Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

What if both of us are none the worse or none the better? Is that possible?

Well, as I said above, if you’re right, and if there’s no afterlife, then neither of us is ahead or behind. In fact, it doesn’t matter WHAT we believe. None of it will have any ultimate consequences, anyway. As the old saying goes, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die.” If that’s the end, there’s no better or worse.

But you frame it as though it's best to believe the Bible because, well, the Bible (like any number of other assumptions or speculations about the unknown) might be true.

Only to show deference to your position, not to imply my own. It’s only you who is saying you’re unsure.

I’m only showing you what makes sense. When you find yourself in a position in which there is not even a possible win for you, you might want to rethink that position.

[Dubious]

If men, god's creation, can commit the most disgusting and heinous crimes imaginable, as they've always done, and god does absolutely nothing, then what good is god, any god?

Let me ask you: what do you suppose a good God should do, in view of that?

Let's stick to that theme!

Do you mean that militaristic commanding god who would have no other gods before him - since obviously in those days there was competition among gods as to who would reign numero uno as the most obnoxious; the one who simply had to say "let there be" for whatever to exist; and most specifically, the one who forced Pharaoh to let his chosen people go - compared to nearly annihilating them almost three thousand years later - couldn't be bothered to find a way to oppose an attempt at complete extermination? Did he truly become that impotent, that abysmally silent during a Shoah event?

Indeed! God could do nothing, as you already implied merely by stating the question, just like the victims of the holocaust could do nothing to prevent it from happening. Even the Jews rightly pondered where was god in all this? I wonder how many of them became bona fide atheists conforming to tradition for no other purpose but to maintain a distinct Jewish society.

If there were a global war of the main nuclear powers - not an unlikely scenario - and Israel gets completely destroyed, themselves being a nuclear power and therefore a target, are you still going to ask what was god supposed to do to prevent it?

All of that godly interference in early Jewish history and then nothing! As for the goyim, the decrepit Gentile, he would in any case be thoroughly dispensible as non-chosen by the creator of all. Even Jesus would hardly object.

Here, we already have a piece of your answer, it seems: that a good God would intervene immediately…but to do exactly what?

You've heard the old saying, justice delayed is justice denied, but there is nothing - except in scripture - that provides any credibility that even delayed justice is imminent or predestined at some future point. Then there's the ultimate travesty and absurdity, both in collusion, that I have to believe in Jesus to be saved regardless of how I lived my life. This amounts to a dictator's edict worthy of no human and least of all a god, a divinity!

It couldn't be clearer that we have inflicted our own debased sense of justice and morals upon our created gods.

Has god, as such, become his own insult, or have we insulted god by this view?

So the thesis that a good God could postpone justice is unacceptable to you, but the thesis that Nature, which knows nothing at all of justice, would postpone it forever is more acceptable to you?

Since there exists no power beyond nature, it's not a matter of what's acceptable but inevitable in which any question of acceptance doesn't apply. This is contra to theism which only allows for what is acceptable to their belief systems no matter how disgusting, illogical, unnatural and irrational that may be.

In addition, it seems somewhat farcical that seldom or never has it been noticed that each testament in the bible contains a final ultimatum threatening an irrevocable and final destiny if any were infringed. The first one being in the OT on the foreordained consequences of eating the contaminated fruit of knowledge. That sure as hell changed everything, HELL being the operative word not only for humans but animals alike.

Since god is a human creation it would be well if humans occasionally re-edited their gods to behave themselves when they get out of line or become as demented and irrational as some of its supposed creation, themselves progenitors for the entire pantheon of gods..

A recursive god review for those who are in need of one has become indispensable. We've domesticated animals but haven't yet managed to properly domesticate god.

Well, we’ll have to be able to make the critique sensible, first. At the moment, it amounts to “the person who believes there’s no justice because there’s only Nature is mad at the God he doesn’t believe exists because he’s not getting any justice.” And that Gordian knot just has to be untied somehow.

