Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

The entire world is effectively secularist. As indeed you are.

Um…are you really going to make statements that have NO basis whatsoever in reality, and expect people not to notice?

Oh, it has a “basis in reality” but you lack the understanding to grasp the point. The statement made is a bit too broad nevertheless the sense of it is intelligible. People (broadly) live in worlds disconnected from religious undergirding. The practice of religion is substantially disconnected from the life going on around them. Their religion is a sort of refuge, a shared rehearsal, an ‘iconoclasm’ of the intensity and ubiquity of modern trends.

And I do very much understand you as essentially secularist. Your Christian commitment, if I can call it that, seems both shallow and hollow. I realize you have dominated a certain amount of academico-theological lingo, but there is absolutely no sense of warm, human conviction in you.

The reason I point this out, mente de pollo, is not to attack you, but because I think that you actually have very little of the Christian spirit. My theory is that it runs away from ‘people like you’ (dishonest, liar, obtuse) and finds other vessels to inhabit.

Lots of wear and tear to your ego you get, eh? But as you say the instrument has not yet been built that could register how little you care for my opinion of you, right?

So no harm, no foul .

[Immanuel Can]

Sure, you do. You just choose not to take it, that’s all.

Unfortunately…

Wow. That’s one empty, misguided, narcissistic rant!

I’ve been talking about Secularism, the ideology. If you don’t think that’s you, then why are you talking? It has nothing to do with you, then.

Sheesh. Talk about a guy who needs to get over himself. Wow.

[Alexis Jacobi]

One ‘wow’ is sufficient.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I’ve been talking about Secularism, the ideology. If you don’t think that’s you, then why are you talking?

Everything that is talked about in this thread is highly relevant to my researches. Concretizing thought by writing is a valuable activity.

Your division (secular/religious) is far too binary.

The term is actually a stupid one.

[Immanuel Can]

I’ve been talking about Secularism, the ideology. If you don’t think that’s you, then why are you talking?

Everything that is talked about in this thread is highly relevant to my researches.

Your “researches”? . Wow. Delusions of academic significance, too.

Wow. You’re really…special.

[Alexis Jacobi]

One ‘wow’ is sufficient.

You’re really…special.

Really really special.

Thank you.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

No prawn cocktails now! But rape and pillage, killing babies, that's OK, Except on Saturday! That's right out.

And Jesus, of course, implicitly owned this. And IC bows to it. I made it work by inventing God the Pragmatist. Insane isn't it. Utterly, utterly, normally, insanely human. Insanely human normal. Human insanely normal. Evolution has side effects. Unintended consequences. By products. Spandrels.

What's the basis or morality again IC?

[Belinda]

Sure, you do. You just choose not to take it, that’s all.
But it’s going to have to be arbitrarily, by your own admission, and thus power is all you’ve got to back it. No reasons. No objective truths. Nothing.

This is why Secularism cannot build anything positive, but can only be negative. A Secularist can tell you what he thinks you are NOT allowed to believe, but can’t tell you even one thing about how to built a morality that can ground a polity, or a justice system, or interpersonal relations, or even one’s own moral knowledge.

And this is why you never answer my question about what moral precept Secularism can require of us. Nor can any other Secularist, it seems. And that silence is a deafening roar.


Um…are you really going to make statements that have NO basis whatsoever in reality, and expect people not to notice?

Do you think it possible to 'believe in God' without believing all the myths in The Bible? I invite a nuanced reply.

To get a nuanced reply, you’ll have to ask a nuanced question, one in which the “myths” in question were defined. But Theism is a very broad category, of which Biblical Christianity is one variant: so the obvious answer is, yes, one can believe in some kind of god without it being the Biblical description of God. You could believe in Moloch, or Baal, or Zeus, or Odin, or Ahura Mazda, or Allah, or any other of many, many gods.

But is this just an effort to get away from the Secular dilemma? Is it just a distractor? Or does it have some relevance to the present debate?

