Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 8:56 pm
Little Brother. There is good genocide and there is evil genocide. If you are going to commit genocide please please be sure you commit the good variety.

We are still waiting for you to pick your moment for informing us of which would be good genocide, Alexis.

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:45 pm I'm not a commited atheist in exactly the same way that I am not a committed non-believer in Father Christmas.

I wasn't suggesting you were. But somebody who cavalierly relegates God to the level of "Father Christmas" either is an Atheist, or doesn't understand what the concept "God" refers to. If he did, he would have to be implying he had reasons to know God was a "non-issue," and thus should be ready to provide evidence that there is, never was, and never could be a Supreme Being and Creator in the universe, and that...well, I'm not optimistic of his chances.

As for God being a "non-issue" to somebody, a Theist might then wonder if the speaker actually thought that determination made a lick of difference to the question of whether or not God exists. After all, if I decide unicorns are a non-issue to me, that's one thing. But deciding that something that really exists is a "non-issue" can prove rather unwise, as if somebody who breathes suddenly decided that oxygen was a "non-issue" to him. The Theist might point out that ignoring oxygen made no difference to the average breather, but might one day, when he had COVID. And either way, he'd continue to be an oxygen breather, whether he continued to think about it or not.

When someone says that values are objective I might find it hard to resist challenging them, but it's not because such a person is doing me any harm. It isn't any more important to me than an argument over which is the best ever rock band,

Why is it hard to resist that? It should be a "non-issue" to you, should it not? I mean, if you don't believe that moral values are ever objective, why do you care more than you care for unicorns?

Is it really significant enough to bother with quite an elaborate argument, including moral ontology and moral epistemology?

I was simply trying to make clear to you how that what people KNOW about an issue, and what the TRUTH about that issue is, are two different questions. It seemed to me you were blending them, when you asked if people don't all claim to know the same morality, then how can I say it's objective. That merges two different questions.

The matter is no more than a difference of opinion, IC, and all we can do is agree to differ.

Well, I don't think so, and for good reason.

After all, opinions are always about something. And that thing they're about can be true or false, regardless of the feelings and opinions of the involved parties. "Opinions" refer to realities. That is, they express interpretations of "how things really are." As such, when one says, "Let's agree to disagree," what it often means is, "Let's be more polite than we are frank or truthful, and both keep our views close to our chests, in such a way that we don't argue."

That they have opinions is their right: but it doesn't mean that mutually contradictory opinions can both be right, nor that politesse requires that the two parties stop expressing their opinions. But if people express their opinions, they do so for the purposes of at least comparing, if not sharing their view with another. It's an action of persuasion, even if a gentle and polite one.

And here, the subject is Christianity. As a Christian, it's a topic to which I can hardly be indifferent, and still be what I am. But it may be different for others, who can, as you say, simply pack off and regard it as a "non-issue." I can't prevent that. As a Christian, I regard as objectively sacred the right of each person to live and die by the terms he or she puts to their own lives. I can only persuade; no use of compulsion or force can produce the result of a free change of mind, which is the only truly Christian objective.

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:52 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 8:56 pm
Little Brother. There is good genocide and there is evil genocide. If you are going to commit genocide please please be sure you commit the good variety.

We are still waiting for you to pick your moment for informing us of which would be good genocide, Alexis.

God will tell you, Little One, but you must open your heart and your ears to hear His voice.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 7:31 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:47 pm Do you mean to ask me if I think that our Occidental culture or cultures are *superior* to others? I might say that "It appears to me to be the case". Or I might say it does not matter except that for me my own culture is the one I value. But it would not mean, necessarily, that I would stand in judgment of other cultures and try to send agents in to disrupt their own processes or change them.

Okay, that's one frame of mind, of course. What's crucial here however is the extent to which others insist it's a manifestation of human biology. Such that other races are said to be "naturally"/"genetically" inferior.

My review of the evidence, or of the arguments, points to some IQ differences between the large racial groups. So according to those studies the East Asians have a slightly higher average IQ than, say, the average European. They also say that on average the *sub-saharan Africans* have an even lower one than the Europeans.

They always give the the Ashkenazi Jew the highest averaged IQ. And there are various theories as to how that came about.

