Christianity

[Dontaskme]

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

IC is dead wrong. Immanuel Can is also dead.

Nietzsche was right about God is dead. And the dead God was right about Nietzsche is dead.

Every 'known conceptual thing' is dead because only this immediate unknowing aliveness is alive, and this is known by no named thing, as 'named things' are 'empty appearances' of this immediate unknowing nothingness which is never a 'named things' experience.

You are dead IC..just get over it, and stop pretending you know, dead things know nothing. There is no thing that knows a thing. Aliveness always proceeds rather by unknowing than by knowing. Knowing is dead. Unknowing is alive.

[puto]

A community college class just taken on the New Testament, would change your thinking. Ancient writings become intelligible, may become faith. Think and become coherent, use your ability to reason.
Nietzsche and his aphorisms are not coherent, you do not understand, ‘God is dead’ because it is an echo of philosophers of religion. What actually is dead, it has a meaning and is not semantical.
I have studied philosophy and religion for a long-time, and Philosophy Now magazine helped as a resource. You seem to think philosophy is about asking questions, then giving some incoherent diatribe explanation that has no meaning or explanation. You need an education of what you seem to understand. This would be your first intelligible post, understand what you are writing. what your mouth says, and not just sitting around quoting dead philosophers that you do not understand because you show it. Learn, okay, we can converse. Until then, your friendly philosopher.

[tillingborn]

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."

It is simply untrue that two human beings must have "exactly the same genetic mutation" to breed successfully. If one contributor to a mating couple has a adaptation that increased their sexual advantage, the children that was passed to would also be more successful. Something that made them a bit smarter, more beautiful, more assertive or aggressive, anything to make them more attractive or powerful; the mating habits of humans are splendidly complex. That's why we have artists, singers, sportsmen and women, fighters and thugs - pretty much every mating strategy employed by other creatures has its equivalent in human sexual selection. Too bad there's no such thing as a Philosopher Bird.

[Alexis Jacobi]

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.

By 'doing this' I meant taking an open and, say, an appreciative stance toward different religious and ethical systems and also avoiding condemnatory stances toward the same. I do not think this necessarily means that one could not critique or compare different religious systems however.

By referencing *ethics* I profess that I am aware that in different cultures there are 'ethical systems' which are part-and-parcel of those cultures and their social, political and economic relations. So as an example it was helpful to me when I was exploring the roots of so-called Traditionalism:

Tradition [thus Traditionalism], in Julius Evola's definition, was an eternal supernatural knowledge, with absolute values of authority, hierarchy, order, discipline and obedience.

. . . to examine Bushido (the code of honor and morals developed by the Japanese samurai) in order to discern on what sort of life-explanation platform it was built. This opened me up to taking another sort of look at a warrior's ethics and, as an illustration, I might mention Evola's The Metaphysics of War which outlines how an *idea-structure* can inform a man who is acting on the battlefield. I could mention here Arjuna as pictured in a state of hesitancy and uncertainty as he faces a destructive war and the counsel of Krishna to overcome this through seeing things differently.

[Here is a scene some will be familiar with that deals, somewhat, in that area].

And with that said I could then refer to an attitude, certainly taken by some (extremists), of turning against Modernity by turning against the current of the time and defining a counter-current that is better or necessary for a man. (And this explains Guénon and Evola and those attracted to Traditionalism). I guarantee you that taking in what Bowden says about Savitri Devi gives a strange and disconcerting picture of what a counter-current, and an ethical counter-current, could be. It is ultra-bizarre stuff really.

Too, your Christian fundamentalism can be examined through a traditionalist lens. But it is simultaneously true that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be seen as a 'traditionalist'. He is more a revolutionary activist. What stands as a contrast is the idea presented through a reference to *the Word* (in John) as something original and foundational. But all of this is a rather involved conversation.

One could also turn, for example, to the foundation and justification for Quaker pacifism, another and very different ethical outlook. Or as well to the ethics of modern businessmen that they will inevitably absorb through reading the vast literature which takes up entire walls and whole sections in our bookstores -- a mixture of ethics including pragmatism, altruism, as well as Machiavellianism -- ethics more similar to the cut-throat and the amoralist.

