Christianity

[RCSaunders]

Trinitarianism is particularly good for providing the teaching and life of Jesus who brings the Deity down to Earth for us. Muhammad the Holy Prophet did the same service for Muslims by recording in human language (Koran) and a life (Hadith) the word of God.

Isn't that wonderful! If hadn't been for trinitarianism and Islam the world would have missed all those good things, like the crusades, the Inquisition, Muslim atrocities and terrorism. Thank the gods for all their many hideous blessings.

[Belinda]

Trinitarianism is particularly good for providing the teaching and life of Jesus who brings the Deity down to Earth for us. Muhammad the Holy Prophet did the same service for Muslims by recording in human language (Koran) and a life (Hadith) the word of God.

Isn't that wonderful! If hadn't been for trinitarianism and Islam the world would have missed all those good things, like the crusades, the Inquisition, Muslim atrocities and terrorism. Thank the gods for all their many hideous blessings.

Despite the message of peace from both Jesus and Muhammad , men still mistakenly believed they were right to kill innocent people.

[Nick_A]

NickA quoted:

"In prayer one is vulnerable, not enthusiastic. and then these rituals have such force. they hit you like a locomotive. You must be not enthusiastic, nor rejecting - but only open. This is the whole idea of asceticism: to become open."

That rules out superstition, magical thinking, and idolatry, so I like it. But hold on! There must be an object for prayer or else one may deceive oneself and become prey to all sorts of nonsense.

Trinitarianism is particularly good for providing the teaching and life of Jesus who brings the Deity down to Earth for us. Muhammad the Holy Prophet did the same service for Muslims by recording in human language (Koran) and a life (Hadith) the word of God.

But how many understand the Trinity but instead prefer to argue a secularized interpretation. The teachings originating with a conscious source are not the problem. The problem arises from the human tendency to secularize them into egoism and conflicts.

The object of prayer is the trinity but what is it?

https://www.patheos.com/library/eastern ... ine-beings

Eastern Orthodoxy affirms the mystery of the Trinity and speaks of it using the language of love. When Eastern Orthodoxy speaks of God, the subject is not God the Father, but God the Trinity. According to the doctrine of the Trinity, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three divine Persons in One God, who exist within each other in a perpetual communion of love. There is a fundamental paradox in believing that 3=1, which is embraced by the Orthodox traditions as a path to transformation. Because the nature of God is mysterious, it can't be reduced to logic or words, and therefore must be experienced through repentance and revelation. It is possible to experience the mystery of God because God is also personal, a God whom the believer can approach directly and relationally. Personal experience of the divine mystery changes the believer in mind, heart, and feeling, opening the path to holiness.

The emphasis Eastern Orthodoxy places on mysticism, or the believer's personal experience of the mysteries of faith, is unmistakable. It has also led to some of Eastern Orthodoxy's most distinctive contributions to Christian theology. Orthodox thought fiercely guards the absolute transcendence of God from any idea that might dilute it. No one can claim to know God, because God is unknowable. Certain things can be known about God, such as God's goodness, or wisdom, or justice, but these attributes don't fully describe God's inner nature, which is transcendent and beyond knowing. Orthodox Christians therefore practice 'apophatic' theology, or the 'way of negation.' Orthodoxy avoids describing only what God is, focusing ultimately on what God is not. Any positive affirmation of God is just a way to improve our human, and therefore limited, understanding of the incomprehensible nature of God. So, for example, if we were to say, "God is love," the Orthodox would reply, "This is true, but God also surpasses everything we know about love."..............

Is there anything sillier than sleeping people in Plato's cave arguing about what they cannot understand being psychologically asleep? Yet it happens all the time and the horrors RC refers to are simply the result of secularizing the ineffable.

[iambiguous]

Of course, the beauty of all this for Christians is that those like me have absolutely no capacity to provide evidence that their God does not exist. Or any other God for that matter. The whole point of belief here for Christians revolves around a leap of faith. More or less blind and more or less as a result of being indoctrinated as a child.