So there is, in the arguments that some make, a proposed basis in biology. But the question I would ask (of you) is Why should that be problematic? Is it, for you, problematic? Myself, I cannot see why such differences would not be manifest in different human groups, especially those separated from each other by large time periods. One man who developed strong ideas on this topic was William Shockley. He approached it with a near-complete 'scientific' resolve and, as a result, did not gain many friends. Here he is in debate with some Black activists who do not take kindly to his assertions.

So, any conversation on the topic of biology (ancestry) and race will be and must always be politicized and will thus become largely impossible -- as I hope that you recognize. But if a free and open conversation (I mean this in the sense of free research, etc.) were allowed who can say what would result? I can say that when any supposed results have been published they have been met with all the resistance that you can imagine.

I do not know how to measure 'inferiority' or 'superiority' in a larger existential sense. It is not hard to imagine a race of geniuses (or a household if you wish) who live like complete idiots. And it is also possible to imagine a race of sub-standard people who have all sorts of admirable human qualities. Who defines what is superior and inferior? But IQ (general sense of intelligence) that does seem recognizable -- and measurable. But no one wants to hear the results. And obviously in the US both Africans and Indigenous have been seen as being of sub-standard intelligence.

Myself, I resolved the problem very differently in respect to African-Americans. My view is that *White man's culture* is an enormous imposition on a people who did not arrive in it voluntarily. It has all been forced on them. Even when a supposed freedom was granted them even that was just another form of imposition. That is, "OK now you are free. Now you will be expected to 'become white'." There is no point at which the imposition was not operative. The same was true (perhaps to a lesser extend) in European imperial projects.

So it has always seemed to me that the issue of 'resistance' and 'refusal' must be thought about.

Where's the objective science rather than the hopelessly subjective political prejudices rooted in dasein to back that up?

Well, I will admit that something like *objective science* does exist but it is especially proficient in non-contentious areas. When certain studies about IQ have been published (see Roger Pearson and Arthur R. Jenson for examples) they are met with fierce resistance. Is the resistance *science based* or is it based on feeling and sentiment? My impression has been that of feeling and sentiment. That it is 'wrong' to have any idea except the politically correct one.

Does Coulter's point of view revolve more around culture or skin color?

Google "Is Ann Coulter a racist?" and you get this: https://www.google.com/search?q=is+ann+ ... s-wiz-serp

It appears that she might be. And what does it mean to be assimilated? Give us some specific examples of what it means [to you] to be in sync with the occidental -- white? -- culture. In terms of what?

Google, Wiki -- these are completely contaminated. Don't you know this? They construct algorhythms to produce specific results and not others.

I suggest reading Coulter and forming you own opinion.

Myself, I accept cultural identification which includes a view of one's own somatic being as valid. I do not condemn it. I extend this right to all people though. Chinese, Indians of India, Japanese, Europeans -- these people have an absolute right to highly value their somatic selves (what their ancestry bequeathes to them), to value it and also to protect it. I regard those ideas that operate against this as pathological. But race-composition s just one part of a gamut.

Ann Coulter has a right to favor her people, her stock, over that of any other. However, I'd say the same thing if a Mexican villager or a chauvinist Frenchman held the same (proud) idea. The pathology is to be found it is specifically to be found in those currents set in motion that result in an anti-Whiteness stance. And more so when this infects a White who 'turns against himself'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:19 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:45 pm I'm not a commited atheist in exactly the same way that I am not a committed non-believer in Father Christmas.

I wasn't suggesting you were. But somebody who cavalierly relegates God to the level of "Father Christmas" either is an Atheist, or doesn't understand what the concept "God" refers to. If he did, he would have to be implying he had reasons to know God was a "non-issue," and thus should be ready to provide evidence that there is, never was, and never could be a Supreme Being and Creator in the universe, and that...well, I'm not optimistic of his chances.

It is not possible to prove there is no God, but that is not really a point in your favour, because it's not possible to prove there is no Father Christmas, either. By God being a non-issue, I only meant to me, I don't speak on anyone else's behalf. And what, exactly, would I be trying to gain by proving God doesn't exist, even if I could? It wouldn't be easy, so what is the incentive for making the effort. I know that God's existence matters a great deal to you, but his non-existence doesn't matter at all to me.

As for God being a "non-issue" to somebody, a Theist might then wonder if the speaker actually thought that determination made a lick of difference to the question of whether or not God exists. After all, if I decide unicorns are a non-issue to me, that's one thing. But deciding that something that really exists is a "non-issue" can prove rather unwise, as if somebody who breathes suddenly decided that oxygen was a "non-issue" to him. The Theist might point out that ignoring oxygen made no difference to the average breather, but might one day, when he had COVID. And either way, he'd continue to be an oxygen breather, whether he continued to think about it or not.

