Christianity

[Harbal]

I'm just saying we all tend to assume people think the same way we do about things,

But we don't all tell them they will suffer an eternity of torture when it turns out they don't.

You have either missed my point, or are pretending to have missed it.

No pretense. Set me straight, if I've missed it.

No, I don't think there would be any benefit in pursuing it.

Let's all just carry on as normal.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm just saying we all tend to assume people think the same way we do about things,

But we don't all tell them they will suffer an eternity of torture when it turns out they don't.

Well, with all deference to your characterization, one tells people that which one believes to be true. And one tells them for their own good, so that good things, instead of what , perhaps, they're angling for, can come to them.

Let's all just carry on as normal.

That's going to be a great difficulty for us both. We'll have to do our best to fake it.

[phyllo]

Here you have alluded to an *alternate discourse* but have not filled it out. There are a few essential facts though that render Christian belief -- or Christian praxis: the extension of Christian belief universally -- problematic. The foremost one?

In terms of the current topics of discussion:

Human evolution :

The Catholic church does not reject it, nor do many of the major Christian denominations.

The Catholic Church generally accepts evolutionary theory as the scientific explanation for the development of all life. However, this acceptance comes with the understanding that natural selection is a God-directed mechanism of biological development and that man’s soul is the divine creation of God.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/20 ... -evolution

Hell:

There are several views, aside from eternal damnation :

1. There is no hell. Everyone goes on to heaven/eternal life.
2. There is no hell. Sinners simply die, cease to exist, while the others have eternal life.
3. There is a hell. Sinners are punished/purified for a limited time. They then move on to heaven/eternal life.

All are supported by some passages in the bible.

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, I don't think there would be any benefit in pursuing it.

Your weeks long conversation with Immanuel had a benefit? But now there is no benefit?

[Lacewing]

with Immanuel Can's politics: anything that involves two or more people agreeing to do something together for their common good will quickly result in the slaughter of millions of innocents.

Yes, such thinking makes as much sense as being a darkly intoxicated fanatic on behalf of a loving, heavenly father. It's all the dark fantasy from a human brain, which repels reasoning in order to propagate self-serving absurdities.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Catholic church does not reject it, nor do many of the major Christian denominations.

When you (one) examines the modifications the Church has made in reconciling itself with Modernity, with each acquiescence it loses that much more ground. It operated through absolutism. And without it, it undermines itself.

The same is true with Immanuel’s Evangelism. To the degree that modern tenets are accepted, is the degree that it undermines its own metaphysics.

Then what is left?

A hovering, detached ‘belief’ in an entity that cannot be explained to exist. What is left is the assertion — and it floats there like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

That god died. And if he resurrects he resurrects absurdly. As parody.

I see two solutions:

One, that god be defined utterly anew. But that involves erasure of the board. The second involves a supreme act of synthesis. We would have to ‘rewrite god’ and rewrite what a man’s religion should be.

What ‘solution’ do you see?

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's going to be a great difficulty for us both. We'll have to do our best to fake it.

Hold on. That was the impression I had of your entire conversation with Harbal. A faked rehearsal from start to finish.

[Harbal]

No, I don't think there would be any benefit in pursuing it.

Your weeks long conversation with Immanuel had a benefit? But now there is no benefit?

Don't ask me; explaining my behaviour is your job.

[Belinda]

The Catholic church does not reject it, nor do many of the major Christian denominations.

When you (one) examines the modifications the Church has made in reconciling itself with Modernity, with each acquiescence it loses that much more ground. It operated through absolutism. And without it, it undermines itself.

The same is true with Immanuel’s Evangelism. To the degree that modern tenets are accepted, is the degree that it undermines its own metaphysics.

Then what is left?

A hovering, detached ‘belief’ in an entity that cannot be explained to exist. What is left is the assertion — and it floats there like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

That god died. And if he resurrects he resurrects absurdly. As parody.

I see two solutions:

One, that god be defined utterly anew. But that involves erasure of the board. The second involves a supreme act of synthesis. We would have to ‘rewrite god’ and rewrite what a man’s religion should be.

What ‘solution’ do you see?

A practical solution. Democracy first. There is little chance in a democratic society of doing away with tradition so we stay with Axial Age morality which seems to have a world wide attractiveness and a Eurasian history.

In addition to Axial Age morality we also have the European scientific enlightenment tradition. This too has been adopted world wide.

With increasing prosperity education will improve in quality and scope.

[phyllo]

The Catholic church does not reject it, nor do many of the major Christian denominations.

When you (one) examines the modifications the Church has made in reconciling itself with Modernity, with each acquiescence it loses that much more ground. It operated through absolutism. And without it, it undermines itself.

The same is true with Immanuel’s Evangelism. To the degree that modern tenets are accepted, is the degree that it undermines its own metaphysics.

Then what is left?

A hovering, detached ‘belief’ in an entity that cannot be explained to exist. What is left is the assertion — and it floats there like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

That god died. And if he resurrects he resurrects absurdly. As parody.

I see two solutions:

One, that god be defined utterly anew. But that involves erasure of the board. The second involves a supreme act of synthesis. We would have to ‘rewrite god’ and rewrite what a man’s religion should be.