I hoped my little question could lead you out into a wider view of God, that's all.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And Jesus, of course, implicitly owned this. And IC bows to it. I made it work by inventing God the Pragmatist. Insane isn't it. Utterly, utterly, normally, insanely human. Insanely human normal. Human insanely normal. Evolution has side effects. Unintended consequences. By products. Spandrels.

It seems to me that you are failing to take into account that in the language of symbols and events (the Incarnation), Christ presents something that must always transcend anything thought or said about both God and the figure of Jesus. The idea behind the incarnation of God stands for the possibility of forgiveness and new life in all possible senses. “Thus Christ is also the Christian name for the fullness of life and the world, for the total expansion of consciousness or experience”. (TJJ Altizer).

The general atheistic critique and attack on Christianity is a very complex set of impulses. But at the very least and in one area the “Christ spirit” does allow man to reach for something very much beyond all dogma-sets and conventions. The Gospels themselves paint a picture of a god-man who shatters conventions and initiates radical change.

It would be blasphemous to a committed Christian ideologue to say that Christ as Logos (concept) transcends the Jesus Christ of history (and of Church), but it cannot be denied.

It is true that IC presents himself as a target for those intolerant of hypocrisy and a certain “deafness”, but IC is not “the Spirit of Christ” as a spiritual potential. In fact whatever that “spirit” is, is only known to believers on an inner plane. And if it has effects it is only there.

I do realize that musings like this are incompatible to a forum dedicated to “philosophical dialogue” yet I think what I say is true.

I do not wish to disrupt anyone’s joy and pleasure piling on the anti-Christian hate, but there really is an “upper end” among Christian believers though the bottom end draws a lot of fire.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you think it possible to 'believe in God' without believing all the myths in The Bible? I invite a nuanced reply.

To get a nuanced reply, you’ll have to ask a nuanced question, one in which the “myths” in question were defined. But Theism is a very broad category, of which Biblical Christianity is one variant: so the obvious answer is, yes, one can believe in some kind of god without it being the Biblical description of God. You could believe in Moloch, or Baal, or Zeus, or Odin, or Ahura Mazda, or Allah, or any other of many, many gods.

But is this just an effort to get away from the Secular dilemma? Is it just a distractor? Or does it have some relevance to the present debate?

I hoped my little question could lead you out into a wider view of God, that's all.

“Wider”? Well “width” is not a virtuous property of anything. God is who God is. He’s as “wide” as that, and to go beyond that in “width” is to create a false idea of God. So what is there that is disciplining your judgment to the correct “width”? You seem to say it’s not the Bible, so what is the source of information from which you’re gleaning the sense of your proper “width” of God?

[seeds]

I wrote reply to yours above ,but it has disappeared, So I will reply again.

My reply concerns panentheism.
Spinoza explained existence as two aspects of the same. We can view existence from the point of view of eternity or from the point of view of this temporal, relative and fractured life.
Eternity encases ordinary fractured experience . A metaphor that you may like is of a river(Eternity) and each leaf or speck of floating debris on the river 's surface is a life event among infinitely many separate events. One can view the river as a whole , or one can view the river as tiny parts of a whole system.

That's a lovely metaphor, Belinda.

A long time ago, you and I got into a tussle over the meaning of the word "eternity."

To which I say - that just as the word "bark" has more than one meaning, such as the outer covering of a tree trunk, or the annoying sounds that dogs make,...

...likewise, so does the word "eternity" have more than one meaning, in that it can mean whatever it is you are trying to convey in that river metaphor... or ...it can mean a vision of infinite time,...

...neither of which have anything whatsoever to do with "panentheism," of which you said was what your reply is concerned with.

Perhaps you address the issue of panentheism in this next part...

Spinoza I paraphrase: Natura Naturans is Nature as a whole system ,and Natura Naturata are all the separate things or events of Nature.This is easy to transpose into God-language: God is a whole system, and all the separate events and things of the world are God viewed , not as a whole , but as a multitude

Nope, nothing about panentheism in that part either -- just Spinozan "pantheism."

