Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

What I found is this: if you start talking to God, He starts 'talking' to you. Not in an audible way, I mean, but in the private chamber of your own heart. You begin to "live with" Him...He begins to "speak back" into your experience.

The basic idea here is one that has been part of experience since time immemorial. In the ancient world, the pre-Christian world, it was certainly understood that god speaks and that the gods speak. The idea of augury (signs, omens) derives from the idea that god speaks through the world. So then, if that is true, how then can one 'beckon' a response from god?

I am relatively certain that all who write here have had something comparable to CG Jung's notion of a 'big dream'. A big dream:

Big Dreams are those that remain clearly in the waking memory for days, weeks, or even years… and evoke events, time-periods, and places—usually bizarre and surreal—that are absolutely foreign to one’s experience of conscious, normal reality in wakeful life.

Jung regarded the Big Dream as a kind of ‘wakeup call’: as a means of alerting one to psychological imbalances in character development that are working against one’s wellbeing, and are therefore injurious to one’s positive and meaningful psychological growth. He also pointed out that such important dreams were not to be taken literally; could only be understood if ‘read’ symbolically.

Meaning that there has to be an interpreter and an interpretation. And like it or not, now and today, there is no way around everyone having to interpret everything about the world they live in. The question arises: through what lens?

How can one talk about what this is? Why is it, how is it, that something -- a message, and meaning -- arise in us and 'speaks' to us? What is the origin of the messaging? How does this come about? and what does it mean?

What about *omens & signs*? I am also relatively sure that some who write here have, in the course of their lives, received what they understood to be unmistakable 'omens' at crucial moments. There is an interesting scene in the Satyajit Ray film The Music Room when the wind blows over a small model of a boat and this presages the drowning of his wife and son returning by river during a storm.

How do such things come about? How does one explain it? "Acausal connecting principle" was Jung's highfaluting term! But think about it: How can anything in our world be 'connected' a-causally? To one determined perspective this is impossible.

Anyone, anywhere, who begins 'spiritual life' -- if all the anecdotes one can read about are true -- immediately begins to receive responses.

The idea of this 'communication' was part-and-parcel of the pre-Christian and the Christian world. The idea, the mystical practice, of 'conversation with the holy guardian angel' and the sort of austerity (usually purification) needed to enter into this conversation was a commonly understood practice and still today 'functions' for many people, both non-Christian and Christian.

One could go on endlessly citing examples of this mysticism (and superstitiousness).

Anyone with basic experience in these domains will certainly have many stories to tell about such 'communication'. And still, for us today, we require 'explanatory language' in order to a) explain it away or b) make some sense of it (which amounts to an explanation that *works* for us).

In Occidental mysticism there is, of course, the Hermetic Tradition. Because Hermes as understood to be the god that presided over communication from one level to another [heaven to earth; hell to earth] and was also the god that 'ruled' doorways and passages, roads & pathways, Hermes was the 'bringer of omens' and also the interpreter of omens. Hermes and the Hermetic tradition (as concept, or as pattern) is evident in the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. The Christian doctrines were received by people steeped in these conceptual means.

There is really no end to the influence or the presence of the idea that 'god can speak to one'. Everywhere, and in all cultures.

What Judaism says, and what Christianity mirrors, is the idea that any such 'communication' that is not, somehow, brought out under the aegis of Jesus and the Yahweh god-concept is 'devilish'.

And naturally the experience shared by Immanuel of his conversion-process expresses the belief that the only 'god' that speaks validly is the god-image with which he is so intimately, and exclusively, involved.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't think of the world as being screwed up, and that might be why I've never been "set off". The world is just what it is.

That was one of the answers the skeptics gave me: "It is what it is." I found it very dusty then, as I do now, to be honest.

...anyone who lives in the civilised West and is prepared to make a bit of an effort hasn't got it all that bad.

At a glance, I'd have to agree. And I'm grateful to live there.

But I've spent too much time in the developing world not to recognize our unprecedented privileges for what they are. For most of history, for most people, for most of real life, in fact, it has not been like this...and after COVID, we all now know it could very easily be much worse, even for us.

Don't you ever wonder how that can be? Don't you ever marvel at the level of suffering, awfulness and misery the world has contained, and even now contains? And are you so sure, even of your own future, that you can say, "it is what it is, and not all that bad"?