What ‘solution’ do you see?

What's left is the essential relationship between God and the individual.

Which is the important part.

It's not important whether the sun revolves around the earth in a perfect circle or a creation in 6 days or some other trivial point. That stuff just gets in the way. It produces divisions and holy wars without benefit to anyone.

[Lacewing]

if I were an Atheist, I would know that no moral constraints remain upon we at all, and would very likely take full advantage of that fact, I think. Like Nietzsche, I suppose I would despise those who held back, and continued to believe in morality. I might regard it as a badge of courage, and certainly as opportunistically necessary, to get myself ahead at all costs.

As a young man, I pretty much dropped any pretense at all of behaving "Christianly." If you could have even seen me then, you'd have known at a glance that was true, for sure.

While that's not exactly an admission to being a dangerous lunatic, it does suggest that without a strict code of conduct, he would surrender to desires he now finds objectionable. To my mind that raises the possibility that there is something a bit more noble, or maybe misguided, driving his obsession than just vanity and fear. Perhaps Immanuel Can needs this cover to protect himself and others from his own urges.

An interesting observation. Perhaps that is so.

I'm just saying we all tend to assume people think the same way we do about things, and tend to do them for the same reasons we would.

Maybe this is why Immanuel judges others as he does. He knows what he would be if he were not on the path he has chosen.

So, Immanuel Can has become the redeemed example at the center of the Universe and that's how he knows us all better than we know ourselves.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What's left is the essential relationship between God and the individual.

My own thought is, yes, or sure, but a relationship with god is really a relationship through one’s contextual lens. I have been reprimanded by IC for using a sociological term — but it seems true.

God for you is? I’d guess a Protestant-Christian context. That implies a cultural matrix which not only supports it but predefines it.

What is god for a Vedic Hindu? Or a Buddhist. The context changes, the lens changes, the relationship changes.

[phyllo]

What's left is the essential relationship between God and the individual.

My own thought is, yes, or sure, but a relationship with god is really a relationship through one’s contextual lens. I have been reprimanded by IC for using a sociological term — but it seems true.

God for you is? I’d guess a Protestant-Christian context. That implies a cultural matrix which not only supports it but predefines it.

What is god for a Vedic Hindu? Or a Buddhist. The context changes, the lens changes, the relationship changes.

The religious context is the scaffolding that lets you get closer to God. The relationship is independent of the of the religion.

[iambiguous]

No, I'm interested in how someone who embraces the point that they think he is making in the quote above would bring it "down to Earth" pertaining to the "conflicting goods" I noted above.

That's my "thing" here remember? Bringing general description philosophical assessments about the good life, virtue, justice and the pursuit of noble endeavors in the is/ought world down out of the clouds of abstraction and wrestling with them existentially.

Re AJ and race, IC and the Christian God, etc.: Where's the beef?

Though, sure, if some folks here have no interest in examining the existential parameters of the points they make, that's their prerogative. All I can do is to suggest just how limited the value of that is for actual flesh and blood men and women interested in how philosophy itself might actually be pertinent to the lives they live.

'Meditations' was written by a real guy wrestling with real problems. It's not a text by some academic philosopher.

But maybe it's not specific enough, not down out of the clouds enough, not existential enough.

You're the only one who knows what is appropriate for you.

Okay, then note some examples of him doing this in Meditations. What real problems relating to the moral quandaries of his own day.

And how would you imagine him reacting to the argument I make in the OP here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529

He is described as "a deeply spiritual person, and that fact comes across clearly in his Meditations" at the Traditional Stocism website.

A stoic and...

abortion
guns
capitalism
socialism
animal rights
capital punishment
gender roles
homosexuality
the role of government
social and economic justice
and on and on and on.

[phyllo]

No, I'm interested in how someone who embraces the point that they think he is making in the quote above would bring it "down to Earth" pertaining to the "conflicting goods" I noted above.

That's my "thing" here remember? Bringing general description philosophical assessments about the good life, virtue, justice and the pursuit of noble endeavors in the is/ought world down out of the clouds of abstraction and wrestling with them existentially.

Re AJ and race, IC and the Christian God, etc.: Where's the beef?

Though, sure, if some folks here have no interest in examining the existential parameters of the points they make, that's their prerogative. All I can do is to suggest just how limited the value of that is for actual flesh and blood men and women interested in how philosophy itself might actually be pertinent to the lives they live.

'Meditations' was written by a real guy wrestling with real problems. It's not a text by some academic philosopher.

But maybe it's not specific enough, not down out of the clouds enough, not existential enough.

You're the only one who knows what is appropriate for you.

Okay, then note some examples of him doing this in Meditations. What real problems relating to the moral quandaries of his own day.

And how would you imagine him reacting to the argument I make in the OP here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529

He is described as "a deeply spiritual person, and that fact comes across clearly in his Meditations" at the Traditional Stocism website.

A stoic and...

abortion
guns
capitalism
socialism
animal rights
capital punishment
gender roles
homosexuality
the role of government
social and economic justice
and on and on and on.

I'm not doing your work for you.

Read the book or read a few passages from the book or don't read the book.

Google his quotes. Make a 2 minute judgement.

Or don't do anything.