Christianity

[iambiguous]

Does the Christian God grant dispensations to those who do not worship and adore Him but who share His own political prejudices?

No, of course not. Politics have nothing to do with salvation.

Okay, we are on the same page here in regard to your bff henry. He will spend all of eternity -- billions and billions and billions of years I'm guessing -- writhing in agony in Hell if he insist on "having" the Deist God on Judgment day. Hell is not just for atheists and polytheists.

But you can read all this for yourself: you don't need me to tell you. I point you to John 3. It gives you the terms of salvation.

"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

So, even Muslims and Jews will burn in Hell. Even though Jesus Christ Himself was a Jew. Got it.

Note to henry:

You've still got time.

Now, somebody who takes that commandment can discuss the nature and character of that God, or His expectations, and even His identity. What's clear, if we take that commandment seriously, is that no one is permitted to be either an Atheist or a Polytheist. Nor is such a one going to believe in a God that is not the God of that particular commandment...assuming he takes it as a "commandment."

In other words, henry might get a pass from the Christian God but no fucking way will an atheist!

Having trouble reading English again?

No exceptinos are mentioned. You made that up.

Come on, you are the one who put the emphasis here on atheists and polytheists.

And, again, the irony here that the omniscient Christian God "somehow" gives us free will. But then when some of us use it honestly, sincerely and introspectively to think through the existence of God with genuine intentions, we still get tossed in Hell if we are unable to believe in Him. Your "loving, just and merciful" God.

So your intentions are pure, you say? And you're honest, sincere and thinking it through? If that's true, you will find God. if it's not, then you get what you have chosen...to insult God, and then face the consequences of your rejection of Him.

Note to others:

See how it works? I have spent years honestly and sincerely and with the best of intentions struggling to grapple with and grasp God and religion. I was once a Christian and a Unitarian myself. But if my honesty and sincerity really is genuine I will be "born again". And, if I'm not, that merely demonstrates that I wasn't being honest and sincere at all. Not really.

Also, since he insists that only "true Christians" will be saved, how is that not an insult to all of the other Gods and spiritual paths here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

In fact, even in regard to the God of Abraham, Muslims and Jews seem to be condemned to burn in Hell for all eternity.

As for atheists, however, even Pope Francis declares that given honest and sincere convictions...

"In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences."

Or are "progressive Christians" themselves not true Christians?

[Immanuel Can]

Okay, we are on the same page here in regard to your bff henry.

I don't think we are. For whereas I am content to let the Judge rule when the time comes, since He alone knows Henry's heart, you seem to want to jump to some prophetic insight that frankly, I don't think you have. And you don't think your prognostication will equally apply to you, I must note.

I can wait for the Judgment. Can you?

"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

So, even Muslims and Jews will burn in Hell. Even though Jesus Christ Himself was a Jew. Got it.

Are you having trouble reading again?

And, again, the irony here that the omniscient Christian God "somehow" gives us free will. But then when some of us use it honestly, sincerely and introspectively to think through the existence of God with genuine intentions, we still get tossed in Hell if we are unable to believe in Him. Your "loving, just and merciful" God.

So your intentions are pure, you say? And you're honest, sincere and thinking it through? If that's true, you will find God. if it's not, then you get what you have chosen...to insult God, and then face the consequences of your rejection of Him.

I have spent years honestly and sincerely and with the best of intentions struggling to grapple with and grasp God and religion.[/quote]
Well, we'll see if that's so.

The Day will reveal it.

...even Pope Francis declares...

Well, then, he knows no more than you do, about that, apparently.

Read what the Word says. If you think you know a higher authority...

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, there are other verses of Scripture that help us to understand what the "book" in question is like.

For one thing, it has the names of all the living in it, and names are not added but blotted out of it, it would seem. In other words, it's the list of all those two whom God has granted life...but some refuse the life, and are expunged as a result. That's kind of unusual, because we normally think of a book as something that gets written into; but here, it's a book in which, instead, names are taken out. That's very interesting.

