Christianity

[Belinda]

AJ wrote: No, but certainly going back to what is possible within constructed arguments that are sent up in attempts to *prove* that god exists. Within that realm -- argument through verbal constructs and verbal mathematics -- I do have a very strong feeling that those who have not accepted the existence of god, having arrived at that belief through various means (desperation, willed choice, 'leap of faith', etc.) will never be convinced by a verbal proof. In that sense "There will never, ever appear the *proof* you ask for." Yet you keep asking for it! And you keep not getting it.

Again, the gap between this and all that we do not know about the existence of existence itself. And while I have no respect whatsoever for the arguments given by those here that [to me] seem clearly to be propelled by one or another mental "condition", I have known many religious folks over the years that I did have respect for. Very intelligent and deeply introspective men and women who were able to take the equivalent of that Kierkegaardian leap of faith to God. Especially among the Unitarians that I interacted with here in Baltimore.

So then if I understand you correctly you could respect and interact in a different way if, let's say, here on this forum there were Christian Unitarians talking about their religious conversions and their faith-convictions? But that there is something, something specific, in Immanuel Can that rubs you the wrong way?

Again, the gap between this and all that we do not know about the existence of existence itself.

It would seem that you leave a door open, at least. I do not presume to say to what.

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

My own view is that the general picture provided by Christianity, which had so completely collapsed and fallen into a pile of rubble, can only be resurrected when the picture is superseded by a picture that is no longer a picture. If I cannot *resort* as I might say to metaphysics, and a sort of ur-metaphysics, I will never be able to explain anything except through scientific or materialistic explanation -- which are really no explanations at all. They represent the end of explanation or the destruction of explanation in a cosmic sense.

Now why then do I have and why must I have so much objection to Immanuel Can? This is what I have been forced to explore in depth over the course of months.

I enjoyed AJ's dissertation on order and chaos.


When religion is politicised and established by the ruling class then religion is decadent; in a state of decay.

Everyone narrates life, not excluding slaves or idiots. To narrate is to combine causes and effects and thus to have a view to tomorrow. Very often there is a predominating theme such as revenge, power, caring, or curiosity. The theme varies from age to age , much as described by Jacques "---the acts being seven ages." (Shakespeare). This is what I guess people mean by "meaning"; telling a coherent story, a story that signifies a view of truth, beauty, or goodness.

Religions present ready-made stories that bind people together (myths) in stories that apply to all men. The Xian story is so coherent and contains so much we recognise as experiences that are happening today, that Xianity is not dead. Xianity is a story that can and should be told without miraculous superstructure .

[Immanuel Can]

By 'we' you mean you and others in thrall to the various 'species' of Christianity,

No, I mean scientists. There just isn't the data to justify your assertion.

Evolution posits a highly wasteful process. For every successful adaptation, there are supposed to be millions or billions of failures.

Whether you call them failures or just a step in evolution, the overwhelming majority of species that have existed are now extinct.

They're not the same. An "extinct" species may well have been quite thriving, at one time. I'm referring to the billions of "false starts" and "transitional forms" that an evolutionary process operating by pure time-plus-chance would necessarily produce...if things had actually happened that way.

But apparently, most are not fossilized. That's a remarkable fact, give the percentages of each. There should be vastly more evolutionary false-starts and misfits of every current species, in addition to whatever former species are now extinct.

[Immanuel Can]

I was just pointing out that they have free will, save in cases of genuine mental derangement. And we know, because they excuse, hide or cover up their actions.


But I'm suggesting they're still choosing their actions, as demonstrated by their attempts to conceal and their responses to being found out.

No, I'm not saying they don't choose to perform their actions, I'm saying they don't choose to have the impulse or desire to perform them.

One can have an impulse one doesn't perform. People do that all the time.

Take something as simple as gossip or theft, or the desire to strangle somebody who's frustrating us. We all want to do such things, at various times. But most of us don't do it. We might not be in control of whether or not we feel the desire, but we sure have control over whether or not we act on it.

And if we do act on the desire, especiall if we then cover up our deed, we then expose the fact that we DID make a choice, a choice we knew was wrong.