To be honest, I don't feel that there is anything God shaped missing from my life.

That may be. It's the luxury we have of living in the developed West at the present period. We're so privileged we even can afford to get salty about it, and believe ourselves "oppressed" because there are others even richer than we are, and we want their stuff. So we don't feel we have anything essential missing...we're well into the grasping for luxuries, and well beyond the point of basic need.

But it is an illusion, a distraction from the truth about what life really is. And if we are unaware of it, that may not speak so well of us. It may just mean we've had the luxury to become unthinking.

Stop it at once, IC.

You asked me about certainty. I've just told you honestly what I know: certainty is never absolute, but it can be pretty strong. But it does not come from the mere possession of a particular proposition or set of facts; it comes from a relational and experiential engagement with the Word of God, though Christ.

That's a hard thing for anybody who hasn't experienced it to process. That's the reason I've told you what my route looked like. You can take it or leave it, as you please. No offense to me, either way.

However, if certainty were what you were actually looking for, then I think all I can do is tell you what I think you can expect; that it will require a personal engagement, and cannot be had without a commitment of self. And I think you'll find that's because God is not interested in what we merely know in our heads; He's concerned with how we will decide to relate to Him. So He does not give any certainty to people who want to obtain it in an uncommitted, impersonal, factual, detached sort of way. For them, there are only nagging questions, but no certainties.

Thanks for your explanation.

You're most welcome.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You asked me about certainty. I've just told you honestly what I know: certainty is never absolute, but it can be pretty strong. But it does not come from the mere possession of a particular proposition or set of facts; it comes from a relational and experiential engagement with the Word of God, though Christ.

That's a hard thing for anybody who hasn't experienced it to process. That's the reason I've told you what my route looked like. You can take it or leave it, as you please. No offense to me, either way.

However, if certainty were what you were actually looking for, then I think all I can do is tell you what I think you can expect; that it will require a personal engagement, and cannot be had without a commitment of self. And I think you'll find that's because God is not interested in what we merely know in our heads; He's concerned with how we will decide to relate to Him. So He does not give any certainty to people who want to obtain it in an uncommitted, impersonal, factual, detached sort of way. For them, there are only nagging questions, but no certainties.

This is an interesting juncture: you are now preaching with all the proper adamancy to a man who has absolutely and thoroughly no need or desire to hear it. Do you imagine that he might be moved to reconsider? His position, repeated time and again, is that the existential dilemma that is so real for you, and many others (and also which I am deeply involved in but differently) is meaningless to him.

Harbal will not anytime soon develop an engagement with the Word of God, though Christ. The entire idea is inconsiderable and ridiculous. He will develop a meaningful relationship with an old boot before he ever considers one to Jesus.

So what is curious here is that Harbal can be seen as an outcome of historical and social processes where an Englishman who would once have had an intimate understanding of English affairs, the CofE, and a quite intellectual and well-expressed grasp of Christianity, now has none, zero, zip. And how has that come about? If one does not understand the trajectory, one cannot understand the man.

And if one does not understand the man, one has no way of communicating with that man. You might get more headway talking sincerely to a trained monkey or to your pet. A pet might not grasp language but they can certainly grasp something of our adamant communications. I am not insulting Harbal through this comparison. I am pointing out that he has not a spiritual bone in his body. Nor an ear that is tuned on any level to what I have named *higher meaning*. And this sort of man, as outcome in our day and age, must be better understood. How could *you* reach him?

There you have my own statement about 'nescience'. Once nescience is established it maintains itself on its own. Nothing can get thought to it. In order for there to be some communication there has to be a *internal spark* that is ignited even if it is just a very small and fragile blue flame.

This is really not about Harbal. It should not be taken as such. It is a tirata (in discordant melody) against an 'outcome' when man falls into decadent processes. My essential assertion is that you, Immanuel, have no way to communicate with that man. Your preaching efforts fail.

[Harbal]

That was one of the answers the skeptics gave me: "It is what it is." I found it very dusty then, as I do now, to be honest.

If you don't start from the position of there being God -a designer (which I don't), then I don't really see any other way to look at it.

But I've spent too much time in the developing world not to recognize our unprecedented privileges for what they are. For most of history, for most people, for most of real life, in fact, it has not been like this...and after COVID, we all now know it could very easily be much worse, even for us.