Yes in fact, you do. The entire world, the Earth and its systems, the galaxy, the Kosmos, the Universe -- all of these things, if you accept Infinite Regress, seem to indicate an originating idea (for want of a better description). But nothing about any aspect of this World actually gives any direct knowledge of God. If that God created all this, that God is weird indeed, and not Christ or God the Father.

But examine the Greek gods. They are far more linked to natural processes; to the ways that natural forces act and interact with each other. Then examine the gods of the African religions -- say Yoruba. These are gods of mountains, or rivers, of elements. Oshun for example corresponds to Aphrodite. In Africa Oshun rules *rivers* and fresh water. But in practical application Oshun rules 1) women of certain characteristics. Usually alarmingly pretty. Not very intellectual but very sensual. 2) everything that has to do with love, sex, the sexual act, love-affairs, and also money, gold and successful business.

There are other feminine prototype gods as well -- Yemaja for example seems to embody another type that is easily distinguishable. Usually darker, a bit more reserved than boyant Oshun. Very feminine but more motherly. Yemaja is associated with the sea (salt water).

Now I could also mention Eleggua. Ellegua corresponds to Mercury and is masculine. But being corresponded with Mercury this also means with Hermes. And Hermes rules communication and the passageway of communication. He also therefore rules the mind and the sort of intelligence of one who *sees*. In the Yoruba tradition they recognize that people's heads can get all messed up. They get unclear. Their thinking processes and their choices are bad. They wind up with legal troubles, relationship troubles, familily troubles, spiritual troubles essentially. The object of the Yoruba curandero is to *lift* that unclarity from that head. This is done through various sorts of purification -- literally cool balms applied to the head. The head has to be *purified* of bad energies and sort of reset.

And then that person, with a refreshed guidance-system, can plot new and better life-courses. It is very practical spirituality. The things that are important are the things that are closest to the individual and his well-being.

So these are 'the gods of the earth' and in former times, among the Greeks, and in all primitive European cultures. these were the gods who were understood and evoked.

Sure, make note of any God or any Gods at all.

But: What still is of interest me is bringing them around to this:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path

This thread revolves around the Christian God. But I really don't make a denominational distinction in regard to the four factors above. All religious and spiritual paths [to me] are about finding and then sustaining a certain measure of comfort and consolation by connecting the dots psychologically between objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side.

Christianity is clearly smack dab in the middle of that, right?

The Christian God may be "something else" for some, but not for me. He just happens to be [historically] among the most widely worshipped and adored Deities "out there".

IC actually believes that Jesus Christ and God the Father *exist* in some sort of *place* or locality. But what this means is, essentially, outside of himself. What he describes is the not-him and the Absolute Other. And that terrible God will eventually return, in a ball of fire or something similar, and literally, and physically, remodel the whole place and the entire cosmos.

Again, I'm not interested in what IC believes so much as what he can in fact demonstrate is in true about the existence of the Christian God.

And, as near as I can tell, his "proof" consists of the fact some believe that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure "back then". That to him is proof enough that God in Heaven is Christian.

As for this particular "general description spiritual contraption" depiction of God...

But this is all absurd and *false* -- from one perspective. The God that is discerned (intuited, as well as felt) is only known through an intellectual processes (intellectus). The earth-bound brute, the one completely invested in earth-processes, cannot perceive this God that can only be encountered on the inner plane. This is why all spiritual paths involve some type of purification (and separation from earth-fields).

Essentially what I have outlined here is, I think, a sensible way to think about Christianity.

But if you say *There is no evidence that the Christian God exists!" you are totally mistaken and in so many ways! You have to think of this God as something that manifests itself through our psyche. And what Christianity has done through the psyche is all around you! Thus, you have to consider secondary effects.

The *inner turning* is only something you would experience on an inner plane.

