Christianity

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

Frankly, Christianity and philosophy are not really compatible. Christianity is a faith position and when its major elements or its original structure is examined with critical focus (philosophy) it doesn’t hold up.

Your view of philosophy is too narrow.
Please read the link below to a university syllabus.
https://courses.warwick.ac.uk/modules/2021/PH368-15

[Alexis Jacobi]

IC: Look at yourself, Harry: who are you accusing? It's not me.

Harry: It is you. It is you who is promoting a view of God which is clearly abhorrent, and assuming it to be true. I don't share that assumption, therefore, there is no God of that description whom I would be accusing - only you, who claims that there is.

AJ: This is the rather wonderful sophistry on which Immanuel Can's whole rehearsal is based. "I am just the messenger. I simply present to you what God has said. Make your own choice."

What is the larger issue here? I take it as the fact that for many people the Christian mythology no longer functions. That is, when once the world defined by Medieval Christianity (the great chain of being) was the only way that the world and existence could be conceived. There was no other possibility.

But things have definitely moved on from that former point.

Since the *Voice of Yahweh* is obviously, and incontestably, a voice written into a character part (as in a play) and is the voice of those who wrote him, that understanding changes everything. This is the core fact, Immanuel, that you deny as being true. You really believe that someone heard a voice and inscribed it. That voice being Yahweh.

So, if I am *accusing* anyone (and I do not deal in accusations, be it so noted) I am accusing a clever priestly class. I am definitely accusing those who take it upon themselves to themselves becomes Yahweh's Voice and thunder people into submission through psychological coercion!

And who is there mouthing Yahweh? Why it sure looks to be Immanuel Can.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

Frankly, Christianity and philosophy are not really compatible. Christianity is a faith position and when its major elements or its original structure is examined with critical focus (philosophy) it doesn’t hold up.

Your view of philosophy is too narrow.
Please read the link below to a university syllabus.
https://courses.warwick.ac.uk/modules/2021/PH368-15

I do not mean to say that Christianity or religious mythologies cannot be philosophized, they can (as your syllabus indicates). I would say that a faith-position and a clear and defined philosophy position (about life, truth, etc.) are incompatible in many and perhaps in most ways.

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

Frankly, Christianity and philosophy are not really compatible. Christianity is a faith position and when its major elements or its original structure is examined with critical focus (philosophy) it doesn’t hold up.

Your view of philosophy is too narrow.
Please read the link below to a university syllabus.
https://courses.warwick.ac.uk/modules/2021/PH368-15

I do not mean to say that Christianity or religious mythologies cannot be philosophized, they can (as your syllabus indicates). I would say that a faith-position and a clear and defined philosophy position (about life, truth, etc.) are incompatible in many and perhaps in most ways.

Religious mythologies are one among several component parts of religions. Mythologies are rationales for the moral code component and usually hierarchical power structures of religions.


Take Spinoza for instance of a bona fide philosopher of renown. He wrote Ethics in the literary style of Euclid in order to dissociate his theory from faith. Yet Spinoza is "God obsessed" and if one reads Ethics one sees how that conclusion occurs.

Spinoza began with ordinary axioms that few would quarrel with and finished with the existence of God according to his species of ontological argument.

The moral codes that religions enshrine are the most functional components of any religion. (Mythologies and ritual practices are superstructures.) Moral philosophy is arguably the most important branch of philosophy.
I also claim Jesus of Nazareth was a philosopher whose life and work supported the view of the Prophets in opposition to the view of the Kings.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The moral codes that religions enshrine are the most functional components of any religion. (Mythologies and ritual practices are superstructures.) Moral philosophy is arguably the most important branch of philosophy.

I also claim Jesus of Nazareth was a philosopher whose life and work supported the view of the Prophets in opposition to the view of the Kings.

The mystical, the supernatural, the magical events on which all religions are based prove difficult to rationalize philosophically in our modernity.

But the moral questions raised in Judaism, Vedanta or Buddhism can certainly be philosophized.

The Christian view or attitude (way of life) can also be a philosophical position it seems to me. But it falls apart or its foundations disintegrate when examined critically.

I don’t see a way round this problem do you?

I find it impossible, largely, to locate a definite Jesus. But I like the view you present.

[Harry Baird]

I don't deal with statements that are merely rhetorical, or simply obviously wrong.

It is a question, not a statement, and it is neither rhetorical nor wrong.

So you say. I have said why I think it's wrong...

