Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, I just wanted you to tell the truth, that's all. Whatever force, thing, or entity, or whatever you think does it, you can name.

And while you're at it, please expain by what method you "discern" what you say you "discern" about that.

I'm listening. Go ahead. The ball's in your court, and I'm not telling you what to say.

You keep asking questions but you didn’t reciprocate and explain, clearly and directly, how the creation came about: all intricately arranged, including complex symbioses and extraordinary adaptations. If not the Genesis picture — how?

Tell the truth? There is no way I am aware to ‘tell the truth’ about a god or divine intelligence as Creator of being (existence). What you and many do is to rely on a fabulation or prefabricated religious mythology which has zero explanatory power.

If the manifest universe and our biological world is “god’s creation” then the god who created it is unfathomable.

Method of discernment? You mean how did I puncture and deflate mythic fabulation? The same method that you and all of us have access to.

Or do you mean how have I *experienced* god? (Sense of the divine intruding in my world).

In exchange can I get your creation process description?

[attofishpi]

If the manifest universe and our biological world is “god’s creation” then the god who created it is unfathomable.

..and welcome to the Quantum Universe where everyone is stumped!

[Immanuel Can]

No, I just wanted you to tell the truth, that's all. Whatever force, thing, or entity, or whatever you think does it, you can name.

And while you're at it, please expain by what method you "discern" what you say you "discern" about that.

I'm listening. Go ahead. The ball's in your court, and I'm not telling you what to say.

You keep asking questions but you didn’t reciprocate...

My dear fellow, by definition, one cannot "reciprocate" until one has first been answered, anymore than one can "return" a tennis ball that has not yet been served. You stand at your own baseline, racquet in hand, and yell that I am failing to return anything: how can I, until you put the ball in play?

To what am I to "reciprocate"? Give me an answer, and I can respond reciprocally...one can't make a reciprocal return to nothing.

But your evasion, or your insistent silence on the point is highly suggestive of what may well be the real answer. Am I to understand, then, that when you wrote:

The ‘purpose’ of life, moral and spiritual questions, these can be discerned as instilled within the creation itself (in conscious beings) without resorting to mythical fabulations.

...you were simply bluffing? That you neither have any idea how such things could be "instilled within the creation" by anything, so that you really haven't "discerned" anything at all? That would be very disappointing, indeed. I was very eager to know how you would do that.

Or do I speak too soon? Can you substantiate your own claims? I eagerly await the answers.

Answer, and I'll "reciprocate." Keep saying nothing, and there's no "reciprocity" even possible.

[Dontaskme]

If I'm right, I'm right. If I'm wrong, then Evolutionists should be able to produce the number and sorts of transitional human fossils their theory would make us expect.

That they can't, means...what?

Okay, but while we're waiting for the evolutionists, how about you produce the details of how God did it?

Are we "waiting"? Then we should at least "wait" long enough for them to fashion an answer to the problem, should we not? It would seem to me unfair not to grant them any space to reply, and then to persist as if they had failed to do that which they merely lacked opportunity and time to do.

So I'm fine with continuing...so long as they have the time they need, as well. And if they think they DO have an answer, perhaps they can offer it.

There are no answers, only questions. If there were answers, there would be no more questions. But obviously, there are only questions here.

Who questions? ..can that be answered? .... it seems the only available answer to that question is in the question itself...The 'questioner' would only appear as if there was existing a sense of being a 'separate self' asking itself a question...but that sense there is a 'separate self' asking itself a question, is an illusion...for where could this sense of 'self separate' be located actually? except as an idea generated from what is already this 'all that is' appearing as some mechanical workings of a physical brain, not disconnected from this 'all that is'.

''Nonduality'' the ONE question to all our answers.

I eagerly await the answers.

THIS self-evident being is a mystery even to itself, it is the mystery. THIS /life/being/consciousness ..OR whatever THIS unknowing is known as.. is still at it's root core...THIS unknowing known.

Why can THIS only be unknowing?
Is because it is not possible to penetrate this mystery with the mind, because the mind is simply the current thought or image. The current thought or image knows nothing. It is known.