...same thing. You believe it. Now, demonstrate substantively why I and all other rational men and women are obligated to believe it as well.

Besides, once you come around to recognizing that a belief in God revolves psychologically around the need to be -- to feel -- comforted and consoled in the face of just how ghastly the "human condition" can be [and not just in Ukraine] you can just nestle down into your faith. Hopefully all the way to the grave.

This is not good seeing. I could say Once you resolve to genuinely encounter God on an inner plane your relationship to yourself as well as to other people and the outer world will change. As a result of encountering another dimension (interiorly) other dimensions of possibilities open up (exteriorly). Your sense of the *terribleness* of the surrounding mechanical world will likely increase, not abate. And "comfort" will not necessarily be the result.

To me -- "I" rooted existentially in dasein -- this is just more spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Religious cant aimed at avoiding the four factors I note above. Bring your own Christian God there instead. Or here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

Indeed, your own narrative here is far, far removed from what I would hope to encounter in a philosophy venue.

On the other hand, with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, I can also understand why some will cling to just about any rationalizations in order to tote God along with them all the way to the abyss.

Again, I would if I could.

I keep hoping for a miracle...that I will encounter an argument that really does jolt me back to my Christian roots.

[promethean75]

Don't all us Americans have 'christian roots'? Whether we like it or not cuz christianity is everywhere. A mixed amorphous blob of man's greatest philosophical blunders, psycho-fatherlogical issues and his worst exi-psychological fears... all rolled into one complete system of thought.

Well I even went to one of those Christian summer camps, dude. Got saved in this little pseudo-dramatic scene where the pastor or Bible guy or whatever he's called, does the bible reading stuff and you verbally state that you accept Christ as your savior and all that jive. I think I was like ten I think. Can't remember. I do, however, remember the zipline they had that went out over the lake. You could stay on and just touch down on the ramp at the other side, but the point was to let go over the water and bust a backward gainer if you knew how.

Enough with the anecdotes and sentimental nonsense. It's because I'm half Irish-Englishman.

The point is that in my mature atheist stage I don't feel too terribly terrible about those origins because I got out of it quickly enough. Contrarily, if I had not become an atheist by twenty-five, I'd prolly feel a bit shameful about it. Like it took me too long to mature past it. A sign of a slow and/or weak intellect. That's how I would evaluate myself.

Now what would be unspeakable, unheard of, would be to continue to be a Christian past thirty.

[promethean75]

In a hypothetical reality for a second let's assume there's no rational proof of 'god' but there is revelatory knowledge of 'god' - direct experience of 'god' through some kind contact either with 'god' or some supernatural phenomena in some experience.

First, how could you be sure the 'god' that was, was the 'god' of Christianity and not just a Cartesian demon-god with a demi urge playing a trick?

Second, what does that say for those who have not the privilege of having such experiences and on account of that, rely on rational proofs for 'god's' existence?

In different words, how could 'god' disapprove of atheists if he knows that only revelatory knowledge of 'him' is possible... while providing such knowledge only to a proportionate few.

'god' can't expect a skeptic to believe and trust a 'chosen one' who tells us 'he' exists... and yet still he disapproves of those whom he hasn't given the privilege of revelatory experience.

It would be terribly unfair to put these two on equal footing; the one has the burden of believing while the other has had direct revelatory experience of 'god'.

You think about dat for a minute.

[RCSaunders]

That when natural, biological, and ecological systems are examined they are seen to be *utterly cruel* and completely unconcerned for anything we might recognize as 'ethical'.

Ethics only pertains to choice, The natural world, with the exceptions of life and human beings, makes no choices. There is nothing teleological about physical existence.

Of all life, cruelty is only found in human beings. Cruelty is intentionally inflicting pain or suffering on other with suffering as the objective. Only human beings do that. The predator may inflict pain on its prey, but it does no do it in order inflict pain. Only human beings enslave, imprison, beat, torture, torment, go to war and terrorize other human beings for the shear pleasure of seeing others suffer.