Picture the process of erasing accounts from a ledger. Once there is no longer a use for the calculation, or some error has been found in it, the accountant turns the pencil around, and uses the eraser to expunge the flawed or useless figures.

The quotes from Revelations make it clear that what you are dealing with, what you and Walker are (I guess?) attracted to, is a type of lyrical madness. The content of those quotes, the content of Revelations, must be at the very least questioned if not rejected as maniacal nuttery. However, though I am making a critical statement that will be taken as an affront, and because by my questioning or rejection (not only in this area but in others I have outlined) I will be seen -- and can only be seen -- as anti-Christian. So, it follows then that according to the logic of these views you hold I will be 'blotted out from the Book of Life!

One must, it seems to me, look squarely at the way this absolutist belief-system functions. It allows for no alternative. Either you get with the program or you are against the program. You either submit to Hebrew idea-imperialism and the assumed right of someone -- the priest-class who devised it -- to make such statements that unless you do submit you will literally be wiped out of life. And as Immanuel Can says:

"If that's true, you will find God. if it's not, then you get what you have chosen...to insult God, and then face the consequences of your rejection of Him. Seems very fair."

There is no such "Book of Life" where the names of all living human beings are recorded. But the metaphor itself is just that: a metaphor, an allusion. If you, if anyone, actually seriously believes such a thing you are believing something lunatic. You are then on-board with the use of psycho-spiritual manipulation. You engage in it yourself! Thus, the belief system is a sort of *construct* or a type of Ponzi Scheme of the mind. You have to invest in it in order to draw a benefit from it. It is really a terrifying metaphor or to say it differently it is a metaphor that is wielded as psychic terrorism.

The basic idea is clearly expressed in many places in the OT and is reflected in the NT. And Immanuel Can's brand of Evangelicalism is a reintensification of the same spirit:

Isaiah: For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

Once one has seen that these are the 'contraptions' (to borrow Iambiguous' term) cobbled together by men -- by priests and a priest-class, one can begin to develop a needed critical posture.

Isaiah: The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.

This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.

For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

And what is the necessary stance? It is a refusal to believe any part of the curse, the anathema.

And associated with this is the need to understand that these are, really this is quite evident, the most violent assaults against the sovereignty of those people against whom it is employed like a terrible psychological weapon.

What seems rather curious to me is how it is that Henry, so adamant about the sovereignty of man, does not express refusal to submit to this sort of psychic terror.

Nick, you speak about a 'cave' where man's attention is arrested and controlled. How can you not see that, metaphorically, aspects of the wielding of this manipulation is not similar to theose who control the objects that produce those enchaining shadows?

But the problem is really & truly far larger and far more consequential. The belief-system of Christianity, and also of Judaism, when it is examined in depth, is riddled with sickness of this sort. The picture presented of this YWWH is the very picture of a psychological lunatic. Therefore, if one *believes in* such a distorted god-idea, and if one acts in the world in accord with such a picture, one reveals that in some part of one's own self one has a similar element inside one.

These are supreme power-games. And in this thread we observe people, in minor dimensions of course, playing power-games. The atheists here have rejected the entire picture. Those like myself who are philosophically inclined to metaphors and metaphysical conceptualizations, take the Stories exactly in that way: not as 'real things' but as allusions to ideas that can be rationally explained and defended.

But here is what we have to face (in my humble opinion). The mad-men among us -- those with genuine and extensive terrestrial power -- who are *believers* in this madness (edging toward end-of-world scenarios that are represented as being the beginning of *real life*) have far too much power in our world. President Bush the Younger is an example. But the fact is that every one of the last 6-7 presidents have been Christian Zionists. As a *diseased ideology* it is out of control.

Once tis is seen, then the entire belief-system is drawn into question. It actually becomes immoral to belief such nuttery. It becomes a moral act to disbelieve it and to oppose it.

[Immanuel Can]

Either you get with the program or you are against the program.

Not a "program," AJ. It's nowhere near such a complicated idea. It's a thing called "truth."

You either believe the truth, or you get to believe some kind of error. And you get the natural results of what you pick. That's how the truth works...every single time.