So the presence of an "impulse" is not relevant to the question of responsibility, really. We all have impulses -- some of them, though, we fight and overcome. And when we don't, it's on us.

How many times have you had to fight the urge to abduct and murder an innocent child?

Never.

But I have had to fight the desire to lie, to take something I wasn't entitled to, to accept credit for things I didn't do, to speak unkindly of others behind their backs, and a thousand other things. So have we all. It seems we have many unsavoury impulses. But most of the time, we don't act on them.

And I see no reason to think that the impulse toward things like theft, addiction, dishonesty, and so forth is less attractive to some than, say, abducting and murdering. After all, lies can be told impulsively, and theft committed with as little forethought; but abduction and murder take planning, strategy and time. This implies that somebody who commits such a crime isn't really acting on "impulse," but by intention.

And intending, scheming, strategizing, planning and executing evil is quite another level than merely doing evil impulsively.

Just to be sure that we are talking about the same thing: I would define evil as:

Noun - extreme maliciousness
Adjective - extremely malicious

Can I ask what your definition is?

Sure. I wouldn't use "malice" as the criterion, for the reason that "malice" is a feeling. Whether or not the person intended evil, I think one can still do evil. And one can intend malice, even while doing something which, in itself, is "good." We can both think of cases in which somebody even "maliciously" told the truth.

Malice is part of evil, I would say; but it's far from the whole story, and it's not clear to me that it's evidently required for evil to occur.

I would start with the kind of distinction made by philosophers such as Susan Neiman:

1. Natural Evils -- Things like earthquakes, plagues, floods, hurricanes, accidents, and so on, in which no evident conscious agency is responsible for the fact that they occur.

2. Human Evils -- Things like rapes, murders, gossip, theft, cruelty, slander and so on, in which human agents are identifiable as the main cause.

I think most people who debate the question of why evil exists are inevitably going to have to deal with both types, at some point.

However, some people won't use the term "evil" to describe natural evils. They might say that since there is no human intention involved, they're not "evil," just accidents or happenings. Still, when such things happen, I think few of us are reluctant accept that there needs to be an explanation of why such things happen, at least as part of the answer we'd find adequate.

Since you have "malice" as central to your definition, I would assume you might be more inclined to be worried about human evils than natural ones. Nature is not "malicious" in any way, of course. So are we on the same page, now?

[Immanuel Can]

I guess I tend to think crazy things like someone who loves us wouldn't allow great suffering to happen to us if they could help it.

Let me ask the question a different way, then, Gary.

Do you think it's plausible that, if God knew a greater good was possible, it would be justifable for Him to allow some suffering in order to produce that "good"?

I'm not saying "Would it be okay for Him to allow ALL the suffering," or "Would it be okay for Him to allow as much suffering as we, in fact, see?" I'm just asking if a greater good could give God sufficient justification to allow ANY suffering. Any, at all.

Like, let's suppose God knew that the character development in becoming a triathlete was exceedingly good for human beings. That becoming such an athlete gave them fortitude, discipline, courage, persistence, and other wonderful character qualities; but that in order for people to be triathletes, they were going to have to learn to sweat, to have sore muscles, to have the experience of shortness of breath; and that in order for them to have the elation of winning, they were going to also have to learn the pain of losing.

If God knew all that, would he be justified in making people become traithletes? Or would the presence of the pain involved in their training and sport imply that God could never have a good enough reason to want them to go through that? Does the presence of pain automatically mean "bad" is all that's happening?

What do you think? Just as a speculation. I'm not making more of this than my present question, and I don't mean anybody but triathletes; so don't feel you have to get ahead of me on that. Just tell me what you decide.

[Iwannaplato]

But there are many decadencies. I certainly don't want what is considered decadent to be decided by Christians. Not that I have good group in mind for the panel, but certain kinds of pagan animists might pass muster for me.

I take parts of older school Christian critiques of decadency seriously. Actually many people from varying backgrounds take a stab at an answer. All of them have a perspective and a point.

