Christianity

[Martin Peter Clarke]

That requires a mutual understanding of differences and the questions which denote them truly; in most cases almost impossible to come by.

Oh, I'm a simple, simple minded, simplistic, old simpleton, wee-wee end of the MENSA pool. I always go with consilience. I only know coherent, warranted, justified, true, beliefs. Science, and rationality beyond it. So we know that nature, existence, matter is infinite regardless of the A presentist minority and B eternalist majority theories of time, for example. A, me. Invincibly ignorantly so. Your understandings are doubtless way beyond me, like Lacanian analysis. That's OK. You can stoop, surely? Unless I am beneath contempt. If you have to explain, I can't know.

Unless you're whack, despite appearances so far.

Goo on (that's Leicester, that), try me.

Try you for what? Anything specific in mind? I wouldn't want to misconstrue! In spite of, or because of, your unimpaired clear-headed post, it appears it is I who must stoop, I who have rarely stooped or been stooped by anyone having now become a vagrant in my own domain, in short, dismally stooped. Simply put, I cannot surmount, even remotely, your perspicacious jambalaya of sibylline visions performing an act of Eternal Recurrence as ruled by the intersections of orthogonals creating the illusion of differences.

Aye, nowt changes do it? On average, from a distance, i.e. encompassing the multiverses or getting down to the undifferentiable, unqualifiable, ineffably unknowable dimensionless points of existence. The eternal (not -ist!) infinity of existence is homogenous at every level one way or another, the best it can do is like us. So, does strong uniformitarianism mandate the illusion of differences? Are there no objective measures of difference? The blue sky, the '30s brick, the hydrangeas, the sixth state of matter of my mind they're impinging upon with the need for a pee, yesterday, tomorrow, Ceti Alpha VI are indistinguishable in reality? Complexity isn't real? The homogeneity is complete across all unreal scales?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Was it God who burned the little girl?

Or was it the humans who call themselves "Israelis" that burned her?

You need to place the blame where the blame actually belongs (on humans, not God).

Just try to imagine God up in Heaven totally aware of this little girl's terrible, terrible agony. And doing nothing.

You need to stop assuming that the Creator of this universe is omnisciently aware of everything taking place in the universe - all at once.

God possessing "absolute omniscience" is nonsense!  It is a false concept.

Sure, if the Christian God [or any other existing God] is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, that would change everything. 

But into what?

And believing what you do about God "in your head" "here and now" is not nearly the same [to some of us] as actually demonstrating His existence. And, as well, recognizing that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, you might well change your mind about Him. As I did. A number of times.

In other words, until one or another Creator reveals Himself, assumptions about Him will always run rampant. Yours, mine, and everyone else who submits posts in this thread. 

As for exploring the concept of God up in the spiritual clouds, fine.

But sooner or later, in addition to theodicy, those of my ilk are going to get around to these parts:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and  religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths

Now, imagine if one of us mere mortals down here on Earth severely burned a child. The outrage would be overwhelming.

You're kidding, right?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't kid about severely burning anyone, let alone a child. Instead, my own quandary here revolves around the assumption that in a No God world there is no objective morality. And as a character from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov once noted, "Without God, everything is permitted".

Mere mortals here on Earth are indeed severely burning children.  And in the case of the little girl you cited above, they are doing it with weaponry that America...

(my country, and a so-called "Christian" nation)

...has provided, and I am indeed outraged and sickened by it all.  How about you?

Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that an omniscient and omnipotent God knows of this and does nothing. At least not on this side of the grave. Nor the fact that these people are slaughtering each other over the same God. The part where, as with IC's True Christians, Jews and Muslims believing in the God of Abraham insist that everyone must think exactly the same thing about Him.

Or else.

And, again, why isn't God Himself outraged and sickened by it all? Enough, in other words, to put an end to it.

Unless, of course, He doesn't even exist.

You didn't Click Rummy! But you did feed the troll. Let us know when there's a development. Or you change your approach to Seneca's.

[Belinda]

You need to stop assuming that the Creator of this universe is omnisciently aware of everything taking place in the universe - all at once.

God possessing "absolute omniscience" is nonsense!  It is a false concept.

Sure, if the Christian God [or any other existing God] is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, that would change everything. 

But into what?

And believing what you do about God "in your head" "here and now" is not nearly the same [to some of us] as actually demonstrating His existence. And, as well, recognizing that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, you might well change your mind about Him. As I did. A number of times.