I really don't get your point. I have gone through life neither believing in God, nor in unicorns, with equal consequence.

Why is it hard to resist that? It should be a "non-issue" to you, should it not? I mean, if you don't believe that moral values are ever objective, why do you care more than you care for unicorns?

I suppose that a falsehood the magnitude of, "values are objective", demands to be rectified. How could one just ignore it?

I was simply trying to make clear to you how that what people KNOW about an issue, and what the TRUTH about that issue is, are two different questions. It seemed to me you were blending them, when you asked if people don't all claim to know the same morality, then how can I say it's objective. That merges two different questions.

I don't understand this, so I can't respond to it.

when one says, "Let's agree to disagree," what it often means is, "Let's be more polite than we are frank or truthful, and both keep our views close to our chests, in such a way that we don't argue."

The whole issue rests on whether God exists. You are never going to change your position on that, and neither am I, so do you really want to argue with no possibility of a resolution?

That they have opinions is their right: but it doesn't mean that mutually contradictory opinions can both be right,

Well just admit that you are wrong then, if agreeing to differ is anacceptable to you.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 12:08 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:19 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:45 pm I'm not a commited atheist in exactly the same way that I am not a committed non-believer in Father Christmas.

I wasn't suggesting you were. But somebody who cavalierly relegates God to the level of "Father Christmas" either is an Atheist, or doesn't understand what the concept "God" refers to. If he did, he would have to be implying he had reasons to know God was a "non-issue," and thus should be ready to provide evidence that there is, never was, and never could be a Supreme Being and Creator in the universe, and that...well, I'm not optimistic of his chances.

It is not possible to prove there is no God, but that is not really a point in your favour, because it's not possible to prove there is no Father Christmas, either.

Well, we can consider whether that's a parallel. But one thing for sure: it's a major knock on Atheism. Atheism can't be rational. It cannot even hope to acquire the evidence it needs for its fundamental claim.

...his non-existence doesn't matter at all to me.

That's my point: whether or not you feel it matters has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not it ought to, and with whether or not it's a bad idea to treat it as a non-issue.

A statement about your chosen epistemology doesn't touch questions of ontology; or in other words, believing doesn't make things either real or unreal.

As for God being a "non-issue" to somebody, a Theist might then wonder if the speaker actually thought that determination made a lick of difference to the question of whether or not God exists. After all, if I decide unicorns are a non-issue to me, that's one thing. But deciding that something that really exists is a "non-issue" can prove rather unwise, as if somebody who breathes suddenly decided that oxygen was a "non-issue" to him. The Theist might point out that ignoring oxygen made no difference to the average breather, but might one day, when he had COVID. And either way, he'd continue to be an oxygen breather, whether he continued to think about it or not.

I really don't get your point. I have gone through life neither believing in God, nor in unicorns, with equal consequence.

Well, it would be hard to say, wouldn't it? If you've gone through life completely disregarding God, it wouldn't be apparent what it would be like if you had. It didn't happen, so far. But if you did decide to start considering Him, you might well find it makes quite a difference.

It has, to a whole lot of people.

Why is it hard to resist that? It should be a "non-issue" to you, should it not? I mean, if you don't believe that moral values are ever objective, why do you care more than you care for unicorns?

I suppose that a falsehood the magnitude of, "values are objective", demands to be rectified. How could one just ignore it?

"Demands"? Who's doing that "demanding"? It seems to me it should remain a "non-issue," if that's what it really is.

I was simply trying to make clear to you how that what people KNOW about an issue, and what the TRUTH about that issue is, are two different questions. It seemed to me you were blending them, when you asked if people don't all claim to know the same morality, then how can I say it's objective. That merges two different questions.

I don't understand this, so I can't respond to it.

Hmm. Sorry. I'll try to make it clearer.

Is something true? That's different from asking, "Do some people believe it's true?" That's about the most direct way I can put it.

when one says, "Let's agree to disagree," what it often means is, "Let's be more polite than we are frank or truthful, and both keep our views close to our chests, in such a way that we don't argue."

The whole issue rests on whether God exists. You are never going to change your position on that, and neither am I, so do you really want to argue with no possibility of a resolution?

