Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:28 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:13 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:45 pmThe other is that in practice, you keep insisting that "context" is not merely relevant but essential to "understanding."
Context is both relevant and essential to understanding other people. Yes, that is precisely what I said and what I meant to say.

Social determinism.

Is it the only way? No, that is not implied.

Now, now, be honest: what you said was "the only way."

You're taking that back, now?

My point is that I think that many people do not examine their own context enough, and do not understand well enough the contexts of others. When we do that we gain insight.

Nobody doubts that "some" insight might come that way. But that's not the important question: the important question is, "Will that insight have anything to do with the claim he/she made?" And the right answer is, "Maybe; but maybe not, and there's no way to know unless the person tells you."

So that's not nearly so telling a thing as your previous comments would suggest.

I can say the following: it is possible, and indeed I try to work in this direction, to step out of specific context. That is, the specific context that has produced us (any one of us).

Social determinism.

One way is to actually leave our context and live with others in a very different context.

Social determinism again: the (in my view) naive allegation that social context determines belief. You seem to think people can't speak other than their present social context permits them.

To understand someone else's context will necessitate a desire to understand.

But it will remain irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of his or her claims.

It is true that I did say it is 'the only way'. There is no other way that I am aware of to know some other person except through becoming willing to understand them as 'contextual beings'.

Social determinism. Yet again.

Perhaps you can indicate what other way or means you think could help one to understand.

Individual free will. People are not some sort of helpless product of their social environment, but rather individuals who can choose to sympathize with or depart from any particular "social context."

The phenomenon of the person who believes differently from the dominant narratives of his "social context" is ordinary, so empirically observable, that I find it quite gobsmacking that anybody thinks it cannot happen, or that "social context" is telling of a person's beliefs. It only is if he/she lets it be.

And for that, you have to question the individual, not about his or her "social context," but about his or her particular claims. Then you can compare those to any "social context" you like, and decide if that person is a conformist or a free thinker.

But this is all so obvious I shouldn't even have to point it out. You are, even yourself, proof of it. For "California radicalism" cannot be a good cultural explanation for why you admire Bork or Weaver: they're far too conservative for that "culture." So you've violated the very "context" you profess to be your own -- and thus show that "context" is not at all determinative of who you are or what you think.

So again, social determinism is nonsense. You've debunked it by your own example.

And that, by the way, is a compliment, not a criticism. But it's also true.

Posted: **Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:19 pm**

AJ: Context is both relevant and essential to understanding other people. Yes, that is precisely what I said and what I meant to say.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:28 pmSocial determinism.

I gather that you think that by attaching a label that I will feel uncomfortable for having this view?

We are all 'social beings', and since everything that we are when considered above and beyond our biological functions, which carry on without participation on our part, is determined through social processes -- and I include intellectual processes within social processes -- it is a very good place to start when examining the worldview and perceptual structure that people have.

But what I think you wish to refer to, and to assert perhaps, is part-and-parcel of what I gather is your general perspective. So let me state it like this: You believe that God is a real thing, and a separate entity from yourself, and this entity is 'out there' somewhere looking in or looking down. And since God is, pictured as such, outside of the world and abstract from it, he is also outside of the individual. An entity that is 'implored'. So your view is that God can, and God did, impinge or intrude into the world of men with ideas or ways-of-being (possibilities) that are not or were not part-and-parcel of 'the world' but came from without as it were. You function within this dualism, it seems to me.

So you will say -- again if I am right about what picture you work with -- that a given person within their context (I doubt that you deny context and I assume that you see context not as absolutely determining but perhaps only partially determining) can 'receive and think independent thoughts' that are not, necessarily, determined by their cultural and social context. As if these come from 'without' and enter in. (Revelation therefore).

Individual free will. People are not some sort of helpless product of their social environment, but rather individuals who can choose to sympathize with or depart from any particular "social context."