Absolutist? Maybe. The truth is always, absolutely, the best option. And there's absolutely no other reasonable choice. Sorry.

There is no such "Book of Life"

We'll see.

And associated with this is the need to understand that these are, really this is quite evident, the most violent assaults against the sovereignty of those people against whom it is employed like a terrible psychological weapon.

Not a bit.

The various forms of pietism, like Evangelicalism, all insist on the unalienable right to free conscience. You get to choose. In fact, salvation can come no other way. One cannot be forced to believe. That's why there was never such a thing as a pietist Inquistion or pietist Crusades...both would have been futile, given pietism.

But here's the thing about choices: their flip side is called "responsibility." You choose your values, your lifestyle, your beliefs...but you don't get to choose your own consequences, once you've made your choice. Those come naturally, automatically, and definitely.

Furthermore, no pietist can refuse to tell you what the consequences are. How else are you supposed to be able to make a personal choice? If we were to hold back the facts, we would be interfering with your autonomy, depriving you of the information you needed in order to make a genuine choice. So we would never do that.

But don't ask us to make your choices for you. And don't expect not to eat the consequences of your choices. Both are entirely your own concern.

These are supreme power-games.

No. We are uninterested in power. Completely, as a matter of fact.

I think maybe you're projecting, or maybe you've been fooled by Nietzsche, with his absurd axiom that all morality simply conceals "will to power." The truth is simpler: we have no interest in controlling you; in fact, if we did, we'd control the information we shared with you, too, in order to keep you in ignorance of the choices you have in hand.

We're absolutely committed to you being able to make a choice, and live with the consequences you choose. We're not terrorizing you, and we're not bribing you: we're telling you what your own choices entail, in exactly the terms in which God has given them to us. If you don't like it? Talk to Him. It's not our world, and not going to be. And you are not our property.

The last thing we're ever going to do is try to constrain your choice. Go ahead: do what you want to do. Believe what you choose to believe. God has granted you that power and right...and responsibility.

All we say is, "Use it wisely."

[Alexis Jacobi]

Sure: I believe that you are wrong. I believe that you are immoral. I believe that you operate through forms of psychic terror. I believe you have allied yourself with a destructive religious philosophy. That the ‘god’ you envision is like the demiurge of the Gnostics. That you cannot hear ‘for all that you have ears’. I believe all of this needs to be seen through. And different choices taken.

That’s “wise use” according to my moral sense.

But I also understand that the entire world, certainly our world, is in dangerous ideological confusion. It will play out as it plays out.

[Harry Baird]

I think that Weaver draws a picture of the origin of spiritual ailment. And at least to my mind, though I may be susceptible to reduction, I tend to agree that it is as a result of a loss in metaphysical grounding that a range of ills arise. Weaver is just one who explores the causal issue.

The odd thing here -- in relation to the topic of this thread -- is that I see it as needful and necessary that the metaphysical ground be defended, not undermined. And I see Immanuel, Nick and Walker as trying to hold onto the structure that Christianity certainly provides. The irony (if that is the right term) is that by opposing Immanuel in specific areas it would seem that I am trying to undermine the metaphysical principles therein. But that is not so.

Weaver, in any case, offers a way to grasp the decadence of men in relation to 'solid principles' that he describes in metaphysical terms. But because he locates a deviation so far back in time it seems to me rather impossible to be able to verify that, indeed, at that juncture Occidental civilization went off the rails.

I think I understand your position. Here's a paraphrasing of your metaphysic, which you can correct if I get it wrong: because we exist in a world of "nature red in tooth and claw", and unless we undertake an impossibly severe approach of renunciation, we are complicit in a sort of "original sin", and are in need of redemption from "above" - a redemption which is made possible by that which I've labelled for you as the (your) Principle of Incarnation.

There is a difficulty here, given that you have also acknowledged or affirmed a couple of other things:

First, that, although inspired by Christianity, this metaphysic is not strictly Christian, and is to an extent a novel one.