Because my orientation and method involves taking a philosophical approach and not a religionist's or an activist's approach, I am only capable of saying that I am aware of having been informed within a more or less specific ethical system (modern American Liberalism? or something like that) which I have received culturally, but I was not in a position to examine it critically until I began to examine other ethical systems comparatively.

So for an Occidental I assume that we all have been raised up in more or less similar circumstances. And when we research the sources we find Platonism, Stoicism, Christianity, and more pragmatic Greek ethics, and then the reigning Liberal worldview, etc.

Take one for granted? I would think it more accurate to say that I absorbed one as I think we all have.

Frankly, I do not see that Christianity can provide a full-fledged ethical system that can be universally applied. If you extract out of the Sermon on the Mount a set of ethical admonitions I tend to see those as completely isolating one from 'participation' in life as it is actually conducted. To practice those ethics you'd have to withdraw from the world. So there is the following perspective:

Any practical application of the ethics from the Sermon on the Mount to the everyday practice of real life. Niebuhr, for example, saw the ethic of Jesus as a radical ideal concerned only with the individual’s attainment of complete moral perfection. He considered the ethic of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to transcend human possibility and demand an uncompromising self-emptying love, marked by complete self-abnegation. Even Justin Martyr called the Sermon on the Mount “ultrapiety” and alluded that it would be cruel of Christ to expect total conformity to the teachings of the sermon. Eschatologists, such as Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, take a middle ground approach when they suggest the Sermon on the Mount is an interim ethic presented by Jesus as a temporary way of life for Christians until the second coming of Christ (Collins, 1986). Stassen and Gushee (2003), however, offer an excellent counter to these arguments by suggesting that Jesus is providing practical guidelines that are effective in transforming the life of the believer, thus breaking the vicious cycles of greed, judgment, lust, hatred, and violence.

So -- and of course this should be obvious -- I cannot say with an absolute certainty what 'ethical system' to subscribe to with an absolute, existential commitment. So much of that would depend on how one defines *the world* and what indeed life is (or isn't).

What is the purpose of a religion? What is the purpose of religiosity? What is the purpose of spirituality? What is the purpose of life? Why am I here? What am I to do? When these questions are really asked, something has to come out of them.

If you cannot define the world it seems to me that you are 'lost' or in any case ungrounded. And my view is that many people are substantially ungrounded and therefore lost. Of course this is a huge problem (though some will say an opportunity).

I can further say that it seems to me that we are in a strange process of transvaluation to borrow Nietzsche's term. The formerly certain metaphysical foundations that upheld the ethics of Christendom have substantially evaporated at least for most moderns. But this does not mean that a sheer pragmatism or Machiavellianism has superseded the foundations and traces of the former system. It is a Twilight and a Sunrise really.

[seeds]

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.

Good grief, Gary, you need to put that "old photo" back in the context of the post in which I first used it - viewtopic.php?p=612145#p612145

Furthermore, just to clarify what's taking place in that photo, here's a quick explanation taken from the blog, "The Sanguine Woods":

In this 1957 photograph,...

...African American Elizabeth Eckford, of what became known as “The Little Rock Nine”, is seen being followed and threatened by an angry mob of “white” protesters. Eckford was on her way to her first day at school as one of the first African-American students to ever attend class at Arkansas’ Little Rock Central High School. Bravery, such as Eckford’s, to protest segregation, bigotry, and hatred, helped usher in the United States Civil Rights Movement.

In which case, if you still want to stick with what you said earlier,...

Which "brave young girl" are you talking about, I assume the black one?...There are neither heroes nor villains in that picture from what I see...

...then I'll stick with my "bizarro world" retort.

And regardless of when and where that particular photograph was taken, once again I insist that you need to understand the context of the post in which it first appeared, for I could have used any one of thousands of other photographs and circumstances to make my point.
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

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.