Your utter simplicity of thought is amazing. There is no Gordian Knot except those which exist in nature... or perhaps it's best exemplified as a psychological deformity called theism.

Again the question presents itself; if nature and its perfect indifference is the presiding power, being no-longer an open question, what would be the purpose for any superintending extra-mundane deity?

The distinction made is simplicity itself: what is the difference between an absentee god and just letting nature take its course where life means nothing because there's always more on the way, constant birth causing death to have equal priority. No consideration for any organism under its domain is what makes evolution so savage, but god, GOD, is supposed to be all-loving and moral...and yet in practice and as observed, we can't find a single difference between the two.

[Immanuel Can]

If men, god's creation, can commit the most disgusting and heinous crimes imaginable, as they've always done, and god does absolutely nothing, then what good is god, any god?

Let me ask you: what do you suppose a good God should do, in view of that?

Let's stick to that theme!

Yes, let’s.

But do you have an answer? You say, “find a way.” Well, what, exactly would such a “way” look like? God could, for example, have shut down the world. Or He could have melted the faces of every Nazi. Or He could have turned all their weapons into harmless rubber. Or he could have endowed all Jews with superior strength, so they could wipe out their enemies… So there are many, many ways an infinite God could have prevented the Shoah. But some of them would entail things that could be worse than the Shoah itself, and others might have other consequences we might find unhelpful…but we won’t be able to assess that until we know what you’re advocating.

So again, what, exactly, do you expect that God should have done, if He is a good God?

Here, we already have a piece of your answer, it seems: that a good God would intervene immediately…but to do exactly what?

You've heard the old saying, justice delayed is justice denied,

Yes, but it’s obviously not true. After all, all justice is “delayed” for some period of time, whether it’s minutes, hours, days, weeks, years or even millennia. That doesn’t imply that justice is impossible, or that it never arrives. So we can dismiss that.

So the thesis that a good God could postpone justice is unacceptable to you, but the thesis that Nature, which knows nothing at all of justice, would postpone it forever is more acceptable to you?

Since there exists no power beyond nature, it's not a matter of what's acceptable but inevitable in which any question of acceptance doesn't apply.

Well, this is a most unfortunate implication for your complaint. What it means is that, being a Naturalist, you don’t even believe there is such a thing as “justice,” far less any realism in your expectation that it should arrive. In which case, you’d lose all right to complain: how can you, if you don’t believe justice is possible, be upset if it doesn’t happen? It should be nothing other than what you expect.

But I think you’re wrong about that, of course; and I think we are owed some explanation of what “justice” requires. I even think you have a justification to ask for it…but I can’t say that your Naturalism gives you any similar grace. It seems to require you to give up on your complaint, since it cannot ground for you any conception of justice at all.

Well, we’ll have to be able to make the critique sensible, first. At the moment, it amounts to “the person who believes there’s no justice because there’s only Nature is mad at the God he doesn’t believe exists because he’s not getting any justice.” And that Gordian knot just has to be untied somehow.

There is no Gordian Knot except those which exist in nature...

That’s my point: a person who’s a Naturalist has no way to complain about injustice, and make sense of what he’s asking. Nature knows nothing of justice, and Nature does not promise any, nor does it even provide grounds for somebody to conceive of justice.

The distinction made is simplicity itself: what is the difference between an absentee god and just letting nature take its course where life means nothing because there's always more on the way, constant birth causing death to have equal priority. No consideration for any organism under its domain is what makes evolution so savage, but god, GOD, is supposed to be all-loving and moral...and yet in practice and as observed, we can't find a single difference between the two.

And again, we come back to that question we should never have left, and which you said at the start of this message you wanted us to stick to: what, exactly, are you implying God “should have done,” so to speak, in the case of the Shoah?

