Philosophy Now Forum

AJ, it is probably fair to say that the question as to whether or not your ideas and belief system meet the definition of "Christian" is less important than the nature and content of those ideas and beliefs. In any case, in my mind, the question is settled.

Let's turn, then, to your "liminal" zone. I think that you reject too much and too readily. The truth is, weird stuff, aka anomalous or paranormal stuff - stuff that "the modern viewpoint and standpoint" cannot explain - continues to happen, and often. In some cases, this weird stuff is weird enough to be described as miraculous. "Modernity" has not in any way abolished the miraculous, let alone the possibility of such a thing, except in the minds of those who haven't sought out or otherwise encountered evidence to the contrary. The same applies to the spiritual and to the divine.

Thus, the idea of a divine avatar performing miracles in Palestine some 2,000 years ago is *not* what makes orthodox Christianity impossible to believe in in the modern world. What makes orthodox Christianity impossible to believe in - whether in the modern, medieval, or ancient world - is its internal incoherence. When the Story (to use the capitalised term that you prefer) is examined rationally, it makes no sense - not because it involves miracles or divine beings or avatars, but because it contradicts itself.

Earlier, I shared a video with IC which he presumably either didn't watch or didn't care to respond to. Here that video is again. I encourage you to watch it, because it gets right to the core details of the logical problem as I see it, without any reference to the supposed impossibility of miracles, etc (ETA: correction, there is one reference to miracles, but the point remains that it's not essential to the argument):

God's Checklist 2.0

"you may not recognize your own cultural connection with Christianity and also 'Christian culture'"

AJ, I grew up with a Christian father, went to church with my family as a child, and attended a Catholic high school. I think I recognise my cultural connection with Christianity!

"you do not see them fully"

"keep going over your head"

"But you misunderstand"

"This is a block for you"

"did not or cannot register"

"Did you get any of this?"

"you cannot understand nuance"

If I don't respond to something you've written, or if I challenge it, or if I instead share my own perspective, it doesn't mean that I don't understand your perspective. Of course, there will be times - as in many dialogues - where I genuinely do miss or misunderstand something, but you seem to vastly overplay this.

"if your largest concern were essentially your flab and your minor addictions"

Speaking of misunderstanding...

The point of the advice (essentially to myself, but imaginatively proxied through a spiritual avatar) was to develop and maintain a relationship with Divinity via the spiritual pursuits of prayer, meditation, and fasting. Bodywork was included because it, too, can be part of a spiritual pursuit, as in the spiritual practice of yoga, but in any case, a healthy body is associated with a healthy mind, which very likely improves one's capacity for spiritual pursuits. And you might see the compulsive consumption of alcohol and caffeine as "minor", but my view (experience) is that consumption of those substances is a serious hindrance to a spiritual life.

"because what I am talking about will require of you energy and commitment -- which you do not care to have! -- you can only insist that I make my message intelligible to the 8 years old who is your Everyman reference-point. It does not work this way."

AJ, I get it: via extensive, diligent reading - hard work - you have acquired a whole bunch of facts, ideas, and perspectives that you consider to be valuable knowledge and understanding. Roughly speaking, you expect that anybody who did the same reading would end up with the same valuable knowledge and understanding, and value it as highly and in the same way as you do - thus, you expect that they do undertake that reading. Given that it is hard work, anybody who doesn't even though they ought to must then simply be lazy.

I don't share that expectation though, and I don't plan to undertake your reading programme. Nor, presumably, do many of your readers. Why not, then, for those like me, share - in meaningful detail - the valuable knowledge and understanding that you think you've gained, and why you value it so highly, so that we can have access to it anyway and assess its content and value for ourselves? Can there not be a meaningful middle ground between "Oh boy, you guys should get a load of this great stuff in our Christian heritage *waving hands around vaguely and repeating the same general affirmation in hundreds of posts*" and the admonishment to an extensive, decades-long reading programme?