Let me try to offer some comments now that Lacewing has brought in some worthy statements. I will try yo itemize the different ideas suggested here:

1) To 'recalibrate' might involve semantics insofar as there is no *above* nor any *below*. These ideas have to do with the idea of *density* (below) and *lightness* *effervescence* and freedom-from-constraint (above). In Medieval philosophy, an odd mix of Greek proto-science and Christian theological ideas, the Earth was the lowest level in the Cosmos. That is why hell is pictured *down-below*. And what rules in the ici-bàs (here below) are dense forms of consciousness, densely constructed, and also inhibited and determined creatures with which we, humans, have certain links. The world of man, the Earth-world, was therefore understood to be peculiarly dangerous but it also included celestial elements.

The idea or notion of *higher things* and *lower things* is therefore a mode of perception that still resonates even if, as if usually the case, no one thinks of an angelic world and a demonic world. But examine language and all our terms of meaning: still encased in language are traces of these terminologies.

So in my own view the issue here is one of *conceptual pathways*. If the concept-pathway to conceive of, to talk about, to realize, what is meant by higher things is cut away, one suffers (to put it dramatically) linguistically and also metaphorically. What ultimately higher things refers to are higher orders of thought. What stands in contrast to these? Well I need metaphors. And those metaphors always have to do with density, ignorance (as opposed to intelligence), the temporal and the mutable (in contrast to the immutable and eternal).

Thus 'scaling up' is still an objective, or the objective, and one opposed to 'scaling down', descent, etc. And let's not forget to mention 'self-consciousness' and 'self-empowerment' as an aspect of higher consciousness. The more 'brute' one is, the less aware, the less bright -- the less one has self-determination.

the one I imagine you refer to

I clarified this just above.

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'.

I think that I must not only disagree but also oppose with a certain militancy (quote/unquote) what you propose here. I am quite certain that the god-concept of former description has 'died' (to employ the metaphor) but I am not in any sense sure that divinity, as a concept and as a *reality* is dead. The *world* as it were of internal exploration to which religionists, yogis and mystics devote themselves to is not dead. But it is *submerged*. But yet I have the impression that for you, Dubious, that *world* does not exist and never did exist. In this sense you have a conceptual path that (in my view) blocks you from seeing.

And this is why I say that you position, your concept-path, does lead somewhere. I just am not sure where.

There is a 'higher dimension' still, if ever there was one, and it is a question of discovering how that is presented and explained, when it is presented and explained, or in how it manifests.

Not god or gods have withstood the momentum of time

And with this I must also disagree. The work The Homeric Gods: Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion by Walter F. Otto opens a conceptual door to be able to understand better what these 'gods' were and also are. They are with us as long as we are with thie Earth and this planet. It is a question of being able to begriefen/erfassen them.

I see though what you are doing. You are advancing the concept that they no longer have existence, relevancy and power, and I assume you locate relevancy and power in other ways and through other descriptions and metaphors.

Just for one example the Greek god of the dawn 'Aurora' and the Sankrit 'Usha' most certainly have meaning and also power when they are *seen*. The dawning is where and when light enters our world. The ramifications are multitudinous. And they are more than *mere metaphors*. The *worship* of dawn thus has myriad levels of meaning.

Götterdämmerung: twilight at the beginning or end of a day, dawn and dusk. You are referring to the collapse-phase, and I agree that social concepts have died, but I certainly do not think that what was referred to has died.

But there are still those who would pray to their relics.

Our metaphors always carry us right along, don't they?

The psyche should be guided by its own trajectory and not hitch a ride on anyone else's.

But *the way we see the world* and how we *interpret the world* are most definitely modes of perception that get 'installed' in us. Yes, an individual can seek independence, but he cannot escape, or better said negate, the temporal modality.

All reading, in that respect, should amount to nothing more than commentary...whether it's the bible or Nietzsche or anything in between.

I am not sure what to make of this. It will require more thought.

Lacewing wrote: We are not wretched creatures to be saved -- that is a horrible teaching.

However just previous to this you said:

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.

What this implies, then, is that it is indeed quite possible to be cut off from what one is, or what is inside one, or what we 'truly are'. And if that is so it does imply 'rediscovery' 'uncovering' 're-acquaintance' and 'recovery'.

If something is 'already within us' that, in my view, corresponds to the idea that it is latent, or had already been established, or even is ever and always eternally present.