Don't you ever wonder how that can be? Don't you ever marvel at the level of suffering, awfulness and misery the world has contained, and even now contains? And are you so sure, even of your own future, that you can say, "it is what it is, and not all that bad"?

A great deal of the suffering man has experienced has been at the hands of other men. That doesn't make me wonder, or marvel, it just makes me realise what a brutal creature the human being actually is, under his thin veneer of civilisation. If I did think the world was screwed up, and if I did believe in God (specifically the biblical God), the only possible conclusion would be that he made a massive blunder when he created man. A grave design error, you could say. As for suffering caused by natural disaster; all living creatures are subject to it; it doesn't descriminate between species.

That may be. It's the luxury we have of living in the developed West at the present period. We're so privileged we even can afford to get salty about it, and believe ourselves "oppressed" because there are others even richer than we are, and we want their stuff. So we don't feel we have anything essential missing...we're well into the grasping for luxuries, and well beyond the point of basic need.

But it is an illusion, a distraction from the truth about what life really is. And if we are unaware of it, that may not speak so well of us. It may just mean we've had the luxury to become unthinking.

The truth about what life really is for us is that we make it what it is. As you say, we have it relatively good in the developed West, but it is very different in some parts of the world. I'm just lucky to live in the right part of the world, but I am aware that things could change. So that's the truth about what life is.

That's the reason I've told you what my route looked like. You can take it or leave it,

I appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply, but my purpose in asking wasn't to take or leave it, but simply to know.

However, if certainty were what you were actually looking for, then I think all I can do is tell you what I think you can expect; that it will require a personal engagement, and cannot be had without a commitment of self. And I think you'll find that's because God is not interested in what we merely know in our heads; He's concerned with how we will decide to relate to Him. So He does not give any certainty to people who want to obtain it in an uncommitted, impersonal, factual, detached sort of way. For them, there are only nagging questions, but no certainties.

All I was looking for was to have my curiosity satisfied. I just find it curious that one could read a book and accept it as the word of God because that is what its authors claim it to be.

[Immanuel Can]

You asked me about certainty. I've just told you honestly what I know: certainty is never absolute, but it can be pretty strong. But it does not come from the mere possession of a particular proposition or set of facts; it comes from a relational and experiential engagement with the Word of God, though Christ.

That's a hard thing for anybody who hasn't experienced it to process. That's the reason I've told you what my route looked like. You can take it or leave it, as you please. No offense to me, either way.

However, if certainty were what you were actually looking for, then I think all I can do is tell you what I think you can expect; that it will require a personal engagement, and cannot be had without a commitment of self. And I think you'll find that's because God is not interested in what we merely know in our heads; He's concerned with how we will decide to relate to Him. So He does not give any certainty to people who want to obtain it in an uncommitted, impersonal, factual, detached sort of way. For them, there are only nagging questions, but no certainties.

This is an interesting juncture: you are now preaching ...

Not at all. I was asked a question: I answered it as truthfully and fairly as I could.

What would you prefer? A dishonest and disingenuous response? Maybe something with less frankness in it? But that would be arid, detached, factual, distant and cold.

The problem is that that is not the kind of answer that could actually answer Harbal's question. So one does what one can.

Do you imagine that he might be moved to reconsider?

That's not for me to say. As for us all, that's between him and God. All I've told him is how it is, from where I stand.

So what is curious here is that Harbal can be seen as an outcome of historical and social processes where an Englishman who would once have had an intimate understanding of English affairs, the CofE, and a quite intellectual and well-expressed grasp of Christianity, now has none, zero, zip.

If that is how you choose to imagine him, that's how you choose to imagine him.

I just choose to answer his question. I don't force him into any preconception at all. I don't even have a particular image of him in mind.

I know he's from a pretty part of England, a place which I also love. Beyond that, all I know is he's very quick of wit. Beyond that, I don't venture to imagine.

I am pointing out that he has not a spiritual bone in his body.

That's a fairly judgmental assessment, one would think. Do you know him personally, that you feel qualified to assess him this way? I do not.

I marvel that you feel you have cast so far beyond us all in your assessment of Harbal. I wonder if you are as "marvelous" to him, in that.

We shall see, perhaps. He may wish to say, or he may not. But either way, I am content not to presuppose your assessment of him.

[Immanuel Can]

That was one of the answers the skeptics gave me: "It is what it is." I found it very dusty then, as I do now, to be honest.

