Christianity

[Belinda]

I think Martin copied the above from an AI machine. Okay, whatever. I just want to remark that there is indeed design in nature, but that design does not necessitate a designing mind or self.

Depends on the sort of mind that examines the problem.

The sort of mind that does not do self awareness is not fit to examine God

[Martin Peter Clarke]

A very Christian sentiment, Martin. Jesus Christ is love in human form.

I.e. very human. Not divine. Mere love isn't good enough. But it's all we have.

Then you hold a narrow definition of love. Love is not "mere". Love is not desire. Love is not affection, Love is not duty. Love is not courage. Love is not wisdom. Love is not rewarding but is long-suffering. Love is not faith. Love is compounded of all of those and more that I have not thought of.

No I don't. Human love is the best there is. That there ever will be. It can't be bettered in eternal infinity. I hold the broadest possible definition, including eusociality, love for all humanity. Jesus was on the way to that, the early Christians more so; they were non-coercive communists. Givers. Their gospel was social. That didn't last long. Didn't travel far. And Jesus was clearly misanthropic. Damnationist. He far from represented transcendent Love, which is disproved, irrelevant, negated in its utter absence.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

The fine-tuning of the universe for life

The abrupt appearance of complex biological forms in the fossil record

He’s careful to distinguish Intelligent Design from traditional creationism, framing it as a scientific inference rather than a purely theological claim. In interviews, Meyer has acknowledged that some scientists accept evolution as a valid framework, but he challenges its sufficiency in explaining key phenomena1

I think Martin copied the above from an AI machine. Okay, whatever. I just want to remark that there is indeed design in nature, but that design does not necessitate a designing mind or self.
The presumption of teleology defeats Meyer's argument .

The concept of design in nature is scientifically, rationally meaningless, void, null. Poetic, sure. Please point to any objective design process or outcome in, by the metaphor of, nature.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Public Announcement #231

Hear ye, hear ye !

I have finally finished the construction of an intellectual vessel I’ve named Orphic Sub and I intend to offer genuinely regenerative Tours of the Living Hell …

… down in the horrific depths of Utter Abjection …

… where you will witness first hand the suffering of those in denial of the Proper Doctrines.

A receptionist — modeled on our own Immanuel (dressed in a smart conveyor’s vest and a ticket punch) will greet the eager voyagers and fit the descension goggles.

(Cash only please!)

A strange, dark and fearsome Spirit will be your Guide and if you behave properly you will be guaranteed an unforgettable Resurrection Experience back to the present world.

See those with wounds that never heal; the half-dead & bloodied, the flayed & naked, being actively tortured by their own Doppelgängers. Wail along with the sin-drenched as they are pulled around by jeering demons on rusting hooks and chains, living out (so to speak) the consequences of their terrestrial choices …

[MikeNovack]

The concept of design in nature is scientifically, rationally meaningless, void, null. Poetic, sure. Please point to any objective design process or outcome in, by the metaphor of, nature.

I would agree. But I have a different approach to the "intelligent design" folks. One that does not depend on whether there is intelligent design or not. The point is, they have an agenda, not SIMPLY the argument "the creation exists by intelligent design => a designer" but to somehow get from THAT to :this designer prefers designs that require hands on tinkering to a robust, self repairing design and how do they get from "an intelligent designer or team of designers to a single deity amazingly resembling the one according to the theology of their religion.

Understand, I am arguing "intelligent design" might be necessary but not sufficient to their intended purpose. And by "not sufficient" I mean so far off the mark as to be useless to them. For example.

The intelligent designers are a team of students at Deity U. Their project "Everchanging Life" was a "creation project" featuring "life", engineered with a process so that it would continuously change and adapt as conditions of their created universe changed. The project having been graded by their prof, it now sits off in a storage cupboard until some other team of students might want to reuse materials.

Does that not meet the criteria "intelligent design"?
Does that get them anywhere to deny "evolution by natural selection"? (that seems like elegant engineering to me)
Does it get the anywhere to monotheism, let alone a god with the attributes of god according to their religion?

In other words, challenging their project based on fundamental logic. They are arguing:
IF (a deity with the attributes of the deity according to my religion => intelligent design) THEN (intelligent design => a deity with the attributes of the deity according to my religion)

But (A => B) => (B => A) is NOT a valid statement of formal logic

Similarly with (intelligent design does not imply evolution) implies (intelligent design implies not evolution) That's not valid either

[seeds]

Public Announcement #231

Hear ye, hear ye !

