Christianity

[Harbal]

I see you found a bird, Alexis. Well done on a successful expedition.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Approximately six thousand years ago, God not only created snails, but at the same time also created Leucochloridium worms. And for whatever reason that only God knows, he intentionally imbued the Leucochloridium worms with the will to invade the snail's brain in order to take control of the snail's body.

Nice essay Seeds. But it requires a correction. When God created everything and dropped Adam & Eve down into the Garden, everything was in perfect harmonious order. As a result of a noxiously bad decision this jarred the Creation and caused it to blemish. The perfect world *fell*. Not only were A&E exiled from the *perfect world* but the entire Creation was dragged down by their sin. Disease, death, tribulation, pain & suffering -- man is responsible for all these things! The redemption of the World, according to Christian thought, began with Christ's sacrifice. Eventually the world will be re-perfected but by that time the Good Souls will be in a Heaven world (which I suppose will be eternal); the Naughty Ones will be in a Hell-realm also eternally.

And the Earth? It will be brought to perfection by being made perfectly round and perfectly smooth (the perfection of geometric form) and will remain, eternal, suspended as a monument to what God did.

Seriously, this is how it was conceived in the Medieval period. It had to be thought out in this way.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I see you found a bird, Alexis. Well done on a successful expedition.

It is not my photo but you get the idea.

[Harbal]

I see you found a bird, Alexis. Well done on a successful expedition.

It is not my photo but you get the idea.

What a shame. But don't give up, you are bound to find a bird of your own to watch eventually.

[Lacewing]

To understand my position and where I am coming from...

Alexis, you are so drunk with yourself that it's hard to watch. I read and skimmed your response, enough to see your typical conclusive projections and mischaracterizations of others. Everybody is taking psychedelics according to you. Despite all of your reading and studying (or perhaps because of it) you are unable to see anything other than the linear reality you idolize and have tied your identity to. So, there you go. A pointless path for anyone besides you to trudge along.

[Immanuel Can]

In a nutshell this is why I will never give up on you, Immanuel.

I'm so grateful.

Now, do you have an answer to my question to you, so I can "reciprocate"? The ball's still in your court, for the moment...in fact, it's in your hand, waiting for you to summon the courage to lob it over the net.

Just to remind you, here it is again:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:17 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 7:53 pm
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.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:17 pm
"Instilled"? By what?

And please, do explain how these are "discerned" by you. I'm very interested. I often wonder how skeptics manage to convince themselves that they have "discerned" such things...on what basis, and using what method.

Go ahead. I'm attentive.

[iambiguous]

Also, it's a whole lot easier to think like you when you are still relatively young and healthy. Death is still something way down the road. Your own death doesn't pop up in your head much "here and now" because here and now it doesn't have to pop into it.

How old do you think I'll have to be before I start worrying about death?

It's less about age and more about circumstances.

If you find out tomorrow you have just days to live, how will that impact you? Well, that depends.

On...

1] do you believe in God? are you able to convince yourself that through God your death is just a stepping stone to immortality and salvation?
2] do you not believe in God or an afterlife and your life is bursting at the seams with countless experiences and relationships that bring you enormous pleasure and satisfaction? is the thought of losing all of that devastating?
3] do you not believe in God or an afterlife but your life is bursting at the seams with pain and suffering? will death at least take all of that away?

Then the part where each of us individually is embedded existentially "here and now" in his or her own uniquely personal frame of mind and set of circumstances.

And then the part where [in my view] it is futile for philosophers to attempt to pin down the "wisest" assessment of death.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I see you found a bird, Alexis. Well done on a successful expedition.

It is not my photo but you get the idea.

What a shame. But don't give up, you are bound to find a bird of your own to watch eventually.

::: sniff ::::

[Alexis Jacobi]

Go ahead. I'm attentive.

Actually you are not attentive. You can read the words but you can’t understand them. What blocks you?

That is the question. But I think the answer is that you can only resort to one fabulation. The Creation Myth of Hebrew lore. You must take it as divine revelation. As such you can’t negate it. You can’t see it for what it is. And all other fabulated explanations you can’t see because of the Hebrew idea-imperialism I’ve condescended to reveal to you oh so many the times. “All knees must bow eventually” to that, you think.

I offer therapy. You refuse it.

Impasse…

What’s to be done?!?