So what would some of the older Christian critiques of decadency be. Be great if you had specific examples and then the critique.
If you've already done this, a link to the post would obviously be fine.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But there are many decadencies. I certainly don't want what is considered decadent to be decided by Christians. Not that I have good group in mind for the panel, but certain kinds of pagan animists might pass muster for me.

I take parts of older school Christian critiques of decadency seriously. Actually many people from varying backgrounds take a stab at an answer. All of them have a perspective and a point.

So what would some of the older Christian critiques of decadency be. Be great if you had specific examples and then the critique.
If you've already done this, a link to the post would obviously be fine.

I have been influenced by the thought of WR Inge. See for example the essay The End Of An Age and The Sickness of Christendom. Inge and a group of highly literate men like him had, in the early 20th century and as you see until after the Second World War, very acute criticism of the decadence forming in their world. Largely, I accept their analysis.

Sorry that I cannot provide snippets. But if you gloss through those essays you'll be able to pick out those parts that illustrate my assertion.

In a recent post I brought up these essential Christian ethical values: repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility -- and these together in an appeal for redemption that is given through grace. I think I could make a strong case for the high relevancy of each of those -- and even for grace if I am allowed to present it in a slightly adapted form. A culture that loses sight of these and other essential values does seem to *go off the edge* in my view.

That would be a good beginning point in order to identify the destructive side of decadence.

[iambiguous]

Iambiguous: But that's how you come off to me. As someone who imagines others reading their posts and marveling at their intellect and their capacity to articulate it. "Now that is a philosopher!"

Generally, I never argue against these types of forum assessments. It is pointless really to either agree or disagree. I do acknowledge your assessment in any case.

Pedants irk me. Existentially, as it were. Especially in regard to ethics...to "conflicting goods". Whether it is pointless or not. Though pedantry itself will always be in the mind of the beholder. My mind in this case.

And my own "radical liberal" value judgments are no less political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein. I have no illusions that they are inherently or necessarily any more rational than the value judgments of the "radical conservatives" here among us.

Then you really have no ground at all to justify or to believe your own sense of things. Whatever philosophy you have is one of a no-man’s land. It is a curious stance to have.

Isn't that basically my whole point in the OPs of these threads:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

The "ground" for me in the is/ought world is a "fractured and fragmented" "self".

I'm a moral nihilist. And that revolves around this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Then I come into places like this and suggest to those who are not moral nihilists that, given a particular context, we explore our respective moral philosophies.

This thread simply revolves around God and religion as components of that.

Finally: there is not one ‘radical conservative’ here. Not one that comes even close.

Again: you assert this as though in asserting it that makes it so.

Me, I go back to "a particular context". What do you construe a "radical conservative" frame of mind to be given that context?

[Iwannaplato]

I have been influenced by the thought of WR Inge. See for example the essay The End Of An Age and The Sickness of Christendom. Inge and a group of highly literate men like him had, in the early 20th century and as you see until after the Second World War, very acute criticism of the decadence forming in their world. Largely, I accept their analysis.

I'm afraid I dislike reading long documents online. Books, I am patient with. I'd heard of Inge but not read him. I see he disliked democracy and social welfare, believed in nudism, animal rights and eugenicism. That should put off pretty much everyone these days.

Sorry that I cannot provide snippets. But if you gloss through those essays you'll be able to pick out those parts that illustrate my assertion.

I was thinking more of what things today do you consider decadent. Perhaps some of the less common examples also.

In a recent post I brought up these essential Christian ethical values: repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility -- and these together in an appeal for redemption that is given through grace.

How about a couple of examples of purity and perhaps a time/location/culture that you think had a better sense of purity.

[iambiguous]

How is religion not fundamentally reduced down to...

Human beings interact socially. Human beings die. So, religions are born in order to provide mere mortals with a set of commandments to follow on this side of the grave in order to acquire immortality and salvation on the other side of the grave.

Aside, of course, from the manner in which those like Marx reminded us of how religion is used by the powers that be -- the ruling class -- to sustain their own interests.

