Jurgen Habermas

[Immanuel Can]

So what point are you trying to make? I do as much as I can. I can do no more than what I can.

Just that secularism, if actually believed and practiced, is far, far more problematic than most people might suppose. Nietzsche points out that it leaves us with no moral axioms at all; and Habermas raises the issue of how we would be able to prove any, even if we wanted them.

[Impenitent]

Nietzsche had as much praise for socialists/communists as he did for christians and for similar reasons as well...

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

So what point are you trying to make? I do as much as I can. I can do no more than what I can.

Just that secularism, if actually believed and practiced, is far, far more problematic than most people might suppose. Nietzsche points out that it leaves us with no moral axioms at all; and Habermas raises the issue of how we would be able to prove any, even if we wanted them.

Secularism is problematic, yes. But so is Christianity. Otherwise, there wouldn't be pushback against it. People used to get burned at the stake for being witches and all manner of other odd crimes.

The Bible seems to have inaccuracies in it. What are we supposed to think or do about that? Believe anyway? Should we pretend that there was an Adam and Eve and they lived side by side with God walking around in a garden until a talking snake convinced Eve to eat a magic apple that suddenly made her more knowledgeable about things? I mean, I'd have to be pretty naive and gullible to believe that just because someone tells me to, in spite of scientific evidence not supporting it. I may as well believe in Santa Claus.

[Immanuel Can]

So what point are you trying to make? I do as much as I can. I can do no more than what I can.

Just that secularism, if actually believed and practiced, is far, far more problematic than most people might suppose. Nietzsche points out that it leaves us with no moral axioms at all; and Habermas raises the issue of how we would be able to prove any, even if we wanted them.

Secularism is problematic, yes. But so is Christianity. Otherwise, there wouldn't be pushback against it.

It's a much different problematic. Having a guarantor of morality means that you can have morality. People don't always like what morality requires of them, and that's why they opt for secularism. But they don't realize the price they're going to pay on the backside of that decision. There's not going to be any basis for any morality at all...it's all going to be about power.

[Gary Childress]

Just that secularism, if actually believed and practiced, is far, far more problematic than most people might suppose. Nietzsche points out that it leaves us with no moral axioms at all; and Habermas raises the issue of how we would be able to prove any, even if we wanted them.

Secularism is problematic, yes. But so is Christianity. Otherwise, there wouldn't be pushback against it.

It's a much different problematic. Having a guarantor of morality means that you can have morality. People don't always like what morality requires of them, and that's why they opt for secularism. But they don't realize the price they're going to pay on the backside of that decision. There's not going to be any basis for any morality at all...it's all going to be about power.

You'll have to come up with a better foundation than the Bible. That's all I'm saying. Maybe find a book that has true and unembellished stories in it or something. Otherwise, your "guarantor" is sitting on very wobbly stilts. I'm not averse to believing in a God, but it would be a God whose existence is supported by evidence. Otherwise, I'm agnostic. I don't know if there's a God or not. I just don't think the Bible is the word of God.

[Immanuel Can]

Secularism is problematic, yes. But so is Christianity. Otherwise, there wouldn't be pushback against it.

It's a much different problematic. Having a guarantor of morality means that you can have morality. People don't always like what morality requires of them, and that's why they opt for secularism. But they don't realize the price they're going to pay on the backside of that decision. There's not going to be any basis for any morality at all...it's all going to be about power.

You'll have to come up with a better foundation than the Bible.

I didn't mention the Bible. But since you do...

I'm not averse to believing in a God, but it would be a God whose existence is supported by evidence.

You mean, like that fact that you exist?

[Gary Childress]

It's a much different problematic. Having a guarantor of morality means that you can have morality. People don't always like what morality requires of them, and that's why they opt for secularism. But they don't realize the price they're going to pay on the backside of that decision. There's not going to be any basis for any morality at all...it's all going to be about power.

You'll have to come up with a better foundation than the Bible.

I didn't mention the Bible. But since you do...

I'm not averse to believing in a God, but it would be a God whose existence is supported by evidence.

You mean, like that fact that you exist?

I don't know what you mean by "like that fact that you exist". Can you expand on what you mean by that?