Really? Is there no kind of evidence that you would consider capable of changing your mind?

That they have opinions is their right: but it doesn't mean that mutually contradictory opinions can both be right,

Well just admit that you are wrong then, if agreeing to differ is anacceptable to you.

It's not unacceptable at all. And maybe it's all you and I can do, as you say. What's great is we can still treat each other reasonably and respectfully while we do. But the point of discussion is to improve one's position, is it not? So perhaps we may still hope we may be helpful to each other -- even if what results is only a firmer and deeper commitment to our relative positions.

But I'm not that glum about the prospects.

Anyway, here's an interesting guy to listen to, if you ever decide you're interested in the possibility of an intellectual person being a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBQwGzn_TE

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:06 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 12:08 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:19 pm
I wasn't suggesting you were. But somebody who cavalierly relegates God to the level of "Father Christmas" either is an Atheist, or doesn't understand what the concept "God" refers to. If he did, he would have to be implying he had reasons to know God was a "non-issue," and thus should be ready to provide evidence that there is, never was, and never could be a Supreme Being and Creator in the universe, and that...well, I'm not optimistic of his chances.

It is not possible to prove there is no God, but that is not really a point in your favour, because it's not possible to prove there is no Father Christmas, either.

Well, we can consider whether that's a parallel. But one thing for sure: it's a major knock on Atheism. Atheism can't be rational. It cannot even hope to acquire the evidence it needs for its fundamental claim.

Hang on. So where is YOUR evidence that God spoke the universe into existence? Ergo, by the same measure Theism cannot be rational.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 4:27 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 7:29 amIf you have read Mind and Cosmos, you will know that Nagel does not question evolution; his argument is that a purely physical process cannot give rise to consciousness.

I have it on my desk here, so we can find out really quickly if I have.

Then let's see how quickly you can find the passage in which Nagel says evolution does not happen.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 4:27 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 7:29 am... people who study evolution, including human evolution, do not study whether evolution happens, they look at it happening.

Nobody has EVER "observed" human "evolution." And you don't "see it happening" now, either.

Once again, these are your own words:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2017 6:21 pm"Absence of evidence" is exactly what a person has when they've not looked.

And as predictable as the Sun coming up tomorrow:

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 7:29 amYou may not wish to look, but if you google 'recent human evolution' there is a wealth of evidence that human evolution is real and ongoing. This is one example: https://www.science.org/content/article ... -it-happen

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 4:27 pmBy its own account, it takes billions of years...

This is an example of your failure to understand the difference between evolution and "Evolutionism". Evolution does not have "its own account". Evolution is a process which the articles you refuse to read demonstrate does not take "billions of years". There are theories about what drives evolution, which are subject to revision as our research and understanding develops; those are what most people would call scientific theories. Then there are spurious claims made by people such as yourself, who in their determination to believe that "The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," invent nonsensical consequences, call it "Evolutionism" and insist that everyone who knows that evolution is a fact is committed to the rubbish made up by people like you. Now can you tell the difference between evolution and "Evolutionism"?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:06 am But one thing for sure: it's a major knock on Atheism. Atheism can't be rational. It cannot even hope to acquire the evidence it needs for its fundamental claim.

Lack of rationality is traditionally an accusation that has been thrown at religion; you are just trying to turn the tables. I am not going to allow myself to be talked into feeling I have to justify my absence of belief in the unbelievable. And, besides, I'm more rejecting your claim than making one of my own.

That's my point: whether or not you feel it matters has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not it ought to, and with whether or not it's a bad idea to treat it as a non-issue.

I've got that covered: Besides feeling that it doesn't matter, I also feel that it shouldn't matter, and that it isn't a bad idea for it not to matter.

in other words, believing doesn't make things either real or unreal.

Perhaps you haven't given enough thought to the implications of that regarding your own situation.

Well, it would be hard to say, wouldn't it? If you've gone through life completely disregarding God, it wouldn't be apparent what it would be like if you had. It didn't happen, so far. But if you did decide to start considering Him, you might well find it makes quite a difference.

But which God would I consider? Your God, henry quirk's God/gods , Fish Pie's God? I'm spoiled for choice.

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote: I suppose that a falsehood the magnitude of, "values are objective", demands to be rectified. How could one just ignore it?

"Demands"? Who's doing that "demanding"? It seems to me it should remain a "non-issue," if that's what it really is.

The untruth is the issue, not its content.

