Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

I ask for a straight answer

It is amusing that you missed my answer.

It's more amusing that you didn't actually give one, but tried to circumlocute the issue instead.

Yes or no: can an Alexisite be somebody who doesn't follow Alexis?

Which answer do you want me to imagine you gave?

[Harbal]

AJ: “right” is therefore meta-natural and meta-physical.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by meta-natural and meta-physical?

Jacobi is completely incapable of not elaborating. Your request will probably result in the equivalent of a short story.

All of my ideas -- about religion, about *higher ethics* and really about human being -- depend on the concept of the metaphysical.

In the natural world creatures take what they want, and what they can get, through wiles or might, and that is just the way it is. Though a creature feels their right to their own body, in nature I do not think that such a right really exists. The substance of one creature is needed and taken when needed from another. It is the way it is.

But in the human world we, to all appearances, have access to *higher dimensions* of understanding. We perceive, or we intuit, what is above nature -- meta-natural -- and we understand it to be non-physical, non-locatable, and invisible.

Does such really exist? Yes, I say, it exists as anything else exists, and it exists through its enormous effects. Meta-physical perception is realized in man's psyche. And these ideas make up the human world. Justice, love, hope, and really value and also meaning -- these are metaphysical and thus meta-natural.

It doesn't matter how metaphysical you get, nature won't treat you any differently. Our perceived reality is a mental construct, and although much of what we perceive does have external referents of some kind, things like natural rights are not among them.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Love it!

You lost every point you attempted to argue, Immanuel. You were trounced. That’s all there is to say.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Our perceived reality is a mental construct, and although much of what we perceive does have external referents of some kind, things like natural rights are not among them.

Did you intuit this?

A mental construct you say? On what do you base this assertive declaration?

[Immanuel Can]

Love it!

You lost every point you attempted to argue, Immanuel. You were trounced. That’s all there is to say.

Ah, the old, "Declare victory, and depart the field," strategy.

It's funny how you think of discussion: as if it's a win-lose, and you've got to "win." I wonder what you tell yourself you're "winning." It seems to me you depart the field in exactly the same condition you arrived, and no wiser, by that method. So you've "won"...what?

But sure. Whatever you say. Have fun.

[Gary Childress]

Meh. We keep going until we don't. I keep going until I don't. If I knew anything more than that, I might do differently or I might not.

[Harbal]

Our perceived reality is a mental construct, and although much of what we perceive does have external referents of some kind, things like natural rights are not among them.

Did you intuit this?

No, I sort of reasoned it.

A mental construct you say? On what do you base this assertive declaration?

Oh, you know, just the usual kind of thing one bases assertive declarations on.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I wonder what you tell yourself you're "winning."

That every assertion I made is correct.

I also told you I am not going to play with you the game you often desire to rehearse.

I leave “the field” to you!

[Immanuel Can]

I wonder what you tell yourself you're "winning."

That every assertion I made is correct.

I know you know that isn't true.

But do carry on...

[Alexis Jacobi]

But do carry on...

I certainly will. And on the topic of the “swerve” (clinamen) I referred to. I use the term to illustrate a point I think is important.

Patience, my child.

[Immanuel Can]

...on the topic of the “swerve” (clinamen) I referred to. I use the term to illustrate a point I think is important.

Please, finish your point.

I'm a bit surprised at your resorting to rhetorical flourishes, such as the "declaring victory" or the "my child" sort of remark. It smacks of desperation. And if I might say, it seems a bit infantile in itself...as if, having run out of something to say (and certainly out of a reasoned response to a common-sense question) you suppose that a little provocation might distract from the fact that you haven't actually answered at all.

In case you were wondering...it's not working.

[iambiguous]

I have agreed to watch all of the videos.

Call me when you're done.

Just out of curiosity, can you note anyone who has watched all of them and, indeed, did come over to Jesus Christ? Anyone from this forum?

Otherwise, only a fool, in my view, would actually believe that if someone did watch all of them and still rejected the Christian God, that you wouldn't come up with something like, "well you obviously didn't watch them as you should have watched them because if you did, you couldn't possibly not come around to thinking about them exactly as I do.

So, watch them all again and call me when you're done."


Again, I still merely entertain myself with you, IC.




Note to others:

For those here who actually do take him seriously, by all means, if you come upon something he posts that in any way, shape or form, might be construed as proof that the Christian God does exist "everywhere", please bring it to my attention.

Again, a part of me truly does want to be reborn. To be comforted and consoled as I once was as a Christian myself. And if IC can bring me back around to Jesus Christ, I shall apologize profusely to him here for ever doubting it.

That alone should be incentive enough for some here.

[iambiguous]

Anyway, for those here who do watch all the videos, please, by all means, if you come upon one that succeeds in persuading you that the Christian God does in fact exist, bring it to my attention. I want to believe in the Christian God again. If I can somehow.

I watched the first one, So, You Just Became a Christian, and it didn't even slightly tempt me to become one myself. It might appeal to someone going through a particular kind of mental crisis; perhaps someone looking for a sense of belonging.

Well, to paraphrase Roach then, "See you in Hell, Harbal!"

[iambiguous]

I want to believe in the Christian God again.

Then do. Which better theory is stopping you?

Uh, theory?

Just out of curiosity, how is that different from a leap of faith? or a wager?

[Immanuel Can]

Just out of curiosity, can you note anyone who has watched all of them and, indeed, did come over to Jesus Christ? Anyone from this forum?

I didn't send them to everybody. Not everybody made the crazy claim you made, so not everybody needed them.

But I can tell you still haven't watched them. And unless I get surprised, I expect you won't. For your whole point from the start was not to have to show that there are no reasoned arguments for the existence of God, but to be able to declare it unilaterally and to go untested on that score.

So you probably won't. But, you do what you want to do. The data's there: look, or don't look. But you're never going to be able to say to God that you didn't even have a chance to know. You were told: you just didn't want to know.

It's not on me. My responsibility ended when I gave you what you needed. It's up to you to prepare your own answer to the Creator you insist didn't make you. My advice would simply be that you look to your own interests.