[Immanuel Can]

You'll have to come up with a better foundation than the Bible.

I didn't mention the Bible. But since you do...

I'm not averse to believing in a God, but it would be a God whose existence is supported by evidence.

You mean, like that fact that you exist?

I don't know what you mean by "like that fact that you exist". Can you expand on what you mean by that?

Look at yourself...not just the way your body is put together, but your cognitions, your personality, your awareness of the universe, your emotions...the whole package...and tell me that you seriously think that the universe just "shook a bag of atoms," so to speak, and you fell out...and me, and every other living being, too. Tell me you don't see specificity of design, sophistication, complexity, interactivity and spirituality in your own make up. Tell me that, if you can believe it.

You ARE empirical evidence for the existence of a Creator: have you never considered that?

[Gary Childress]

You ARE empirical evidence for the existence of a Creator: have you never considered that?

That is possibly true. However, that leaves the question open of what else can I know about such a creator. I don't believe there's too much more special about the Bible than any other competing religious text. I like that Jesus is a healer and that the sick and poor are to be healed and made whole. However, I don't know that Jesus was God incarnate. In my mind God = the one true creator and originator etc. of all that is. If there is a God, t hen I'm not sure if God = Jesus.

As far as I'm aware, the God of the Bible may be the Hebrew God and not everyone's God. I don't believe that restoring a temple or whatever in Jerusalem is going to bring about a second coming of God. I'm not even sure there was a first coming. I admire Jesus in many ways but I don't know if he was any more "God" than anyone else is. Granted he seems like he was maybe divinely inspired more than many of us. Religious texts tend to be embellished and revised many times over the centuries. I therefore take them with a degree of skepticism.

[Immanuel Can]

You ARE empirical evidence for the existence of a Creator: have you never considered that?

That is possibly true.

This is the difference between "evidence" and "evidence accepted AS evidence." There's plenty of evidence of a Creator, but we humans seem to have unlimited power to claim, "That's not evidence," and just refuse to regard it. That is the case with our own selves; we ought to know God exists, and in fact, we really do sense He does, but we can still refuse the evidence before us.

However, that leaves the question open of what else can I know about such a creator. I don't believe there's too much more special about the Bible than any other competing religious text.

Then I guess you haven't read any of them. I have. You'll find it isn't even close.

I'm not sure if God = Jesus.

Then you need to read, and decide. God doesn't ask more of you than that you pass your assessment of His Son. On that basis, everything is decided.

Religious texts tend to be embellished and revised many times over the centuries. I therefore take them with a degree of skepticism.

That depends. Oral traditions certainly morph. But a transcript of any kind does not change, no matter how many centuries pass. Words don't "dance" on a page.

[Gary Childress]

You ARE empirical evidence for the existence of a Creator: have you never considered that?

That is possibly true.

This is the difference between "evidence" and "evidence accepted AS evidence." There's plenty of evidence of a Creator, but we humans seem to have unlimited power to claim, "That's not evidence," and just refuse to regard it. That is the case with our own selves; we ought to know God exists, and in fact, we really do sense He does, but we can still refuse the evidence before us.

However, that leaves the question open of what else can I know about such a creator. I don't believe there's too much more special about the Bible than any other competing religious text.

Then I guess you haven't read any of them. I have. You'll find it isn't even close.

I'm not sure if God = Jesus.

Then you need to read, and decide. God doesn't ask more of you than that you pass your assessment of His Son. On that basis, everything is decided.

Religious texts tend to be embellished and revised many times over the centuries. I therefore take them with a degree of skepticism.

That depends. Oral traditions certainly morph. But a transcript of any kind does not change, no matter how many centuries pass. Words don't "dance" on a page.

Well, I guess you're better informed and guided by a better education than I am. I didn't study the Bible. I studied what is often termed the standard canon of Western Philosophy and the liberal tradition of that, mostly rooted in the pre-Christian Greeks. I'm sure you can easily run circles around me with the Bible. Whether that grants you some kind of privileged access to the desires of a God who created all that is, I am skeptical about. Maybe it does grant you privileged knowledge of some kind. Maybe my education was a waste, just brainwashing. That's possible too.