Really? Is there no kind of evidence that you would consider capable of changing your mind?

How can I know the answer to that? I have never heard an argument that has so much as caused me to pause for thought, but evidence might be a different matter. I cannot begin to imagine what form such evidence might come in, though.

It's not unacceptable at all. And maybe it's all you and I can do, as you say. What's great is we can still treat each other reasonably and respectfully while we do.

I agree. We are all stuck here in the world together, so our immediate concern should be each other, rather than an invisible, all powerful entity above this world who is well able to take care of himself.

Respect, IC.

Anyway, here's an interesting guy to listen to, if you ever decide you're interested in the possibility of an intellectual person being a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBQwGzn_TE

I see the video is on a channel that promotes Christianity, but I'm sure their approach is impartial.

I'll watch with a correspondingly open mind.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 4:41 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 1:40 pm Your excuse for God, that He has to allow some suffering to exist ,

It's not an "excuse." It's just the obvious admission of an obvious fact: that God has, in fact, allowed that some latitude for suffering will exist in the world.

But while you are without explanation for this fact, I'm suggesting there could be an explanation for it. And I think that you, yourself, have provided at least part of the answer, in that most of the "evils" you mention are not even potentially God-caused. They're manifestly the evils created by men themselves.

So as a starting point, we might ask, is there any reason a good God could stand by and allow men to do some evil? And it's a question I'm prepared to respond to.

This world is totally either made by God or made by Nature,

No, that's mere Determinism. It fails to account for the very evils you, yourself listed. It turns them all into mere phenomena, mere "happenings" inside a rigid and closed Determinist system. As such, they cannot actually BE "evil," only things-that-happen, devoid of moral quality; and then the question itself turns unintelligible. For "evil" can only exist where its opposite "good" can be otherwise expected; and nothing but what-happens can be expected inside a Deterministic system. So there is no "evil' existing at all, then.

Moral evil as committed by fallen man can be explained by man's fall.

But in a Determinist system, there's no "Fall." Nor is anything man does "evil" -- it's just "what man does." So as you rightly intuit, you'd have to be a Christian, or at least adopt a Christian-style suppositonal value structure, in order even to lauch the question, "Why would God allow evil?"

...you consistently ignore, the fact of suffering that is not manmade;

I protest: I do not. I have repeatedly pointed out to my interlocutors that there are two types of things human beings tend to call "evil." One is human-caused, and the other is not. And I have insisted that any good theodicy should have something to say about BOTH.

You really should read what I have written, B., before investing in a false claim about what I "consistently ignore." That's verifiably false.

Unfortunately for us, looking to ourselves for the remedy is what we are burdened with, for better for worse.

Then we are doomed -- especially if secular Determinism is true. For man himself IS the problem, or at least half of it, and man is nothing but an accidental, helpless, programmed product of the same universe that generates so readily the non-human kinds of "evils."

Your problem, B., is that you think you're a Determinist, but don't really know what Determinism would entail. You want the easy half of it, but think you can get away from the nasty half without paying any price. But let me spell it out for you.

Determinism would entail that there is, and can be NO ROOM AT ALL for human freedom or responsibility. So human beings cannot "fix" anything. They are simply pre-programmed to do whatever it is they do: be it giving ice cream to orphans or butchering millions of innocents. And there's no longer any objective value-difference between the two, because there are no objective values.

But the "latitude" that God has allowed for suffering is a million times worse than any monstrous man could inflict. Okay, there is biological warfare,the RC Inquisition, and diseases of poverty which are terrible manmade disasters. Man however has had no hand in historical climate change i.e. until about three hundred years ago. Man had no hand in historical infestations of locusts, see Job's story, or his ignorance of contraception for the masses of people, or the barrier of the Red Sea that nearly caused mass slaughter of escaping Israelites.

It's true that as a determinist I believe every event was a necessary event. Note the past tense. It's also true that men, possibly alone among all the animals, can exert free will i.e. free will in the everyday popular sense of voluntary action. Men can voluntarily make changes in natural and moral futures. This fact is the basis of the moral value of human freedom. It's therefore the most immoral act to deprive any individual of their natural human ability to choose without hindrance from any sort of oppression. Many God-ideologies are based on inculcating a belief in one's own guilt and for that purpose tyrants invent so-called 'sins' for which they offer a means of restitution to God for those so-called 'sins'.This is a form of oppression.