Nope, you have merely ducked, dodged, and weaved, quibbling over "assumptions" - but on that score, you have been invited by both Age and myself to reword the question so as to remove from it any assumptions that you don't like, but nope, you avoid, snip, and ignore even that possibility.

You even claimed early on to be working on an answer, indicating that you do think that it's a meaningful question to which a meaningful answer is possible - but then you welshed on that commitment.

and you ignore every challenge I put to it.

That's a bald-faced lie.

I've responded meaningfully to every meaningful "challenge" you've sent my way.

You use the phrase "happens to be,"

Yep, that's one horn of the dilemma.

Likewise, you use "conform to,"

Yep, that's the other.

Well, the problem is that that is two assumptions Monotheism defeats.

Is that so? Let's see:

If God is eternal, you cannot ask what He "conforms to,"

Sure you can. An eternal Being could plausibly conform to a variety of standards, such as evilness. Eternal existence doesn't guarantee goodness.

So, this horn of the dilemma remains: it is possible that God's nature/character simply conforms to the standard justice and morality, in which case, justice and morality are not grounded in God, but are separate standards whose grounding remains unspecified.

and cannot ask how he "happened to be" other than He is.

Similarly to the above: God's nature/character could have happened to be evil, rather than good. This horn of the dilemma, then, asks: if that had been the case, would we be calling "just and moral" that which we now call "unjust and immoral", simply because it is what God's nature/character happened to be? In that case, justice and morality would be arbitrary.

Even if, though, you had disproved both horns, for your case as an entirety to succeed, you would still need supply a third alternative, on which God truly grounds justice and morality. I'm sure you'll be providing it any minute now.

Haha. Yeah, right.

I've asked you three times to show how your "justice" concept satisfies Hinduism...and you won't even try. Is it because you already know you can't?

It's because it's so obvious that the question isn't worth my time. Since you insist, though:

The hq-inspired contextual definition of justice with which we're working is:

"The fair and proportionate righting of wrongs".

On Hinduism, justice consists in righting wrongs via karma. According to Hinduism, karma is a fair and proportionate means of righting wrongs: essentially, one reaps what one sows.

See? It's not hard, dude.

...it means that, on your view, God gets to choose to bring into existence a person whom He knows is destined for eternal torment - when He could have chosen not to bring that person into existence, and spared that person from eternal torment.

You failed to address that reality.

The issue is simply this. What you need to ask is, "Could God have sufficient reason to bring people into existence knowing that some of them will refuse salvation?" And your implied answer is, obviously, "No."

Obviously. God, on your view, knows which individual people will be damned (actually, it's worse: he knows which individual people He will choose to damn) if He brings them into existence - and then brings those individual people into existence anyway.

But one final thing: you never seem to respond to my repeated request that you show how "justice" can be demanded from your own worldview perspective.

Nope, I always respond, with something like: "We covered that in a closely related discussion on how I ground morality, years back, when I first joined this board, and I have no interest in revisiting that exchange. You are free to refresh your memory by rereading that exchange if you care to."

That's a glaring oversight, I would say.

Rather, it's belligerent of you to keep on asking a question the answer to which I've pointed you many times. Let me make it clear one last time: I'm not interested in revisiting an old discussion. If your memory fails you, then you are welcome to reread it for yourself.

[Immanuel Can]

What is the larger issue here? I take it as the fact that for many people the Christian mythology no longer functions.

I've seen this before. I've seen it in Religious Studies courses taught by Humanists.

To avoid addressing any vexatious matters of truth or of comparison by way of truth, the speaker attempts to deflect to the "function" of religion, in a sort of phenomenological way, claiming that we can just avoid the whole question that is central to EVERY "religion," namely its truth claims, and go on to speaking of how it might "function" humanistically, as a sort of delusion-of-usefulness in human plans and programs. The subtext, of course, is that truth doesn't matter because all "religions" except Humanism itself are bunk anyway. It will be a painless loss, because so long as the "human" story continues in some form, what the "humans" believe will be unimportant, so long as it "functions" for them.

But of course, actually, that's not the issue at all. If Christianity, or anything else, was just a "mythology" all along, then whether or not it "functions" couldn't be more moot -- or more impossible to determine. It "functions" for whatever the "functioner" wants it to "function."

And since, when calling something "mythology," we're deciding to sideline the question of "is it true" in favour of "does it function," there's no way for us to judge whether it ever should have "functioned" for whatever it seemed to us to "function," or whether it really can or cannot so "function" again, or whether what it "functioned" for was "the right" thing for it to "function" for.