We might even wonder why the Shoah should be the test case, given that it wasn’t the worst set of murders in history. Stalin killed 22 million, at least, and Mao killed 42 million that we know of, and probably more. So we should also ask, did you only have a problem with God not stopping Hitler, or are you equally concerned about Stalin and Mao? And then we should ask, how far does that go? Should a good God not also stop lesser massacres, like the killing fields of Cambodia or the death camps of North Korea…and what about the smaller murders, like the shootings in Chicago or Detroit today, or the stabbings in London…and what about the rapes in Rotherham, or the school shootings in Canada…so just how far should this complaint go?

Maybe you can actually answer in the next message. “Find some way” seems not enough information here.

[Dubious]

If men, god's creation, can commit the most disgusting and heinous crimes imaginable, as they've always done, and god does absolutely nothing, then what good is god, any god?

Let's stick to that theme!

Yes, let’s.

But do you have an answer? You say, “find a way.” Well, what, exactly would such a “way” look like?

If your god doesn't know or care, how would or could the likes of a mere mortal? Am I supposed to answer for him? He found a way during the Passover as mentioned. He is after all god, a presumed entity of limitless power. So what happened? Has he wandered off to some other universe in the meantime?

[Immanuel Can]

Let's stick to that theme!

Yes, let’s.

But do you have an answer? You say, “find a way.” Well, what, exactly would such a “way” look like?

If your god doesn't know or care, how would or could the likes of a mere mortal?

Well, if you don’t expect anything, then you can’t complain, can you? You couldn’t then even imagine what you perceived to be lacking from how things already are. So there would be no complaint.

But I’m giving your question more credit than you’re presently giving it yourself. I think you DO have some idea of what you feel to be lacking. For one thing, you say it should be a speedy response, one without “delay,” right? And you suggest it should be sufficient to…stop…prevent…I’m not sure…but to do something to incidents like the Shoah. So I think you do have a sort of half-formed idea of what you’re looking for, but I think we should make it fully-formed, should we not?

With that help (from your own earlier comments), then, can you complete the picture of what you’re expecting? What should God do about something like the Shoah?

It’s not really a difficult question, because it’s only a question about your own expectations. What do you expect, is the gist of it.

[Dubious]

Yes, let’s.

But do you have an answer? You say, “find a way.” Well, what, exactly would such a “way” look like?

If your god doesn't know or care, how would or could the likes of a mere mortal?

Well, if you don’t expect anything, then you can’t complain, can you?

I wasn't aware of me complaining! Why would I? I thought we were debating. I must have forgotten for a moment whom I'm debating with, or if any real debate is possible.

[Immanuel Can]

If your god doesn't know or care, how would or could the likes of a mere mortal?

Well, if you don’t expect anything, then you can’t complain, can you?

I wasn't aware of me complaining! Why would I? I thought we were debating. I must have forgotten for a moment whom I'm debating with, or if any real debate is possible.

Are you going to actually answer the question? Or are you now deciding you had no idea what you were really asking?

[Dubious]

Well, if you don’t expect anything, then you can’t complain, can you?

I wasn't aware of me complaining! Why would I? I thought we were debating. I must have forgotten for a moment whom I'm debating with, or if any real debate is possible.

Are you going to actually answer the question? Or are you now deciding you had no idea what you were really asking?

...since that's what you really want to believe, be my guest! I already expressed myself in detail. No more!

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Ah, but Dubious, God tried everything possible to save His Chosen People, He loved them, her, so, metaphorically in EVERY way, but nothing worked. So He had to become the bridegroom sparrow that led them in to the warm barn in the middle of winter. And the new chosen of the bride to be, follow. It's all TERRIBLY Freudian isn't it? What a lovely love story! Looks like repressed homosexuality to me. As Larry David said.

[Belinda]

Well, as I said above, if you’re right, and if there’s no afterlife, then neither of us is ahead or behind. In fact, it doesn’t matter WHAT we believe. None of it will have any ultimate consequences, anyway. As the old saying goes, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die.” If that’s the end, there’s no better or worse.