Your mental picture of determinism is a block of time that includes future as well as past. This is not determinism, it's sometimes fatalism, and it's sometimes predestination in the evil Calvinistic sense which to my mind is a worse aberration than fatalism. I understand the problem and your explanation.

The "pre-programming" of man includes men's ability to reason, predict, and thus change the future in ways that are impossible for inanimate beings and possibly even for all other animals. I do offer a solution to the problem which retains that each and every event that happened was a necessary event.

God is more than His history and is an ongoing effort by men. The tyrannical God whom you appear to worship is not quite dead as He has many heads. Sages such as Jesus show that goodwill is important (she touched the hem of his garment). The parables of Jesus all imply ordinary human kindness as applied to specific situations.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:06 am Anyway, here's an interesting guy to listen to, if you ever decide you're interested in the possibility of an intellectual person being a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBQwGzn_TE

Okey dokey.

We’ve got a biologist who came to realise that stuff happens in biology that can only be accounted for by including some sort of intelligence and purpose in its origin. He does not seem to be questioning evolution, but only the origin of life. His objection is based on the assertion that abiogenesis is not possible, although he does not discount the possibility of its being accounted for in the future. “Maybe biology is where physics was before Einstein.”

I do not have an opinion on the origin of life; I am not well enough informed to arrive at one, but I am certainly not closed to the idea of there being intelligence and purpose at the root of nature, or even physics in general, although I know of no reason to think there is. But, supposing it were the case, that does not leave any kind of God as being the inevitable conclusion, let alone the Christian God. If some kind of intelligence did turn out to be a property of the universe, it is certainly beyond me to account for how it came to be there, but probably no more difficult than it would be for anyone else to account for how God came to be there.

In short, I attribute this man’s adoption of Christianity to human psychology much more than rationality.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 1:24 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:06 am Anyway, here's an interesting guy to listen to, if you ever decide you're interested in the possibility of an intellectual person being a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBQwGzn_TE

Okey dokey.

We’ve got a biologist who came to realise that stuff happens in biology that can only be accounted for by including some sort of intelligence and purpose in its origin. He does not seem to be questioning evolution, but only the origin of life. His objection is based on the assertion that abiogenesis is not possible, although he does not discount the possibility of its being accounted for in the future. “Maybe biology is where physics was before Einstein.”

There is another element here that you did not mention: the man talks about a need for spirituality. As a scientist he certainly became overawed by the complexity of the cell structure, and as a scientist had no explanation for that complexity (which certainly implies design and therefore designer) but the 'need for spirituality' is something that is distinct from a scientific explanation of the physical world, brought about by the desire to gain control over natural processes, and stands in contrast to another human sense about *existence* *being* *awareness* and also *kosmos* (an ordered creation of which man is a part and life which has ends and purposes that man can know and associate himself with).

So watching the video this is what I thought: The man simply became aware of the possibility that there is more, much more, to the world that we live in and are a part of. It is true that existence and being and the sense of wonder or awe about it cannot ever be answered by scientific description. The first is a separate category from the second. So when it comes to Ultimate Questions about life, being, awareness, existence and the ends and purposes, science as a set of tools for examining physical processes can do nothing else but fall short. Here there is a confusion of epistemes. Those of a rational and scientific bent examined the Creation Stories and the mythologies of religion (Adam & Eve and Genesis is the main one we discuss here) and they see, very clearly, that these stories do not and cannot EVER function in any way similar to science-description. So they jettison the story. And that explains the atheist and atheism. "Prove to me through a scientific description that god exists!" they say. And the only description that is offered, and can be offered, is the supposition of a 'design' and a 'designer' in a former time -- at a beginning.

So the man in the video came to a point where his *explanatory system* became inadequate to what he needed to have explained. But that is only one part. The other part has to do with his spiritual and also his psychological self: himself as a soul (psyche) in a world that he needs to understand but does not understand. Obviously, science explanation cannot and will not ever provide the *answer* he seeks. This man came to a point in his life and within his own self where his *interpretive model* was inadequate. It was as if he was clinging to a model (a cliff let's say) that, quite literally, could no longer function for him. To the rescue comes something in his own person, within his own self:

The another element in this man's story: the dream. These are called 'Big Dreams' and they always come in times of personal and existential crisis. He dreamed he was hanging by a cliff and terrified. A voice told him to *let go*. This advice, given his precariousness, was incomprehensible to him. But he let go and when he did so his dreamed environment turned and he found himself on level ground. From a Jungian perspective the figure in the dream (the voice) is Higher Self. Not separate from the man himself but a part of his own structure and consciousness. Everyone has these sort of dreams. In all cultures, everywhere. The Self appears as a wise man, as a teacher, as a guide.