What you suppose -- presuppose really -- is that you can reduce religion down to fundamentals that you can explain. Applied reductionism really. If the quoted portion is seen in that way then a means opens up to present a fuller explanation. I did not say that you view was not part of the picture, but I did say that it is not the whole picture. And I also said (in any case I implied) that you cannot understand Christianity today, and even your rejection of it, without understanding the full trajectory of it through taking a disciplined and careful approach. I ventured to suggest that that way of going about things might by you be described as 'pedantry'.

Of course: another "now that is a philosopher!" wall of words.

How can I make it clearer? Connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality there and then is what I construe to be the fundamental point of God and religion.

So, whatever others here might deem the bigger picture -- the whole picture?! -- to be is of interest to me only if they are willing to bring it around to my own set of priorities. Though let's not forget that absolutely no one here is obligated to read anything I post. Let alone to respond given my own conditions.

You see my focus here as but an "aspect" of Christianity. Okay, what other aspects are more important given that the fates of our very souls [for all of eternity] are said to be on the line by the Christians here.

What could possibly be more important than Judgment Day? Getting the history of the religion right? Pinning down the politics?

Instead, in my view, you keep it all up in the "general description intellectual/spiritual contraption" clouds:

But I think we'd have to back up and ask a question about the purpose or function of a religious view. I use a word that Immanuel certainly does not like: function. I apologize. But my present view is that a 'religion' and a 'religious view' is really at its core a set of explanations about what life is. Now if I asked you, let's say, to tell me What Life Is I have a strong feeling that you would not be able to say a great deal. Your explanation would (and here I guess so please excuse me) take the form of your General Explanation that tends to constantly refer to Dasein as if this has any explanatory value at all. It doesn't in fact but that is of course just my opinion at the present moment. So it seems to me that your Dasein explanation is really a non-explanation or something like an admittance that you cannot explain ... anything at all. (You offer a sort-of explanation "rooted in Dasein" with one hand, but then swipe it entirely away with the other by making the same declaration in contradiction. It is a belief system of nullification or so it seems to me).

Now, I tend to believe (I tend to hold the perception) that now, in this present, no one has a sufficient explanation. Or to put it another way all explanation and explaining are in a state of chaos: Middle English, formless primordial space, from Latin, from Greek khaos. What stands in contrast to chaos? Cosmos: Middle English, from Greek kosmos, order. So when I read on this forum and indeed in many different places where existential questions are examined that is what I notice the most. It stands out blatantly.

So if we back up just a few hundred years we will notice that not so long ago Christian belief was a belief-system well grounded in an explanatory ontology. The world was a cosmos not a chaos. And from top to bottom an Order that was understood at a foundational level to exist and to be real, was literally understood to exist and to be real. And Christianity was ensconced within that wide and general understanding -- a bona fide platform. Everything that happened in the world happened for intelligible reasons. Because a 'cosmos' was recognized and felt to be real & true.

Define purpose? Define function? Define "explanatory ontology"?

Then [to me] just more of the same:

So then, a religion when broken down to those fundamentals you mention rather glibly, it can be said that religion arises out of a truly fundamental act of interpretation of the world, of existence really, of being. So my view is now that if you cannot explain the world, and your world, you are by definition lost in something which you do not understand and likely believe that you cannot understand.

So with this said I cannot go along with your too drastic reduction.

Let's try to reduce Christianity to a set of ethical propositions. I think the following sum it up succinctly: Christianity asks for (or requires?) repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility. And these together in an appeal for redemption against the fundamental understanding that grace provides it. It seems to me fair to offer this reduced set of ethical precepts that can be useful to understand the *function* of Christianity throughout its history. But in that long historical trajectory the way & means by which The World (existence, this reality, this planet, and ourselves) has gone through successive permutations and revisions. Nearly ever part of element in traditional Christian belief has fallen away but what does remain is, I would say, a crucial core: that god exists (somehow), that god interacted with the world in a dramatic manner, that there is life beyond temporal and contingent life, and that what a given person does or does not do is of real consequence. But it does resolve down to:

repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility -- and these together in an appeal for redemption that is given through grace

We'll need a context of course. Something relating to, say, our actual interactions with others that come into conflict regarding this or that religion or this or that God?