Not promise of reward, and not fear of punishment cause healthy men to be good. Healthy men are good for the sake of being good.

If you imagine that’s what it’s all about, then yeah, you’re right: it wouldn’t achieve that purpose. But then, it isn’t about “making men good.” It’s about what fulfills the human telos and affords harmonious relationship with the Ultimate Good.

The finality of death does not mean a heavenly judge. The finality of death means a life story can be told.

To whom? In another few years, the very existence of most people will have been forgotten…and according to the Naturalistic story, there’s nobody capable of preserving even the memory of the dead, let alone any of their essence. And, as Robert Browning so wisely pointed out, “living on in the memory of others” isn’t actually living at all. It’s feeding the worms with one’s flesh.

I agree that harmonious relationship with the ultimate good is the same as the good life. Ultimate good is the same as reason and necessity.

I agree "as Robert Browning so wisely pointed out, “living on in the memory of others” isn’t actually living at all. It’s feeding the worms with one’s flesh."
Death is good as it is the finality without which no life would have meaning.Meaning does not have to be meaning for another. Meaning correlates perfectly with reason.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

If men, god's creation, can commit the most disgusting and heinous crimes imaginable, as they've always done, and god does absolutely nothing, then what good is god, any god?

Let me ask you: what do you suppose a good God should do, in view of that?

Let's stick to that theme!

Do you mean that militaristic commanding god who would have no other gods before him - since obviously in those days there was competition among gods as to who would reign numero uno as the most obnoxious; the one who simply had to say "let there be" for whatever to exist; and most specifically, the one who forced Pharaoh to let his chosen people go - compared to nearly annihilating them almost three thousand years later - couldn't be bothered to find a way to oppose an attempt at complete extermination? Did he truly become that impotent, that abysmally silent during a Shoah event?

Indeed! God could do nothing, as you already implied merely by stating the question, just like the victims of the holocaust could do nothing to prevent it from happening. Even the Jews rightly pondered where was god in all this? I wonder how many of them became bona fide atheists conforming to tradition for no other purpose but to maintain a distinct Jewish society.

If there were a global war of the main nuclear powers - not an unlikely scenario - and Israel gets completely destroyed, themselves being a nuclear power and therefore a target, are you still going to ask what was god supposed to do to prevent it?

All of that godly interference in early Jewish history and then nothing! As for the goyim, the decrepit Gentile, he would in any case be thoroughly dispensible as non-chosen by the creator of all. Even Jesus would hardly object.

Here, we already have a piece of your answer, it seems: that a good God would intervene immediately…but to do exactly what?

You've heard the old saying, justice delayed is justice denied, but there is nothing - except in scripture - that provides any credibility that even delayed justice is imminent or predestined at some future point. Then there's the ultimate travesty and absurdity, both in collusion, that I have to believe in Jesus to be saved regardless of how I lived my life. This amounts to a dictator's edict worthy of no human and least of all a god, a divinity!

It couldn't be clearer that we have inflicted our own debased sense of justice and morals upon our created gods.

Has god, as such, become his own insult, or have we insulted god by this view?

So the thesis that a good God could postpone justice is unacceptable to you, but the thesis that Nature, which knows nothing at all of justice, would postpone it forever is more acceptable to you?

Since there exists no power beyond nature, it's not a matter of what's acceptable but inevitable in which any question of acceptance doesn't apply. This is contra to theism which only allows for what is acceptable to their belief systems no matter how disgusting, illogical, unnatural and irrational that may be.

In addition, it seems somewhat farcical that seldom or never has it been noticed that each testament in the bible contains a final ultimatum threatening an irrevocable and final destiny if any were infringed. The first one being in the OT on the foreordained consequences of eating the contaminated fruit of knowledge. That sure as hell changed everything, HELL being the operative word not only for humans but animals alike.

Since god is a human creation it would be well if humans occasionally re-edited their gods to behave themselves when they get out of line or become as demented and irrational as some of its supposed creation, themselves progenitors for the entire pantheon of gods..