But let's examine the facts here. The dreamer himself decided at a later time that the figure in his dream was Jesus Christ. This fits (into dream analysis of a Jungian sort) because Jesus Christ is a symbol of the Higher Self. But when he had the dream he had not made that connection. Letting go, though, is the thing that needs to be examined. Again, any person in any culture could have (and has had) the same dream type. It is very common.

But here is the thing and I doubt he realizes is, and certainly Immanuel Can not only does not realize it but would not ever allow himself to even consider the thought: if this man had had that dream, let's say, in some other cultural context, and if he determined that what was needed was 'spirituality' and resolving an inner impasse, that man would turn to the spiritual and religious models of his own culture. The figure that brought the message to *let go* would be associated, say, with Vishnu (who is a great liberator) and heralds the path to freedom. What if the man was a member of say the Sioux Nation? He would bring his dream and his existential issue to an Elder of his tribe. He would integrate himself with the religion and rituals of his people and likely have other dreams with an initiatory message.

In short, I attribute this man’s adoption of Christianity to human psychology much more than rationality.

Little Brother, I see you advancing by leaps and bounds! Your essays are admirable. But you need further clarifications. I am here to help and guide you. Be humble.

You cannot separate 'psychology' from any religious, existential or spiritual quest. The origin of the word is 'psyche'. You would need to have more background into the idea-concept behind it (which you completely lack as I do not tire of pointing out).

Psychē is the Greek term for ‘*soul’, but modern concepts like psychology or psychiatry wrongly suggest that the Greeks viewed the soul in the modern way. In our oldest source, Homer, we still find a widespread soul system, in which psychē was the ‘free-soul’, which represented the individual personality only when the body was inactive: during swoons or at the moment of death. On the other hand, psychological functions were occupied by ‘body-souls’, such as thymos and menos. It is also the psychē that leaves for the Underworld and the dead are indeed frequently, but not exclusively, called psychai; on black-figure vases of c.500 bce we can see a homunculus, sometimes armed, hovering above the dead warrior. Towards the end of the Archaic age two important developments took place. First, Pythagoras and other philosophers introduced the notion of reincarnation. The development is still unexplained, but it certainly meant an upgrading of the soul, which we subsequently find in Pindar called ‘immortal’.

Any mention of soul or psyche will involve you, Little One, is realms of ideas that are totally foreign to your mode of perception. Remember: you are the classical postmodern man. You have been extruded as an historical detritus onto a dry, windy, horizontal plane and all your seeing is limited and horizontal. You completely lack the vertical mode. But oddly even your own daughter says "But there has to be something, right?" What she implies, Little Brother, is what the man in IC's video needed to find at a later point in his life. It is something universal.

But here is the clincher: In awakening to another perceptual possibility, in 'letting go' from the precarious cliff, and gaining the safety of level ground, this does not mean that Christianity is the ultimate answer. It is a convenient answer however and it is also the man's own cultural matrix. So it makes a great deal of sense (it is even efficient) that he be brought back into the fold of a perceptual system that can explain a great deal to that man. That is it solves many existential problems.

My argument against Immanuel Can's position is not agains either *spirituality* or the *realization of god* but against an imperious religious system that says, as IC does say, "Either you believe in Jesus Christ and surrender your self before him, or you will be punished eternally".

No. This is not so. What IC demonstrates most clearly is how a man can become *possessed* by imperious ideas which as I have indicated act like an invasive parasite.

The atheists here on this thread tend to deny any sort of descriptive picture that involves *god* or *divinity*. Why? The principle reason seems to be that they encounter the figure of Immanuel Can in his various forms and permutations. I use the term Hebrew Idea Imperialism as a catch-all. It makes sense really. You will either get with the system and 'believe' as you are supposed to believe, or you will be terrorized with the declaration that you will suffer eternal torment in Hell".