Christians learn their cruelty from the Bible and the example of their God. The God of the Bible is utterly cruel tyrant, a racist choosing some people as his own which he orders to slaughter others, because they aren't his chosen ones. He condemns the majority of mankind to eternal torment which is called justice and all Christians believe justice is some kind vengeful inflicting of pain. The Bible teaches them that war is the right way to fulfill their God's purpose in this world and no one loves war more than Christians, because, they like you, think there is something wrong with the world, that it is intrinsically evil.

George Bernard Shaw wrote: "The reformer for whom the world is not good enough finds himself shoulder to shoulder with him that is not good enough for the world."

The problem is not natural existence or the world, the problem is you, and your hatred of reality. The following is from my Introduction To Philosophy, written when I still thought the field was salvageable.

Philosophy They Will Not Like

With few exceptions no one is interested in philosophy. They don't mind what passes for philosophy in academia, however. The academic perversions of philosophy are written and taught by those who use the methods of philosophy, not to discover the truth, but to evade and obfuscate it. They are just as ignorant, stupid, and superstitious as everyone else.

They hate true philosophy because it describes reality as it actually is and it is reality the sophists and cynics, passing themselves off as intellectuals and philosophers despise.

Reality is immutable, absolute, and ruthless. Immutable means the nature of reality cannot be changed or ever be other than what it is. Absolute means reality is complete and unconditional; it is all there is and is not contingent on anything else. Ruthless means reality determines what is true and not true, and no human feelings, desires, choices, acts, beliefs, or wishes can change it.

No one wants to learn about that kind of reality, but it is the only reality there is. No one wants philosophy because the reality it describes is not nice:

• The real world is a very difficult place to live.
• There are no shortcuts to life, success or happiness.
• You must earn everything by your own effort.
• Anything less than your best is failure.
• You cannot do wrong and get away with it.
• There is no forgiveness.
• There is no mercy.
• Neither your feelings nor your desires matter.
• Reality is all there is, the way it is.
• The truth is whatever correctly describes any aspect of reality.

Does that make reality sound harsh? Well, it is. The proper name for that harshness is justice.

Reality is neither cruel or kind, reality is just what is. It is neither malevolent nor benevolent, but it is the means to all that is worth living for and the source of all that is possible. That possibility includes the fact that every individual is provided with all they need to live successfully and happily and to be all they can be as a human being. It means, your every shortcoming and failure is the result of your own choices and actions. It means, if you are not happy, it is your own fault. Reality provides you the means to all good things, but you cannot achieve either success or happiness if you defy reality, or refuse to even learn what it is.

The Reality of All Possibility

As ruthless and implacable as reality is, it is also the source of infinite possibility. No success is possible in defiance of reality, but knowing what reality is and ordering one's life by the principles that describe it makes the achievement of anything possible.

If you are going to conform to reality, however, you must know what it is, what its nature is, and what the principles determined by that nature are, because it is those principles which must be one's guide in all one's thinking, choices, and actions if one is to live successfully and happily in this real world.

[RCSaunders]

Trinitarianism is particularly good for providing the teaching and life of Jesus who brings the Deity down to Earth for us. Muhammad the Holy Prophet did the same service for Muslims by recording in human language (Koran) and a life (Hadith) the word of God.

Isn't that wonderful! If hadn't been for trinitarianism and Islam the world would have missed all those good things, like the crusades, the Inquisition, Muslim atrocities and terrorism. Thank the gods for all their many hideous blessings.

Despite the message of peace from both Jesus and Muhammad , men still mistakenly believed they were right to kill innocent people.

We apparently are talking about different books and scriptures.

The Bible is nothing if it is not the record of continuous wars sanctioned by God with clear instructions for killing every living thing, men, women, and children. The book of judges is history Hebrew heroes, every one an assassin. The whole of the Christian religion is based of blood sacrifice. Christian life is pictured over and over in the New Testament as a battle, a war, and Christians described as soldiers, which is why Christians are such war mongers. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," (Matthew 10:34) was the peaceful message of Jesus.