So your view...

Human beings interact socially. Human beings die. So, religions are born in order to provide mere mortals with a set of commandments to follow on this side of the grave in order to acquire immortality and salvation on the other side of the grave.

...would seem to fit in at least partially but I think you'd still have a great deal more to explain about the *function* of religion and religious view in a fuller sense.

Note to others:

If you had to pin down the optimal definition of "function" here what would it be? A definition that would truly impress the Christian God on Judgment Day. Though, personally, given such things as the Ten Commandments, I really can't imagine Him giving a damn about something like that. Define it wrong and you go to Hell?

[iambiguous]

AJ wrote: No, but certainly going back to what is possible within constructed arguments that are sent up in attempts to *prove* that god exists. Within that realm -- argument through verbal constructs and verbal mathematics -- I do have a very strong feeling that those who have not accepted the existence of god, having arrived at that belief through various means (desperation, willed choice, 'leap of faith', etc.) will never be convinced by a verbal proof. In that sense "There will never, ever appear the *proof* you ask for." Yet you keep asking for it! And you keep not getting it.

Again, the gap between this and all that we do not know about the existence of existence itself. And while I have no respect whatsoever for the arguments given by those here that [to me] seem clearly to be propelled by one or another mental "condition", I have known many religious folks over the years that I did have respect for. Very intelligent and deeply introspective men and women who were able to take the equivalent of that Kierkegaardian leap of faith to God. Especially among the Unitarians that I interacted with here in Baltimore.

So then if I understand you correctly you could respect and interact in a different way if, let's say, here on this forum there were Christian Unitarians talking about their religious conversions and their faith-convictions? But that there is something, something specific, in Immanuel Can that rubs you the wrong way?

With IC, I noted the distinction between a more or less introspective leap of faith to God [which, given the staggering mystery that is embedded in the existence of existence itself, I can respect...think Father Ralph de Bricassart struggling with his faith in The Thorn Birds] and IC's own insistence that this does not describe him at all. Instead, he insisted, not only does the Christian God definitely exist but he could demonstrate that He resides in Heaven. Demonstrate this, I asked, like mere mortals here can demonstrate that the Pope resides in the Vatican?

Yep.

And that's when he linked me to a whole bunch of YouTube videos. And then went on and on "proving" that the Christian God does reside in Heaven by quoting a number of verses from the Christian Bible itself!

Again, the gap between this and all that we do not know about the existence of existence itself.

It would seem that you leave a door open, at least. I do not presume to say to what.

How could it be any more obvious: the gap between what any particular one of us thinks we know about The Really Big Questions...

* Why something instead of nothing?
* Why this something and not something else?
* Where does the human condition fit in the whole understanding of existence itself?
* Do we have free will?
* Is there life after death?
* What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, Matrix worlds, etc.?
* Does God exist?

....and all that one would need to know in order to answer them.

But then when you go here...

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

My own view is that the general picture provided by Christianity, which had so completely collapsed and fallen into a pile of rubble, can only be resurrected when the picture is superseded by a picture that is no longer a picture. If I cannot *resort* as I might say to metaphysics, and a sort of ur-metaphysics, I will never be able to explain anything except through scientific or materialistic explanation -- which are really no explanations at all. They represent the end of explanation or the destruction of explanation in a cosmic sense.

Now why then do I have and why must I have so much objection to Immanuel Can? This is what I have been forced to explore in depth over the course of months.

...that is basically far removed from my own fundamental interest in God and religion:

Human beings interact socially. Human beings die. So, religions are born in order to provide mere mortals with a set of commandments to follow on this side of the grave in order to acquire immortality and salvation on the other side of the grave.

Intertwined with this...

"How ought one to behave morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and contingency chance and change"?

Then this part:

https://youtu.be/mTDs0lvFuMc

In other words, all of the countless existential variables in our lives that we never really have either a full understanding of or control over.

[attofishpi]

I would start with the kind of distinction made by philosophers such as Susan Neiman:

1. Natural Evils -- Things like earthquakes, plagues, floods, hurricanes, accidents, and so on, in which no evident conscious agency is responsible for the fact that they occur.