If something is the truth, however, or if it even contains truth claims, then the question of "is it true" comes back online hard. A falsehood, no matter how winsome or "functionally" useful, is still a falsehood. And falsehoods have a well-earned reputation for ceasing to "function" at just the moment when they meet with reality. But truth never quits. It keeps coming back, every time we make contact with reality...and inevitably, it asserts its own potency over every falsehood one can devise to "function" otherwise.

[Immanuel Can]

..quibbling over "assumptions" ...

"Quibbling," you call it? As if claims can stand without justification or legitimation!

Do you even know what philosophy is? Do you know what it's supposed to do? It's supposed to examine assumptions. It's supposed to ask you for justification, or to legitimate the claims you make...it's never supposed to jump past unreasonable or unexamined assumptions and embrace some conclusion for which there is no warrant provided.

and you ignore every challenge I put to it.

That's a bald-faced lie.

Then prove that Hinduism can ground your version of "justice."

And identify your own worldview, and show how it issues in your claim you deserve "justice."

If that's a bald-faced lie, how come you've never even attempted either of these questions, eacy of which I've put to you at least four times by now?

I'll give you space to do that, then I'll answer the rest of your messsage.

Do it here and now, if you can.

[Harry Baird]

"Quibbling," you call it?

Exactly, because that's what it is. I've addressed every one of your quibbles.

You continue to duck, dodge, weave around, and avoid the key question:

Is it either loving or just to condemn a person, for finite crimes or even simply for mere inheritance of some supposed "original sin", to an eternity of a hell which is, in your own words, "considerably worse than most people can even imagine"?

Then prove that Hinduism can ground your version of "justice."

Huh? I've never claimed that Hinduism grounds justice. All I've claimed, and demonstrated - in the very post to which you're responding - is that justice on Hinduism meets my working, contextual definition of that word.

And identify your own worldview, and show how it issues in your claim you deserve "justice."

Again, I addressed your belligerence in this respect in the very post to which you're responding, pointing out where you can find the answer. Yet you choose to continue to belligerently ask...

[Harry Baird]

No third alternative to Euthyphro's Dilemma, huh? I didn't think so.

[Immanuel Can]

Is it either loving or just to condemn a person, for finite crimes

People are only ever condemned because they choose to be. And they are not condemned merely for "crimes," but for being the "criminal" entity that performs such things. But I've pointed that out, already.

You'll just have to disagree with God about how bad you think sin is. And I guess we'll see Who is right.

Then prove that Hinduism can ground your version of "justice."

Huh? I've never claimed that Hinduism grounds justice.

Oh? Now you say it doesn't?

Then "justice" is different across cultures. And you don't have a universal definition of "justice" in Oxford's dictionary, and Harry's idea of "justice" isn't everybody's.

justice on Hinduism meets my working, contextual definition of that word.

I see you don't know Hinduism, if you suppose that.

Let's find out.

If you were to leave an "untouchable" to his "karma," so he could have enough "samsara" to be reincarned better on the next turning of the wheel of being, would you regard that as "justice"?

And identify your own worldview, and show how it issues in your claim you deserve "justice."

Again, I addressed your belligerence in this respect in the very post to which you're responding, pointing out where you can find the answer. Yet you choose to continue to belligerently ask...

You've never done this anywhere I've ever seen.

But you can do it here, right now. It's not at all a tough request.

What's your worldview?

How does it give you an expectation of "justice"?

[iambiguous]

No, Jesus Christ existed because history shows he did, and no credible historian doubts it. We can debate WHO He was, but THAT He was, that's pretty much beyond debate.

That some dude back then calling himself Jesus went around [like Muhammad or Gautama Buddha] proclaiming himself to be the embodiment of the One True Path to enlightenment and immortality and salvation wouldn't surprise me. History is full of them. But that this proves the existence of the Christian God?

I thought you said He never existed. Now you say He did, but wasn't who He claimed to be? Which argument did you want to go with?

Come on, IC, all entertainment aside, you know damn well that the point here revolves not around whether Jesus existed as a historical figure but around Him, a Jew, being the Christian God. Around how each of us here connect the dots between the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave and Judgment Day. Around you demonstrating to us that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven as others can demonstrate that the Pope resides in the Vatican.

Let's not lose sight of the whole point of religion, okay?

