fluid-like essence of your mind and consciousness" is supposed to be. Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?

seeds: No, I don't mind at all. Thank you for asking.

But then I realized that no matter how much detail I put into explaining what I mean, your almost hostile opposition to anything with a metaphysical sounding tinge to it would prevent you exerting any effort in trying to understand what I say.

In which case, it would be a waste of time for both of us.

______

It does seem that way! Of course, it would be equally possible to adapt that argument relative to my perspective on the matter!

I agree. Best to let it lie and be done with it! For me the mystery of the physical universe is metaphysical enough without needing to artificially inflate it further. It's understandable and certainly no mystery that each lives in their own circumscribed Weltanschauung.

As the saying goes...to each his own and that will never change.

[Harry Baird]

OK, but, again, I'm not really sure where this gets us in terms of explaining design.

It is surely hard to explain.

Make an attempt anyway. Humour me.

However Godditit is also hard to explain.

Godditit is the explanation.

There remains, of course, the question as to why God (or anything at all) with the intelligent capacity and intent for design exists in the first place, but there's a similar question as to the very existence of your "Nature" in the first place - and at least Goddidit explains the design we see all around us, which "Nature" doesn't seem to (pending your attempt to explain, should you take me up on that suggestion).

[Harry Baird]

There are two separate questions here. The first is, "What does 'justice' mean?" The second is, "What is the origin/source/grounding/justification/'legitimation' of justice as a concept?"

It only the second question that matters. [...] What you need to show is that your "justice" concept has substance, and that it relates to some property of the universe you have a reason to expect.

You're being totally ridiculous. If you were to be consistent, every time anybody anywhere used a word referring to an abstract concept so as to make a claim based on its meaning, they'd have to go through an elaborate process of "legitimating" the word. Ordinary discussion becomes impossible.

No, it's the reverse: the word "justice" has an inter-subjectively understood meaning the legitimacy of which very few if any people genuinely question, but if you think that there is something illegitimate about its generally understood meaning, then it is on you to make that case. I am not using the word in any unusual way, therefore there is no reason for my use of it to be questioned - the burden is on you to demonstrate that there is, if, indeed, you do think that there is.

Because non-existent things still have definitions, so the having of a definition will not show that your "justice" concept refers to anything real.

I've pointed out the flaw in this contention already: embodying, as it does, an abstract concept, the meaning of "justice" is its reality (in the conceptual realm).

[Harry Baird]

It appears that I was correct, and that this supposed "problem" truly is a figment of your imagination.

No, you're wrong.

Go on, then, and provide direct quotes from any philosopher/thinker who genuinely considers the concept of justice to be "illegitimate", or at the very least that the "legitimacy" of the concept of justice is genuinely so much in question as for this to constitute a "problem".

No vague references to books or authors - give us the direct quotes.