THIS being or consciousness or whatever label is applied is uncaused. There is nothing else present which could be it's cause and nothing else present which it causes.

Eventually IC will return to this unknowing from whence IC appeared as a temporal transient idea, and never be any wiser. And that is the only truth you will ever know IC

Everything else is just pure imagination, dreamscape.

Sweet dreams IC

Do feel free to ignore this truth and substitute it for your own, or should I say for your God's because it's all the same one love action dreaming difference where there is none.

[tillingborn]

The burden of proof runs the opposite: unless we have sufficient reason to believe in a particular theory, we have no reason to believe.

I have made the point before: the standard of evidence you demand for the theory you wish to be true is very low.

The theory you are advancing is Evolutionism. For it, you have no sufficient transitional forms...

It's the same double standard. Your bar for "sufficient" is set very low for the belief you wish to be true, and arbitrarily high for the demonstrable fact which undermines an ancient creation myth you have made critical to the survival of your soul. There are transitional forms and to say that none of them is "sufficient" is meaningless. However, the chronology and direction of the fossil record so far discovered is sufficient to show that human beings, along with every other organism on the planet, are the product of evolution.

...nor any explanation for things like triadic symbiosis, nor any sufficient dynamic to warrant progressivist enthusiasms, among other things.

You are throwing mud at the walls again. What do you understand of triadic symbiosis? How do you know there is no explanation that is compatible with evolution? As you have said:

"Absence of evidence" is exactly what an investigator has at the beginning of a murder investigation. "Absence of evidence" is exactly what a person has when they've not looked. "Absence of evidence" is what a person who's never been somewhere or tried something has in regard to that place or thing. But "absence of evidence" merely indicates personal lack-of-knowledge, not that that knowledge or evidence is not out there to be had.

The same might be applied to any of your objections. And what on Earth have "progressivist enthusiasms" to do with evolution?

[Harbal]

Science is, in its ideal, a pursuing of evidence toward theory, not an upholding of theories that are contradicted by the evidence, is that not so? Then on what basis would we continue to believe in the story of "human evolution," when the evidence for it simply fails to exist?

And this is but one of the areas in which it does. The Evolutionist's ideology cannot account for other positive data. It cannot explain how it is supposed to struggle "upward" against a cosmos we find objectively to be entropic on every hand. It cannot explain how biological phenomena like triadic parasitism and symbioses can possibly have come about. It cannot explain the irreducible complexity of the human DNA, or how such a thing can come about by chance. It is not the product of observation, repetition or testing, but essentially, of imaginative narrative-forming. In these, and many other ways, it is simply a theory yearning for evidence it fails to have, or refusing the evidence we do have.

And how has it come about, given that science is also permanently provisional and revisable (one of its great strengths, by any account), and the method welcomes criticism and revision...and yet even a modest expression of doubt about the ideology of Evolutionism is sufficient to bring down cries of "anti-science" and "superstition"? Why is this theory, of all theories, considered above revision and improvement, beyond possiblity of question or doubt?

And what does it indicate that we invest so much desperate faith in a theory that is, by any fair account, a just-so story? Why do we put laurels on those who refuse to think about it, and excoriate all those who do?

So we should have those fossils; and absent them, we are rational to call into question the whole Evolutionary account of anthropogenesis -- and to do so on scientific, not superstitious, grounds.

The theory of evolution makes sense, even though it still has unanswered questions, but every branch of science has unanswered questions, and that's how science works; that's what drives it forward. The only real problem with evolution theory is that it undermines your beliefs.

[Iwannaplato]

Immanuel can said

It cannot explain how it is supposed to struggle "upward" against a cosmos we find objectively to be entropic on every hand.

[/quote]This is not the wording that science would use - upward, cosmos - but it certainly does explain how life can, at root, use the sun's energy to run organized systems. There is a net entropy, but this does not mean that areas, at cost to the energy of system as a whole which is entropic, cannot become more and more complicated.