I did read the long link that you kindly provided. I am sympathetic to anecdotal evidence, and have no doubt you experienced what you said you did.( You must know you are not the only one to have a similar experience.} However your interpretation of the experience was biased towards a particular culture of beliefs notably Biblical imagery, and Biblical lexicon.

And your interpretation of reality is biased towards Spinozan pantheism.

I guess it all boils down to the issue of which one makes more sense.

Is it "pantheism"? - which cannot avoid the fact that the word "nature"...

(of which pantheism relies so heavily on as being the guiding/creative force behind the unfathomable order of the universe)

...is nothing more than the word "chance" dressed up in a mother's apron.

...Or...

...is it "panentheism"? - which suggests that something conscious and intelligent is responsible for the order.

I had a long discussion with one of ChatGPT's cousins (AI Copilot) regarding Spinoza's philosophy, along with hashing out the difference between pantheism and panentheism.

Would you like to see that discussion?

I can copy and paste it here in this thread.

I think you might learn something from it.

As for the value of your experience together with your interpretation, I can't see that it's practically any better or any worse than any other religious or spiritual system. Can you spell that out for me please?

If you cannot see that my interpretation of my alleged encounter with God has clarified how utterly "natural," and "organic," and "maternal" our relationship to God truly is, then you just don't understand my interpretation.

Again, my theory could be wrong.

However, if it's anywhere near being right, then it supersedes all prior religious notions of our situation and speaks of an eternal (as in "forever") destiny for all humans that is wonderful beyond our wildest dreams.

And the kicker is that it's a "done deal" and is freely given to every human ever awakened into existence, regardless of whatever it is we did (bad or good) or "believed" while on earth...

...(and yes, that means that not even the likes of ol' Adolf, or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or G. W. Bush, or Trump, etc., etc., will be excluded from the beautiful destiny that awaits all humans).

Do you still see no difference between what I am espousing and that of what the established religions espouse?

Furthermore, unless I missed it somewhere, the thing that sets my theory apart from all other religious/spiritual theories is that in my theory, all you have to do is look at your own mind and you will be able to see an exact representation of what God is.

Your mind is, again, a life-imbued "spatial arena" that is an extended part of the compositional makeup of a living, incorporeal, self-aware "agent" (or "I Am-ness") who can willfully create absolutely anything imaginable out of the (informationally-based, holographic-like) fabric of its very own inner being.

And that is precisely what God is alleged to be.

God is alleged to be an "agent" of creation...

(indeed, an "I Am-ness" just like our "I Am-ness")

...who can "will" the (informationally-based, holographic-like) fabric of her very own inner being (the universe) into anything imaginable,...

...with the universe representing the zenith (or ultimate extent) to which a singular, incorporeal (mind-based) "I Am-ness" (soul) can evolve into, if it is in possession of eternal life.

The logic and seeming truth of what I am suggesting is almost too obvious, but I also suggest that the "attenuated" level of consciousness that I mention in the next section (below) is preventing you from seeing it.

I can understand the value to you personally of the psychedelic experience. It obviously did you psychological good.

More importantly, what the "psychedelic experience" did for me is free my mind...

(free my "I Am-ness")

...from what seems to be a purposely designed ceiling or "attenuation" of our awareness that prevents the general level of human consciousness from rising above what is necessary for maintaining the earth-bound "system" by which the Creator of this universe conceives and gives birth to her own offspring.

In other words, there are babies (new souls) to be made, nurtured, and raised, so that the new souls can carry on the process of creating more new souls, while the older souls are "retired" from the system via death,...

...which, of course, is not death at all, but a "second" birth into their true and eternal form (again, the same form as God).

All of which requires a level of consciousness (driven by "software-like" genetics) that not only causes humans to literally "yearn" to give birth to those new babies, but a level of consciousness that can tolerate (accept) all of the hassles that accompany the long drawn-out ordeal of raising children into adulthood.

And the point is that if everyone drops acid (or something similar) at an early age and is "jolted" out of the standard (normal/attenuated) level of consciousness, the "system" might collapse.