[Immanuel Can]

That is possibly true.

This is the difference between "evidence" and "evidence accepted AS evidence." There's plenty of evidence of a Creator, but we humans seem to have unlimited power to claim, "That's not evidence," and just refuse to regard it. That is the case with our own selves; we ought to know God exists, and in fact, we really do sense He does, but we can still refuse the evidence before us.

However, that leaves the question open of what else can I know about such a creator. I don't believe there's too much more special about the Bible than any other competing religious text.

Then I guess you haven't read any of them. I have. You'll find it isn't even close.

I'm not sure if God = Jesus.

Then you need to read, and decide. God doesn't ask more of you than that you pass your assessment of His Son. On that basis, everything is decided.

Religious texts tend to be embellished and revised many times over the centuries. I therefore take them with a degree of skepticism.

That depends. Oral traditions certainly morph. But a transcript of any kind does not change, no matter how many centuries pass. Words don't "dance" on a page.

Well, I guess you're better informed and guided by a better education than I am. I didn't study the Bible. I studied what is often termed the standard canon of Western Philosophy and the liberal tradition of that, mostly rooted in the pre-Christian Greeks.

Then I don't see any reason why you couldn't read it for yourself. It certainly wouldn't take you long; and since the Bible is at the root of the entire Western tradition, it seems to me that any well-rounded literary education would be sadly deficient without some knowledge of Scripture.

And I know whereof I speak...not just theologically, but from the point of view of secular literary studies. 'Nuff said.

Maybe my education was a waste, just brainwashing. That's possible too.

Maybe. But I've always thought that one gets an education by what one puts into the situation, much more than by what one has to be given. It's possible to study practically anything, and if one has a thoughtful and critical (in the good sense) disposition toward it, to gain an education in spite of the follies of one's instruction. It all depends on what we do with what we're offered, not so much the quality of what we're offered. When we think for ourselves, we always learn.

I'm sure you agree.

[Gary Childress]

This is the difference between "evidence" and "evidence accepted AS evidence." There's plenty of evidence of a Creator, but we humans seem to have unlimited power to claim, "That's not evidence," and just refuse to regard it. That is the case with our own selves; we ought to know God exists, and in fact, we really do sense He does, but we can still refuse the evidence before us.


Then I guess you haven't read any of them. I have. You'll find it isn't even close.
Then you need to read, and decide. God doesn't ask more of you than that you pass your assessment of His Son. On that basis, everything is decided.


That depends. Oral traditions certainly morph. But a transcript of any kind does not change, no matter how many centuries pass. Words don't "dance" on a page.

Well, I guess you're better informed and guided by a better education than I am. I didn't study the Bible. I studied what is often termed the standard canon of Western Philosophy and the liberal tradition of that, mostly rooted in the pre-Christian Greeks.

Then I don't see any reason why you couldn't read it for yourself. It certainly wouldn't take you long; and since the Bible is at the root of the entire Western tradition, it seems to me that any well-rounded literary education would be sadly deficient without some knowledge of Scripture.

And I know whereof I speak...not just theologically, but from the point of view of secular literary studies. 'Nuff said.

Maybe my education was a waste, just brainwashing. That's possible too.

Maybe. But I've always thought that one gets an education by what one puts into the situation, much more than by what one has to be given. It's possible to study practically anything, and if one has a thoughtful and critical (in the good sense) disposition toward it, to gain an education in spite of the follies of one's instruction. It all depends on what we do with what we're offered, not so much the quality of what we're offered. When we think for ourselves, we always learn.

I'm sure you agree.

Yes. It all went downhill when I started watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" on public TV. This was in my most formative years in Junior High school. I learned to shun the bible and pay more attention to science and secular philosophy. I thought the Bible was brainwashing and would corrupt one's critical faculties. How was I supposed to know at such a young age that I would be condemned to eternal damnation for it?

[Immanuel Can]

Yes. It all went downhill when I started watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" on public TV. This was in my most formative years in Junior High school. I learned to shun the bible and pay more attention to science and secular philosophy. I thought the Bible was brainwashing and would corrupt one's critical faculties. How was I supposed to know at such a young age that I would be condemned to eternal damnation for it?