It cannot explain how biological phenomena like triadic parasitism

There are things that evolutionary theory cannot explain. ARe you saying that 'triadic parasitism' contradicts evolutionary theory? How does it do this? I googled it and can't find it.

and symbioses can possibly have come about.

Same answer as before, though here I do know what symbiosis is. Can you explain why symbosis goes against evolutionary theory? It is certainly acknowledged within evolutionary theory and there are explanations for symbiosis.

It cannot explain the irreducible complexity of the human DNA, or how such a thing can come about by chance. It is not the product of observation, repetition or testing, but essentially, of imaginative narrative-forming. In these, and many other ways, it is simply a theory yearning for evidence it fails to have, or refusing the evidence we do have.

There is certainly more to be learned, yes. What evidence is it refusing?

And how has it come about, given that science is also permanently provisional and revisable (one of its great strengths, by any account), and the method welcomes criticism and revision...and yet even a modest expression of doubt about the ideology of Evolutionism is sufficient to bring down cries of "anti-science" and "superstition"?

Because some people are assholes or assholes in one particular facet of their interactions. It's fucking annoying, though pretty much any group of people will have people who act like this.

Why is this theory, of all theories, considered above revision and improvement, beyond possiblity of question or doubt?

Again, there may be some people who act like this, but it has been revised at various times and scientists are actively trying to fill in gaps and deal with anomolies.

And what does it indicate that we invest so much desperate faith in a theory that is, by any fair account, a just-so story? Why do we put laurels on those who refuse to think about it, and excoriate all those who do?

You're generalizing. When you deal with someone who treats you poorly because you are skeptical or asking questions, there is a problem with that person. Yes, many science groupies can act irrationationally or lash out. That holds for other groups as well.

So we should have those fossils; and absent them, we are rational to call into question the whol'e Evolutionary account of anthropogenesis -- and to do so on scientific, not superstitious, grounds.

[Dubious]

Entropy creates complexity

It's the opposite.

Entropy is the principle that things move from states of higher complexity to those of lower complexity, if left to themselves.

Your newly painted fence does not stay newly painted, and must be painted again. A watch, left on the shelf, turns eventually into nothing but scrap, not into a microcomputer. A bag of letters shaken vigorously in a bag and spilled out result in chaos, not in the first lines of Hamlet. And your cells, as they divide, begin to decay, producing the ubiquitous phenomena of aging.

Nothing, left to chance, simply mutates into something better, higher or more complex; unless some new energy and design is infused into it, it inevitably becomes delining and disordered. We observe this everywhere.

Entropy is arguably the most secure and well-attested principle we observe. But it's the opposite of what Evolutionism requires us to believe is happening.

Your examples are far too simplistic and highlight your complete misunderstanding of entropy and how it operates. If you ever get a chance to communicate with Astro Cat again ask her if what I wrote is incorrect.

[Harbal]

Someone said this in a video I was watching. I guess he was mostly thinking of the Catholic Church, but I think it applies to most churches to some extent:


'It’s a bit like when you go into the army. The first thing they want is to take over your body, so, symbolically, they are going to shave all your hair. "As long as you give in on this, we’ve got your body, which is what we want.” In one sense, some churches do the same: “We’re going to tell you something unbelievable that you’ve got to believe.” If you believe it, then you will believe that they alone control Heaven. That without them you cannot get into Heaven. And then they’ve got you, you’ve left your brains in the parking lot.'

[Dontaskme]

That's it..BELIEF is all it takes...to form a story.

And yet, No one was born with a belief. A belief was formed from the external world of images that were only projections of what can never be seen...aka the projector. Only what is projected can be seen, and yet, even the seen cannot see. What a dilemma.

These projected Images were the only things that could be known to exist, and were given labels that were then believed to be what the labels themselves informed they were.

In reality, these labels do not exist in the real world, there is nothing in the real world that can inform itself of it's own existence.

Labels were artificially crafted by a conscious brain that already existed prior to it being labeled a brain as imaged on the projection screen of consciousness, a consciousness that is unknowable and seemingly known as it is conceived conceptually via an empty word.

