Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

We do know. The words are simple: it's the willingness to accept them that's hard.

Words are always simple or perhaps ‘easy’. But if that is all that is entailed — in your definition of what Christianity requires...

Of course you don't just need the words. You need the reality of which the words speak.

However, I do not profess certainty about any of this. It is better if I say “I do not know what salvation means”.

That may be a fair statement, for you. It's up to you to say.

I don't have your uncertainty, through no merit of my own, nor is it necessary for anyone to remain in such uncertainty. The Bible is actually quite clear about it: but it takes some work to collect the various statements on that subject and to process them personally. Then, it takes a personal commitment to enjoy any experience of them. So there are at least two steps between uncertainty and certainty on the subject: the reading of the data and the decision of one's personal position on it.

In a larger sense I think that people have lost a sense of what it means.

Some have, and some haven't. It's hard to make true, global statements about what "people" know.

[seeds]

It's because anthropomorphic representations of the source of the intelligence that is responsible for the creation of the universe are precisely what makes the existence of such a source so implausible and unbelievable to atheists and materialists.

seeds, you are trivialising atheists. It is not anthropomorphism we are not persuaded by; it is the hypothetical "intelligence that is responsible for the creation of the universe".

And you don't think that atheists trivialize theists?

And you don't think that it's a problem for anyone trying to present an updated and fairly plausible explanation for what the creative source of the universe "might" be, when the only thing that the audience for that explanation can see in their minds when they hear the phrase...

"...creative source of the universe..."

...is anthropomorphic images such as your "beardy bloke in the sky"?...



...or, worse yet, this...



...both of which represent impenetrable mental barriers in the atheist's mind that preclude any rational discourse on the issue.

Such an intelligence may be real, but the arguments and evidence are only compelling to those who wish to believe.

I suggest that any argument that leans toward something intelligent being responsible for the creation of the universe is infinitely more compelling than arguments that rely on the absurdity of the "chance" hypothesis.

That being said, what sort of "evidence" would you, yourself, require to compel you over onto my side of the agnostic fence you seem to be straddling?
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

You need the reality of which the words speak.

That is another way of saying, at least in similar allusion, what I say just above. The Word and the Word's action can be, must be, seen in operation in reality. The oldest liturgical idea has odd ways of animating newer thought and image.

The earliest Latin hymns are attributed to St Hilary and St Ambrose. For example St Hilary's hymn to his daughter Abra, lucis largitur optime. Here is one, evidently written for Easter, with some strophes addressed to neophytes baptized on Easter Eve. The reference is to Christ's glorious victory over death and hell.

I am praying for Hamlet as well as Harry Haller . . . and Prometheus too!

To quote Sunflower Sutra:

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man’s grime but death and human locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis’ry

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and anyone who’ll listen:

We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our own eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.

One example of how the Word functions through its descent . . . and meaning shines through on the up swing.

Back to the Latin hymn:

At first, Death seems victorious:

Thou dost rejoice, O Death, to see the body hanging on the wood of the Cross;
and thou dost claim as thy share those limbs fastened with nails.

But then a complete change comes over this aspect of the struggle:

Light breaks upon the night's darkness. Hell trembles
and with it the cruel guardian of deep Tartarus.
O Death, thou art wounded with thine own weapons, for lo, He is God who,
threading the way of death, did vanquish thee.

So general Man, united to Christ triumphs too over death with Him:

Thou art conquered, O Death, by the weakness of our flesh.
This mortal nature has been closely allied with God. Through it I shall ascend to heaven,
joyfully rising again with my glorified body.

Now the neophytes joy is exclaimed:

I am born again! O blessed prelude to a new life!
I live, a Christian, under new laws.
O Death, no longer dost thou inspire me with terror!
The patriarch will receive me rejoicing into His bosom.
Henceforth I shall live in heaven, confident of seeing human nature
(in the person of him who took a human body) seated at God's right hand.

And finally the thanksgiving:

O Christ, who didst return as conquerer to heaven,
remember my flesh, in the like of which Thou wast born.
Let Satan, who once bore me deadly envy,
behold me now reigning with Thee forever.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel has just moved the goal posts ...

How?

[Alexis Jacobi]

That being said, what sort of "evidence" would you, yourself, require to compel you over onto my side of the agnostic fence you seem to be straddling?

Uwot, may I suggest you start here?

[Belinda]

Immanuel has just moved the goal posts ...

How?

You moved the goal posts from what RCSaunders claimed from empirical observations to what you claimed should be the case without empirical substantiation.