2. Human Evils -- Things like rapes, murders, gossip, theft, cruelty, slander and so on, in which human agents are identifiable as the main cause.

I think most people who debate the question of why evil exists are inevitably going to have to deal with both types, at some point.

There is no such thing as point 1. 'natural evil' ..unless you are ascribing "acts of God" as evil?

[attofishpi]

It would seem that you leave a door open, at least. I do not presume to say to what.

How could it be any more obvious: the gap between what any particular one of us thinks we know about The Really Big Questions...

* Why something instead of nothing?

HOW is what you should be asking (if you were philosophically apt).

* Why this something and not something else?

WHY are you human and not something else is what you should be asking, especially in any consideration of God.

* Where does the human condition fit in the whole understanding of existence itself?

What is the attribute(s) of human condition that you are questioning?

* Do we have free will?

I believe we do, other_wise God would not have bothered with much at all in relation to us humans.

* Is there life after death?

I believe we do reincarnate (based on karma of previous life), and it makes more sense than ALL of us being born into extreme differences in circumstances where God is apparently going to judge us all EQUALLY.

* What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, Matrix worlds, etc.?

Considering everything you perceive about reality beyond your own mind is a convoluted apparition provided by a 3rd party intelligence (God) is a worthy philosophical consideration.
eg. If there is a God (there is) then why do we witness so much evil?

* Does God exist?

Yes.

....and all that one would need to know in order to answer them.

First point is to get to KNOW God - (faith in the life of Christ) then you may eventually be given answers to the above initial questions you raised...since I believe only God or a sage that has been informed by God could answer those first questions you raised.

[Alexis Jacobi]

How can I make it clearer? Connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality there and then is what I construe to be the fundamental point of God and religion.

So, having acknowledged your observation/complaint about a 'wall of words' and your assertion that you think I am trying to impress ("Now that is a philosopher!"), I feel inclined to repeat a smallish observation about you: You turn over and over in the same groove like a broken record. You seem to be stuck in a conundrum from which you cannot get out of.

So with this quoted sentence you clearly indicate that you have identified the problem which captures you, but simultaneously you repeat a verbal formula about Dasein which, neurotically, spells out the negation of any *solution* to the issue that you declare that you face. You ask "How can I make this any clearer?" And indeed you cannot make it any clearer. It is really very clear. You are stuck like a broken record is stuck repeating time and again the condition in which you turn in circles. What does one do to the armature and the needle when it is stuck in a groove? One either applies downward pressure so that the needle progresses in the groove established, or one lifts it up over the damaged part to the next part of the recording.

Another metaphor might be that you are a discordancy that seeks a melodious resolution.

[No 'wall' is offered here. Consider it a palisade or a minor parapet.]

Now what is the point in even saying this when, it seems, you will react against it with such adamancy (as so many here do)? The point is to clarify, to bring out into the open, to expose, that you and so many like you are stuck in a place from which you cannot extract yourself. My observation then, on a philosophical forum, is to make statements about that condition. This is not a personal issue and if you interpret it as such you will make the mistake that all here seem to make and which turns all *conversations* (in the best sense of the word) into unending bicker-sessions that go on day after week after month and after year.

So then the issue becomes: How does and how can this existential problem be surmounted? Or, do you propose (and again I really mean a you-plural and refer to *us* as people stuck in a psychological condition) do you propose that staying in this groove or in this impassable rut is something you desire? Does this represent a *good* for you? Is this where you want to be? In ideal terms where would you like to be? So then, what I am saying goes like this: You actually like the place where you are stuck. It gives you something (what I can only guess).

And you will go on posting essentially the same post, time after time, until Brad Pitt arrives to take you away . . .

These are all metaphors that represent personal and also metaphysical conditions that we all face. My suggestion? Face these issues dispassionately and take nothing as a personal affront.

So, whatever others here might deem the bigger picture -- the whole picture?! -- to be is of interest to me only if they are willing to bring it around to my own set of priorities. Though let's not forget that absolutely no one here is obligated to read anything I post. Let alone to respond given my own conditions.