Second, that metaphysical principles such as these can merely be asserted as absolutes, but cannot be considered to be genuine facts in the same way as those of the empirical world, and thus are not agreed upon in the same way that genuine (empirical) facts are agreed upon.

The difficulty, then, is how you might achieve agreement anyway around this metaphysic given that (1) you say that you can't prove it to anyone in the same way that you can prove empirical facts, (2) including, given its relative novelty, not by a "conservative" appeal to it being an historical metaphysic from which we have fallen away.

I wonder if you have spent any time listening to any of the videos of James Lindsay?

If I have, I don't remember doing it. I'll maybe do some investigating later.

The issues that you mention as important and defining (in your paragraph above) I certainly recognize as potent factors. Some would say (and I assume you believe) they are the main causes of social breakdown and conflict. So that if those were addressed the conflicts and breakdowns would resolve?

I think that they do cause social breakdown and conflict, but I recognise that there is also a very real conflict (at least in quite a few Western countries) between the basic ideologies of "conservatism" and "progressivism", aka "the Right" versus "the Left" - a conflict which has been getting worse as time passes.

In this respect, again, the difficulty is: how to obtain a widespread (metaphysical?) agreement that would resolve the conflict?

I suggest that both sides working together so as to address the sort of common problems I listed - and that you seem to agree are common problems - could be a good start: there seems to be good precedent that uniting against a common foe helps to overcome differences between the, at least temporary, allies.

[Harry Baird]

[The] essence of justice [is]: re-balance, no more, no less. [...] You [...] can't overstep the bounds of your claim and remain just.

This was super-helpful, hq - a sort of key which unlocked a way forward in the "You can't define justice as you use it in your argument" versus "I don't need to 'cos the dictionary already does that" dynamic that Immanuel Can has used to sow doubt with respect to my argument.

On the one hand, Immanuel Can seems to be claiming that the dictionary definition is too broad; on the other, my own personal conception of justice is too specific, which is why I've disclaimed it as irrelevant to my argument.

I think you've opened up a useful middle ground here with the two concepts of "re-balancing" and "not overstepping", which I'm relabelling "the righting of wrongs" and "proportionality". To those, I add, consistent with the dictionary definitions I quoted earlier, "fairness".

We can, then, for the purposes of my argument, define "justice" - slightly more specifically than the dictionary, but not so specifically as to turn it into a personal, subjective conception - as:

"The fair and proportionate righting of wrongs".

Different people and groups have somewhat different ideas as to that in which "righting a wrong" consists - some (such as Immanuel Can) believe it consists in retributive punishment; others (such as myself) believe it consists (at least in part) in restoration and the making of amends; yet others (such as AJ) believe it consists (at least in part) in perpetrators being forced to experience for themselves the wrong(s) they committed; and there are probably other ideas.

The crucial point (which your post clued me in to) is that, however the wrong is righted, it must be fair and proportionate, otherwise, it becomes a wrong in itself, and thus it becomes injustice rather than justice.

The thrust of my argument, then, especially of its unconditional premise numbered 3, is that infinite, unimaginably torturous punishment for finite transgressions is so manifestly disproportionate (and thus also unfair) that it can only - that is, no matter what any individual or group more specifically considers "righting a wrong" to consist in - be understood to be unjust, not just.

[Walker]

Or [sigh] is this just one more example of how philosophy venues seem to attract those with a "condition".

Interesting. Another first impression turns out to be correct.

[henry quirk]

This was super-helpful, hq

[henry quirk]

I forget how to do the yellow thumbs up. I endorse the above.

: thumbsup : =

Just close the gaps.

[Immanuel Can]

The thrust of my argument, then, especially of its unconditional premise numbered 3, is that infinite, unimaginably torturous punishment for finite transgressions is so manifestly disproportionate (and thus also unfair) that it can only - that is, no matter what any individual or group more specifically considers "righting a wrong" to consist in - be understood to be unjust, not just.

You seem to have absorbed from somewhere, Harry, that judgment is merely a matter of "transgressions." That leaves us with a picture of the problem being merely that a generally-good creature (man) occasionally performs some indiscretion (sin), and that you conceive, then, of God instituting an infinite retribution for these finite indiscretions...and that, you say, would be "unjust."