It is certainly true that some people, with certain aptitudes, and in some situations, can modify what they have received contextually. That is, through their social and cultural context. But in that sense it is an amplification or a broadening of understanding.

I am not sure if I'd go along with you in negating, as you seem to wish to do, that people are a 'helpless product' of their social environment. I suspect that they, and also we, may be more helpless than we are inclined to some absolute freedom in these areas. But I do not think I'd have chosen the word 'helpless'. I have mentioned Basil Willey and referenced his book Seventeenth Century Background wherein he makes a poignant statement: In order to understand our own metaphysics, and those descriptions of the world that we believe are absolute and final, we can only do so if we have access to a 'master metaphysician'. What does that mean? and who can fit that role?

I take it to mean someone who can get outside of themselves enough and to see oneself from a bird's-eye perspective. Obviously, one needs a point or a perspective that is outside of one's habitual one to do that. If this is so I would say that *most people* (in any case many people) are trapped by their habitual beliefs about 'the world'. So they may not, in fact, be as free as you seem to assert they might be.

However, I am pretty sure that what you wish to assert, and here I will try to concretize it, is that in your view Jesus Christ is 'absolutely other' and absolutely independent of man, and is thus capable of totally remaking a person in an entirely new way according to a design that did not originate in the earth. So I gather that when you refer to 'rebirth' of a Christian sort that you mean something along these lines. And you resist the idea of 'social determinism' because you believe that one can access that 'absolutely other' (et cetera et cetera).

The phenomenon of the person who believes differently from the dominant narratives of his "social context" is ordinary, so empirically observable, that I find it quite gobsmacking that anybody thinks it cannot happen, or that "social context" is telling of a person's beliefs. It only is if he/she lets it be.

I am assuming that this is how you see the 'ideal Christian' and how you see yourself. You are thus 'new wine' and cannot be fitted into old skins (et cetera et cetera).

And for that, you have to question the individual, not about his or her "social context," but about his or her particular claims.

Here I believe you are making more claims about yourself as one who acts (sees, perceives) independently of a determined context. You wish to situate your particular, and somewhat peculiar, Christian ideology within what I suppose you will claim as an 'absolutely free choice' that you made. And one specifically that goes against the (determined) social grain. Am I right?

So again, social determinism is nonsense. You've debunked it by your own example.

Remember, the term 'social determinism' is your applied label. It functions as part of your rigorously binary way of approaching most things, perhaps all things. My views have more fluidity. Thus it is not right to say that 'social determinism' is nonsense -- that would not be right -- but that there does exist a way for a given individual, determined by many different forces and factors, to modify or amplify his perceptual structure. That seems unquestionably to be true.

Just you wait: I am right on the verge of launching my World Mission . . .

Individual free will. People are not some sort of helpless product of their social environment, but rather individuals who can choose to sympathize with or depart from any particular "social context."

Finally, I am not sure if I see you as an exemplar of that 'free individual' and the independent agent that you see yourself as being and hold up as an ideal. I do though believe I understand how your self-view functions.

Part of the reason, perhaps a large part of the reason, why I take issue with you is because you do not convince me of your freedom and independence. But then what would 'being free' mean? It is not an easy question.

Posted: **Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:45 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:19 pm
AJ: Context is both relevant and essential to understanding other people. Yes, that is precisely what I said and what I meant to say.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:28 pmSocial determinism.
I gather that you think that by attaching a label that I will feel uncomfortable for having this view?

No. But I think you might realize it's nothing but a form of Determinism, and Determinism is always anti-intellectual. That's possible.

We are all 'social beings', and since everything that we are ...is determined through social processe...it is a very good place to start when examining the worldview and perceptual structure that people have.

It's actually a terrible place to start "examining" anything. It simply capitulates to Determinism, so no more intellection is needed.

So you will say...that a given person...can 'receive and think independent thoughts that are not, necessarily, determined by their cultural and social context.

Of course.

