Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

...you asked for a plausible story. You said *it does not even have to be true*. I put it together for you.

No, you haven't. You left out all the most important bits...especially HOW it could possibly happen.

How? Sexually. Do you know that sexual reproduction takes exactly one man and one woman?

And remarkably, you can't explain how the first mutated child could avoid immediate mutation-reversion within the next generation: as whatever he sexually reproduced with would lack the salient trait. So she (his partner) must have somehow magically acquired exactly the same genetic mutation at exactly the same time...even though you say all this had to happen over a "long period."

What scientific mechanism do you posit that allegedly achieved this miracle?

And did you notice? That story goes back again to an original mating pair of modern humans.

[seeds]

There were (in the example you asked me to put together) numerous mating pairs, maybe hundreds or thousands. And each of them, when their adaptations were successful, prospered. But I am saying that any number of such couples were possible.

Adaptive traits were manifested in them, through their success, and through their progeny.

There were many males and many females, spread over a wide territory.

No one of my beloved apes evolved magically. They evolved naturally, within demanding natural circumstances. The point is that many such couples could have evolved separately for the longest time.

I won't take a check from you. Cash will be required.

That is much more logical than the Bible story of Adam and Eve.

After all, how do all species begin and evolve? Were there mating pairs for every creature on Earth? Why do people prefer stories that obviously make no sense instead of simply not knowing?

If we're just playing around with theories here, then I suggest that another possible route by which humans could have acquired the traits that elevated them from an ape-like status to human status may have come by way of Rupert Sheldrakes' theory of "Morphic Resonance."

In which case, the ascending process could have begun with just one hominid reaching a new level of introspective consciousness by way of ingesting plant-based psychoactive substances (as is suggested by Terence McKenna).

And thus, the early hominid groups could have been elevated together (as a whole) via the sharing of the "morphogenic field" that binds their species together at some deeper level.

The point is that it did not require an "original mating pair" to give rise to modern humans,...

...but was more of what paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould might call an instance of "punctuated equilibrium" where, within a relatively short period of time, the group consciousness of the early hominids could have risen together across the entire species via, again, Sheldrakes' "Morphic Resonance" (which is probably somehow in cahoots with quantum entanglement).

Anyway, that's just a thought.
_______

[Dubious]

Already done, in my response to AJ. Try https://www.reasonablefaith.org/. If you read all of that, and don't find a question answered there, get back to me, and we'll talk.

Anything Craig says requires no historical or scientific probability of being true;

That's a pretty ridiculous claim, even on the face of it: and obviously merely ad hominem. You haven't faced the facts.

Absolutely nothing ad hominem about it. In his line of work he doesn't have to prove anything. The best Craig can do is what he strove to do, namely give god some credibility for existing. Nothing more! His is an attempt to return what was once unquestionable into some guise of credibility deploying science to do so. He's far from the only one. Those are the facts! Why else would you always invoke him to do your thinking?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Do you know that sexual reproduction takes exactly one man and one woman?

You seem pretty straight-edge but some of us have not always been so strict.

I bless you and release you for now, Immanuel.

Que te vayas con Dios!

[Gary Childress]

People will always heckle and ridicule each other for perceived differences or wrong doing or whatnot.

There's a categorical difference between heckling and ridiculing others merely for perceived differences as opposed to calling out others and taking them to task for genuine wrongdoing. It seems to me that you're conflating the two.

I am also not saying you or Seeds are "racist"

Atto is though.

Do you think Atto is "racist" for not entertaining the so called "indigenous rights movement"? I thought maybe he's just yanking your chain because you're yanking his.

As far as taking someone to task for genuine wrong doing, if someone is doing something wrong, then sure take them to task. But who are you "taking to task" regarding that old photo? That young woman in it is probably no longer with us and at the very least not reading anyone's commentary here on her behavior.

[Lacewing]

If we're just playing around with theories here, then I suggest that another possible route by which humans could have acquired the traits that elevated them from an ape-like status to human status may have come by way of Rupert Sheldrakes' theory of "Morphic Resonance."