The problem with that (well, there's more than one, but we'll start here) is that in Scripture, "sin" is not conceived merely as a matter of "transgressions" or "finite" acts. Rather, it's conceived of as a condition of dispositional and constitutional alienation from and hatred of God, of which "transgressions" merely form some of the more obvious outward manifestations, but the essence of which is a condition of heart or being. One is not merely naughty...or even vicious, but only on occasion. One is essentially, constitutionally, at war against God, by way of one's own wilfulness and preference for darkness.

In that situation, "transgressions" may not even be very obviously present. Jesus Christ reserved his harshest condemnations not for the prostitutes, thieves and collaborators of his day, but for the Pharisees and Sadducees, who represented the very peak of "non-transgressional" behaviour, outwardly speaking. Indeed, they prided themselves on being practically sinless: yet Christ said of them, "Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I say the truth, you do not believe Me." (John 8.) And again, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." (Matt. 23:27) If sin were merely a matter of "transgression," He would have had no reason to speak to them in this manner. But "man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart." (1 Sam. 16:7)

The real problem question, then, is not "How naughty have you been," but "whose son are you?" What is your nature? What are your inclinations? What have you done about sin? In what condition are you living? This is why Jesus explicitly said, in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being reconstituted as a different kind of person, in a different relationship to God than mankind in his natural sinfulness, is essential to eternal life.

Those who embrace relationship with God are sons of God; those who reject God receive the inheritance they are craving...and constitutionally, the one they are fit for, by way of being unredeemed and unredeemable sources, lovers and perpetrators of sin. That is, they end up not in some Catholic hell, but rather, they receive what they are asking for: an eternity without God, the Giver of All Good Gifts. And since they have chosen to absent themselves from the Source of All Good Gifts, they receive only bad "gifts," or more precisely, the opposite of whatever comes with relationship with God.

That is just, because it honours what beings endowed with will, identity, and volition have freely chosen for themselves. Having abandoned God, they are no longer healthy to have running about the universe. They corrupt, defile and kill everything they touch. Their rejection of God must be enacted elsewhere, where they can no longer give rein to the evil they have dedicated themselves to do...and be. And some appropriate retribution, as well, must be made for all the evil they have already done, too. All the books must be balanced, or God is not just.

But just as there are degrees of blessedness, so too there are degrees of perdition. Not everybody receives the same measure of penalty. Jesus spoke of some who deserved "greater condemnation," (Luke 20:47) as in the case of those who prey upon the defenseless. So that shows there are degrees of judgment.

Now, who is competent to say what sort of judgment falls to which person, for which faults of his nature, which acts of rebellion, which evils percolating in his dark heart, which secret violations, and yes, which "transgressions" as well? Only one whose knowledge of the case is absolutely perfect and complete. And such is God's knowledge.

It is not, however, Harry's knowledge. Or mine. Or anybody else's. So on what basis do we assess God's judgment? We shall have to wait and see, when, as Christ promised, "there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." (Matt. 10:26)

Beware of accusing God, especially before that Day. For there is no such idle word spoken but that a man shall answer for it. (Matt. 12:36) One day, those who claim they are better than God at judging what is "just" or "unjust", the Bible tells us (Rom. 3:19) will have their accusations answered...definitively, absolutely, and beyond all doubt. It's better not to be standing in the way of that when the answer comes.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I think that Weaver draws a picture of the origin of spiritual ailment. And at least to my mind, though I may be susceptible to reduction, I tend to agree that it is as a result of a loss in metaphysical grounding that a range of ills arise. Weaver is just one who explores the causal issue.

The odd thing here -- in relation to the topic of this thread -- is that I see it as needful and necessary that the metaphysical ground be defended, not undermined. And I see Immanuel, Nick and Walker as trying to hold onto the structure that Christianity certainly provides. The irony (if that is the right term) is that by opposing Immanuel in specific areas it would seem that I am trying to undermine the metaphysical principles therein. But that is not so.