Individual free will. People are not some sort of helpless product of their social environment, but rather individuals who can choose to sympathize with or depart from any particular "social context."
It is certainly true that some people, with certain aptitudes, and in some situations, can modify what they have received contextually. That is, through their social and cultural context.

So you try to argue that their context can free them from their context?

Nope.

If social determinism is true, then context determines their beliefs. Period.

I am not sure if I'd go along with you by negating, as you seem to wish to do, that people are a 'helpless product' of their social environment.

You mean "I am inclined to keep thinking that people are helpless products of their environment"? That seems to be what your rather long and convoluted sentence seems to say.

I take it to mean someone who can get outside of themselves enough and to see oneself from a bird's-eye perspective. Obviously, one needs a point or a perspective that is outside of one's habitual one to do that. If this is so I would say that *most people* (in any case many people) are trapped by their habitual beliefs about 'the world'. So they may not, in fact, be as free as you seem to assert they might be.

I don't say that people can't choose not to think, or not to be slaves. I simply say that those who do deny their responsibility for their freedom. But their choice is, whether they know it or not, a "choice" all the same. And they are answerable for that bad choice, as everyone is for every choice they make.

...you resist the idea of 'social determinism' because you believe that one can access that 'absolutely other'

I have no idea what you mean by this sentence.

And for that, you have to question the individual, not about his or her "social context," but about his or her particular claims.

Here I believe you are making more claims about yourself as one who acts (sees, perceives) independently of a determined context.[/quote]
No. I'm stating it as a general truth.

"Social context" thinking is not only a subcategory of Determinism, but also a subcategory of the thing called "The Genetic Fallacy." That is, it assumes an idea can be judged by judging its source instead of its content.

It's bad thinking done two ways.

You wish to situate your particular, and somewhat peculiar, Christian ideology within what I suppose you will claim as an 'absolutely free choice' that you made. And one specifically that goes against the (determined) social grain.

That would be irrelevant, either way. What I "wish" to do does not make something true. And that I "wish" it doesn't make it false either. So that's just an irrelevant observation, one way or the other.

So again, social determinism is nonsense. You've debunked it by your own example.
Remember, the term 'social determinism' is your applied label.

You call it "social context," which is a distinction without a difference, so far as I can tell.

...there does exist a way for a given individual...to modify or amplify his perceptual structure. That seems unquestionably to be true.

Then social determinism is false.

Individual free will. People are not some sort of helpless product of their social environment, but rather individuals who can choose to sympathize with or depart from any particular "social context."
Finally, I am not sure if I see you as an exemplar of that 'free individual' and the independent agent that you see yourself as being and hold up as an ideal.

It's not relevant, either way.

Part of the reason, perhaps a large part of the reason, why I take issue with you is because you do not convince me of your freedom and independence.

Well, then that's your problem, not mine. I'm fine with knowing what I know: I am not at pains to "convince" you, especially if you want to believe something different. You can believe me to be a free thinker or a thrall to my "context": neither has any relevance to the truth of any particular truth claim. Neither would make such a claim better or worse.

Posted: **Sat Jun 11, 2022 9:21 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:45 pmBut I think you might realize it's nothing but a form of Determinism, and Determinism is always anti-intellectual.

It is not 'nothing but', that is your assignment and not what I understand nor what I wish to express. What I say, and what I have said, is:

My sense is that the only way we can really understand each other (that anyone can understand anyone else) is through revealing of context. The actual and rather blatant fact is that all of us writing on this thread come from very very different contexts and for this reason, and try as we might, at the most essential points we cannot agree. The reason I keep focusing on this is because it is my understanding that -- and certainly within the cultural context I am most familiar with (the US) -- 'agreements are breaking down'. I am never sure (speaking of this thread) how or even if others here focus on current events, but this is really my central interest and concern. I abbreviate that by reference to 'the Culture Wars'.

I referred to a specific context: a cultural and social context in which people are so divided that they cannot understand one another. Their perspectives differ so widely that they they cannot make sense of what the other person is saying. I refer to this as a breakdown in essential agreements. And I also mention an impending crisis (war, or politics by other means) because the divisions grow too extreme.