If you don't start from the position of there being God -a designer (which I don't), then I don't really see any other way to look at it.

Well, cannot one be open to things one hasn't yet known? Is the only kind of legitimate knowledge "starting position" knowledge?

A great deal of the suffering man has experienced has been at the hands of other men. That doesn't make me wonder, or marvel, it just makes me realise what a brutal creature the human being actually is, under his thin veneer of civilisation.

That, in itself is remarkable, though, is it not? How has it come about that this world is populated with creatures capable of such brutality? They could have been otherwise, surely; why are they not?

If I did think the world was screwed up, and if I did believe in God (specifically the biblical God), the only possible conclusion would be that he made a massive blunder when he created man. A grave design error, you could say.

That's a plausible conclusion. Not the only one, however.

Perhaps there's something wrong with man. Perhaps he's not what he was supposed to be. Perhaps the flaw isn't in the design, so to speak, but in the executions of a being that clearly has power to do things we regard as evil.

As for suffering caused by natural disaster; all living creatures are subject to it; it doesn't descriminate between species.

This is true. However, there may also be reasons for that.

The truth about what life really is for us is that we make it what it is.

I'm not so sure.

I mean, sure, we can always "play the hand we've been dealt" better or worse, but the "hand" gets dealt first. There's an awful lot in our lives over which we have only partial or even no control. But you're right that we have tremendous power with our free will to "make it what it is," in another sense.

Take that fact that we were both placed in countries with luxury. Did we "make that what it is"? No. We just arrived and soiled our diapers. But after that, what did we do with the benefits we were handed? That's also a good question.

That's the reason I've told you what my route looked like. You can take it or leave it,

I appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply, but my purpose in asking wasn't to take or leave it, but simply to know.

Perhaps. But I suggest it's not possible to "simply know" some things, unless we put something into them.

It's not possible for me to "know" what my potential as a athlete is, if I do not play the game. It's not possible for me to "know" whether or not I can be loved, unless I ask the girl out. It's not possible for me to "know" a whole bunch of things if I want to "simply know" them from outside. Hence, the form of my reply.

I just find it curious that one could read a book and accept it as the word of God because that is what its authors claim it to be.

You'll not find that claim in my answer.

[Harbal]

I am not insulting Harbal through this comparison. I am pointing out that he has not a spiritual bone in his body. Nor an ear that is tuned on any level to what I have named *higher meaning*. And this sort of man, as outcome in our day and age, must be better understood. How could *you* reach him?

IC's failure to "reach" me is not because of any shortcoming on his part, Alexis. I am unavailable; nobody is going to reach me. I don't object to being "better understood", however; particularly as you think of it as something that must be achieved, but I'm not interested in participating in anyone's attempts to do it.

[Lacewing]

Let's face the facts here: there is no argument that will ever overturn the Roly-Poly man. It seems necessary to notice then that his entire purpose (here) is not to be overturned.

Using a slightly different theme: When an ego is the driver, it can cause a person to go to any lengths to protect and justify it. Hopefully, there is a point to which each person won't go. It is different for everyone. Although the Roly-Poly man in this case appears to frame his untoppable nature as a sign of his uniquely genuine Christian glory, he is demonstrating instead how much he is willing to ignore and do in service to his ego.

Christianity is a container for a wide group of ideas that were never the 'possession' of Christians. A tremendous number of these were 'borrowed' -- and borrowed from pagan sources. If this is true it means that these ideas can be recovered from out of Christianity and its 'imperiousness' and they can be reestablished on a different footing.

There is much of value, and it is sad that it has been possessed by a spirit/attitude that aims to control and possess all. The Christian practice of good people with good hearts is continually being corrupted by those who serve themselves, and it is THAT which threatens Christianity most of all. Extremist Christians who rail against 'non-Christians' as the evil that threatens all that is good, seem clueless of the continually morphing creation that they are shielding and perpetuating.

Though no one has to go along with me, and some certainly don't, it seems to me there must be a way out of this never-ending mess. A perpetual-motion machine of fruitless argumentation.

First, it would help the discussion if it wasn't bogged down by religious preaching, such as what Mr. Can does, which aims to control and dictate (via his own interpretations) what the ONLY truth can be. Age does this too, in his own way. It's a continual stream of their ideas/beliefs, distorted as needed to suit their narratives, to fill every unknowable space with themselves. They typically have the ultimate answer for everything and are resistant or incapable of considering the value of other viewpoints. It's difficult to have a truthful and open discussion with that element, and it's difficult to evolve beyond that element.