[Immanuel Can]

I had thought that it might be useful to find a person, or a personage, who we could say corresponded to Jesus Christ.

There is one. Jesus Christ.

I elect Hamlet as a necessary protogé of Jesus

Did somebody make you God, recently? I wasn't aware. I'll be more respectful, in future.

So, if you were to modify your language to express the fuller range of what the Word in Isaiah connotes,

I would got with the Word John identified: the Word that "became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1) What Isaiah never fully saw, John saw.

Nietzsche becomes the Word's critique of deathly hypocritical Christendom.

I think Nietzsche would be appalled at that move -- not the "critique" part, but the suggestion that He was in any way allied with Christianity. He saw himself instead as the secular "madman" -- a role which he later fulfilled in reality, as we know.

But I know what you're aiming for: the idea that Nietzsche could provide a salutary critique to hypocritical people who think themselves "Christian" but really aren't. And on that, I'd agree: he might expose the thinness of their convictions and the emptiness of their religiosity, and that would be good.

But there's another side to Nietzsche, one his Atheist admirers invariably overlook: his brutal critique of Atheism. For Nietzsche, the death of God is not a cheerful move, but one that plunges humanity into the abyss. Here's the way he put it himself:

"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?...

And what force exactly stands behind and animates 'awakening' and 'clarifying vision'?

The Nietzschean one, you mean?

The demonic, of course. The hatred of God is always infernal. And as you can see, it's not actually a "clarifying" vision at all, but rather the disembowling of inauthentic "Christendom" (and Judaism, because Nietzsche hated both) in favour of a plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, amorality and a universe underwritten by nothing more than power.

The move does nothing to address real Christianity. At times, even Nietzsche himself seemed to sense that. For he stopped short of excoriating Christ Himself, and instead evinced admiration for the path He laid down -- even if Nietzsche knew he, himself could never tread it.

So then Hamlet and his deeply unsettled spirit, a spirit of striving against lies and hypocrisy and a man, indeed, in the midst of an existential crisis that resounds through ourselves and into the future -- is what he is and what inspires him godly or ungodly?

I know Hamlet very well...probably far better than you do, unless you read it very, very often.

As you know, Hamlet is a fictional character. And his antipathy was not toward hypocristy or lies in any general way...in fact, he is portrayed as constantly lying and dissembling, himself. His ire was against his "incestuous" and murderous uncle. So let's not hold him up as some pure articulation of "Word." He was portrayed in no such way.

So then What does it mean to be a Christian? And what even does *Christ* mean? And who can say exactly what the Word is really up to? Who can control it and who can define it?

Jesus Christ.

Christ cannot be the Word that Isaiah refers to (intuits).

Well, that's simply a false conclusion. And manifestly so.

He is the Word that Isaiah prophesies, in fact. See Isaiah 53 (the whole thing). https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-base ... isaiah-53/ That's a chapter that is "forbidden" to Jews, even though it's a verifiably authentic one.

Interesting.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel has just moved the goal posts ...

How?

You moved the goal posts from what RCSaunders claimed from empirical observations to what you claimed should be the case without empirical substantiation.

Be specific. I'm not seeing any evidence for that at all.

[Belinda]

How?

You moved the goal posts from what RCSaunders claimed from empirical observations to what you claimed should be the case without empirical substantiation.

Be specific. I'm not seeing any evidence for that at all.

I guessed you would probably demand I quote the post in question, however I can't be bothered, so if you really want to know look it up yourself.

[Immanuel Can]

You moved the goal posts from what RCSaunders claimed from empirical observations to what you claimed should be the case without empirical substantiation.

Be specific. I'm not seeing any evidence for that at all.

I guessed you would probably demand I quote the post in question, however I can't be bothered, so if you really want to know look it up yourself.

I can't.

Because it's not true.

It's really hard to find things that don't exist.

[Alexis Jacobi]

A comment on what sort of 'spirit' animated Nietzsche:

The demonic, of course. The hatred of God is always infernal. And as you can see, it's not actually a "clarifying" vision at all, but rather the disembowling of inauthentic "Christendom" (and Judaism, because Nietzsche hated both) in favour of a plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, amorality and a universe underwritten by nothing more than power.

With this I cannot agree. Or, I disagree when I can wiggle out from under the power of extreme binary impositions and interpretations. Because you have become utterly solidified within a too-literary binary structure of view, all that you see is inflected by the colors you have cast.

So, I think you are very wrong about what animated Nietzsche. However, what is important in your radical assertions, what needs to be noticed, is what derives from this type of state of mind. It is too reductionist. It is too inclined to be content with rough and reductionist assessments. That which dominates your perception actually blinds your perception.