You took what I said out of the context to which it referred.

The fact of the matter, and here I must be realistic and honest, is that most people do not live on a platform of intellectualism. Or of rationality and reason. I think people live on planes that may include intellection and reasoning but that to understand them, and perhaps humankind generally, one must see them (and I would include ourselves) in a different light. So, what 'determines' people -- the way they are, how they act, what they do -- is an open question. It is not clear in any case. And it is not simple. It would have to be submitted as a question for review and conversation. So it seems fair to say that people on the whole live in determined circumstances.

It is true that the intellect seems to be the faculty that can operate against a determined condition. But the fact of the matter, from where I sit, and I sit in a place where people are far more emotional and sentimental and not determined by intellectual choices, is that real intellection seems a rare trait and achievement. So with that observation I return to my assertion: to understand people one has to examine their context. It is a starting point in any case.

I also said:

Context is both relevant and essential to understanding other people. So for example if we wish to understand -- let me take an example -- the people or the cultural group (of it can be broken down so easily) of those who are 'Trump supporters' in America today, the best way to approach understanding them is through an examination of their context. Is it the only way? No, that is not implied. But it is (in my view) the best place to start.

My point is that I think that many people do not examine their own context enough, and do not understand well enough the contexts of others. When we do that we gain insight.

You say:

It's actually a terrible place to start "examining" anything. It simply capitulates to Determinism, so no more intellection is needed.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

So you try to argue that their context can free them from their context?

That would be a binary and reductive way of restating it. I would not use the term 'capitulation', either. It would include a grasp of determined factors though.

And again when I made my original comments I was speaking to a specific situation:

So the more that we contextualize ourselves, and the clearer we get about the 'causal chains' that have informed us, and at the same time the causal chains that have informed others, at the very least we will be able to have, say, more toleration for the ideas of others, but more than that the essential existential (and metaphysical) orientation of others. Note that this does not change, and likely cannot change, that we have headed already into 'war' (the conduct of politics by other means) and that different forms of disaster impinge and have made their presence evident.

If none of this makes any sense to you I doubt I am going to be able to help you further.

AJ: Finally, I am not sure if I see you as an exemplar of that 'free individual' and the independent agent that you see yourself as being and hold up as an ideal.

IC: It's not relevant, either way.

Actually, it very much is. But I grasp that you like to deal in pure abstractions -- rather mathematical it seems. I do not think that that methodology is productive. I work within other ones.

Posted: **Sat Jun 11, 2022 10:21 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 9:21 pm If none of this makes any sense to you I doubt I am going to be able to help you further.

Gee...what would I do without your "help"?

AJ: Finally, I am not sure if I see you as an exemplar of that 'free individual' and the independent agent that you see yourself as being and hold up as an ideal.

IC: It's not relevant, either way.
Actually, it very much is.

No, still not.

Logically not.

Rationally not.

Factually not.

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:19 am**

“Obstinacy makes us deaf to good counsel for all that we have ears.”

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 2:25 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 2:02 pm
attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 6:34 am I must insist that you stop inisting on "Your God",
This "god" of which you speak...I can't call it "mine." What else am I to call it but "your god"?

God KNOWS ALL that is contained within the minds of wo/man - DO YOU DISAGREE?
About my God or yours?

God needs to still feel a fulfillment to its own existence...
I am asking, not telling: does your god need to be "fulfilled"? Is its "existence" dependent on, or in some way needful of you?

Ergo, God is NOT omniscient of the FUTURE...

Well, it seems reasonable to ask, are you a Gnostic, an Open Theist or a Process Theist? All three think that god doesn't know the future...

But you can't be a Gnostic, since you see this god as being good, in some sense, right? In Gnosticism, the local god is a demiurge, and not good.

So is it one of the other two? What name do you give this belief?