Thus the idea behind the verb to save could take on, and I assume does take on, a very different meaning than how Christians generally understand it. To rescue, to resuscitate, to bring back to life, to revivify etc. etc.

There is no pattern we must follow.

I would not wish to linguistically or semantically set impediments in your idea-path ( ) but *patterns* are part-and-parcel of this world and they run through all things top to bottom. I think that what you mean is 'tired, over-used ruts' -- which is somewhat different.

[iambiguous]

What you have no interest in, in my view, is grounding your own moral objectivism in a discussion that revolves around a particular "conflicting good" given a particular context.

That too, except insofar as, and to the extent that, I'm already doing that with AJ.

Well, if you ever change your mind, do come down out of the clouds. Bring AJ with you.

What I was interested in was learning what you meant by "dasein".

It seems that for you, morality and dasein are intertwined, and that you are not interested in trying to parse out your meaning of "dasein" separately. Fine. That's your choice. It leaves me somewhat baffled, but such is life.

Parse the meaning of dasein "separately"? What "on Earth" can that possibly mean?

Come on, Harry, this is a thread created in order to discuss Christianity. Are you telling me that a discussion of Christianity does not revolve profoundly around morality...around connecting the dots between the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave and the fate of our soul on the other side?

Are you telling me that how we come to think about Christian morality does not revolve profoundly around the individual lives that we live...around historical and cultural and experiential and interpersonal contexts?

[Dubious]

My, my! What have I done! You sure seem to be in a nit-picking mood today. Why is that? It seems nothing I wrote makes sense to you whereas normally you generously intersperse a few nods!

1) To 'recalibrate' might involve semantics insofar as there is no *above* nor any *below*. These ideas have to do with the idea of *density* (below) and *lightness* *effervescence* and freedom-from-constraint (above). In Medieval philosophy, an odd mix of Greek proto-science and Christian theological ideas, the Earth was the lowest level in the Cosmos. That is why hell is pictured *down-below*. And what rules in the ici-bàs (here below) are dense forms of consciousness, densely constructed, and also inhibited and determined creatures with which we, humans, have certain links. The world of man, the Earth-world, was therefore understood to be peculiarly dangerous but it also included celestial elements.

I didn't write recalibrate, I wrote decalibrate as in a gradual disengagement from the old-time religion. The rest of what follows is incomprehensible having not the least connection to what I wrote.

Thus 'scaling up' is still an objective, or the objective, and one opposed to 'scaling down', descent, etc. And let's not forget to mention 'self-consciousness' and 'self-empowerment' as an aspect of higher consciousness. The more 'brute' one is, the less aware, the less bright -- the less one has self-determination.

The only thing I understood here is that 'scaling up' is opposite to 'scaling down'! How could I not have known that! But again the following has no relation to what I wrote. What's clear is that you're desperate to find fault.

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'.

I think that I must not only disagree but also oppose with a certain militancy (quote/unquote) what you propose here. I am quite certain that the god-concept of former description has 'died' (to employ the metaphor) but I am not in any sense sure that divinity, as a concept and as a *reality* is dead. The *world* as it were of internal exploration to which religionists, yogis and mystics devote themselves to is not dead. But it is *submerged*. But yet I have the impression that for you, Dubious, that *world* does not exist and never did exist. In this sense you have a conceptual path that (in my view) blocks you from seeing.

I never said that 'divinity' was dead insofar as we are able to denote it and give it direction. Gods may be considered divine, but divinity per se does not require the inclusion of gods. The word 'divinity' is a referent to what we hold most sacred and applied accordingly. What was considered 'divine' at one time in history may be considerably less so at another...as in now!

To repeat: Your impression that the world does not exist for me is dead wrong as already explained, besides being in itself a ludicrous statement. Is this an IC tactic? It seems you have learned more from him than he has from you.

We each behold the world through our own tinted glasses in various degrees of intensity as provided by the aura of one's consciousness. If mine gives you claustrophobia, then I apologize for the effect and promise not to make you a victim of it again.

Götterdämmerung: twilight at the beginning or end of a day, dawn and dusk. You are referring to the collapse-phase, and I agree that social concepts have died, but I certainly do not think that what was referred to has died.