Weaver, in any case, offers a way to grasp the decadence of men in relation to 'solid principles' that he describes in metaphysical terms. But because he locates a deviation so far back in time it seems to me rather impossible to be able to verify that, indeed, at that juncture Occidental civilization went off the rails.

I think I understand your position. Here's a paraphrasing of your metaphysic, which you can correct if I get it wrong: because we exist in a world of "nature red in tooth and claw", and unless we undertake an impossibly severe approach of renunciation, we are complicit in a sort of "original sin", and are in need of redemption from "above" - a redemption which is made possible by that which I've labelled for you as the (your) Principle of Incarnation.

The way I would go about defining 'metaphysics' is to speak first about what happens to people when they lose a sort of restraining ethical influence that has always come to us through religion. A religion with its restraining authority functions as a control over and against the individual's will. Think of children in a day-care center. Authority must be there. When authority is not there the children suffer confusion because the authority they depend on is not there. Then they act out. This is more or less how I see things when I examine culture.

For example I live now in a post-Catholic culture. Catholic ethics provided a general restraining system in terms of general comportment. But as things have evolved, and very quickly (here) over the last few years, that restraining influence has been overcome. Many people, especially the youth, no longer care to pay attention to those principles that are enforced through religious commitment. The individual loses 'grounding' and then spins off, essentially, into sensual pursuit. Sensuality captures the individual's energy and attention and in that state the individual loses contact and connection with higher elements, higher ideation, higher ideals. It does seem to take a degree of 'renunciation' of the sensual world of experience in order to excel in the higher realms. Higher realms are higher realms of ideation but also higher realms of sentiment and feeling.

Certainly *the world* (of nature, the Earth) is a violent and rather terrible mill of creation and destruction. Everything feeds on every other thing. When examined, it is brutal and rather terrible. It is only when a person encounters a 'higher world of ideation' that he then realizes the strangeness, the horror really, of the world into which we are incarnate. At that point *choice* enters in. The higher ideals, the higher ethical choices do not arise in the *flesh* so to speak. They arise in the spirit. And it is all of that that I would call 'metaphysical'. It is metaphysical to the strict and ruthless physicality of the raw natural world. There are no 'ideas' in nature -- nowhere. There are animals that have types of awareness that are quite surprising however. And man is, really & truly, an animal. The saving element, the element that makes a difference, is that man conceives of higher realms of possibility.

In my view the ideas we encounter as animals that enter into those higher realms of ideation and of feeling are realms of ideas that are as much a part of the manifest world as the manifest world itself. They are *there*, or they had to be there latently even before everything evolved or took form out of the chaos. They are thoroughly invisible however and there is no way to pin them down or measure them. They are epiphenomenal. They seem only to be available to man (to humankind on this planet). The entire world, everything that took shape and formed, did not *invent itself* (at least in my view). It had to have taken shape because of forming impulse. The prospect of design, design itself, had to have been there latently.

Similarly, my use of the term 'metaphysics' is a way of referring to an entire *world* that is invisible, or which seems non-existent, or as some say *invented*, but I see it as stuff (or possibility) that exists as truly as any physical thing exists.

When man (or men) encounters that *world* what he does is to *imagine* it. To give it image. To picture it. But different men, in different setting, picture it differently. The pictures do not accord with each other though -- unless one has *distance* and a way of seeing into the essence of things and into what is alluded.

As we have been talking, for so long, about the Christian and the Hebrew system, it might seem that I have an interest in tearing it apart, or severing myself from an understanding of what is pictured by it, that is what is alluded by it and through it. No. But when one examines the origin of the system, and also its evolution into the present, one can easily see its contaminations. But though that is true it does not mean that there are not within it wonderful and important things.

Metaphysics involves (I mean the metaphysics of Traditionalism) seeing through and beyond any 'picture' and trying to locate, and appreciate, and valuate, the essence there.

If by 'principle of incarnation' you mean developing the capacity to *see* and appreciate what is non-visible, then I think I would concur.