And it does not know the future? But if so, this is not like the God of the Bible, since the God of the Bible can prophesy, and can even bring about things in the future as He wishes. But your god cannot?

I am ITS entertainment
This god, you say, is an "it." But "it" needs "entertainment"?

Please note: these are questions I'm asking, not statements I'm declaring to you. I'm trying to repeat back to you what I am gleaning from what you say, so you can hear and judge the rightness of what I'm hearing from you.

If I'm not repeating back something accurately, I want you to tell me in what ways what I'm saying is not accurate to what you believe, so I can see what it is you do believe.

I'm just trying to clarify my understanding here.

NO YOU ARE NOT REPEATING BACK ANYTHING ACCURATELY, you have no intention of CLARIFYING your understanding. YOU are NOT worthy of a PHILOSOPHICAL debate.

PRIME EXAMPLE:-

attofishpi wrote:Ergo, God is NOT omniscient of the FUTURE...MISSING: Ergo, God is NOT omniscient of the FUTURE, although it does have the means to will it so - cause and effect.

IC response:- "And it does not know the future? But if so, this is not like the God of the Bible, since the God of the Bible can prophesy, and can even bring about things in the future as He wishes. But your god cannot?"

OUR God CAN, as per the bit you decided to omit - God CAN cause the future events to occur.

Don't bother ""debating"" with me anymore IC, you are an unethical worthless piece of shit.

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:03 am**

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 2:25 am PRIME EXAMPLE:-
attofishpi wrote:Ergo, God is NOT omniscient of the FUTURE...MISSING: Ergo, God is NOT omniscient of the FUTURE, although it does have the means to will it so - cause and effect.

I didn't want to point this out, but "ergo" implies there's been a pattern of argument that justifies the conclusion that follows the "ergo."

There wasn't. It was a gratuitous "ergo."

You don't start an argument with the word "therefore." Therefore points backward. If there's nothing of substance earlier, then there's no "therefore."

But I get the strategy: realize you're beaten, pose as taking umbrage at some nitpicky point, duck all questions and depart the field in a huff, hoping nobody detects the ruse and your dignity goes with you.

Alas, it does not.

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:23 am**

God stated to me that "I learn from you" -(WHICH YOU ALSO OMITTED) from which I state God is not OMNISCIENT. - Ergo - a prior argument (that God is not omniscient since it learns from us, but as I stated IT can cause future events...- which you omitted - because you are unethical in any debate)

You lose, you are unethical, ERGO - non Christian.

To think you consider yourself a Christian in getting satisfaction out of your own DECEIT..

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 2:15 pm**

Previously I wrote:

So the more that we contextualize ourselves, and the clearer we get about the 'causal chains' that have informed us, and at the same time the causal chains that have informed others, at the very least we will be able to have, say, more toleration for the ideas of others, but more than that the essential existential (and metaphysical) orientation of others. Note that this does not change, and likely cannot change, that we have headed already into 'war' (the conduct of politics by other means) and that different forms of disaster impinge and have made their presence evident.

It seems relevant to mention that when Christianity and Christian belief and philosophy is considered it generally speaking represents a strict and highly managed system which is very concerned to maintain specific outlooks and certainly specific metaphysics. I think this is what I notice most strongly in Immanuel Can's position and presentation. Even more strict is the Catholic 'credo' which involves a written statement about what must be believed, and cannot be disbelieved.

For those following what I have been writing I am of course interested in examining the period in relatively recent history where 'Christian culture generally' began to reject these strict credos, or to modify them. And this is the reason why I keep mentioning the fin-de-siècle period. It was a vital and revolutionary period in Europe and during that time the 'alternative spiritualities' that became so popular and powerful in a later period (the Sixties is a good reference point). And we are all aware, or should be aware, that we are now living and we are also products of this 'causal chain'.

So with that said I want to at least mention Promethean's interesting contribution and also Appofishpi's. Because these represent and are an outcome of breaking free of a managed and ideologically constrained spirituality and religiousness. These involve subjective experience without an ideological overlord.