[Belinda]

I guess having faith pays dividends. (when it comes to THE biggest quest in Philosophy - whether God exists.)

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that, fishy. My opinion is that there's no place for God in philosophy.

I can't evaluate your opinion on God unless I know what you mean by 'God'.
I'm sorry Genesis 1 does not appeal to you as a description of creation, as for me it describes as concisely possible all that ontologically can be described about creation. Please note I said "describe" not explain, so science is a thing too. Genesis describes: science explains.

[Dontaskme]

I guess having faith pays dividends. (when it comes to THE biggest quest in Philosophy - whether God exists.)

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that, fishy. My opinion is that there's no place for God in philosophy.

I can't evaluate your opinion on God unless I know what you mean by 'God'.
I'm sorry Genesis 1 does not appeal to you as a description of creation, as for me it describes as concisely possible all that ontologically can be described about creation. Please note I said "describe" not explain, so science is a thing too. Genesis describes: science explains.

Creation implies a creator.

A creator implies two things, creator and created.

There is only ONE reality. Uncreated ad infinitum.

[Belinda]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that, fishy. My opinion is that there's no place for God in philosophy.

I can't evaluate your opinion on God unless I know what you mean by 'God'.
I'm sorry Genesis 1 does not appeal to you as a description of creation, as for me it describes as concisely possible all that ontologically can be described about creation. Please note I said "describe" not explain, so science is a thing too. Genesis describes: science explains.

Creation implies a creator.

A creator implies two things, creator and created.

There is only ONE reality. Uncreated ad infinitum.

Yes.
Yes. Well I say man is the creator of differentiated things, and the explanations for things and what things do. I suspect Harbal is thinking of God as an extra- mental being.

[Harbal]

I can't evaluate your opinion on God unless I know what you mean by 'God'.

In this instance, I mean the God of the biblical kind.

I'm sorry Genesis 1 does not appeal to you as a description of creation, as for me it describes as concisely possible all that ontologically can be described about creation. Please note I said "describe" not explain, so science is a thing too. Genesis describes: science explains.

My knowledge of the Bible is pretty much confined to the most popularly referred to bits. Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus; that kind of thing. And I'm not familiar with those things at first hand from the Bible. I have actually read the first few pages of Genesis a couple of times, and found it to be written in language that is incredibly irritating. I find nothing of value in what I know of the Bible. I get the impression that you think I'm missing something.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I have noticed that when certain things are said or mentioned (in this case Renaud Camus and 'replacement') that in less than a blink of the eye one gets labeled in certain ways -- for example as Flash does with his Nazi tirades.

I'm not sure this 'In less than a blink of the eye' applies in this case. You've been here a long time, and written a lot, so it looks as if this is (instead) an impression that has been formed over time. It seems that you could clarify it quite easily in a straight-forward manner, but you've been playing avoidance games instead, over and over.

You misunderstood what I am trying to say. Let me clarify. To understand my position and where I am coming from in these conversations you must understand that my focus for more than ten years now has been one of wide reading. I have read a great deal of Noam Chomsky's work (the grandfather of American Progressivism) and many other so called Left Radicals. This sort of material was, given my upbringing, the sort of material (and worldview) I began with. It was instilled in my through *upbringing*. Any other way of looking at things I'd have immediately thought of as suspect, morally corrupt, and simply wrong.

Then, as it happened, at a later point (reading Genealogy of Morals was I think a turning point) I began to *detox* or *deprogram* from a way of seeing that I describe as 'general' 'contemporary' 'the way we think today' 'how we see things today' and also as something like 'metaphysical grounding'. I didn't so much abandon a Liberal or Progressive outlook (in the sense of simply wanting the best for all people) as I began to become open to examining things from other angles. As I have mentioned a few times it was later when I read Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah that I was introduced to a pointed and articulate critique of Sixties politics. His arguments made a great deal of sense but I found it hard (and I still find it hard) to reconcile such a critical perspective with the exuberant and I think heart-felt idealism that is especially evident in Sixties music. When I researched that (the origin of that exuberance and idealism and her I speak about the American scene specifically) what I discovered is that *all of that* (American personalism) has roots in movements that had gone before. That root is in the Great Awakening(s) in American culture.

Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

The cultural explosion of the Sixties is (or was) in my opinion an *octave* of what I think is essentially a spiritual movement or revival very peculiar to American society. I do think it is 'essentially' Christian but in the style that both Seeds and Attofishpi seem to present: the basic idea or sentiment is there at the core but it has separated itself from a dogmatic base due largely (?) to the influence of psychedelic drugs.

But just as there was a disconnect, a severing, from what I refer to as *structure*, and which Bork describes as a concerted attack against 'hierarchy', so too there entered in the influence of Marxist-Progressive currents. So American Personalism (think Allan Ginzberg, Kerouak, and certainly -- and more importantly -- the personalism of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin) received a very different ideological influence. Personally, I feel a great solidarity with the essential ideals that Maurin expounds and which arise out of -- unquestionably -- a Christian personalist context. But I am beyond any doubt adamantly and ideologically opposed to the Marxian current and also to Social Democracy (a front for Marxian activism). My essential position is that now, today, what we see going on around us in the United States is a culmination of a perversion of philosophical personalism. How can I make my position clear without all sorts of references? For one instance the ideas, and the intellectual counter-activism, of James Lindsay? (I admire Lindsay but I have core disagreements as well).

Therefore, what I find is that the people in this present conversation are not enough aware of the causal chain(s) that produce 1) ourselves but also 2) the world in its present state (and here I refer principally to the world of the US, my main area of concern).

And I cite you as an example of a person who is filled to the brim with a sort of drunk idealism who seeks, without a genuine comprehension, to take a hammer to those 'hierarchies' because you are emotionally and sentimentally hopped-up with a sort of stoned idealism about a 'magnificent future' unfolding. Wait for it:

LaceWing writes: Humankind's advancement beyond archaic ideas. Evolvement. Culture eventually moves beyond practices of the past -- some of them being horrific and extraordinarily ignorant. Those who still practice or believe in such things (for whatever personal payoff it provides) may now be seen as dangerous extremists.

Our world's evolvement and development are moving at lightning speed, while we humans can only try to keep up with it. The foundations and patterns and measures of the past have less applicability in this climate of constant advancement. Rather, flexibility and expansion of thought and capability are more suitable for this fast-evolving world. Those who insist on the permanent value of their 'defined position' are actually, in many cases, hindering the value of evolvement.

Humankind may be at a point of shifting our thoughts and perceptions in a whole new way from what we've known (and tried to master) before. Perhaps we're not just improving on mechanical gears anymore, rather we're leaning to function fluidly. Your efforts to pin it all down, define it and 'know' it to a degree that satisfies you are likely the ego-bound efforts dependent on a past from which it was born.

I know that you get very mad when I challenge your 'stoned idealism' but then so too do those who have an essentially New Age idealistic 'philosophy'. Am I mad at you because you have it? No! I do not even say that it is 'bad'. What I do say is that I think it all needs to be examined far more carefully. Why? Because the sort of stoned idealism of you and people like Seeds always presents and expresses a profound sense of moral judgmentalism. You see? You are God's Children and you have appeared on the stage of world history to put thinks to right! You are entitled! You are fired-up! You know the truth about 'evolution'. If you can only get the obstacles out of the path of this evolution all would be well!

You see: you fit into an entire structure which has taken form in our present. And yet you do not have any sort of self-consciousness nor any background at all as to how this came about. And importantly you do not understand the degree to which the structured idealism of people like Maurin has become perverted. So *you* become an Active Agent but without a tangible structure.

Like someone stoned on a tropical jungle drug. It's all sentimental and lacks an intellectual base.

You see? You see what I sense I am up against?

Sing with me LaceWing!! Stop that infernal croaking! Sing!!!!