However be that as it may the larger issue at play here is the more relevant and interesting. And be exposing it to the light of day and to what we can think about, it can help us.

So what *happens in Nietzsche* is what has happened within the Occident. That much seems a safe statement. And what happened in the Occident is the dawn of a different, and I'd say a more complete and realistic vision of what Life actually is. It is not, not necessarily, that the spiritual man has died along with former conceptions and *pictures* which have, substantially, died; it is that the whole structure of Life must be reassessed.

It seems to me fair to say that Nietzsche not so much *saw* this but the awareness of this literally dawned or awakened in him. And he wrote-out a sort of psychic road map of what was to take place and what must take place. That is a complete revisioning.

What is furthermore interesting, at least from where I sit, is that if one hears what you are saying, if I become susceptible to your assessment, if I fall under its spell, I will concomitantly have to condemn all those people who struggled inside themselves to deal with, to deal maturely with, what Nietzsche saw and described.

This statement interests me:

. . . in favour of a plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, amorality and a universe underwritten by nothing more than power.

The fact of the matter is, and it really is, that the natural system, the biological system in which we human beings have our being, is exactly and precisely what you have just described. It is a world of meaninglessness. It is amoral down to each tooth & claw. And what underpins it is exactly and precisely power and the power-drive. These are hard & cold facts.

Where I stand in relation to knowledge and acceptance of these facts is that through ourselves, and through consciousness and intelligence, we bring into this terrible world what contradicts that world. And yet if we vanish from the scene the former world, the base-world, remains.

[Alexis Jacobi]

As you know, Hamlet is a fictional character. And his antipathy was not toward hypocristy or lies in any general way...in fact, he is portrayed as constantly lying and dissembling, himself. His ire was against his "incestuous" and murderous uncle. So let's not hold him up as some pure articulation of "Word." He was portrayed in no such way.

You are driven always to misunderstand. And then when you misunderstand you misstate. But to clarify all over again what I already expressed is too tedious. Can this obdurate stance not thaw, melt and resolve itself into a dew? My reference to Hamlet, and also to Shakespeare, was to a type of dynamic awareness.You totally missed the point.

[Alexis Jacobi]

[erased double post]

[Immanuel Can]

A comment on what sort of 'spirit' animated Nietzsche:

The demonic, of course. The hatred of God is always infernal. And as you can see, it's not actually a "clarifying" vision at all, but rather the disembowling of inauthentic "Christendom" (and Judaism, because Nietzsche hated both) in favour of a plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, amorality and a universe underwritten by nothing more than power.

...a too-literary binary structure of view...

If I were being wry, I'd say that I know what this means: it means "Please stop being so right."

What is furthermore interesting, at least from where I sit, is that if one hears what you are saying, if I become susceptible to your assessment, if I fall under its spell,

I'm a little short on spells today.

If, again, I were being wry, I would say that I also know what this means. It means, "I hate that I feel you are in danger of persuading me you're right."

This statement interests me:

. . . in favour of a plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, amorality and a universe underwritten by nothing more than power.

The fact of the matter is, and it really is, that the natural system, the biological system in which we human beings have our being, is exactly and precisely what you have just described. It is a world of meaninglessness. It is amoral down to each tooth & claw. And what underpins it is exactly and precisely power and the power-drive. These are hard & cold facts.

Yet they all depend, 100% on the assesment by Nietzsche being correct, when he said, "God is dead." If he's wrong, then none of that follows.

This is what I meant by Nietzsche's stern critique of Atheism. It is the reason his "madman" did not rejoice, but showed fear and horror at the prospect of a world deprived of reference to that Transcendent Authority. Atheism's not fun -- not if you take its implications seriously, which Nietzsche at at least tried to do (though even he failed to do that, in some obvious ways).

Where I stand in relation to knowledge and acceptance of these facts is that through ourselves, and through consciousness and intelligence, we bring into this terrible world what contradicts that world. And yet if we vanish from the scene the former world, the base-world, remains.

Not for long. This world is entropic and declining. And that's inexorable.

Given enough time, we know exactly what fate the unredeemed universe will achieve: it's a thing scientists call "heat death." And since it involves the equal dissolution of energy across the universe, it is an eternal state of nothing. That's absolutely inevitable, if God is not going to intervene.

That's the Atheist counterpart to salvation: eternal lostness in the black void of the dissovled universe.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, that's simply a false conclusion. And manifestly so.

Another misunderstanding. Read more carefully what I wrote and it may become clear.