I cannot think of a better way to indicate what I mean than to quote Blake:

“This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”

[Alexis Jacobi]

Nota Bene

Immanuel, in his latest piece, just above, deals in and sees through a *picture*. The picture is, for him and for many like him, absolutely real. The Bible provides pictures that are seen, through an act of imposition and exercise of the will, as historical realities. Adam & Eve, the parting of the Red Sea, all of it, must be seen as through a movie were being shown. I suggest that this movie is akin to 'shadows passing on the wall of the cave'. The time has now come, and the possibility has arisen, for turning around and seeing how these images are projected.

There are other vistas that are there to be *seen*. Following the cave analogy, there is a Sun on the outside. It is a larger source. The implications have wide meaning and application.

Now the ethical issues and problems -- those still stand as real and important as they ever were. That is why, in my view, Catholic social teaching is often very sound. It is good, sound ethical teaching. And it very much does derive from Hebrew sources though in fact, in truth, Christian ethics were developed in synthesis.

But the fact is that it is just one of many different *pictures* that men have, in different times and places, cobbled together. Yet he has no choice in the matter except to present it through an absolute declaration, as if the picture were concretized. There, that terrible and intolerant Yahweh shows himself. It is a facet of man's personality.

That is where the error is, in my understanding. It is not that some or many of the ideas alluded to are not relevant -- indeed they are extremely important and valuable. Yet the same is true in many different religious and philosophical systems. This is what men who have broadened their perspectives through better *seeing* have come to understand.

[Immanuel Can]

That is where the error is, in my understanding. It is not that some or many of the ideas alluded to are not relevant -- indeed they are extremely important and valuable. Yet the same is true in many different religious and philosophical systems. This is what men who have broadened their perspectives through better *seeing* have come to understand.

Amusing.

On a threat about "Christianity," AJ doesn't want to know about Christianity.

It seems the only kind AJ can accept is some benign and gelded "Christendom," one that essentially means nothing in particular, but rather stands for vague metaphors "true in many different religious and philosophical sytems." That's the only thing that makes them "relevant," he says.

In other words, the one thing he can't stand is anything Christianity has to say, that is unique and challenging -- in other words, anything he doesn't already believe...anything genuinely Christian.

[Harry Baird]

Oh dear, Immanuel Can. You've gone full evangelist mode. I'll deal with that briefly, after first putting this question to you:

Do you accept - for the purposes of my argument - the definition that, with inspiration from hq, I have constructed and shared?

Given that you have been hounding me incessantly as to what I mean by "justice", it seems reasonable that now that I've provided an answer, you indicate either way, with reasons given if the answer is "No" - right?

{I}n Scripture, "sin" is not conceived merely as a matter of "transgressions" or "finite" acts. Rather, it's conceived of as a condition of dispositional and constitutional alienation from and hatred of God, of which "transgressions" merely form some of the more obvious outward manifestations, but the essence of which is a condition of heart or being. One is not merely naughty...or even vicious, but only on occasion. One is essentially, constitutionally, at war against God, by way of one's own wilfulness and preference for darkness.

That doesn't change the conclusion of the argument - at best, it simply suggests that the premises numbered 2 and 3 be amended to (with additions colourised):

• 2. God condemns to eternal (infinite), unimaginable torment any person who, in living his/her finite life, has sinned and/or whose disposition has been one of constitutional alienation from and hatred of God, and refused to accept Jesus Christ as his/her saviour [Christian premise].
• 3. It is neither loving nor just to condemn a person to eternal (infinite), unimaginable torment no matter what they have done or chosen in a finite life, and no matter what their disposition or constitution has been [unconditional premise].

In other words: infinite, unimaginably torturous punishment for any condition or disposition is still manifestly disproportionate (and thus unfair), and, thus, unjust.

I invite you, then, to reconsider the argument as a whole, with those amendments, along with the working, middle-ground definition of "justice" that I've now supplied, and identify any premises which you hold to be false, and to then explain why - or to otherwise concede the argument.

The choice is yours. What will it be? "We'll see."