Götterdämmerung refers to the twilight of the gods in a world with a long history which has seen many gods being merely temporary transferees of what we describe as divine at the time. Divinity has a long tradition, almost as if it were a genealogical function to create replacements usually with an interlude of nihilism as its incubation period when such a 'twilight' is in the process of occurring. What remains seemingly constant are not the gods but that which creates them.

As an example, ever read the story of Indra's Palace as told by Joseph Campbell?

If not, here it is....
https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/com ... _campbell/

The psyche should be guided by its own trajectory and not hitch a ride on anyone else's.

But *the way we see the world* and how we *interpret the world* are most definitely modes of perception that get 'installed' in us. Yes, an individual can seek independence, but he cannot escape, or better said negate, the temporal modality.

Temporal modality is a collection of individual modalities provided they are allowed to speak or seek in their own individual ways. We may be a part of the same modality but how different are we! Schopenhauer said something to the effect that too much reading inhibits one's ability to think. When the brain 'eats' too much it gets constipated. Ever think that could be a problem of yours?

[Dubious]

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.

Hi lacewing!

Thank you for the compliment, though I suspect you aren't going to be making a lot of friends by agreeing with me!

I often wonder, now more than ever, what in the human brain causes the great divide that can so thoroughly separate one mind from another, sometimes almost to the point where they appear alien. What we presume to be common sense and with all the knowledge now available, differences obviously still prevail, but one in which the details make the difference and not the near complete eradication of those qualities most would regard as distinctly human...specifically, by those humans who still submit to old scripture and doctrines which haven't yet had the courtesy to die. When a body dies it either gets cremated or buried. If not, it becomes putrid, infecting everyone around it. That's the toxic liquifying effect of old scripture on those societies which still yield to them. But the planet is unitary, fundamental to our existence which IT established. I can't think of a 'higher dimension' than that pertaining to a future remaining viable, continuing from where it began.

Nietzsche called for a transvaluation of values based on the corrosion and its psychological effect of the long-institutionalized ones commanded by the church. But it doesn't go far enough since he couldn't have known. What we need beyond anything is a complete revaluation of our relationship to the planet and all else who have been citizens here since time primeval. Gods come and go; so-called 'higher dimensions', whose meaning is near to nothing, get readjusted in whatever direction the time dictates as is happening now.

I'd say forget about higher dimensions; live within your means and not some imagined inflated sphere no one has access to but can only talk about.

Personally, I'm not optimistic, but it's a discussion worth having; one in which disagreement can be a catalyst to further examination instead of concluding in a dead-end as happens so often here.

[Immanuel Can]

So your understanding of evolution is that there had to be two monkeys that mated, the product of which was a human being.

I said "Neanderthal." You think that means "monkey"? Hey, that's your mistake, not mine.

It is the small variations that make some individuals more successful at mating that become more prevalent in a population.

Let it be as small as you like. Let it be as obvious as a tail, or as small as one segment of a DNA strand. It makes no difference to the problem.

At some point, human evolution must have arrived at modern man as we now have him/her. What we need to know is how, absent sexual reproduction, one could get from the previous stage to this one, without it involving a single mating pair. What's the account of how a vast number of mating pairs suddently all produced the same genetic mutation, so it could be sustained and reproduced in subsequent generations? And this process must have circumnavigated all the likelihoods of gene reversion, mutations in a different direction (creating distinct species of quasi-men, for example), and all ending up creating one kind of human that is fully interfertile and of the same species. Marvellous.

And if we say that's what happened, then we need to say what scientific mechanism triggered this shift and controlled it, at this particular time, in a whole spectrum of individuals at the same juncture.

I think you'll find it's much easier to conceive of it happening with a single pair than with any multiplicity of serendipidous, simultaneous mutations being posited. But I'm all open to seeing somebody try telling us about that mechanism, and how it produced its magic.

[Alexis Jacobi]

My, my! What have I done! You sure seem to be in a nit-picking mood today. Why is that? It seems nothing I wrote makes sense to you whereas normally you generously intersperse a few nods!