I have finally finished the construction of an intellectual vessel I’ve named Orphic Sub and I intend to offer genuinely regenerative Tours of the Living Hell …

… down in the horrific depths of Utter Abjection …

… where you will witness first hand the suffering of those in denial of the Proper Doctrines.

A receptionist — modeled on our own Immanuel (dressed in a smart conveyor’s vest and a ticket punch) will greet the eager voyagers and fit the descension goggles.

(Cash only please!)

A strange, dark and fearsome Spirit will be your Guide and if you behave properly you will be guaranteed an unforgettable Resurrection Experience back to the present world.

See those with wounds that never heal; the half-dead & bloodied, the flayed & naked, being actively tortured by their own Doppelgängers. Wail along with the sin-drenched as they are pulled around by jeering demons on rusting hooks and chains, living out (so to speak) the consequences of their terrestrial choices …

This is a great service you are providing for the general public (especially for the 71% of the earth's human population [5.822 billion people] who, according to Google's AI Overview, are not Christians).

Will the tourists on the "Orphic Sub" be able to witness the gnashing of teeth?

Or will the horrific sights induce them to gnash their own teeth?

This is just a suggestion, but as a truly exciting and "immersive" experience, if each of the sub's passengers could be treated to a quick (perhaps 10 second) dip in a vat of molten steel,...

...then it might give them a better idea of the unthinkable level of pain and torture that -- according to Immanuel Can -- they will be freely "choosing" to experience (for eternity) if they reject Christianity.
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

Understand, I am arguing "intelligent design" might be necessary but not sufficient to their intended purpose. And by "not sufficient" I mean so far off the mark as to be useless to them. For example.

It would of course depend on how one conceived “uselessness” and that through a sense of what their “intended purpose” is.

Long, long ago, at a time when very curious men with penetrating minds looked out upon the world, they discovered themselves under a domed sky surrounded by forces, powers & events that all intimated intelligence, awareness, mystery and also magic — in the sense that there, in front of them, a World (loka) had been arranged for them. And there they were, staring at it, immersed in it, and also victim of it insofar as everything in it, and they too, had perishing to look forward to. (I am referring to the Rishis of ancient India).

To discern “design” as in the creation of the place where we have experience, seems to me the most natural sentiment.

But what about this opposed sentiment, and indeed a counter-metaphysics, that states essentially the opposite? That there in no “creator” no purpose, say, to the fact of existence, and what amounts to the “logical deduction” that simply undermines the former sentiment. Who examines, and critiques, the “purpose” of deciding that such a view is the one that best describes Reality?

There us a certain mood of mercilessness in the modern anti-theist assault on “belief”. That mood often expresses intense contempt and derision. This I think is understandable in many instances (just consider the contempt and frustration that Immanuel produces) but there is not enough consideration of a sort of “murder” that is committed against what might be described as a more “intuitive” way of perceiving life and existence

[Alexis Jacobi]

Charles Olson, “In Cold Hell, in Thicket”:

ya, selva oscura, but hell now
is not exterior, is not to be got out of, is
the coat of your own self, the beasts
emblazoned on you

…Who
can endure it where it is, where
the beasts are met
where yourself is, your beloved is, where she
who is separate from you
is not separate, is not
goddess, is, as your core is,
the making of one hell.

[Immanuel Can]

The concept of design in nature is scientifically, rationally meaningless, void, null. Poetic, sure. Please point to any objective design process or outcome in, by the metaphor of, nature.

Ummm…irreducible complexity? Specification? DNA? The flagellar motor? The comprehensibility of the universe? Multi-species symbiosis? Mathematics?

How many such “objective design processes” do you need, before you’d be convinced?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Understand, I am arguing "intelligent design" might be necessary but not sufficient to their intended purpose. And by "not sufficient" I mean so far off the mark as to be useless to them. For example.

It would of course depend on how one conceived “uselessness” and that through a sense of what their “intended purpose” is.

Long, long ago, at a time when very curious men with penetrating minds looked out upon the world, they discovered themselves under a domed sky surrounded by forces, powers & events that all intimated intelligence, awareness, mystery and also magic — in the sense that there, in front of them, a World (loka) had been arranged for them. And there they were, staring at it, immersed in it, and also victim of it insofar as everything in it, and they too, had perishing to look forward to. (I am referring to the Rishis of ancient India).

To discern “design” as in the creation of the place where we have experience, seems to me the most natural sentiment.