But to do that requires, as I do not tire of saying, a sort of cataloguing, a list-making, a sort of map-making of how each person who writes here got to the place where he is. This is especially important because each person writing here has and writes from a position of relationship to the Christian religion and construct.

Well, I think that would be interesting too... but I don't think this forum is a place of trust for such an honest discussion and assessment. I wish it were. I've been very honest and open about my life and views, as well as acknowledging that I respect other people to do what works for them. This environment seems overrun with people championing their 'claims' (or sources) as absolute truth... which is so exhausting and stupid. How could the Universe be that small?! No, it is just their brains/views that are that small!

There is a quote out of the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of The Chinese Book of Changes: Hate is a subjective form of attachment by which one is bound to the hated object.

Yes, true. We are somewhat imprisoned by (and with) some of these ideas. I find it useful to have a sense of humor about it. Play-fighting.

Oops, just got a text. I might have more to respond to your post, but I gotta go... play!

[Harbal]

I appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply, but my purpose in asking wasn't to take or leave it, but simply to know.

Perhaps. But I suggest it's not possible to "simply know" some things, unless we put something into them.

Even so, I did find your answer quite enlightening, and I thank you again for taking the time to give it.

[Immanuel Can]

I appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply, but my purpose in asking wasn't to take or leave it, but simply to know.

Perhaps. But I suggest it's not possible to "simply know" some things, unless we put something into them.

Even so, I did find your answer quite enlightening, and I thank you again for taking the time to give it.

Good to talk with you. I'm glad you're around...again.

[Belinda]

What had set me off, ironically, was an encounter with skeptical literature and thought. I was at university. But one question had been bothering me for a long time: why was this world so screwed up? I might have added, in all honesty, "Why am I so screwed up?" And I wanted a serious answer, because the question was very serious to me: really, I wanted an explanation for evil. It wanted to know how the world I was expected to live in could be so bad, so disappointing, so morally corrupt, so confused and so anxious.

I don't think of the world as being screwed up, and that might be why I've never been "set off". The world is just what it is. I must say, though, that anyone who lives in the civilised West and is prepared to make a bit of an effort hasn't got it all that bad. I certainly can't complain, and I have never even made much effort. To be honest, I don't feel that there is anything God shaped missing from my life.

But my suggestion would be simple: start talking to God. Just start. Take maybe five minutes a day, and talk to Him honestly, informally, in your own words and way. And read a bit of what He has left us to read in the Bible. I started with the gospels: maybe that's a good kind of starting place. But I'd try it for a month or so, just as an experiment, and see what you get.

Stop it at once, IC.

Thanks for your explanation.

The world is just what it is, true. However you and I can choose what we want to do with the world as it is. You are not a camera, have never been a camera, but are and have always been subject of experience.

[iambiguous]

Look, you either believe that the Christian Bible is the word of God or you don't.

Okay.

And if you do believe that and then [over and over and over again] you quote passages from it to support your arguments

I do...when my argument is, "this is what the Bible says." For a lot of people express confusion as to what a Christian is: and this is, in fact, the topic that started the thread, essentially. So the Bible is the main resource for answering that question.

But I never made the "because" out of it that you try to put into my mouth. For I know full well that many here, like you, do not believe the Bible; so even if (as I maintain) the Bible is the word of God, that's not an argument that they would believe. So I haven't made it. And I marvel that you tried to script it for me.

Again, it's that you can actually delude yourself that you are not going around and around in circles here which prompts me to conclude that it's a "condition". The Bible is the main source for answering the question "what is a Christian?" But the whole point of being a Christian is to believe that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven. And that you must obey His Commandments [from the Bible] on this side of the grave or your soul will wind up in Hell for all the rest of eternity. What part of going around and around in circles don't you grasp here?

Take away the Bible and what other evidence do you have? Or, perhaps, when you view those videos again, you will be able to provide us with the segment from the one that does establish that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven...as so many mere mortals are able to establish that the Pope does in fact reside in the Vatican.

I gave you evidence and arguments. You won't even view what I gave you, though it's incredibly simple to do so.