Now let's return to Maurin:

Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces of verse that became known as Easy Essays. Influenced by the contemporary work of G. K. Chesterton and Vincent McNabb, he was one of the foremost promoters of the back-to-the-land movement and of Catholic distributism in the United States. He was also influenced by Peter Kropotkin, an anarchist.

Consider the reading list recommended by Maurin to better understand:

The following books were recommended by Peter Maurin in reading lists appended to his essays.

Art in a Changing Civilization, Eric Gill
Brotherhood Economics, Toyohiko Kagawa
Charles V, D. B. Wyndham Lewis
Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, Amintore Fanfani
The Church and the Land, Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.
Discourse on Usury, Thomas Wilson
Enquiries Into Religion and Culture, Christopher Dawson
Fields, Factories and Workshops, Peter Kropotkin
Fire on the Earth, Paul Hanly Furfey
The Flight from the City, Ralph Borsodi
The Franciscan Message to the World, Father Agostino Gemelli, F.M.
Freedom in the Modern World, Jacques Maritain
The Future of Bolshevism, Waldemar Gurian
A Guildsman's Interpretation of History, Arthur Penty
The Great Commandment of the Gospel, His Excellency A. G. Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the U. S.
Ireland and the Foundation of Europe, Benedict Fitzpatrick
I Take My Stand, by Twelve Southern Agrarians
The Land of the Free, Herbert Agar
Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson
The Making of Europe, Christopher Dawson
Man the Unknown, Dr. Alexis Carrel
Nations Can Stay at Home, B. O. Wilcox
Nazareth or Social Chaos, Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.
Our Enemy, the State, Albert Jay Nock
Outline of Sanity, G. K. Chesterton
A Philosophy of Work, Étienne Borne
Post-Industrialism, Arthur Penty
Progress and Religion, Christopher Dawson
Religion and the Modern State, Christopher Dawson
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, R. H. Tawney
La Revolution Personnaliste et Communautaire, Emmanuel Mounier
Saint Francis of Assisi, G. K. Chesterton
Social Principles of the Gospel, Alphonse Lugan
Soviet Man Now, Helen Iswolsky
Temporal Regime and Liberty, Jacques Maritain
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen
Thomistic Doctrine of the Common Good, The, Seraphine Michel
Things That Are Not Caesar's, Jacques Maritain
Toward a Christian Sociology, Arthur Penty
True Humanism, Jacques Maritain
The Two Nations, Christopher Hollis
The Unfinished Universe, T. S. Gregory
The Valerian Persecution, Father Patrick Healy
What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer Adler
Work and Leisure, Eric Gill

Previous, I wrote:

I have noticed that when certain things are said or mentioned (in this case Renaud Camus and 'replacement') that in less than a blink of the eye one gets labeled in certain ways -- for example as Flash does with his Nazi tirades.

You exclaimed, with your typical moralizing tone, that I have become known here and therefore the ideas that I present or refer to have all been adequately labeled by the zealots who write on this forum. Wrong. I say wrong.

What I say is that you-plural cannot adequately assess what I am saying because at every juncture, and with any word said that seems to you to have an off inflection, that entire judgmental structures are activated, and you-plural can only do (it is a question of degree) what FlashDangerPants does without any restraint at all.

So what I say (to Flash for example) is examine the structures that have informed you. Understand yourself better. Introspect. See yourself within a context. Separate yourself from your *feelings* that rise up blindly and see that those you condemn with such moral force may not be what you say they are. And also examine how these coercive emoted currents function all around us and obscure clear and reasonable seeing.

Do you think I will have any success with Flash? Of course I do not!

Therefore, all that I can do in this distorted and distorting present is to recommend that we stop, backtrack, examine the causal chain, and make a choice to stop bickering but to understand better why we are in these situations.

True, I do have some affiliations but they are nowhere near as set in stone as people presume.

So finally what I say is that Renaud Camus is not a 'radical' nor a monster. Actually he operates from a truer platform of personalism as it was originally defined. But I cannot induce anyone to even consider this idea because, as it happens, he has been *spun* to be an octave of Adolf Hitler.

This is how propaganda and idea-coercion work. And my suggestion is that this be examined with care and in detail.