Indeed (and not that this proves anything), but I, for one, had absolutely no desire to father and raise any children.
_______

[Martin Peter Clarke]

And Jesus, of course, implicitly owned this. And IC bows to it. I made it work by inventing God the Pragmatist. Insane isn't it. Utterly, utterly, normally, insanely human. Insanely human normal. Human insanely normal. Evolution has side effects. Unintended consequences. By products. Spandrels.

It seems to me that you are failing to take into account that in the language of symbols and events (the Incarnation), Christ presents something that must always transcend anything thought or said about both God and the figure of Jesus. The idea behind the incarnation of God stands for the possibility of forgiveness and new life in all possible senses. “Thus Christ is also the Christian name for the fullness of life and the world, for the total expansion of consciousness or experience”. (TJJ Altizer).

The general atheistic critique and attack on Christianity is a very complex set of impulses. But at the very least and in one area the “Christ spirit” does allow man to reach for something very much beyond all dogma-sets and conventions. The Gospels themselves paint a picture of a god-man who shatters conventions and initiates radical change.

It would be blasphemous to a committed Christian ideologue to say that Christ as Logos (concept) transcends the Jesus Christ of history (and of Church), but it cannot be denied.

It is true that IC presents himself as a target for those intolerant of hypocrisy and a certain “deafness”, but IC is not “the Spirit of Christ” as a spiritual potential. In fact whatever that “spirit” is, is only known to believers on an inner plane. And if it has effects it is only there.

I do realize that musings like this are incompatible to a forum dedicated to “philosophical dialogue” yet I think what I say is true.

I do not wish to disrupt anyone’s joy and pleasure piling on the anti-Christian hate, but there really is an “upper end” among Christian believers though the bottom end draws a lot of fire.

I too can echo 'It seems to me that you are failing to take into account that in the language of symbols and events...'. down the rabbit warren. Furthermore I've already done what you fail to realise and it doesn't work. I've already tried to make the hypostatic union work transcendentally beyond mere orthodoxy, and it doesn't work. How can you possibly fail to understand that? To posit it? In your arrogant ignorant grandiose presumption? You failed. And you will continue to. You can't not. There is nothing I'm not getting. Nothing you know that I don't. Or so it seems to me. Show me. Show me what God cannot, will not. And therefore is not. You cannot. As your final aristocratic sneer shows.

The "upper end" is continuous from the bottom. In the same gutter. Without their excuse. But united in un-Christian absence of humility.

[Belinda]

To get a nuanced reply, you’ll have to ask a nuanced question, one in which the “myths” in question were defined. But Theism is a very broad category, of which Biblical Christianity is one variant: so the obvious answer is, yes, one can believe in some kind of god without it being the Biblical description of God. You could believe in Moloch, or Baal, or Zeus, or Odin, or Ahura Mazda, or Allah, or any other of many, many gods.

But is this just an effort to get away from the Secular dilemma? Is it just a distractor? Or does it have some relevance to the present debate?

I hoped my little question could lead you out into a wider view of God, that's all.

“Wider”? Well “width” is not a virtuous property of anything. God is who God is. He’s as “wide” as that, and to go beyond that in “width” is to create a false idea of God. So what is there that is disciplining your judgment to the correct “width”? You seem to say it’s not the Bible, so what is the source of information from which you’re gleaning the sense of your proper “width” of God?

Perhaps 'wider' is not the best choice of words.
'Information' concerning God is got from where I should inform myself about anything , that is from reasoned sources such as anthropology , archaeology, and academic history. God is an idea not a person or a thing that can be described.

I don't know why you do it, but you read The Bible like how a child would read a book. Your heuristic belongs in the Age of Faith, the Middle Ages in Europe.

[Belinda]

I wrote reply to yours above ,but it has disappeared, So I will reply again.

My reply concerns panentheism.
Spinoza explained existence as two aspects of the same. We can view existence from the point of view of eternity or from the point of view of this temporal, relative and fractured life.
Eternity encases ordinary fractured experience . A metaphor that you may like is of a river(Eternity) and each leaf or speck of floating debris on the river 's surface is a life event among infinitely many separate events. One can view the river as a whole , or one can view the river as tiny parts of a whole system.