In which case, the ascending process could have begun with just one hominid reaching a new level of introspective consciousness by way of ingesting plant-based psychoactive substances (as is suggested by Terence McKenna).

And thus, the early hominid groups could have been elevated together (as a whole) via the sharing of the "morphogenic field" that binds their species together at some deeper level.

The point is that it did not require an "original mating pair" to give rise to modern humans,...

...but was more of what paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould might call an instance of "punctuated equilibrium" where, within a relatively short period of time, the group consciousness of the early hominids could have risen together across the entire species via, again, Sheldrakes' "Morphic Resonance" (which is probably somehow in cahoots with quantum entanglement).

Anyway, that's just a thought.

Sounds good! I think energetic resonance is responsible for all kinds of transcendent potential.

Why are there so many vast varieties of everything? If the primary driver is sexual via one original male + one original female (which isn't necessary in all species), then how/why does so much diversity result from a single coupling? It's more like a creative explosion of loving artwork riding currents of energy!

[Alexis Jacobi]

I've moved you from a position of irrational indifference to a position of active antipathy. The latter is far better than the former; at least you're aware of the dichotomy between my views and yours, and you've abandoned the illusion of inclusivism.

It would be useful for you to identify who really you are talking to. It certainly isn't me. Try to get clear about who it is. Who really are you talking to in your battle against 'the whole disbelieving world'? It can't be me because I am honestly not a person without 'belief' or faith. Because you possess those terms I don't wish to use them and indeed they have come to repel me. But still . . .

Your view of those who do not believe as you believe, which clearly involves an imperious, totalizing imago of god who brooks no opposition, who must destroy opposition and difference, seems to be that they have an 'irrational indifference' problem. Through this assertion you present yourself as 'rational' but without noticing that at every turn you 'believe in' the most absurd things. Things that cannot in fact be believed in! What is this art that you possess?

You stumble because you cannot properly and fairly qualify my 'antipathy' for what it really is because it is inconsiderable to you -- a logical impossibility -- that it is a valid position to take.

Am I without a belief in divinity? Certainly not. But I cannot and also prefer not to fit myself into the jar in which you have fit yourself. There was never a point where I had or lived in 'irrational indifference' -- with that you project something internal to yourself. If I have 'antipathy' it is toward whatever has twisted you up to such a degree that, like your god Yahweh, you can do little else but condemn others who do not see and feel like you and whom you consign to a hell-realm. This god then, this absurd figment of a perverse imagination, I certainly reject. But you mistake that for a rejection of divinity in a larger sense. That is your mistake made. But you have no choice but to make it. Because you are wedded to controlling and determining narratives.

It s also true that your twisted and twisting beliefs -- the way your apologetics operate -- seems bound up with your personality, but that is at least largely something that I can dismiss. It is the core ideas that are far more important and I only focus on them -- ultimately.

And you are right: I am definitely aware that when our views, orientations and activities are measured side by side there is a tremendous dichotomy. Thank heavens for that!

No, that according to what intelligibility, reason and logic actually entail.

Yet you are unreasoning and anti-logical. It is a bit of a paradox there Immanuel!

There is no rational account that makes inclusivism even possibly true: because to get a belief in inclusivism, you already have to reject all exclusivist views.

Now you have latched onto a term that you hauled in here. Inclusivity is your term and your argument against it is all you.

I have spoken of examining various religious traditions and *seeing* them with a lens of sincere appreciation, not of a priori condemnation. Certainly not with an established view that those who hold contrary beliefs to those of classical Christianity will fry in a devil-infested hell-realm. I can think of no view more abject, more miserable and ruinous. I absolutely and thorough reject that view. And I encourage you to move beyond it. I actually think it fair to say *it is killing you*.

This is fitting because a god-concept has died. Therefore you try to find life within moribundity. That is, to the degree that you align yourself with a god of condemnation. There is, and I genuinely think so, wellsprings within Christian doctrines that can nourish. But what you seem to focus on, that I reject.