In other words, until one or another Creator reveals Himself, assumptions about Him will always run rampant. Yours, mine, and everyone else who submits posts in this thread. 

As for exploring the concept of God up in the spiritual clouds, fine.

But sooner or later, in addition to theodicy, those of my ilk are going to get around to these parts:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and  religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths

Now, imagine if one of us mere mortals down here on Earth severely burned a child. The outrage would be overwhelming.

You're kidding, right?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't kid about severely burning anyone, let alone a child. Instead, my own quandary here revolves around the assumption that in a No God world there is no objective morality. And as a character from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov once noted, "Without God, everything is permitted".

Mere mortals here on Earth are indeed severely burning children.  And in the case of the little girl you cited above, they are doing it with weaponry that America...

(my country, and a so-called "Christian" nation)

...has provided, and I am indeed outraged and sickened by it all.  How about you?

Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that an omniscient and omnipotent God knows of this and does nothing. At least not on this side of the grave. Nor the fact that these people are slaughtering each other over the same God. The part where, as with IC's True Christians, Jews and Muslims believing in the God of Abraham insist that everyone must think exactly the same thing about Him.

Or else.

And, again, why isn't God Himself outraged and sickened by it all? Enough, in other words, to put an end to it.

Unless, of course, He doesn't even exist.

You didn't Click Rummy! But you did feed the troll. Let us know when there's a development. Or you change your approach to Seneca's.

Your "quandary",Martin, would be resolved if you stopped fighting for your belief that God does not exist. God does not exist. God is the image of the best of us. images can be images of ideas ,or of entities.

An image of the idea of the best of us varies with the human who is imagining.

I take it that you yourself are nonconformist by nature, so why are you bothered (in a quandary) about a religious doctrine that defines God for many pople all at once?

*Religions bind people together. Those souls are sheeplike.

*you are nonconformist, unless I am mistaken . Nonconformists' souls are catlike.

* If a nonconformist wants to assemble his or her own personal set of doctrines , why is that a quandary?

Sorry, I got confused by the nested quotations all much the same colour. It is not Martin, but Iambiguous who is in a "quandary". Maybe Iambiguous is a sheep soul, not a cat soul.Cat souls have our problems too but trying to fit in with established Christian doctrine is not one of the nonconformist's problems.

BTW the animal metaphor is not the only metaphor.It originated with Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials)Another image is the boat at sea metaphor that involves tiny one- man sailing boats and also huge ships that carry a thousand passengers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... t-obituary

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Sure, if the Christian God [or any other existing God] is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, that would change everything. 

But into what?

And believing what you do about God "in your head" "here and now" is not nearly the same [to some of us] as actually demonstrating His existence. And, as well, recognizing that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, you might well change your mind about Him. As I did. A number of times.

In other words, until one or another Creator reveals Himself, assumptions about Him will always run rampant. Yours, mine, and everyone else who submits posts in this thread. 

As for exploring the concept of God up in the spiritual clouds, fine.

But sooner or later, in addition to theodicy, those of my ilk are going to get around to these parts:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and  religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths





Maybe it's just me, but I don't kid about severely burning anyone, let alone a child. Instead, my own quandary here revolves around the assumption that in a No God world there is no objective morality. And as a character from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov once noted, "Without God, everything is permitted".



Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that an omniscient and omnipotent God knows of this and does nothing. At least not on this side of the grave. Nor the fact that these people are slaughtering each other over the same God. The part where, as with IC's True Christians, Jews and Muslims believing in the God of Abraham insist that everyone must think exactly the same thing about Him.

Or else.

And, again, why isn't God Himself outraged and sickened by it all? Enough, in other words, to put an end to it.

Unless, of course, He doesn't even exist.

You didn't Click Rummy! But you did feed the troll. Let us know when there's a development. Or you change your approach to Seneca's.

Your "quandary",Martin, would be resolved if you stopped fighting for your belief that God does not exist. God does not exist. God is the image of the best of us. images can be images of ideas ,or of entities.

An image of the idea of the best of us varies with the human who is imagining.

I take it that you yourself are nonconformist by nature, so why are you bothered (in a quandary) about a religious doctrine that defines God for many pople all at once?

*Religions bind people together. Those souls are sheeplike.

*you are nonconformist, unless I am mistaken . Nonconformists' souls are catlike.

* If a nonconformist wants to assemble his or her own personal set of doctrines , why is that a quandary?