But what about this opposed sentiment, and indeed a counter-metaphysics, that states essentially the opposite? That there in no “creator” no purpose, say, to the fact of existence, and what amounts to the “logical deduction” that simply undermines the former sentiment. Who examines, and critiques, the “purpose” of deciding that such a view is the one that best describes Reality?

There us a certain mood of mercilessness in the modern anti-theist assault on “belief”. That mood often expresses intense contempt and derision. This I think is understandable in many instances (just consider the contempt and frustration that Immanuel produces) but there is not enough consideration of a sort of “murder” that is committed against what might be described as a more “intuitive” way of perceiving life and existence

Mercy is irrelevant in the assault on irrational and/or non-Rogerian belief. Belief will destroy us. And the assault has failed. So why do it? 'Told you so'? There are some very nice believers, I'm not assaulting them. But they hold some very unpleasant, murderous beliefs. Let alone unpleasant people and theirs. Murderous beliefs and murderous believers need opposing.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The modern view, the true nihilism, is in its way the descensus ad inferos, insofar as it is a descent into utterly meaningless material processes with absolutely no rhyme or reason. It is not obligatory but is, isn’t it? often chosen.

Isn’t that peculiar? To be stripped of any faculty of imagination and to be shipwrecked in Eternal Meaninglessness?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Mercy is irrelevant in the assault on irrational and/or non-Rogerian belief. Belief will destroy us. And the assault has failed. So why do it? 'Told you so'? There are some very nice believers, I'm not assaulting them. But they hold some very unpleasant, murderous beliefs. Let alone unpleasant people and theirs. Murderous beliefs and murderous believers need opposing.

With Rogerian communication tactics, I take it?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Mercy is irrelevant in the assault on irrational and/or non-Rogerian belief. Belief will destroy us. And the assault has failed. So why do it? 'Told you so'? There are some very nice believers, I'm not assaulting them. But they hold some very unpleasant, murderous beliefs. Let alone unpleasant people and theirs. Murderous beliefs and murderous believers need opposing.

With Rogerian communication tactics, I take it?

My closest, intimate friends are believers. 2 / 3 of my kids are believers. I count Jungians and contrarian libertarians as believers. I would never assault their beliefs unless they asked me to. They never do. No one here presents as they do. Here is a true marketplace of ideas. Dominated by conservatives only a minority of whom are worth engaging with, can be engaged with. Ideas are still evolved here. In competition. I've made one friend for life in doing that over 30 years. I am quite capable of being diffident to protect someone's delicate beliefs. Even here. Kindness is wasted on implacably murderous misanthropic believers. One can only be clinical and robust.

[Dubious]

Public Announcement #231

Hear ye, hear ye !

I have finally finished the construction of an intellectual vessel I’ve named Orphic Sub and I intend to offer genuinely regenerative Tours of the Living Hell …

… down in the horrific depths of Utter Abjection …

… where you will witness first hand the suffering of those in denial of the Proper Doctrines.

A receptionist — modeled on our own Immanuel (dressed in a smart conveyor’s vest and a ticket punch) will greet the eager voyagers and fit the descension goggles.

(Cash only please!)

A strange, dark and fearsome Spirit will be your Guide and if you behave properly you will be guaranteed an unforgettable Resurrection Experience back to the present world.

See those with wounds that never heal; the half-dead & bloodied, the flayed & naked, being actively tortured by their own Doppelgängers. Wail along with the sin-drenched as they are pulled around by jeering demons on rusting hooks and chains, living out (so to speak) the consequences of their terrestrial choices …

Sounds like a true religious experience to me, the kind the Middle Ages were so intensely grateful for. However, if you don't mind, I prefer to remain unencumbered by any god conditions of torture prior to resurrection and, not least in my daily travails, maintain my wallet intact. These days, it seems atheists are the only good, honest people left on the planet having thoroughly expelled their Janus-faced gods!

[Alexis Jacobi]

My closest, intimate friends are believers. 2/3 of my kids are believers. I count Jungians and contrarian libertarians as believers.

How may I ask did your kids come to be ‘believers’? And what sort?

My primary concern, as it were, is simply (though it is not a simple issue) what happens culture-wide to a people when metaphysical ground is lost. It does not look very pretty.

Connected to that concern are contemporary issues involving how people confront that crisis, among sets of crises, in efforts to reground.

My impression is that it is in the ‘climb back up the hill’ (the reconstruction) where the ‘desperation’ becomes visible.

Now, as this is going on, simultaneously the world is in a bizarre 4th and 5th generation war.

And then Sydney Sweeney is dangling her breasts hither & yon …

What’s going on people, I mean really?!