Relax, Dubious. Don’t take it personally. You have alway been enigmatic. I sort of get what you mean, and what I think I get I appreciate. But it seems to be a question of viewpoints and backgrounds that don’t jibe enough. So what?

To repeat: Your impression that the world does not exist for me is dead wrong as already explained, besides being in itself a ludicrous statement. Is this an IC tactic? It seems you have learned more from him than he has from you.

You’ve misunderstood. I used the term that world in a specific sense.

If you genuinely see me as using ‘tactics’ similar to those of IC then make it plain. I do have objectives however. But tactics to nit-pick? For what purpose? No. I genuinely do not understand you. But not because I don’t want to.

The word 'divinity' is a referent to what we hold most sacred and applied accordingly.

I see it differently. But I do — dimly — see what you are getting at.

Divinity in my lexicon refers to an order of understanding and experience. It is not merely a descriptive term referring to value.

Why would Lacewing not make friends by agreeing with you?

… but it's a discussion worth having; one in which disagreement can be a catalyst to further examination instead of concluding in a dead-end as happens so often here.

Again don’t take difficulty in understanding personally. Nor even irreconcilable views or positions.

[Immanuel Can]

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."

It is simply untrue that two human beings must have "exactly the same genetic mutation" to breed successfully.

I'm so amused. I'm onto your trick.

What you do is take something I said, reword it into something I didn't say, and then try to make me defend what you said, instead of what I said. I know what it means: it means you were unable to deal with my argument as I actually gave it, so you felt you needed to change it to something untenable, something you hoped you'd find easier to handle.

I did not say the above, obviously. Somebody with a genetic fault can, for sure, reproduce with somebody with normal genetics. But in most cases, the genetic fault is thereby suppressed. And we have no instances of such genetic faults producing a survival advantage...except through the speculative stories of Evolutionists themselves, of course.

Now, after one generation, if a mutation is going to be continued, then neither party can be possessed of a dominant gene that could cause gene reversion...just as all subsequent generations involving the mutation must lack that capacity to produce reversion or suppression of the gene. So you're back to having to explain what mechanism prevented genetic reversion from taking place...made all the more difficult by the number of cycles of reproduction posited by the alleged millions of years it is supposed to take for even one small mutation to take hold and be permanent.

And you still haven't even tried to explain what mechanism made this happen for the whole human race, at a particular juncture in time...which would necessarily have to be the case. For Darwin quite explicitly said that natural selection has to remain blind to any mutation that does not immediately represent a survival advantage. If a mutation does not represent a survival advantage immediately, then natural selection, according to Darwin, cannot select for it at all.

The problems now multiply. How can we posit that a genetic change sufficient to produce a definitive survival advantage happened all at once, especially across the entire population of humans?

[Immanuel Can]

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.

By 'doing this' I meant taking an open and, say, an appreciative stance toward different religious and ethical systems

Which system informed you that "taking an open stance, avoiding condemnatory stances,...etc." was moral? Which system of metaethics told you it was more "moral," say, then simply finding the truth and staying with it?

Frankly, I do not see that Christianity can provide a full-fledged ethical system that can be universally applied.

What is telling you that, say, "Thou shalt not steal" cannot be "universally applied"? It certainly looks like it could. You could maybe try to argue that you think stealing would be warranted under certain conditions -- and it would remain deniable that that condition excused stealing -- but even in your argument you would have to be assuming that stealing was generally wrong for everybody, the exceptions needing excusing conditions.

But as to the fact that being good, keeping the law, and being sinless are impossible to human beings, the Bible totally agrees with you. Human beings are sinful beings; they're drawn to such things, and often fall into them. Hence, the need not merely for trying harder, but for being saved from the things one cannot, oneself, save oneself from.

What is the purpose of a religion?

As Abdu Murray has sagely observed, all relgions -- and indeed, all ideologies of every kind -- share two basic features: 1) the assumption that the world is not as it should be, and 2) the assumption that human efforts are the solution to what's wrong with the world. This second point, point #2 is where Christianity parts company with them all. Man is not going to save himself. Hence, the need for salvation.

What is the purpose of religiosity?