Sorry, I got confused by the nested quotations all much the same colour. It is not Martin, but Iambiguous who is in a "quandary". Maybe Iambiguous is a sheep soul, not a cat soul.Cat souls have our problems too but trying to fit in with established Christian doctrine is not one of the nonconformist's problems.

BTW the animal metaphor is not the only metaphor.It originated with Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials)Another image is the boat at sea metaphor that involves tiny one- man sailing boats and also huge ships that carry a thousand passengers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... t-obituary

Not my counter Belinda. Iam is trapped in never ending iterations of feeding trolls. Nothing can come of that. They don't tick all the dark tetrad boxes if any, but they all seem to tick at least one troll or sealion box, especially,

Seeming obliviousness: They seem oblivious that most people are in disagreement with them. Also, trolls rarely get mad or provoked.

Regardless, none is capable of free thought.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Iam is trapped in never ending iterations of feeding trolls. Nothing can come of that.

That’s rather superficial, to be honest. Iambiguous is very “trapped”, but thoroughly independently of IC, in an existential whirlpool: i.e. a theological problem he cannot solve. His situation and his issue is cultural, metaphysical and post-Christian.

Simply put, he is in a whirlpool spinning around and around, never completely going under but helpless and simultaneously committed to resisting all help.

And there in another dimension to the forum’s general opposition to “IC” and it is that most people’s issues with him operate independently of him. He simply triggers them, just as (I suggest) you are triggered by him. In that sense “you” are trolls to him.

You dance to the tune he plays. But you have no tune of your own.

And if “nothing can come from that” It would be nice if you’d make propositions as to ways forward.

There is a vast issue of misconstruing the notion of “god” that operates externally, and the far truer, and far easier to realize ‘fact’ that god operates in and through human consciousness. Belinda in my view misconstrues this when she declares (with her typical certainty) that god is man’s imaginal creation. But all anyone need do is examine the sort of intellect she has to see that that declaration is an imaginal projection.

Iambiguous is stuck in a related problem. It is not unlike Gary’s: “Why is it that Nature is the way it is, if god created it?!? And why do I suffer so much in God’s Creation?!?” It is an all-too-human refusal to accept that we are exactly where we find ourselves; under a sky and aware in a world that one way or the other we have to work our way through.

In the 6th chapter of Book Seven, which I have now arranged as a series of 9 Illuminating Dialogues that I intend to market (at ridiculously high prices for people with wherewithal), the guiding figure intones from the mast of the sinking ship of Modernity (it might be from atop a McDonalds sign in the post-Apocalypse but I’ve not worked that out yet:

“Arise from the dead! for I am the life of the dead. Arise (respond) to my image”.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Iam is trapped in never ending iterations of feeding trolls. Nothing can come of that.

That’s rather superficial, to be honest. Iambiguous is very “trapped”, but thoroughly independently of IC, in an existential whirlpool: i.e. a theological problem he cannot solve. His situation and his issue is cultural, metaphysical and post-Christian.

Simply put, he is in a whirlpool spinning around and around, never completely going under but helpless and simultaneously committed to resisting all help.

And there in another dimension to the forum’s general opposition to “IC” and it is that most people’s issues with him operate independently of him. He simply triggers them, just as (I suggest) you are triggered by him. In that sense “you” are trolls to him.

You dance to the tune he plays. But you have no tune of your own.

And if “nothing can come from that” It would be nice if you’d make propositions as to ways forward.

There is a vast issue of misconstruing the notion of “god” that operates externally, and the far truer, and far easier to realize ‘fact’ that god operates in and through human consciousness. Belinda in my view misconstrues this when she declares (with her typical certainty) that god is man’s imaginal creation. But all anyone need do is examine the sort of intellect she has to see that that declaration is an imaginal projection.

Iambiguous is stuck in a related problem. It is not unlike Gary’s: “Why is it that Nature is the way it is, if god created it?!? And why do I suffer so much in God’s Creation?!?” It is an all-too-human refusal to accept that we are exactly where we find ourselves; under a sky and aware in a world that one way or the other we have to work our way through.

In the 6th chapter of Book Seven, which I have now arranged as a series of 9 Illuminating Dialogues that I intend to market (at ridiculously high prices for people with wherewithal), the guiding figure intones from the mast of the sinking ship of Modernity (it might be from atop a McDonalds sign in the post-Apocalypse but I’ve not worked that out yet:

“Arise from the dead! for I am the life of the dead. Arise (respond) to my image”.

Why bless your poor Thomist heart Alexis. But I don't understand your affair with IC. There again look at the chuckle brothers of Ulster, Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley. But they were Irish. What's your excuse?