Religious systems and religious narratives and mythologies are interpretive metaphysical systems and in this sense are 'likenesses'. They are as I have said many times *stories* which attempt to concretize what I do not think can be concretized. If one mistakes the *story* for the *real thing* one makes a mistake, in my view. I think that one has to go back to the basic question: What is it that I am attempting with my religious story? One must look at it in that way. And one must interrogate onself about what one is doing with the system of belief one holds. Because you do it to you.

So in the course of this long conversation you have presented me with an opportunity that I could not pass by. To ask that question. Irrational difference? No son, nothing like that at all.

If you think that, you don't know what "faith" is, biblically. It's not that.

You would do better, it seems to me, to talk concretely and also anecdotally about your faith. Whatever it is that you do relate (here) I cannot relate to in any way frankly. Except of course when you outline general conservative social and political views which are a coherent set of view. But even explaining that and those you continually fail. You could do a far better job. So when you make efforts to explain conservative views you also drive people away.

And whatever 'biblical faith' is, or isn't, doesn't mean must to me.

But it's ironic: you have given up logic and reason at the most fundamental level. You've even denigrated the Law of Non-Contradiction itself. And in the name of "inclusivism," you've raged against all exclusive views, including my own.

:::: sigh ::::

No, I have not denigrated it, I have explained that it works very nicely, indeed perfectly, within mathematics. But it does not work so well within life lived at an experiential level. So binary systems of thinking, reasoning, and also believing, seem to me to require a more expansive predicate system. For this reason I can say (and speaking generally) Christianity is not wholly wrong but it is neither wholly right. Buddhism (Hinduism, etc.) are not wholly wrong but neither are they wholly right. They have to be examined through *nuanced lenses*. This view, given your orientation, causes your brain to overheat. Why?

The answer is found, I assert, examining the issue, the affliction, of fundamentalism and religious fanaticism. I do not think doing this will prohibit one from leading a directed life nor an ethical life. But it does keep one, one hopes, from falling into belief-traps.

And yet, you imagine I'm the one "giving over to faith"? By your own declaration, it's you that wants us to have faith in irrational beliefs.

I think you are projecting. You have beliefs that require a grounding in sheer irrationality. I simply don't have much need for an irrational platform.

This will astonish you, but inclusivism is incapable of even being made rational to believe. It's self-defeating, because it has to exclude all exclusive alternatives in order to affirm its own "inclusiveness."

Again inclusivism is apparently your pet term. It is not mine. What I can say is that when one cannot believe in a specific religious picture -- and most writing here are in that category -- one finds oneself in a zone of not being able to explain much. This is true. Because a belief system does all that work for one.

And I also agree that when many fall out of their inherited belief-system that they wind up in a netherzone of sorts. Call it loss of metaphysical anchor, or nihilism, or simply existential confusion. True enough.

But trying to fit oneself back into collapsed systems which are really mostly mythological constructs -- well, that ain't gonna work. It does seem to presage a time of upheaval and confusion. And that explains a good deal about the time we are in.

Personally I remain, if you will, attached to my notions of metaphysical truths. I do not profess to have a replacement system that I can offer to anyone like an existential shelter. But it does not mean that I (personally) exist within indifference, either rational or irrational.

[Immanuel Can]

Anything Craig says requires no historical or scientific probability of being true;

That's a pretty ridiculous claim, even on the face of it: and obviously merely ad hominem. You haven't faced the facts.

Absolutely nothing ad hominem about it.

Yeah, it is...in additionally to being verifiably, factually wrong. The fact that you think it shows you don't know anything about what Craig actually says.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you know that sexual reproduction takes exactly one man and one woman?

You seem pretty straight-edge but some of us have not always been so strict.

Oh? You've found another way to reproduce?

[Immanuel Can]

I am honestly not a person without 'belief' or faith.

That's certainly apparent.

You stumble because you cannot properly and fairly qualify my 'antipathy' for what it really is because it is inconsiderable to you -- a logical impossibility -- that it is a valid position to take.

