Re: Christianity
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:46 pm
A person has natural rights. If Arnold Ziffel is a person then he has natural rights. If, however, he's just bacon then, no, he's got no natural rights.Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 12:56 amIt seems then that you must hold to be true that non-human sentient beings do not have natural rights. Why is that?
So, we have to ask: what is a person?
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Intent and choice are tightly woven, so much so I can't see separating one from the other. And neither, it seems to me, is necessarily dependent of a predisposition.Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 12:52 amFor me, the determining factor here is not choice but intent. That's why I'm satisfied to describe as "evil" a being with the intent to cause extreme (easily avoidable) harm even if that is merely ("merely") because of its (unchosen) nature.henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2023 3:42 pm Harry asked: "Could it be meaningful to define two types (maybe even origins) of evil: "evil by choice" and "evil by nature"?"
'Evil nature' undercuts free will. That is: a man with an evil nature cannot be a free will. Such a man cannot truly be morally responsible. 'Evil by (or thru) choice' coherently 'fits' with free will.
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AJ: I have used the term 'Christianesque'. And I do not take that term to be (necessarily) negative.
Me: Neither do I. If your concern is with, as I say, Catholic Culture and not with, as I say, the water in the clay jar or the cupped hands, then that's where your concern is. Can't see any reason, in that case, to worry much about your religion or metaphysic. Except as initial organizing element, neither seem to mean all that much in your grand scheme.
Yes.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jun 30, 2023 4:21 pmHmmm. I think I see what you are getting at.
But I think that behind all religious expressions it is wise or necessary to try to locate *the metaphysical content*. So if I understand you correctly that would be the *water*.
Not Catholic culture specifically, no, but the whole plethora of Christian expression as it exists as organized/communal.Catholic culture would be what is created through contact with the *water*. But itself is not the water.
Me: Understand: I'm not criticizing. You may believe in the metaphysic, but it ain't your 'purpose', in-thread, to examine or defend it. Your 'purpose' is a cultural apologetic. And that's okay.
As I say, several times thru-out this mamajamma of a thread: Christianity (the unwashed deist sez) is about that unmediated conversation between God and man (not men, man, as in a man). Certainly one expects a culture to extend out from the interactions of the like-minded, but this fellowship is not Christianity's reason.If I have a purpose it is really to work through my own uncertainties and also my own existential confusion. I am mostly at a loss to define what the function of religion is.
Yes.My understanding goes like this: in the last 150 years we have gained so much material understanding and power over what was formerly totally out of control, that we have -- literally -- opened up the possibility for the first time in history for many people, for masses of people, to live a relatively pain- and suffering-free existence for 60-70 years (and the numbers keep increasing).
No, I don't see that. Life was hard, yes, but there was no alternative. Even a slaver-king's life was hard. That's hard by our standards, not the slaver-king's or the commoner who dodged and weaved to stay out of the slaver-king's grasp. Seems to me, lots of folks back then had joys, satisfactions, victories. Human sensibility, dignity, autonomy is neither recent or invented.Prior to this, life really was brutish, painful and short, and life really was a vale of tears. Salvation was longed for less to be 'freed from the consequences of sin' but as the neurotic hope for a non-physical existence in a non-physical world as a reward for remaining decent while one suffered.
I don't agree. Man is naturally inquisitive, inventive. If he was burdened with an existential boredom, an ennui, it's because it was cultivated in him. That is: he was told he was bored or displaced or out of sorts.But what happened completely upturned the former dreary reality: instead of life being surrounded on all sides with terrible suffering (consider infant mortality just 100 years ago and any number of ailments with which people were stricken) now it is expected that people will have 40 and even 50 years of genuinely livable life. So, 'the world' opened up as a possibility for enjoyment, pleasure, self-development, but at the same time the issue of how to occupy one's time became a chief concern. (In our own First World of course).
Who would do such a thing? And why would these persons purposefully install (self)doubt?
I have an answer...I can put on my tin foil conspiracy hat and tell you, if you like.
No, it's not what pleasure we seek, but what pleasures we're led to...and how much and what we're willing to pay for them...and how un-human we're willing to become to indulge in them.Hedonism and all the earthly pleasures are now, functionally and abundantly, at our disposal. It is now a question of what pleasure we will seek, not all those pleasures that are denied to us and what substitute to replace pleasure with.
A great many conceptions of God are exactly that, but not all...not today or yesterday.Now, as it turns out, if we are to visualize a god or to conceive of a god, the usefulness of that god is in amplifying pleasure, or perhaps satisfaction is the world I seek.
An example of a prayer offered by a self-regulating, -reliant, -responsible, -directing person might be 'thank you for my life'. Full stop.And what does a fully actuated, healthy, wealthy and vivacious person need to ask of god? Of what are his prayers composed? To lead him to negation of all the possibilities of pleasure in his work, his family life, his career, his enjoyments?
Yes. There's no strain of formal Christianity that isn't infested with flim-flam artists. I say it plainly (as a Grade-A deist) God requires no (self-proclaimed) intermediary. His church is a community of the like-minded, not a hierarchy.The function of the Christian religion, perhaps especially in Protestant Evangelism, has shifted tremendously.
The cure is not gonna be found in a return to A or a moving past Z.I came into the examination of all the cultural issues through the realization of the effects of what I have termed *liberal rot*. To notice it requires honing one's vision to be able to perceive it as a *negative*. But all who read here must know (should know) that the general trend of the turn to the Right and into Conservatism (called sometimes Alt-Right and Radical Right or Dissident Right) all take aim at this liberal rot. It is a critical posture that proposes an alternative or a *cure*.