What evidence? What proof that mere mortals can acquire such that it is on par with the proof that mere mortals can acquire to demonstrate that the Pope resides in the Vatican?

But secondly, I don't bother to debate with people who won't even view the evidence when it's presented right in front of their faces. Why you're afraid of the videos, I can't say...but it's clear you are.

What specious crap. You dump all these videos on me. I ask you to provide me the most dramatic evidence to support your claim. Something that would prompt me to invest my own precious time in watching them.

"My precious time"? You spend all your "precious time" arguing here, and ignoring the evidence, so I don't see that you are investing it nearly so well as you would be if you just looked at what I provided to you.

But if your time is "precious," how much is your soul worth to you? Maybe you might want to invest some of that "precious time" in looking at the evidence; because if what I say is true, the most valuable thing you have is at stake.

Again, on and on and on you go making this all about me. Anything to avoid actually providing me with the most potent proof from those videos.

After all, if saving my soul and the souls of others really is important to you, you wouldn't hesitate to bring that video clip/segment to us. That would be your first priority, wouldn't it?

Instead, what do you do?!!! You go straight back to the Bible!!!

Here's a quotation to show that to say so is Christian: [Jesus said] "For what good will it do a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what will a person give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26) Now the question follows: He said it...is it the truth?

At least admit [to yourself] that it might actually be a "condition". There are people you can go to for that.

[Harbal]

The world is just what it is, true. However you and I can choose what we want to do with the world as it is.

The world in this instance, I think, is the world of human beings. When I say it is what it is, that is an acceptance of what human beings are, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in trying to make things better. It just means I don't have any "nagging" questions about how that world came to be that way.

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible is the main source for answering the question "what is a Christian?"

Now you've got it.

But the whole point of being a Christian is to believe that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven. And that you must obey His Commandments [from the Bible] on this side of the grave or your soul will wind up in Hell for all the rest of eternity.

It's clear from this "summary" you actually don't know what Christian theology is, or what it states. You seem to confuse it with legalism of some kind, and its God for something distant.

But I don't see it as necessary for me to argue with you about it. The resources are available: you could find out, if you wanted to. But it's evident you don't.

I gave you evidence and arguments. You won't even view what I gave you, though it's incredibly simple to do so.

What evidence?

Watch the videos.

Instead, what do you do?!!! You go straight back to the Bible!!!

If you had any idea what a Christian is, you'd know why they always refer to the Bible.

But as for evidence, watch the videos. Or don't. It's your choice. The evidence there is not from the Bible per se, but uses such things as facts, data, scientific arguments, proofs, and whatnot. But you didn't even check them out...so you don't know that, and you're fooling yourself about what's in them.

And I can't stop you. So good luck with that. Either you look, or you don't. It's not up to me, either way.

[iambiguous]

Look, you either believe that the Christian Bible is the word of God or you don't. And if you do believe that and then [over and over and over again] you quote passages from it to support your arguments, I think it's reasonable to suggest that you are going around and around in circles here.

Take away the Bible and what other evidence do you have? Or, perhaps, when you view those videos again, you will be able to provide us with the segment from the one that does establish that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven...as so many mere mortals are able to establish that the Pope does in fact reside in the Vatican.

Let's take a more penetrating look. But let's also recognize that if I (for example) left this forum and came back in a month, a year, or ten years, the same type of conversational log-jam would still be going on. You, Iambiguous, have one post that you post and repost. You say the same thing time and time again with no variation. And Immanuel responds in exactly the same way because he has no other option. Immanuel can best be understood as a Roly-Poly Toy:

A roly-poly toy, round-bottomed doll, tilting doll, tumbler, wobbly man, or wobble doll is a round-bottomed toy, usually egg-shaped, that tends to right itself when pushed at an angle, and does this in seeming contradiction to how it should fall. The toy is typically hollow with a weight inside the bottom hemisphere. The placement of this weight is such that the toy has a center of mass below the center of the hemisphere, so that any tilting raises the center of mass. When such a toy is pushed over, it wobbles for a few moments while it seeks the upright orientation, which has an equilibrium at the minimum gravitational potential energy.

Let's face the facts here: there is no argument that will ever overturn the Roly-Poly man. It seems necessary to notice then that his entire purpose (here) is not to be overturned. That is where his will is 'centered' (in reference to a low center of gravity).