Yes, and your 'set of priorities' is a series of neurotic declarations about your own impotence. Why would anyone desire to participate with you in your set of priorities when doing so will lock them into the condition of a skipping record?

See, you essentially are *looking for company* and this too is part of our present condition out of which we do not seem to be able to move. Misery loves company, right? Or something along those lines.

You see my focus here as but an "aspect" of Christianity. Okay, what other aspects are more important given that the fates of our very souls [for all of eternity] are said to be on the line by the Christians here.

If you actually conceive that your soul is on the line, then I can assure you that right there, in that, within that thought or perception if it is taken seriously, the answer will emerge. But you seem to not really get inside the question. Yes, you ask the question but then, with your verbal and mental trick, you undermine any sense which might be contained in the question.

What you do not seem aware of -- and I find fault with your lack of familiarity with the philosophical problem -- is that this question and these questions are part-and-parcel of *our traditions* and they actually have substantial answers. Or allow me to put it a bit differently: a trapped soul, a trapped person and a trapped personality can find a way to *move* creatively beyond an existential quagmire. I grant you that in the larger scale that our civilization and our culture may indeed be stuck in downward-tending processes, but the individual has freedom. Can act positively and creatively.

And frankly that is and that has been my own focus in this particular months-long conversation.

What could possibly be more important than Judgment Day? Getting the history of the religion right? Pinning down the politics?

Clarifying what it is that you are even referring to. Determining if it is *real*, how it is *real*, etc.

Now what I'd like you to do here is to fight like the devil against any sense that there is a resolution to this discordant melody. C'mon, go for it. Demonstrate that you recognize a supreme existential problem but then lay down, in bulleted form, every reason you can think of that keeps you stuck int he same spot.

I promise I will support you 100%

Instead, in my view, you keep it all up in the "general description intellectual/spiritual contraption" clouds:

Be that as it may I only remind you that whether you are rolling in the mud or galavanting in the celestial realms with angels you remain fundamentally stuck, at least according to the way I see things.

So then I am offering, I suppose, a commentary on 'moral nihilism' but that as just one point on a trajectory.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I was thinking more of what things today do you consider decadent. Perhaps some of the less common examples also.

AJ wrote: In a recent post I brought up these essential Christian ethical values: repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility -- and these together in an appeal for redemption that is given through grace.

How about a couple of examples of purity and perhaps a time/location/culture that you think had a better sense of purity.

To be truthful and direct I would say that if the general movement of our culture today, the general situation of most people, the general productions of the culture and also the tremendous *noise* that goes on around us and in which we are subsumed, seems to me to be ur-decadence. There seems to me to be little that rises up like a note (or a 'melody') that enunciates what is the contradicting current.

If you agree with St Augustine that in man there are two things, body and soul, but that the *soul* is the 'far more excellent part', then it seems to me that when looking around at cultural productions we find very little that expresses a valuation for 'the soul' of what I have often referred to as 'higher things'. If life is defined as offering choices between higher and lower alternatives, but most of the sense of what is 'higher' is no longer (generally speaking) conceived as having a greater value, then the notion of a *duty* to serve the higher is held in check.

What is *higher* is, by definition, non-material. It belongs in Greek philosophical terms to the so-called rational and spiritual part of our nature as distinct from the merely physical or sensual, the contingent and the mutable. But if it happens that *people generally* cannot even apply this dichotomy and cannot seem to take a stand (based on a sense of *duty*) in favor of this notion of 'higher' -- then it has seemed to me that we all really fall down.

The issue revolves around a sense of what is tangible in contrast to what is intangible -- what is unseen and transcendent in contrast to what is physical, in flux, and certainly transitory.

Are these Christian concerns exclusively? I do not think so. These things were all defined in the Greek philosophy we are all familiar with. These distinctions are concerns that are part-and-parcel of our traditions.

Purity is certainly a difficult one given that we are all saturated with pornographic imagery and the idea of 'purity' seems genuinely absurd. Howver, if you asked me to defend the notion of 'purity' as a good I am sure that I could come up with something.