But in point of fact, you're invided to the comparison. Go read what is written about Buddha, about Mohammed, and about Jesus Christ, in the best sources that are available. Make up your own mind about the relative truth of their claims.

Again, however, my point is that, given what is at stake for all of us on this side of the grave [moral Commandments], and on the other side of it [immortality and salvation] why on Earth did the Christian God do such a piss poor job with a Scripture that does not make it unequivocally, beyond any doubt whatsoever, clear that His is the One True Path?

What, we should just read the Book of John and take His account of it? Please. What religion doesn't have their own rendition of that: the Word.

Now, you can believe that, or you can choose not to. However, if I'm right and you're wrong, you'll find out. If you're right, neither of us will ever know it.

On the other hand, there are many folks here -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- who will tell you that you can believe what they do or not. However, if they are right and you're wrong, you'll find out.

That is exactly right.

And that is why it is a decision every person must make for himself...and very, very carefully. Nothing, literally nothing, is more important.

Sigh...

And there they are. All the other advocates of all the other denominations out there thumping you upside the head with their Scriptures and reminding you of the same thing.

Still, if it's any consolation, their Gods are no less incompetent in demonstrating their own existence. It's just that, in my view, the Christian God, if He does exist, must be particularly embarrassed by your efforts here.

[Immanuel Can]

No third alternative to Euthyphro's Dilemma, huh? I didn't think so.

Fake dilemma. It requires polytheism.

Go and read it. Socrates will tell you exactly the same thing I just did.

Soc. Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying. That thing or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme opposites of one another. Was not that said?

Euth. It was.

Soc. And well said?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, I thought so; it was certainly said.

Soc. And further, Euthyphro, the gods were admitted to have enmities and hatreds and differences?

Euth. Yes, that was also said.

Soc. And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger? Suppose for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number; do differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance with one another? Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a sum?

Euth. True.

Soc. Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly end the differences by measuring?

Euth. Very true.

Soc. And we end a controversy about heavy and light by resorting to a weighing machine?

Euth. To be sure.

Soc. But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided, and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another? I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable. Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we quarrel is such as you describe.

Soc. And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur, are of a like nature?

Euth. Certainly they are.

Soc. They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences-would there now?

Euth. You are quite right.

Soc. Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them?

Euth. Very true.

Soc. But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust,-about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.

Euth. Very true.

Soc. Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?

Euth. True.

Soc. And upon this view the same things, Euthyphro, will be pious and also impious?

Euth. So I should suppose.

Soc. Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I've seen this before. I've seen it in Religious Studies courses taught by Humanists.

To avoid addressing any vexatious matters of truth or of comparison by way of truth, the speaker attempts to deflect to the "function" of religion, in a sort of phenomenological way, claiming that we can just avoid the whole question that is central to EVERY "religion," namely its truth claims, and go on to speaking of how it might "function" humanistically, as a sort of delusion-of-usefulness in human plans and programs. The subtext, of course, is that truth doesn't matter because all "religions" except Humanism itself are bunk anyway. It will be a painless loss, because so long as the "human" story continues in some form, what the "humans" believe will be unimportant, so long as it "functions" for them.

When I use the term 'function' as in 'it no longer functions for us' what I mean is that the mythological story no longer can be seen as being real and having a substantial validity. All of Genesis, for example, is a series of mythological stories. Put mythology in quotations if you wish, I use the term in its certain sense of an *invented story*.

Truth question, vexatious or otherwise, are questions that now, today, for all of us, must be dealt with in the manner in which we are doing it here in this thread. That is by conversation. There is NO QUESTION, no issue, no problem, that is now being solved by God or will be solved by god. We have to make all the decisions. And what is the way that people make those decisions?

If you want to focus on *truth claims* then by all means you can do that. And what I have been asserting is that the truth claims of a given religion, all of them, but here I speak of Christianity, are based on foundations deeply steeped in mythology. Not 'reality' and not 'real things' but mythological things. Start with Genesis. Start with Adam & Eve in a garden. It all begins there, in fantastic story.