The rejection of the strict ideological overlord and the specific contract (as a Credo essentially is) -- a "I believe this" statement which must be signed more or less to be an admitted believer in good standing -- was dislodged as it were by the entire possibility of free and open personal and subjective experience.

Therefore I would suggest even more strongly that we have to be willing to open ourselves up to a greater probing of our own subjective experience and our *context* in which it is experienced, and at the same time must become more open to seeing and understanding other people's subjective experience. It must also be said that there are problems associated with subjectivity. And again I must mention that no one writing in this thread can be said to agree with any other person at a foundational level. Curiously, Nick should have many points of agreement with IC. And I should have numerous points of agreement with IC as well. I sort of grasp Dubious' position though he has never defined it and it must be gleaned and interpreted from what he writes. Others have philosophical positions of a sort but do not speak of their subjective experience much.

Again what I find interesting is this general state of affairs. People who seem to have become -- what is the word? -- atomized into subjective experience-positions but who cannot find a common bridge to shared agreements. What I notice is fragmentation. And of course I suggest that it is this process of fragmentation that we notice strongly occurring around us in so many different areas.

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 7:31 pm**

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:23 am God stated to me that "I learn from you" -(WHICH YOU ALSO OMITTED)

I didn't need to include it. You had already stated it, as anybody could read.

What it means, though, is that your god is incomplete in its knowledge. It can "learn from" you. And that only means that some entity, whether inside your own head or out, that 'speaks' to you, is not omniscient. It does not mean that entity is "God." In fact, analytically, it can't be the same entity that is meant when Christians use the word "God" at all.

Posted: **Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:53 pm**

"God stated to me that "I learn from you"

No 'god' would have anything to learn from an attofishpi. That's almost so obvious it could be an axiom of reasoning, a truism, a pure deductive truth, even a fifth law of thermodynamics.

Clearly attofishpi is taking the piss, for I pity he who'd believe we'd be taken for even a moment by such balderdash.

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:51 am**

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:53 pm "God stated to me that "I learn from you"

No 'god' would have anything to learn from an attofishpi. That's almost so obvious it could be an axiom of reasoning, a truism, a pure deductive truth, even a fifth law of thermodynamics.

Clearly attofishpi is taking the piss, for I pity he who'd believe we'd be taken for even a moment by such balderdash.

It wasnt't ME INDIVIDUALLY!!! - It was talking about MANKIND!!

..and YES - I haven't the foggiest what such an intelligence might learn from US!!

Indeed, as IC correctly pointed out, it might not have been God talking - they rarely identify - as in could just as likely been my sage.

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2022 3:30 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 6:02 amOh. Well, if your input is needed, then how is his word decisive?

It's either yours or his that gets done, or neither; unless you want to say that miraculously, his word always winds up being exactly the same as yours, by accident, presumably...

Oh. So your god is short of information, information it needs from you?

First, and I will repeat what I have suggested before: that the image that Christianity provides of what and who God is does not coincide at all with what *the world* is, and by this I mean the material kosmos and the unfolding world that we (i.e. human kind) have really only very recently begun to see with some accuracy.

Again, when this *world* was really seen for what it is, and not seen through an a priori theological and theological-cosmological lens (one could abbreviate this to the term scholasticism), it was at that point that a chasm opened within Occidental culture. That opening chasm has not closed and the two poles have not come together.

So let me suggest that if we are to deduce God from what we see in the physical world surrounding us, and I mean our earth but the entire universal manifestation, the God that created all of this could not be the God that Christianity describes. The same seems largely true for all other cultural god-conceptions.

When IC asks "Well, if your input is needed, then how is his word decisive?" he is, of course, referring to a specific god-concept. And my suggestion, and indeed my belief and understanding at this point, is that this god-concept must be understood to be a *construct*. This does not mean, necessarily, that there is not, let's say, a sort of cosmic metaphysics which intelligence draws on or reflects, but really just a simple assertion that men build their theologies. To construct a theology is comparable to any other sort of construction which human kind engages in.