But there is something that needs to be discerned. It will seem unpopular within the general trend of this thread but here goes: Christianity is a container for a wide group of ideas that were never the 'possession' of Christians. A tremendous number of these were 'borrowed' -- and borrowed from pagan sources. If this is true it means that these ideas can be recovered from out of Christianity and its 'imperiousness' and they can be reestablished on a different footing.

Though no one has to go along with me, and some certainly don't, it seems to me there must be a way out of this never-ending mess. A perpetual-motion machine of fruitless argumentation. But to do that requires, as I do not tire of saying, a sort of cataloguing, a list-making, a sort of map-making of how each person who writes here got to the place where he is. This is especially important because each person writing here has and writes from a position of relationship to the Christian religion and construct. There is a quote out of the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of The Chinese Book of Changes: Hate is a subjective form of attachment by which one is bound to the hated object.

So it seems to me -- this came up recently when it was proposed that Nietzsche 'hated' Christianity and thus 'hated' Jesus of Nazareth -- that we have to go more deeply inside this contempt for Christianity and, if possible, sort things out. I say that as one a) involved in expressions of contempt for Christian imperiousness and an intense contempt for the 'destructive' side of Christianity (inherited from Judaism, but b) as one who recognizes that the reference to Christianity, and what Christianity contains, is not one thing but trends of ideas, trends of concepts, that were prevalent in those early centuries. My assertion is that we can never 'get away' from this. We could never 'dissolve' or 'disband' Christian concepts because in fact they contain all sorts of concepts that are more pertinent to the pagan world than meets the eye.

The problem, presented to me by the *spectacle* that is rehearsed here, is that I am given no choice but to try to discern the difference between what is destructive and contemptible and to try to bring out, highlight and even *rescue* what is of genuine importance.

It is also fair to notice, simultaneously, that Immanuel *loves* to play the masochist. Put another way I might say that, as a committed Christian, if he were not getting oodles of opposition (from among the god-rebellious and those who drive the present trend in culture-wide rebellion) he could not be said to be *doing his Christianity right*. Deeply ensconced in the Christian psyche is the desire and the need to be validated through martyrdom. That *slap* toward which one then *turns the other cheek* is sought-out. This also, necessarily, implies that there is also *joy* (or satisfaction) derived from bashing a Christian over the head (speaking metaphorically). And so the masochist seeks out a worthy sadist . . .

This can result, and seems to result, in a *game* that is enjoyable to all parties. It was never intended to *go anywhere* and serves an immediate psychological function -- a sort of pleasure -- and so it edges and creaks on (for months, for years).

It seems to me that this itself needs also to be examined more closely. I.e. in order to see its *function*.

I can only continue to make statements about *where I am at* on a trajectory or continuum. I have lost the capability of distinguishing exactly what, for myself, I could value or would value in a religious practice. However, I am certain that a religion, in its most profound sense, the most profound sense possible, is a statement that is made directly to the questions What is this life? Why am I here? What is this life? And what must be done? So it is with these core questions in mind that one can, as a student of 'comparative religion', examine a wide range of religious structures to try to discern out of them what is the basic purpose of them.

If we have lost this sense of the purpose of our let's say inherited and received religion it can then only become an empty and ultimately absurd genuflection.

So what is it then that gives vital power to a religious and an existential commitment?

My own interest in Christianity revolves around the following factors:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path

It's simple. Men and women interact from day to day to day. How, they wonder, ought they to behave? On this side of the grave in order to facilitate the least dysfunctional communities. And, for the Christians, to assure the arrival of their soul in Heaven on the other side of it.

As for you, I almost never read your own "wall of words" posts. Paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of words defining and defending other words. Words that almost never actually convey anything relevant to our day-to-day interactions.

Basically, you strike me as a pedant. Someone who imagines others reading his posts and thinking, "wow, that's philosopher for you!"

What you construe to be penetrating insights, however, others construe to be a ponderous "world of words".

Besides, as I am upfront even to IC himself, I have no respect for his intelligence. He's always "snipping" my posts into self-serving pieces and then wiggling out of actually responding to the points I raise.

Over and over again. It's entertainment by and large.

Though, as I acknowledge in turn, that's just my own subjective reaction to him. Others may well react to him in very different ways. And have a lot of respect for him. And that's fine with me. We all construe philosophical discourse in different ways.