And as I have said, you as a Bible literalist literally believe those mythologies. That is your prerogative. The larger issue is that millions and millions of people perform the same (as I call it) manoeuvre. Some do it like you do it: trying to make one epistemological system coincide with another when it cannot (mythological story with anthropological history) through elaborate rehearsals of *reasonings* (your best attempt was based in *an original mating pair*). Others more or less let the matter drop and don't really think of the stories as 'real things' but pretend that they were real in order to derive ranges of conclusions. It is a game really, an intellectual game if you wish. It is extremely fundamental to Judaism:

"Midrash was initially a philological method of interpreting the literal meaning of biblical texts. In time it developed into a sophisticated interpretive system that reconciled apparent biblical contradictions, established the scriptural basis of new laws, and enriched biblical content with new meaning. Midrashic creativity reached its peak in the schools of Rabbi Ishmael and Akiba, where two different hermeneutic methods were applied. The first was primarily logically oriented, making inferences based upon similarity of content and analogy. The second rested largely upon textual scrutiny, assuming that words and letters that seem superfluous teach something not openly stated in the text."

You make a mistake in assuming that because I seem to undermine *story* that I do not view the results as having importance or validity. For example, Adam & Eve did not ever exist in a Garden and as God's pets. You can try, through fantastic rehearsals, to create a case for their *real existence* but it will never fly with me and with billions of others. But, and notwithstanding, I can midrash the story in myriad ways and they might be quite interesting.

Here is one while we are at it: The serpent is actually Jesus of Nazareth! He managed to pull a fast one on his grumpy Papá and sent himself back in time, when he was still in his mother's womb! and made an effort to bring god's little pets into the light of day. To help them gain knowledge of their condition, to tell them the truth, to free them. But their devilish Owner sniffed out the interference and thwarted Jesus' noble attempt. He sent his hench-angels to block the entrance back to that Garden and sent them on their human journey, the one we know so well as *our fate*. Or to put it another way the effort seemed to fail but the path of knowledge began nevertheless. And then, far on the other side of history, Jesus again appeared with knowledge potions that upset the established order overruled by men of Yahwistic tendencies.

Well? What think you of my subversive midrash? Go on, you try one!

As to "a sort of delusion-of-usefulness in human plans and programs" there are two poles, as it were. First, that there really is such a thing as delusion-of-usefulness and we, literally, live within these on many levels. But then there must really be *truth-basis*, mustn't there? But how can these be proposed? And how can they be asserted and talked about? They will have to be talked about nevertheless. Discussed, worked through, hashed out.

But there is no god who will come down, deus ex machina, to settle any question. People will assemble to settle the questions.

You are heavily invested in delusion-of-usefulness when you refer to Biblical stories as 'realities'.

The subtext, of course, is that truth doesn't matter because all "religions" except Humanism itself are bunk anyway.

Obviously, you are in a larger sense arguing against those who you have turned in caricatures of this view. The humanist caricature. But this statement cannot work so well in relation to me (though perhaps it fits for others). I do not discount the achievements of Christian theology. I only say, because I think it true, that when its *feet* are closely examined that they disintegrate and can't hold together. But many important and very valuable things have been built on the foundations nonetheless.

The 'feet that disintegrate' = bunk (if bunk means bunkum: Empty or insincere talk; claptrap). Only I would not say that the fictions and Stories are insincere talk or claptrap. In fact through midrashic methods many many important things come through them.

And you also know that because I define our world manifesting out of design, and that design is latent in manifestation, that truth and truthful things are part of the manifestation.
________________________________

Ultimately perhaps, my real question is When will Yahweh get a girlfriend? Why does he not have a consort? He can literally play it any way he wants to. He runs the show . . .

[Immanuel Can]

...the mythological story no longer can be seen as being real and having a substantial validity.

The existence of so many people who do in fact regard it as real and grant it "substantial validity" speaks against that claim. It seems to "function" for them.

Truth question, vexatious or otherwise, are questions that now, today, for all of us, must be dealt with in the manner in which we are doing it here in this thread. That is by conversation.

How does "conversation" deal with "truth"?

If you want to focus on *truth claims*

It's not just me. It's every religion and creed and ideology in the history of the world that does.

Even your sort of "humanism" insists that its way is "better" or "more true" than the alternatives. And you defend it because you think that's true, too.

...your best attempt was based in *an original mating pair*...

Which is scientifically certain. How does evolution happen without one?

If you think you can make that work, go ahead...let's hear how it happened.

You make a mistake in assuming that because I seem to undermine *story* that I do not view the results as having importance or validity.

No, it's much worse than that...I think you don't know what "truth" is. You think it's "function."

But train schedules "functioned" for the Holocaust. So "function" isn't a dignified concept. And it's certainly unrelated to goodness and truth.