You apparently have never read the Koran, which over and over teaches Muslims to kill the unbelievers. The Koran, Hadith and Sira are all filled with commands to violence and killing including the most famous, Quran 2:191 – “And kill them wherever you find them…” meaning unbelievers.

Where in the world did you ever get the absurd idea that either Christianity or Islam were messages of peace. Just because the religious say, "peace," a lot? They are both hateful violent religions, and those who practice them otherwise, like the Amish and Quakers (Friends) are both exceptions and in defiance of their own Scriptures.

[Belinda]

Isn't that wonderful! If hadn't been for trinitarianism and Islam the world would have missed all those good things, like the crusades, the Inquisition, Muslim atrocities and terrorism. Thank the gods for all their many hideous blessings.

Despite the message of peace from both Jesus and Muhammad , men still mistakenly believed they were right to kill innocent people.

We apparently are talking about different books and scriptures.

The Bible is nothing if it is not the record of continuous wars sanctioned by God with clear instructions for killing every living thing, men, women, and children. The book of judges is history Hebrew heroes, every one an assassin. The whole of the Christian religion is based of blood sacrifice. Christian life is pictured over and over in the New Testament as a battle, a war, and Christians described as soldiers, which is why Christians are such war mongers. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," (Matthew 10:34) was the peaceful message of Jesus.

You apparently have never read the Koran, which over and over teaches Muslims to kill the unbelievers. The Koran, Hadith and Sira are all filled with commands to violence and killing including the most famous, Quran 2:191 – “And kill them wherever you find them…” meaning unbelievers.

Where in the world did you ever get the absurd idea that either Christianity or Islam were messages of peace. Just because the religious say, "peace," a lot? They are both hateful violent religions, and those who practice them otherwise, like the Amish and Quakers (Friends) are both exceptions and in defiance of their own Scriptures.

The core message of the world religions is forgiveness, peace, justice, and goodwill. Religions are human institutions and have many failings including that they often violently divide the peoples of faith, this is because religions are often politicised. Despite their failings religions have been the sole channels that communicated the message of forgiveness, justice, and goodwill.

[Immanuel Can]

The core message of the world religions is forgiveness, peace, justice, and goodwill.

Like...Thugees? Or neo-Marxists? Or do you mean like tribalists love other tribes? Or do you mean Catholicism's inquisitions, or Islamic crusades...or Satanic rituals, or the Hindu caste system...which of these religions is all about these things?

Oh. Only one. Gee. What a surprise.

[promethean75]

I dunno about that. Jainism goes pretty fuckin hard on the peace, justice and goodwill thing.

[Immanuel Can]

I dunno about that. Jainism goes pretty fuckin hard on the peace, justice and goodwill thing.

You forgot "forgiveness."

[RCSaunders]

Despite the message of peace from both Jesus and Muhammad , men still mistakenly believed they were right to kill innocent people.

We apparently are talking about different books and scriptures.

The Bible is nothing if it is not the record of continuous wars sanctioned by God with clear instructions for killing every living thing, men, women, and children. The book of judges is history Hebrew heroes, every one an assassin. The whole of the Christian religion is based of blood sacrifice. Christian life is pictured over and over in the New Testament as a battle, a war, and Christians described as soldiers, which is why Christians are such war mongers. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," (Matthew 10:34) was the peaceful message of Jesus.

You apparently have never read the Koran, which over and over teaches Muslims to kill the unbelievers. The Koran, Hadith and Sira are all filled with commands to violence and killing including the most famous, Quran 2:191 – “And kill them wherever you find them…” meaning unbelievers.