That's a lovely metaphor, Belinda.

A long time ago, you and I got into a tussle over the meaning of the word "eternity."

To which I say - that just as the word "bark" has more than one meaning, such as the outer covering of a tree trunk, or the annoying sounds that dogs make,...

...likewise, so does the word "eternity" have more than one meaning, in that it can mean whatever it is you are trying to convey in that river metaphor... or ...it can mean a vision of infinite time,...

...neither of which have anything whatsoever to do with "panentheism," of which you said was what your reply is concerned with.

Perhaps you address the issue of panentheism in this next part...

Spinoza I paraphrase: Natura Naturans is Nature as a whole system ,and Natura Naturata are all the separate things or events of Nature.This is easy to transpose into God-language: God is a whole system, and all the separate events and things of the world are God viewed , not as a whole , but as a multitude

Nope, nothing about panentheism in that part either -- just Spinozan "pantheism."

I did read the long link that you kindly provided. I am sympathetic to anecdotal evidence, and have no doubt you experienced what you said you did.( You must know you are not the only one to have a similar experience.} However your interpretation of the experience was biased towards a particular culture of beliefs notably Biblical imagery, and Biblical lexicon.

And your interpretation of reality is biased towards Spinozan pantheism.

I guess it all boils down to the issue of which one makes more sense.

Is it "pantheism"? - which cannot avoid the fact that the word "nature"...

(of which pantheism relies so heavily on as being the guiding/creative force behind the unfathomable order of the universe)

...is nothing more than the word "chance" dressed up in a mother's apron.

...Or...

...is it "panentheism"? - which suggests that something conscious and intelligent is responsible for the order.

I had a long discussion with one of ChatGPT's cousins (AI Copilot) regarding Spinoza's philosophy, along with hashing out the difference between pantheism and panentheism.

Would you like to see that discussion?

I can copy and paste it here in this thread.

I think you might learn something from it.

As for the value of your experience together with your interpretation, I can't see that it's practically any better or any worse than any other religious or spiritual system. Can you spell that out for me please?

If you cannot see that my interpretation of my alleged encounter with God has clarified how utterly "natural," and "organic," and "maternal" our relationship to God truly is, then you just don't understand my interpretation.

Again, my theory could be wrong.

However, if it's anywhere near being right, then it supersedes all prior religious notions of our situation and speaks of an eternal (as in "forever") destiny for all humans that is wonderful beyond our wildest dreams.

And the kicker is that it's a "done deal" and is freely given to every human ever awakened into existence, regardless of whatever it is we did (bad or good) or "believed" while on earth...

...(and yes, that means that not even the likes of ol' Adolf, or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or G. W. Bush, or Trump, etc., etc., will be excluded from the beautiful destiny that awaits all humans).

Do you still see no difference between what I am espousing and that of what the established religions espouse?

Furthermore, unless I missed it somewhere, the thing that sets my theory apart from all other religious/spiritual theories is that in my theory, all you have to do is look at your own mind and you will be able to see an exact representation of what God is.

Your mind is, again, a life-imbued "spatial arena" that is an extended part of the compositional makeup of a living, incorporeal, self-aware "agent" (or "I Am-ness") who can willfully create absolutely anything imaginable out of the (informationally-based, holographic-like) fabric of its very own inner being.

And that is precisely what God is alleged to be.

God is alleged to be an "agent" of creation...

(indeed, an "I Am-ness" just like our "I Am-ness")

...who can "will" the (informationally-based, holographic-like) fabric of her very own inner being (the universe) into anything imaginable,...

...with the universe representing the zenith (or ultimate extent) to which a singular, incorporeal (mind-based) "I Am-ness" (soul) can evolve into, if it is in possession of eternal life.

The logic and seeming truth of what I am suggesting is almost too obvious, but I also suggest that the "attenuated" level of consciousness that I mention in the next section (below) is preventing you from seeing it.