The only proposition for going forward is ostracism.

My tune is clear, that of brute fact. But you can not, will not hear it. Your knowing without knowing jams the signal.

[seeds]

Mere mortals here on Earth are indeed severely burning children.  And in the case of the little girl you cited above, they are doing it with weaponry that America...

(my country, and a so-called "Christian" nation)

...has provided, and I am indeed outraged and sickened by it all.  How about you?

Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that an omniscient and omnipotent God knows of this and does nothing.

You didn't Click Rummy! But you did feed the troll. Let us know when there's a development. Or you change your approach to Seneca's.

So then, Martin, when someone points out the obvious as noted in the above quote by me, they are a "troll"?

I notice that your PN join date was "April Fools Day" of this year. Quite fitting!

Uh, oh,...was that a sample of me "trolling"?

According to Google's AI Overview...

An internet "troll" is someone who intentionally tries to provoke others online by posting inflammatory, offensive, or disruptive comments. They aim to elicit strong emotional reactions and disrupt conversations or online communities.

Hmm, by that definition, it would seem that a person (such as yourself) who calls other people "trolls," is, in fact, a troll himself.

Anyway, the bottom line is that based on the above definition of a troll, I think I'd rather be a troll than someone who is smugly oblivious of the fact that they are a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Dang it, there you've gone and done it!

Your trolling has elicited a strong emotional reaction from me.
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

Why bless your poor Thomist heart Alexis. But I don't understand your affair with IC.

Then you may likely not understand much about the Occident. About a whole range of Occidental categories.

You do not make at all clear what your own affiliations are. I get a sense of what you oppose though.

Largely, what “IC” is to me is a whole range of ideas.

If I follow my own tenets I must not get too hung up in The Picture and carefully sort through what is represented by that picture: what is intimated. It is not — it should not be — personal.

Thomist?

Satyāt ňasti paro dharma

“There are no rights superior to those of truth.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am only suggesting that there must be a bedrock and that the human endeavor is always about defining and defending “it”.

And here’s a fact: IC is far more and far more squarely situated in that endeavor.

You? You’re a drifter, aren’t you?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Why bless your poor Thomist heart Alexis. But I don't understand your affair with IC.

Then you may likely not understand much about the Occident. About a whole range of Occidental categories.

You do not make at all clear what your own affiliations are. I get a sense of what you oppose though.

Largely, what “IC” is to me is a whole range of ideas.

If I follow my own tenets I must not get too hung up in The Picture and carefully sort through what is represented by that picture: what is intimated. It is not — it should not be — personal.

Thomist?

Satyāt ňasti paro dharma

“There are no rights superior to those of truth.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am only suggesting that there must be a bedrock and that the human endeavor is always about defining and defending “it”.

And here’s a fact: IC is far more and far more squarely situated in that endeavor.

You? You’re a drifter, aren’t you?

What's to understand? I'm a free thinker, yes. You should try it.

[Belinda]

Why bless your poor Thomist heart Alexis. But I don't understand your affair with IC.

Then you may likely not understand much about the Occident. About a whole range of Occidental categories.

You do not make at all clear what your own affiliations are. I get a sense of what you oppose though.

Largely, what “IC” is to me is a whole range of ideas.

If I follow my own tenets I must not get too hung up in The Picture and carefully sort through what is represented by that picture: what is intimated. It is not — it should not be — personal.

Thomist?

Satyāt ňasti paro dharma

“There are no rights superior to those of truth.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am only suggesting that there must be a bedrock and that the human endeavor is always about defining and defending “it”.

And here’s a fact: IC is far more and far more squarely situated in that endeavor.

You? You’re a drifter, aren’t you?

What's to understand? I'm a free thinker, yes. You should try it.

But a free thinker is not someone who lacks a guiding star and a rudder. A free thinker is a principled nonconformist. There is little point in attending a business meeting and be unable to suggest a way ahead.

[Belinda]

Oh, I'm a simple, simple minded, simplistic, old simpleton, wee-wee end of the MENSA pool. I always go with consilience. I only know coherent, warranted, justified, true, beliefs. Science, and rationality beyond it. So we know that nature, existence, matter is infinite regardless of the A presentist minority and B eternalist majority theories of time, for example. A, me. Invincibly ignorantly so. Your understandings are doubtless way beyond me, like Lacanian analysis. That's OK. You can stoop, surely? Unless I am beneath contempt. If you have to explain, I can't know.

Unless you're whack, despite appearances so far.