A recursive god review for those who are in need of one has become indispensable. We've domesticated animals but haven't yet managed to properly domesticate god.

Well, we’ll have to be able to make the critique sensible, first. At the moment, it amounts to “the person who believes there’s no justice because there’s only Nature is mad at the God he doesn’t believe exists because he’s not getting any justice.” And that Gordian knot just has to be untied somehow.

Your utter simplicity of thought is amazing. There is no Gordian Knot except those which exist in nature... or perhaps it's best exemplified as a psychological deformity called theism.

Again the question presents itself; if nature and its perfect indifference is the presiding power, being no-longer an open question, what would be the purpose for any superintending extra-mundane deity?

The distinction made is simplicity itself: what is the difference between an absentee god and just letting nature take its course where life means nothing because there's always more on the way, constant birth causing death to have equal priority. No consideration for any organism under its domain is what makes evolution so savage, but god, GOD, is supposed to be all-loving and moral...and yet in practice and as observed, we can't find a single difference between the two.

And the very, very least a Loving God could do, or even a psycho God, is leave a signature on His work for all to see, from when we became bipedal.

[Gary Childress]

Well, as I said above, if you’re right, and if there’s no afterlife, then neither of us is ahead or behind. In fact, it doesn’t matter WHAT we believe. None of it will have any ultimate consequences, anyway. As the old saying goes, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die.” If that’s the end, there’s no better or worse.

But you frame it as though it's best to believe the Bible because, well, the Bible (like any number of other assumptions or speculations about the unknown) might be true.

Only to show deference to your position, not to imply my own. It’s only you who is saying you’re unsure.

I’m only showing you what makes sense. When you find yourself in a position in which there is not even a possible win for you, you might want to rethink that position.

So if someone tells us that their God's Hell is twice as bad as Yahweh's and that their God requires human sacrifices and that not observing their God's wishes will result in being condemned to that Hell, should I observe that God "just in case", you know, as a precaution to avoid that God's greater punishment?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Are you going to actually answer the question? Or are you now deciding you had no idea what you were really asking?

A note in passing: this is a standard manoeuvre for our dear IC: to select a question and then imperiously demand that it be answered.

To simplify: Dubious [et al] does not believe in the existence of the biblical god Yahweh. And obviously all such “gods” of other peoples and cultures are simply put symbolic structures that have no actual relationship with nature (our science-understood nature).

Any comment or question about the Christian god, is not really a genuine question since a mythic god does not exist. It is a statement that points out the illogic in the entire concept.

The Christian concept of a world-god with Yahweh’s characteristics is a collapsed house-of-belief that still stands but has not been torn down. And theologians of Immanuel Can’s sort are like unto ghosts that inhabit it.

You might ask: Well then, Master Jacobi, on what basis do you (as you seem to) defend Christian belief and believers? Answer: through the Metaphysical Manoeuvre.

Simply put (it seems) all Medieval belief systems are in a state of collapse. They are constructs that have been undermined and superseded by vast sets of new information. They turn metaphysical and supernatural cosmological pictures on their heads. The more that one sees the world through lenses of realism, the more difficult it becomes to uphold the former “containers” of truths (meanings and values) upon which the Occidental Self has been constructed. The more that one understands our origins, the better one sees how intertwined our perception is with former supernaturalistic pictures.

When one undermines Christian belief (as is happening in the Occident) one actually undermines a whole set of meanings and values that are intimately intertwined with the metaphysical imposition (of which Christianity is a container, indeed an ‘enforcer’)

Curiously, it is people like IC who become in this sense the “angry god” that must attempt to enact retribution on those who cannot believe in the former Theological House. Hence they “haunt” or present and, like IC, threaten terrible outcomes.

But factually there really are whole sets of negative outcomes when the Existential House of Christian value and view is undermined: men lose their connectedness to meaning and value certainly, but also to one another. The “breakdowns” are extraordinarily consequential.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Only to show deference to your position, not to imply my own. It’s only you who is saying you’re unsure.