The Platonic notion expressed in phrases like this:

"Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise.”

... open into the eternal issue of the contrast between 'mortal nature' and everything of a so-called higher nature. I will grant you that if this quoted portion no longer seems to express a truth, or if it must be undermined by other value-assertions and nullified, that one will no longer be able to subscribe to these essential valuations. Personally, I do not see these issues or concerns as being the possession of Christians. If they make sense they already made sense, long ago, and they also make sense everywhere and in all times. Indeed in this world and in all possible worlds.

So there you have my answer about what is decadent and why.

How about a couple of examples of purity and perhaps a time/location/culture that you think had a better sense of purity.

May I submit a popular song that has always impressed me because it seems to express something of a high nature and expresses faith hope love wisdom temperance justice in some sort of essential way, as a declaration of essential values?

Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.

[Belinda]

I was thinking more of what things today do you consider decadent. Perhaps some of the less common examples also.

AJ wrote: In a recent post I brought up these essential Christian ethical values: repentance, love, purity, selflessness, mercy and humility -- and these together in an appeal for redemption that is given through grace.

How about a couple of examples of purity and perhaps a time/location/culture that you think had a better sense of purity.

To be truthful and direct I would say that if the general movement of our culture today, the general situation of most people, the general productions of the culture and also the tremendous *noise* that goes on around us and in which we are subsumed, seems to me to be ur-decadence. There seems to me to be little that rises up like a note (or a 'melody') that enunciates what is the contradicting current.

If you agree with St Augustine that in man there are two things, body and soul, but that the *soul* is the 'far more excellent part', then it seems to me that when looking around at cultural productions we find very little that expresses a valuation for 'the soul' of what I have often referred to as 'higher things'. If life is defined as offering choices between higher and lower alternatives, but most of the sense of what is 'higher' is no longer (generally speaking) conceived as having a greater value, then the notion of a *duty* to serve the higher is held in check.

What is *higher* is, by definition, non-material. It belongs in Greek philosophical terms to the so-called rational and spiritual part of our nature as distinct from the merely physical or sensual, the contingent and the mutable. But if it happens that *people generally* cannot even apply this dichotomy and cannot seem to take a stand (based on a sense of *duty*) in favor of this notion of 'higher' -- then it has seemed to me that we all really fall down.

The issue revolves around a sense of what is tangible in contrast to what is intangible -- what is unseen and transcendent in contrast to what is physical, in flux, and certainly transitory.

Are these Christian concerns exclusively? I do not think so. These things were all defined in the Greek philosophy we are all familiar with. These distinctions are concerns that are part-and-parcel of our traditions.

Purity is certainly a difficult one given that we are all saturated with pornographic imagery and the idea of 'purity' seems genuinely absurd. Howver, if you asked me to defend the notion of 'purity' as a good I am sure that I could come up with something.

The Platonic notion expressed in phrases like this:

"Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise.”

... open into the eternal issue of the contrast between 'mortal nature' and everything of a so-called higher nature. I will grant you that if this quoted portion no longer seems to express a truth, or if it must be undermined by other value-assertions and nullified, that one will no longer be able to subscribe to these essential valuations. Personally, I do not see these issues or concerns as being the possession of Christians. If they make sense they already made sense, long ago, and they also make sense everywhere and in all times. Indeed in this world and in all possible worlds.

So there you have my answer about what is decadent and why.

How about a couple of examples of purity and perhaps a time/location/culture that you think had a better sense of purity.

May I submit a popular song that has always impressed me because it seems to express something of a high nature and expresses faith hope love wisdom temperance justice in some sort of essential way, as a declaration of essential values?

Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.

It seems to me there is a lot of material that expresses Augustine's meaning of 'soul'. As I have grown older I've detected a lot of cultural soul more so than when I was younger. True, my antennae are longer and more sensitive in line with larger media, as has happened where thinking is free.
In these present times the free media report terrible happenings from places that formerly were unseen by the general public, with the result that evil seems to have increased.


Obedient faith has diminished, and resultant existential anxiety among free thinkers is a sign of fertility.