Goo on (that's Leicester, that), try me.

Try you for what? Anything specific in mind? I wouldn't want to misconstrue! In spite of, or because of, your unimpaired clear-headed post, it appears it is I who must stoop, I who have rarely stooped or been stooped by anyone having now become a vagrant in my own domain, in short, dismally stooped. Simply put, I cannot surmount, even remotely, your perspicacious jambalaya of sibylline visions performing an act of Eternal Recurrence as ruled by the intersections of orthogonals creating the illusion of differences.

Aye, nowt changes do it? On average, from a distance, i.e. encompassing the multiverses or getting down to the undifferentiable, unqualifiable, ineffably unknowable dimensionless points of existence. The eternal (not -ist!) infinity of existence is homogenous at every level one way or another, the best it can do is like us. So, does strong uniformitarianism mandate the illusion of differences? Are there no objective measures of difference? The blue sky, the '30s brick, the hydrangeas, the sixth state of matter of my mind they're impinging upon with the need for a pee, yesterday, tomorrow, Ceti Alpha VI are indistinguishable in reality? Complexity isn't real? The homogeneity is complete across all unreal scales?

But eternity does not have parts. Eternity is sameness. The eternal and the relative are aspects of the same .

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Then you may likely not understand much about the Occident. About a whole range of Occidental categories.

You do not make at all clear what your own affiliations are. I get a sense of what you oppose though.

Largely, what “IC” is to me is a whole range of ideas.

If I follow my own tenets I must not get too hung up in The Picture and carefully sort through what is represented by that picture: what is intimated. It is not — it should not be — personal.

Thomist?



Don’t get me wrong. I am only suggesting that there must be a bedrock and that the human endeavor is always about defining and defending “it”.

And here’s a fact: IC is far more and far more squarely situated in that endeavor.

You? You’re a drifter, aren’t you?

What's to understand? I'm a free thinker, yes. You should try it.

But a free thinker is not someone who lacks a guiding star and a rudder. A free thinker is a principled nonconformist. There is little point in attending a business meeting and be unable to suggest a way ahead.

I couldn't be more grateful for my guiding star and rudder. And thank you for the acknowledgement. The way ahead is tangential to the meaningless iteration.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Try you for what? Anything specific in mind? I wouldn't want to misconstrue! In spite of, or because of, your unimpaired clear-headed post, it appears it is I who must stoop, I who have rarely stooped or been stooped by anyone having now become a vagrant in my own domain, in short, dismally stooped. Simply put, I cannot surmount, even remotely, your perspicacious jambalaya of sibylline visions performing an act of Eternal Recurrence as ruled by the intersections of orthogonals creating the illusion of differences.

Aye, nowt changes do it? On average, from a distance, i.e. encompassing the multiverses or getting down to the undifferentiable, unqualifiable, ineffably unknowable dimensionless points of existence. The eternal (not -ist!) infinity of existence is homogenous at every level one way or another, the best it can do is like us. So, does strong uniformitarianism mandate the illusion of differences? Are there no objective measures of difference? The blue sky, the '30s brick, the hydrangeas, the sixth state of matter of my mind they're impinging upon with the need for a pee, yesterday, tomorrow, Ceti Alpha VI are indistinguishable in reality? Complexity isn't real? The homogeneity is complete across all unreal scales?

But eternity does not have parts. Eternity is sameness

If you say so Belinda.

[Belinda]

What's to understand? I'm a free thinker, yes. You should try it.

But a free thinker is not someone who lacks a guiding star and a rudder. A free thinker is a principled nonconformist. There is little point in attending a business meeting and be unable to suggest a way ahead.

I couldn't be more grateful for my guiding star and rudder. The way ahead is tangential to the meaningless iteration.

You either take responsibility for what you mean, or you don't. Responsibility creates meaning from "the meaningless iteration". It doesn't matter if your or my meaning is tangential or not. What matters is your or my intention.

[Alexis Jacobi]

A ‘drifter’ is I think a real category. If one considers “Sixties radicalism” as a genuine sentiment and idea-based stance against frozen conventions, and a seeking after more human ways of being and acting, to be a “free thinker” makes sense.

But there really is a philosophical (and also a religious) underpinning to the motivating ideas.

A “drifter” would be someone a bit on the spectrum of postmodernism, I think. It could be described as a negation or avoidance of commitment.

And one thing, Martin — I may call you Martin mayn’t I? — is that IC cannot be said to be without commitments.

So you misunderstand why I value his stance and contributions.