I can understand the value to you personally of the psychedelic experience. It obviously did you psychological good.

More importantly, what the "psychedelic experience" did for me is free my mind...

(free my "I Am-ness")

...from what seems to be a purposely designed ceiling or "attenuation" of our awareness that prevents the general level of human consciousness from rising above what is necessary for maintaining the earth-bound "system" by which the Creator of this universe conceives and gives birth to her own offspring.

In other words, there are babies (new souls) to be made, nurtured, and raised, so that the new souls can carry on the process of creating more new souls, while the older souls are "retired" from the system via death,...

...which, of course, is not death at all, but a "second" birth into their true and eternal form (again, the same form as God).

All of which requires a level of consciousness (driven by "software-like" genetics) that not only causes humans to literally "yearn" to give birth to those new babies, but a level of consciousness that can tolerate (accept) all of the hassles that accompany the long drawn-out ordeal of raising children into adulthood.

And the point is that if everyone drops acid (or something similar) at an early age and is "jolted" out of the standard (normal/attenuated) level of consciousness, the "system" might collapse.

Indeed (and not that this proves anything), but I, for one, had absolutely no desire to father and raise any children.
_______

My philosophical musings stem from my undergraduate education which was standard and history -framed as were all the arts I read at university.
The lexicon I learned is not the same as what you have learned e,g, the word 'eternal' which has explicit meaning for someone with my training, but not for you for whom 'eternal' means the same as 'forever' .

[Seeds wrote: quote]Furthermore, unless I missed it somewhere, the thing that sets my theory apart from all other religious/spiritual theories is that in my theory, all you have to do is look at your own mind and you will be able to see an exact representation of what God is.[/quote]

Thanks for your explanation. I cannot agree that my own mind can objectively represent what God is. When I make a claim about God I make a claim about my own point of view, the state of my own mind, not an absolute claim about God's existence. My intention is to present and endorse an idea not to make a claim about absolute truth.

I know that psychedelic experience like you had changes one's life. However your interpretation of the psychedelic experience is not scientific and objective but is cultural and subjective. Here again your training is so different from mine I doubt if we can ever agree.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I've already tried to make the hypostatic union work transcendentally beyond mere orthodoxy, and it doesn't work. How can you possibly fail to understand that? To posit it? In your arrogant ignorant grandiose presumption? You failed. And you will continue to. You can't not. There is nothing I'm not getting. Nothing you know that I don't. Or so it seems to me. Show me. Show me what God cannot, will not. And therefore is not. You cannot. As your final aristocratic sneer shows.

None of this has much to do with what I pointed out. But try to understand this: I participate here for my own benefit and to concretize my own gains. I am here for myself. It is I think the most sensible way to proceed here. It is not that I do not think about what others say, no, I ready carefully what others say. But when I make a statement (such as the one I made to you recently) it is a statement about my own dawning conclusions.

People here want to “destroy” Christianity (excepting Belinda and in certsin senses Seeds). You want to muck around in a puddle of personal, unprocessed, personal resentments that seem to me merely the muddled ramblings of an unclear man. Fine! Have at it! But there is a far larger world out there, and the core questions transcend your own sad position 1,000 times.

The “Spirit of Christ” (in quotes because it can hardly be considered real, and yet it is obviously as real as anything for its effects) transcends any image or thought about it. It is a metaphysical, spiritual potential in to your meaningless “hypostatic union” phraseology. That is what I am getting at. For whom? I just told you: for me.

The "upper end" is continuous from the bottom. In the same gutter. Without their excuse. But united in un-Christian absence of humility.

More blather. More self-centered whimpering. You simply do not know what you are talking about. If that sort of stance works for you, helps you, keep at it by all means.

I say we have to maintain a certain objectivity here even when dealing with the subjectivities of religious experience. My impression of you is of a man wallowing in misgivings. And though I would certainly like to know more of what happened to you, the way you write makes it too hard to get your meanings. And you misunderstand: when I said “You fail to understand” I am talking to and about a wide cultural ‘person’ that definitely fails to understand.