Well, you're right in this: that your position is irrational, illogical and self-contradictory. That far, I can agree with you.

...you are wedded to controlling and determining narratives.

Naw. Just to things like rationality and good sense.

There is no rational account that makes inclusivism even possibly true: because to get a belief in inclusivism, you already have to reject all exclusivist views.

Now you have latched onto a term that you hauled in here. Inclusivity is your term and your argument against it is all you.

It's a good descriptor of what you seem to *think* you can believe.

This is fitting because a god-concept has died.

Heh. Nietzsche said that. Then, he was dead wrong. Now he's dead.

If you think that, you don't know what "faith" is, biblically. It's not that.

You would do better, it seems to me, to talk concretely and also anecdotally about your faith.

Not you. You don't even know what the definition of "Christian" is. It's pretty impossible to explain to you what I believe when you evince zero understanding of what that even means.

...when you make efforts to explain conservative views you also drive people away.

Reality always does that. It offends those who refuse it. Truth does it, too...for the same reason.

But it does not work so well within life lived at an experiential level.

It's not about mathematics. The Law of Non-Contradiction is about logic. And yes, it does not appeal to people who live their lives as if "experience" meant more than reason and logic. For them, it's just a frustration...like reality and truth are.

I do not think doing this will prohibit one from leading a directed life nor an ethical life.

Which "ethics" are you assuming? You must be taking one for granted, or you wouldn't be saying this.

I simply don't have much need for an irrational platform.

Sure you do. You don't understand, and so you fear, logic...things like the Law of Non-Contradiction. You even imagine it's optional...as if your disbelief in it were capable of stopping it being true, and stopping it from being applicable to you.

That just shows you don't really know what it is.

This will astonish you, but inclusivism is incapable of even being made rational to believe. It's self-defeating, because it has to exclude all exclusive alternatives in order to affirm its own "inclusiveness."

Again inclusivism is apparently your pet term.

That doesn't matter. The comment is apt: you have to reject my exclusivism in order to affirm your alleged worldview. So you're not inclusive. And you aren't absorbing Christianity within your thinking -- you're denying it.

You just don't seem to know that you are.

[Dubious]

That's a pretty ridiculous claim, even on the face of it: and obviously merely ad hominem. You haven't faced the facts.

Absolutely nothing ad hominem about it.

Yeah, it is...in additionally to being verifiably, factually wrong. The fact that you think it shows you don't know anything about what Craig actually says.

Oh, it was quite clear what he said. What's also clear is that he's got a hell of a lot more neurons in his cranium than you ever had. There are smart theists and stupid ones. Guess where you rank on that scale. Also notice he never mentioned Jesus once, only god in terms of being incipient to the creation of the universe.

[Dubious]

You indicate to me, in clear and also strenuous prose, that you do not recognize any category within the domain of consciousness that involves 'higher' and 'lower'. I definitely do.

Not true. That conclusion of not recognizing higher and lower levels of consciousness would lead to a severely restrained monochromatic level of existence. Without such distinctions, hardly anything can be qualified as different from anything else. That was certainly never my experience.

So this is why I try, more or less 'only', to try to see you and categorize you and people who see like you, on the scale of a causal chain leading from one point to another.

As you wish! To repeat. I have no need for categories to classify the mystical into degrees of meaning and value whose apotheosis is summarized in some higher dimension...which I resist when the conscious mind seeks to do just that.

The notion of *higher dimension* has died. In the same way that God died. What seems 'inevitable' therefore is the end of the possibility of *seeing* anything that has to do with 'that world'

It's precisely when one 'decalibrates' from the purely metaphysical notion of 'higher dimensions' and its concomitant conclusions relating to meaning and value that the propensity of 'seeing the world' is scaled up. At least, that's how it works for me.

Our mental image of 'that world', the one I imagine you refer to, has long been customized to our historical way of 'seeing'. No-longer does it have the potency it once had and god, as palpable in the human psyche as existence itself, has become a remnant grafted on the idea of there being 'higher dimensions'. It's lengthy period of service is now virtually defunct. To say time is change is the same as saying time demands change, especially for a species so deeply cognizant of it. Not god or gods have withstood the momentum of time; eventually they all suffer their own Götterdämmerung. But there are still those who would pray to their relics.