Here, in this Little Harbal, is the 'evil' that needs to be exposed to the light of day. There is no other reason to fight so dedicatedly against our resident demon. I use the term 'demon' with a grain of salt. I prefer not to describe the person Immanuel Can as a 'demon' but rather to point out that imperious ideas and idea-coercion involve psychological manipulation and hinge into social-control mechanisms, mass-manipulation and other negatives.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 1:24 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:06 am Anyway, here's an interesting guy to listen to, if you ever decide you're interested in the possibility of an intellectual person being a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBQwGzn_TE

Okey dokey.

We’ve got a biologist who came to realise that stuff happens in biology that can only be accounted for by including some sort of intelligence and purpose in its origin. He does not seem to be questioning evolution, but only the origin of life. His objection is based on the assertion that abiogenesis is not possible, although he does not discount the possibility of its being accounted for in the future. “Maybe biology is where physics was before Einstein.”

I do not have an opinion on the origin of life; I am not well enough informed to arrive at one, but I am certainly not closed to the idea of there being intelligence and purpose at the root of nature, or even physics in general, although I know of no reason to think there is. But, supposing it were the case, that does not leave any kind of God as being the inevitable conclusion, let alone the Christian God. If some kind of intelligence did turn out to be a property of the universe, it is certainly beyond me to account for how it came to be there, but probably no more difficult than it would be for anyone else to account for how God came to be there.

In short, I attribute this man’s adoption of Christianity to human psychology much more than rationality.

So do I, Harbal. God is a manmade concept. As such we men can change the concept and adapt it as seems fitting for preservation of life on Earth, and for allaying suffering, and the sooner the better.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 3:10 pm
Little Brother, I see you advancing by leaps and bounds!

Is your recently adopted practice of addressing me as "little" something or other helping in the restoration of your feeling of superiority, Alexis?

I suspect not, and I hate to tell you this, Alexis, but it is only going to get worse.

Ascending Master AJ wrote: But here is the clincher: In awakening to another perceptual possibility, in 'letting go' from the precarious cliff, and gaining the safety of level ground, this does not mean that Christianity is the ultimate answer. It is a convenient answer however and it is also the man's own cultural matrix. So it makes a great deal of sense (it is even efficient) that he be brought back into the fold of a perceptual system that can explain a great deal to that man. That is it solves many existential problems.

Jungian psychology is not my only point-of-reference but it is one. I remember reading that Jung who had many patients from religious backgrounds was presented with dreams where 'church' was pictured in two distinct ways: in some dreams it was perceived as a prison, or a dreary confining place with figures of death in it. Lacking light. Sunk in darkness.

In others the *church* was pictured as a place of refuge and safety. A place up on a high hill perhaps. With sunlight illuminating it. It was the place one needed to go. And inside of it were those figures (like in the man's big dream) that offered suggestions about how to find a psychic place of safety.

So the structure of Christianity can be, and indeed for most here, a confining structure. How could they ever go back into a structure that had cost them so much to get out of? And where, inside, there is a demon-figure who acts very much like Edvard Vergérus and fulfill the rôle Ingmar Bergman had for him in many of his films? In this case Fanny & Alexander).

Isak Jacobi's Trick

Immanuel Can: I am here offering to you, as an act of my own Grace, the opportunity to change your ways. It will be hard but I am here, I promise, to help you! I ask you to *let go* and allow yourself to fall.

So what is it in a given person that transforms Church into either a prison-grave or a hospital? These are, in truth, the two alternatives. Once 'to take the Christian cure' was literally a means of psychic healing, a way to recover and get better. Many many people return to Evangelical Christianity literally for the *cure* it offers. Not only is there the psycho-spiritual factor but there is community, people who have also come out of addiction, loss, existential crisis, profound meaninglessness . . .

For them the Christian fold is really like a hospital. Indeed hospitals were run by the religious for centuries. Part of the physical 'cure' was the psychic cure. Many conversions took place in hospitals. And trust me on this one: Christianity contains all sorts of therapeutics. It is a therapeutic process.

What interests me in this present exchange of loving tongues between Harbal & Immanuel (though I admit to being embarrassed as well) is the degree to which Harbal is completely outside of any capacity to understand the function of both spirituality and religion, and simultaneously Immanuel Can's demon-like, cloying and sidling attempts to ingratiate himself and install his vile parasitic meme. (Immanuel: stop this immediately! it is ultra-disgusting and makes me angry).

Both of these men, in my super-humble opinion, are very much off the mark if genuine understanding is the object.

I am here as referee with a spiked riding crop and will tactfully but mercifully provide the proper instruction.