Where in the world did you ever get the absurd idea that either Christianity or Islam were messages of peace. Just because the religious say, "peace," a lot? They are both hateful violent religions, and those who practice them otherwise, like the Amish and Quakers (Friends) are both exceptions and in defiance of their own Scriptures.

The core message of the world religions is forgiveness, peace, justice, and goodwill. Religions are human institutions and have many failings including that they often violently divide the peoples of faith, this is because religions are often politicised. Despite their failings religions have been the sole channels that communicated the message of forgiveness, justice, and goodwill.

Most religions do spout those nice sounding platitudes but they are not the core message. The core message of them all is the demand for belief without evidence (usually called faith) and obedience to religious authority. The other ideas, the platitutdes, as taught in religion, are actually lies and false promises. There is no forgiveness in reality and to teach people they can be forgiven is one of the greatest evils of religion. It convinces people they can do just anything and get away with it (because they'll be forgiven) and that no matter how worthless they are they can be given virtue without earning it. Religious. "peace," is some kind of feeling, a mental deception that convinces itself no matter how bad things are they have peace (like a druggy who has just had their fix)--it certantly isn't opposed to physical violence and war which all Western religions promote. Religious justice is nothing but vengeance, the belief that doing evil to an evil doer cancels the evil--true justice is the consequences of one's own choices and actions which are never forgiven. Goodwill is one of those meaningless sentiments that sounds so nice and syrupy, but is absolutely worthless except to those who are of no earthly value to anyone, but can feel virtuous, because they have the right feelings.

There is absolutely nothing of any positive value in any religion or ideology. Even the good ideas that can be found in some religious literature is swamped by the lies and perversions of principles they contain. When true Chemistry was finally established, the few things the alchemists discovered were retained, but alchemy was a mistake and thrown out. When the true nature of the heavens were finally established, astrology was thrown out. In every field, when real knowledge is discovered, the old superstitious mistaken notions are thrown out, and if studied at all, are studied only as historic curiosities. At least that is what happened in all other fields except philosophy and religion.

If there were anything of any value in any religion, it ought to retained, but its about time all religious and ideological superstitions were thrown out.

[iambiguous]

iambiguous wrote:

Does anyone else here have any other evidence beyond a leap of faith that might persuade me that, of all the many, many, many, many, many claims for this or that God, the Christian God is in fact the "real deal"?

Maybe if you solved Meno's Paradox it would indicate the inner psychological direction leading to our Source.

And this...

"If you know what you're looking for, inquiry is unnecessary. If you don't know what you're looking for, inquiry is impossible. Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible."

...has exactly what to do with my attempt to bring the Christian God "down to earth" pertaining to these factors:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of the Christian God
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why the Christian God?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in the Christian God
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and the Christian God

Or, if some prefer to call it "the Source", then that.

That's my own interest in either the Christian God or in all other Gods and spiritual paths. Connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

Not yours?

No problem. There are plenty of others here [and at ILP] who do not seem particularly interested in what, from my point of view, is the fundamental reason why Gods and religions exist in the first place. And that's always puzzled me.

Though, truth be told, not really.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You seem to be touching on the essence of the human condition. Man is dual natured. His lower parts ascended from below and has become corrupted through negative emotions leading to egoistic fragmentation. Man's higher parts descended from above and attracts our species to our source.. Man is captured by the ground yet attracted to our source. What to do?

This dual nature can be reconciled at the depth of the heart of Man allowing the lower to serve the higher. But as we are, the higher now serves the lower and Man is ruled by appetites leading to the chaos which defines the darkness of our world.

You present a conceptual diagram which I agree with. It is hard not to agree with the basic Platonic diagram. And in most ways, to the degree that I am Christian (I obviously have some issues with the *storyline* of Christianity and have expressed this often), I am a Platonic Christian and likely have that in common with Richard Weaver. But philosophical Christianity, or Platonism expressed through a Christian *picture*, expresses a personal, and indeed a gnostic, relationship. It is essentially a mystical description and suitable for mystics.