So if I go along with you I will simply agree to *close off* those conceptual pathways. According to you this would be an act of sobriety, of coming down out of unreal clouds, a faded 'world' that in truth never did exist. That is, I will imitate you in your particular trajectory and, I would imagine, wind up in a place similar to where you now are.

Best to be grooved in your own 'conceptual pathways'. It's more likely that way to eventually end in a place where you want to be or, at minimum, feel in command. The psyche should be guided by its own trajectory and not hitch a ride on anyone else's. All reading, in that respect, should amount to nothing more than commentary...whether it's the bible or Nietzsche or anything in between.

[tillingborn]

You know what I'm asking. In any supposed "phase" of evolution, there had to be a mating pair to produce the alleged genetic "step forward."

So your understanding of evolution is that there had to be two monkeys that mated, the product of which was a human being. That is a caricature creationists use to ridicule a fact they do not choose to believe.

Give me the story of how it could happen without that.

I already explained what actually happens:

No two humans share exactly the same DNA, so there has never been a unique sequence that all human beings have to have to qualify. It is the small variations that make some individuals more successful at mating that become more prevalent in a population. That doesn't mean that suddenly two individuals can't breed with the rest of the population, as your hypothesis implies; it just means that after many generations some group of adaptations mean an individual could no longer successfully breed with an ancestral counterpart.

[Lacewing]

It's precisely when one 'decalibrates' from the purely metaphysical notion of 'higher dimensions' and its concomitant conclusions relating to meaning and value that the propensity of 'seeing the world' is scaled up. At least, that's how it works for me.

Our mental image of 'that world', the one I imagine you refer to, has long been customized to our historical way of 'seeing'. No-longer does it have the potency it once had and god, as palpable in the human psyche as existence itself, has become a remnant grafted on the idea of there being 'higher dimensions'. It's lengthy period of service is now virtually defunct. To say time is change is the same as saying time demands change, especially for a species so deeply cognizant of it. Not god or gods have withstood the momentum of time; eventually they all suffer their own Götterdämmerung. But there are still those who would pray to their relics.

Best to be grooved in your own 'conceptual pathways'. It's more likely that way to eventually end in a place where you want to be or, at minimum, feel in command. The psyche should be guided by its own trajectory and not hitch a ride on anyone else's. All reading, in that respect, should amount to nothing more than commentary...whether it's the bible or Nietzsche or anything in between.

Maybe it's just me, but this description sounds fucking brilliant. I get so excited to see people saying things like this: it's better than I can do, but it resonates with how I think too. It just seems unfathomable how much human beings are clinging to archaic ideas to the point of distorting the world and our future in very disturbing ways. Our empowerment for evolving and expanding consciously and energetically is already within each of us, to unfold and create in our own uniquely divine ways. It doesn't make sense that it would be otherwise. We are not wretched creatures to be saved -- that is a horrible teaching. There is no pattern we must follow. When we simply imitate others, we are like closed channels... repeating sounds in a stagnant echoing chamber. Energy flows from and through everyone. The more conscious we can be of it, the more consciously we can create and heal.

[Belinda]

The Adam & Eve story through Judaic interpretation. There are many different versions. This is just one.

I read your link which describes the several interpretations and shows how each interpretation has a history. The author's language suits people who are not professional historians, theologians , or philosophers, and is lively, brief, and entertaining. I recommend the article.
The article is only a "Judaic interpretation" insofar as nobody, including professors who are aware of the dangers of partiality, is entirely free of subjective bias.

If you approach the Adam and Eve story having been primed with the Taoist female and male categories there is not only no problem with Eve as female but also you can see the eternal female stereotype (the spirit of the valley) as passively absorbing Adam's influence, the underneath position in sexual intercourse, and the snake. No blame attaches to any of these characters as they are all personalisations of aspects of the human condition.