I’m only showing you what makes sense. When you find yourself in a position in which there is not even a possible win for you, you might want to rethink that position.

It is impossible that you not “imply” what it is that you believe. Any attempt at neutrality or skepticism on your part would be extremely dishonest. You cannot function as a philosophical arbiter in any of these questions. You can only function as a believer who (in his bizarre way) seeks converts.

The conversion, if it could be brought about, is attempted by ratcheting up the tension and anxiety men instinctively and intuitively feel. Effectively, the core of your apologetics involves wielding one primary tool: psychological manipulation of a naturally occurring anxiety all men feel or can be made to feel.

It is true that for Gary specifically no “win” is felt to be possible. He has revealed for years the issue he deals with. Is “the Christian cure” (as it was once called) a viable means to cure mental illness? I would not know how even to think about that. It is not my domain. But what of general existential angst?

In that realm spiritual therapeutics could well help. But that really involves a whole other domain: man’s inner world, the structures of his self.

This question is interesting:

When you find yourself in a position in which there is not even a possible win for you, you might want to rethink that position

We who are in such positions — i.e. post-Christians as most of us are — do indeed have problems to solve. We are thrust back upon ourselves and into our selves in ways never before explored (as far as I know and speaking historically).

In truth, modernity and advances in science and medicine have for the first time made living life possible. No exaggeration. Even 100 years ago it was all much harder physically. No one takes this “truth” into consideration. For the first time inn history masses of men can live reasonably secure and healthy lives. Life in this sense only recently began.

The escape-valve to a “better world” free of terrestrial pain is less needed — psychologically. And in fact most Christian apologetics involve selling a religious modality that enables people to live more fully.

[Atla]

Open Letter To Atla:

I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world, wee-minded Atla, may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. Think on it: God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals on Philosophy Now from which one bickering, likely deranged participant may withdraw at will.

But it feels like a real fight — as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears.

[NB: The Course® is always available to you!]

For such, Little One, a half-wild half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our nature is this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and our unwillingnesses, our faiths and our fears. As through the cracks and crannies of caverns those waters exude from the earth's bosom which then form the fountain-heads of springs, so in these crepuscular depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise.

Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments — the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith — sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth.

You understand none of this, naturally, and yet like a crane calling from the shade for its lost wee ones, I too make appeal to the metaphysical height in your stubborn rockness …

Deliver us from our sorrow, o radiant one!

No just kidding, as I already told you multiple times, I already grappled with these issues when I was a child and an adolescent. Unlike you, I was born straight into deep "metaphysical" chaos or rather hell. Your brain is mush, so this doesn't register. Then eventually I finished the grappling, drew my conclusions, cleared the illusions from my mind which process was a long crazy ride too, moved on in my investigations. My conclusions were always validated since then.

Most people go either the religious or the scientific way. You're the anomaly, that I have trouble explaining, looks like until you were like 50 or something, you haven't heard from religion nor from science. I don't know what kind of rock you've been living under, that must have been an amazing rock, it's baffling. It took a psychotic break (where you seem to have lost some of your cognitive abilities, rational self-examination for example, almighty Apollo), and mentoring from IC of all people, to get you to start wondering. Well maybe the psychosis caused long-term memory loss, maybe you forgot most of what you knew about life, in which case I'm sorry.

Well here you are, the DK who thinks that I never started wondering and I don't even know what wondering even is.

We all want our lives, this world to have a greater meaning, we all want it to absolutely matter, you dumb narcissistic loveless schizo. We all want it to be real. But stop whining about atheists, when we (those with a few braincells) rule out God and your imagined/hallucinated metaphysical realm, when searching for an ultimate purpose, unless some proof is presented. I'm for example over 95% confident that what you are talking about are mostly false psychotic-religious experiences, you mistake them for real stuff.