Ah, the follies of youth. It's in their naive years...often the teens...that most people become Atheists. Dawkins, for example, didn't come to his Atheism by way of expertise in biology, but by way of being a rebellious 17-year-old, by his own account. There's high chance, in fact, that an Atheist is also a hater of his own father, who transfers his hatred to the whole idea of God...Freud, Nietzsche, Hitchens, Dennett, Butler, O'Hare, Russell...the list goes on and on. How many others are there today who, off at university, discover for the first time that they really didn't know much or personally believe anything, and, in a desire to be thought wise, opt for Atheism, since it requires of them very little and offers them club membership in the ranks of cynically esteemed -- in addition to a chance to poke ol' dad in the eye?

Sagan was more astute than that. He insisted, “I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian- (sic) Islamic God." He didn't imagine he had any such evidence. What he claimed, instead, was to be merely "agnostic." But he also had a weird belief that science would one day generate a new religion of its own, and he even called science "a source of spirituality." For somebody who is remembered as hard-edged, he certainly had some metaphysical yearnings of his own.

But back to literature, and what one needs to know. If one fancies one knows Shakespeare, then one also should know that over 1,300 times, the Bard quotes Scripture in one form or another. How can one say one knows the greatest writer in the English language, if one does not know that? And what about Milton? His subject was almost exclusively Scripture. Or Donne? Or Browning? Or Herrick? Or anybody, really, in the Western literary canon...all owe something, at least, to the Bible. Even with the modern Atheist writers -- which "god" is it they're hating and rejecting? It's certainly not Zeus, Thor, Allah or Shiva. Their hatred is really reserved for only one God...the real one.

[Gary Childress]

Yes. It all went downhill when I started watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" on public TV. This was in my most formative years in Junior High school. I learned to shun the bible and pay more attention to science and secular philosophy. I thought the Bible was brainwashing and would corrupt one's critical faculties. How was I supposed to know at such a young age that I would be condemned to eternal damnation for it?

Ah, the follies of youth. It's in their naive years...often the teens...that most people become Atheists. Dawkins, for example, didn't come to his Atheism by way of expertise in biology, but by way of being a rebellious 17-year-old, by his own account. There's high chance, in fact, that an Atheist is also a hater of his own father, who transfers his hatred to the whole idea of God...Freud, Nietzsche, Hitchens, Dennett, Butler, O'Hare, Russell...the list goes on and on. How many others are there today who, off at university, discover for the first time that they really didn't know much or personally believe anything, and, in a desire to be thought wise, opt for Atheism, since it requires of them very little and offers them club membership in the ranks of cynically esteemed -- in addition to a chance to poke ol' dad in the eye?

Sagan was more astute than that. He insisted, “I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian- (sic) Islamic God." He didn't imagine he had any such evidence. What he claimed, instead, was to be merely "agnostic." But he also had a weird belief that science would one day generate a new religion of its own, and he even called science "a source of spirituality." For somebody who is remembered as hard-edged, he certainly had some metaphysical yearnings of his own.

But back to literature, and what one needs to know. If one fancies one knows Shakespeare, then one also should know that over 1,300 times, the Bard quotes Scripture in one form or another. How can one say one knows the greatest writer in the English language, if one does not know that? And what about Milton? His subject was almost exclusively Scripture. Or Donne? Or Browning? Or Herrick? Or anybody, really, in the Western literary canon...all owe something, at least, to the Bible. Even with the modern Atheist writers -- which "god" is it they're hating and rejecting? It's certainly not Zeus, Thor, Allah or Shiva. Their hatred is really reserved for only one God...the real one.

Well, I'm beyond being "born again" as far as I can tell. Agnosticism is the best I can do. I haven't been able to warm up to God and Church in spite of some efforts on my part.

I know little about the Bible. (I mean there are lots of popular books I haven't read, including the whole Harry Potter phenomenon.) I suppose that would make me a very bad anthropologist of European culture or priest. And I don't read much anymore, so I don't think my ignorance of the Bible is going to improve.

Should I assume I'm going to hell?