[iambiguous]

Me? Well, as with most things, I am no less drawn and quartered in regard to race. I have my own "existential, rooted subjectively in dasein" political prejudices but racism itself is still so wide-spread who really knows where and when it stops being genes and starts being memes.

More to the point [mine] there's your own existential trajectory here. What personal experiences and relationships did you have that started you off down the racialist road. If that's how you would describe yourself.

And what demonstrable proof do you have that your own political prejudices here are not just prejudices at all...but can in fact be confirmed by, say, science?

Typically, you misunderstand.

Typically, based on my own experiences in threads like this, when some people claim you misunderstand them what they mean is that you refuse to agree with them. And you certainly do strike me as one of the "my way or the highway" posters to me.

On the other hand, you say...

What started me on that road (of thinking about the order of ideas that concerns Renaud Camus and, in different ways Jonathan Bowden) was becoming open to examining other idea-structures that have become operative in this strange and confusing present.

The mistake people make is to reflexively think that I am here recruiting. Not at all. But note that any set of ideas that does not seem kosher, that seems *immoral*, if and when presented, can only be seen as the hand of the Devil reaching in an contaminating the Good People.

Back to "idea-structures" about race. Whereas I am more interested in demonstratable evidence -- scientific or otherwise -- that connects the dots between words and worlds here.

And, as I noted above...

Me? Well, as with most things, I am no less drawn and quartered in regard to race. I have my own "existential, rooted subjectively in dasein" political prejudices but racism itself is still so wide-spread who really knows where and when it stops being genes and starts being memes.

More to the point [mine] there's your own existential trajectory here. What personal experiences and relationships did you have that started you off down the racialist road. If that's how you would describe yourself.

You'll either go there with respect to race or you won't.

I have thought a great deal (more) about race, ethnicity, cultural dikes, idea-structures and also hierarchies, as a result of living permanently in South America (Colombia). And I am certainly unafraid to share what I see (which is quite different from selling a perspective or being an activist for a cause).

One thing I said recently: that when we operate out of idealisms why is it that what is created (often) tends to show deterioration and decadence? The opposite of what we say we intend?

Any clue?

Now, that's typical. Well, to me. That you clearly prefer to discuss all of this up in the intellectual contraption clouds.

[Belinda]

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.

Having read and enjoyed all Barbara Pym's novels as have you, I think I understand you dislike any literature that sounds sententious. I'm afraid symbolism does sometimes sound pompous and Genesis 1 is no exception.It takes a clever novelist or poet to write symbolism and also be user friendly. Jesus was good at it and his parables don't patronise his audience.

Incidentally, do you like fantasies or sci fi?
Good novels and good poems concisely describe how things are, what the deal is. Science explains how it works.

[Immanuel Can]

Go ahead. I'm attentive.

Impasse…

What’s to be done?!?

You're to answer the question. Then there's no "impasse."

But I am certain now you cannot. For if you could have, you would have, if only to get me off your case about it.

So you bluffed. There is, at least in your perspective, no way to "discern" the "purpose of life, moral and spiritual questions" by seeing them as "instilled within the creation itself."

That's disappointing...not surprising, maybe, but disappointing. For a moment, I was actually hopeful you knew something original and interesting on the question of how to "discern" those things.

Now, I can "reciprocate." My return to you takes the following format: given that you claimed you could do these things, but now evidently cannot, why did you feel inclined to pretend you could?

[FlashDangerpants]

For Immanuel Can, Jacobi must be like a haunted mirror that shows exactly how you would look with a Hitler moustache.

[iambiguous]

Go ahead. I'm attentive.

Actually you are not attentive. You can read the words but you can’t understand them. What blocks you?

That is the question. But I think the answer is that you can only resort to one fabulation. The Creation Myth of Hebrew lore. You must take it as divine revelation. As such you can’t negate it. You can’t see it for what it is. And all other fabulated explanations you can’t see because of the Hebrew idea-imperialism I’ve condescended to reveal to you oh so many the times. “All knees must bow eventually” to that, you think.

I offer therapy. You refuse it.

Impasse…

What’s to be done?!?

Darn it, IC!

Now's your chance!! Note for him the definitive clip from your videos above that demonstrates the Christian God's Creation is not fabulated at all. No Myth, but the Real Deal.

Forget me. You can start fresh with him here.

[Harbal]

For Immanuel Can, Jacobi must be like a haunted mirror that shows exactly how you would look with a Hitler moustache.

That's an awful thing to say.