Once this is understood then the core idea that is so very central to IC's view (and to absolutist Christianity generally) is, to one degree or another, challenged or undermined. That core idea is that there is a God who exists outside of and apart from the world who sends His commands and directives down to human kind. This entails the notion of an absolute and unchanging Law that is imposed as an absolute demand. When you get down to the brass tacks (and IC says as much, constantly) you will either accept this Law, and then proceed onto an eternal heavenly plane of existence, or you will not accept it and then proceed to a hell-realm of eternal punishment.

In this sense then, and obviously, God's word is ultra-decisive. In what sense then is man's input in any sense relevant? Seen in this way man's role is only to apply God's Law since, as IC says, it is either God's will be done or man's will be done -- or neither.

If I now propose that the image of God that is presented here is not really God but a construct developed by man, I might suggest that man's construct -- the Cathedral as it were -- is a co-creation between man and man's god-concept. But this would not necessarily mean that 'god' does not 'exist' and even if the god-concept is seen as having been constructed that it is all 'false'. Though it is true that some must take this route and become not only agnostic but atheistic.

So there is another way to proceed. If we can agree that the god-concept is a construct of man, then certainly the Image of God portrayed in that concept would certainly need man's input. That God would certainly be 'short of information'. What information? But here is the interesting issue: the missing information is everything that we (human kind) has now learned and is still learning about *reality*. All that information was absent and it was not revealed by the god-concept. The Yahweh of the OT did not reveal it. That god-image did not know!

And let me take this a step further: When a Christian of fundamentalist bent, such as IC, makes declarations about what God is and what God demands and what will happen if God is not obeyed, he is speaking through the imago of a former god-concept but could not be speaking as God could or might speak today. But how would God speak today?

This is the issue that has fascinated me. What I wanted to bring out many pages back is that I have an idea about how God would speak and what sort of man would be his mouthpiece: Hamlet! Hamlet is, it occurred to me, the voice of a New Theology, a new relationshup both to God and to the world -- to life, to existence. There is no example of a more fully-rounded, thoughtful, but also conflicted and pulled-apart moral man that I can think of.

So if you follow my idea, and if it is agreed with in any sense, it is when man develops himself, and in this sense gives birth to himself (my reference is, and directly, to the Christian idea of rebirth on a spiritual plane) that a new sort of man arises that was not there before. It has been said (by Harold Bloom) that Shakespeare invented the human. If you follow his thesis it is actually pretty sound.

Therefore, there is a whole new and emerging human person that is, in this sense, being born. Now here is the interesting part: this new human person, or the fuller development of the human, can and does (and will) talk back to God! I also mean that this former God, or superseded god-concept, can fairly and justly be insulted. It can certainly be ridiculed.

Man must speak back to this god-notion. First to the god-concept which most can recognize as a construct. But also, and necessarily, to the new image of *what God is* when God is thought about when the Universe is contemplated from our present perspective. This implies a whole new conversation.

It all has to be re-visualized all over again. And I think that this, in essence, is what Nietzsche saw, even if he could not fully understand what it meant. But who can really?

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:00 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 3:30 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 6:02 amOh. Well, if your input is needed, then how is his word decisive?

It's either yours or his that gets done, or neither; unless you want to say that miraculously, his word always winds up being exactly the same as yours, by accident, presumably...

Oh. So your god is short of information, information it needs from you?
First, and I will repeat...

I wasn't actually addressing any of that to you, Alexis.

Your beliefs and your situation is very different from his. I can't blend them without misrpepresenting one on you two. Atto says he has his own "god" or "sage" (he's not sure which it is) actually talking to him, and deriving information from him..."learning," if you will. To my knowledge, you make no such claims, so none of this is a question I would ask to you.

If you want me to comment, you'll have to respond to the things I've addressed to you, not the things I've addressed to him.

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