"Religiosities" are attempts to avoid dealing with the Living God. They are, instead, attempts to describe how, by cleverness or effort or sheer evolution, man can extricate himself from all that's wrong with the world and achieve utopia on his own terms. Some of these take the forms of appeals to imaginary "gods" or "demons." Some merely appeal to "human potentials." But every last one of them is an evasion of dealing with God as He actually is. And most of them have the purpose of being aimed at returning control of his remedies to man himself, on some terms he feels he likes better than what God offers him.

That's why Christianity is not a "religiosity." It's also why all these different ways to avoid God are just different ways to die in the dark.

What is the purpose of life?

To become a friend of God.

Why am I here?

To choose to do that.

What am I to do?

Exactly that.

The formerly certain metaphysical foundations that upheld the ethics of Christendom have substantially evaporated at least for most moderns.

The irony of that is that the foundations of "modernism" themselves have dissolved. We are told nowadays we're all "postmodern," or even "post-postmodern." But we're no better off, for all that. We're just even more confused, amoral and lost. We don't even know, nowadays, what a "woman" is, apparently.

But Nietzsche foresaw this. As his madman exclaims, "What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?..." No compass. No direction. No certainties. No purpose. No hope. No light. Confusion. Fear. Cold. Nothingness.

Nietzsche hated God and Christianity. But he knew better than to suggest we were all going to do very well without Christian ethics. Anybody who reads his parable can see he thought we were opening ourselves to terrible prospects. But being a Nihilist (in the actual, not Nietzschean usage of that term), Nietzsche had cut himself off from the only live alternative.

That doesn't mean he didn't think the death of God was going to make us "hit the fan," as you can see. And you would have to say that the 20th Century sure proved that intution right.

[Gary Childress]

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.



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.

Good grief, Gary, you need to put that "old photo" back in the context of the post in which I first used it - viewtopic.php?p=612145#p612145

Furthermore, just to clarify what's taking place in that photo, here's a quick explanation taken from the blog, "The Sanguine Woods":

In this 1957 photograph,...

...African American Elizabeth Eckford, of what became known as “The Little Rock Nine”, is seen being followed and threatened by an angry mob of “white” protesters. Eckford was on her way to her first day at school as one of the first African-American students to ever attend class at Arkansas’ Little Rock Central High School. Bravery, such as Eckford’s, to protest segregation, bigotry, and hatred, helped usher in the United States Civil Rights Movement.

In which case, if you still want to stick with what you said earlier,...

Which "brave young girl" are you talking about, I assume the black one?...There are neither heroes nor villains in that picture from what I see...

...then I'll stick with my "bizarro world" retort.

And regardless of when and where that particular photograph was taken, once again I insist that you need to understand the context of the post in which it first appeared, for I could have used any one of thousands of other photographs and circumstances to make my point.
_______

My original response to your picture was that I saw a very complex picture that is very depressing to me. My point is that all the people in that picture are doing what they think is best to do from their own perspectives or they would not be doing what they are doing. Life is a shit fest and there are neither true heroes nor true villains in this world. All of us are victims of whoever or whatever threw us into this pit. I'm not saying that you are racist and I'm not saying that the whites in that photo are right to do what they are doing--Harry's response to my reply. I'm just not particularly interested right now in finding things to be angry at other people for. I would prefer peace and that we all just get along (which itself is not an easy task).

[Gary Childress]

Frankly, I do not see that Christianity can provide a full-fledged ethical system that can be universally applied.

What is telling you that, say, "Thou shalt not steal" cannot be "universally applied"? It certainly looks like it could. You could maybe try to argue that you think stealing would be warranted under certain conditions -- and it would remain deniable that that condition excused stealing -- but even in your argument you would have to be assuming that stealing was generally wrong for everybody, the exceptions needing excusing conditions.

Thou shalt not steal is certainly, arguably, a universally applicable law (as is thou shalt not murder), however, commandments such as "thou shalt have no other God's before me" is a questionable one as far as having "universal applicability". And some of the other commandments such as "observing the Sabbath" are pretty questionable as far as being universally applicable too. Not everyone follows commandments concerning Sabbath and such and I'm not sure they are incredibly necessary to follow.