The Church of No One Truth (NOT): A Cautionary Tale

A Play of Three Acts of Three Scenes Each

<< Act three, scene one | Act three, scene three >>

Act three, scene two

Characters:

Bjorn aGus

Pastor Wiola

Setting:

Inside the Church of No One Truth (NOT)

Bjorn aGus: Pastor Wiola, I... hey, wait. Pastor Wiola! STOP! We MUST speak. I DEMAND it!

Pastor Wiola: So that you can accuse me again of hiding things?! No thanks!

Bjorn aGus: I have it on impeccable authority that that is exactly what you ARE doing. If you refuse to speak with me, I shall go public.

Pastor Wiola: (White with horror) To whom have you been speaking?! And what have they said?! I want names, dammit!

Bjorn aGus: You don't know how much I know. So, wouldn't it be sensible to sit down with me and find out?

Pastor Wiola: (Shaking with anger) You have NO idea what you're dealing with. Absolutely NONE. You'd better be DAMN sure you want to go through with this.

Bjorn aGus: (Coolly) I am.

Pastor Wiola: I'm not so sure of that. But if you want this, then get into my office.

(He and she enter her office. He sits, again, on the corner of her desk. She sits on her desk chair.)

Bjorn aGus: So. You KNOW the One Truth, but you hide it from all and sundry. Not only that, but you pretend that it doesn't even exist!

Pastor Wiola: You think it's easy, huh?! To be entrusted with the most awful secret in the Universe, a secret that I should NOT know, except that they were running out of options? Why don't you bear that burden on YOUR shoulders before you dare criticise ME?!

Bjorn aGus: You admit it, then. You know the One Truth yet you deny its existence!

Pastor Wiola: Oh, how smug you are! As if you knew anything at all!

Bjorn aGus: I know that you're HIDING the TRUTH from the rest of us!

Pastor Wiola: You can't handle the truth!

Bjorn aGus: (Facepalms) Oh dear. You're... you're... really? You're going with Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men?

Pastor Wiola: How dare you accuse me of plagiarism! This is NOT the time NOR the place!

Bjorn aGus: OK. I guess it's a fairly generic line. I can give you that.

Pastor Wiola: You'd better give me a whole lot more, buddy, or that wood is going to become even harder in places you really don't want it to be. Name names is what I'm saying.

Bjorn aGus: I'll give you names if you give me the TRUTH.

Pastor Wiola: How cute. You think you're in a position to negotiate. You gave up that right when you entered my office.

(Bolts auto-lock tight in the only door exiting the office. Bjorn aGus gets up and tests the door. It does not open. He then turns back to face Pastor Wiola.)

<< Act three, scene one | Act three, scene three >>

Alexis Jacobi queried what I had written:

you said "sometimes the translator of transcendental virtues is an ordinary obscure sort of person" who demonstrates "one of the otherwise undefinable transcendental virtues", yet there is nothing undefinable in the examples you presented. Quite the opposite since each one is entirely definable.

A German who sheltered Jews could be said to be acting in accord with a transcendental notion but seen in another way I do not see why a transcendental factor need be supposed. Is simple concern for another person "transcendental"?

While I can easily understand that Rosa Parks (and many other people) determined that as payers they had as much right to a front seat as to a back seat, I am not so sure a 'transcendental' question is involved here. It is a question it would seem of rather non-transcendental power-relations. All the other examples are of a similar sort.

They are all of a similar sort because what defines them is interpretation of them as incarnations of good, truth, or beauty. I didn't actually give an example of an incarnation of beauty but I could easily do so as could you. The scientist of stubborn integrity incarnates truth, for me and possibly for you .The German who sheltered Jews incarnates good, for me and possibly for you too.

The motivations of Rosa Parks, or of Grace Darling are their own business, and I bet neither of these brave and alert women set out on their respective adventure with the intention to be to be 'incarnation of courage( or goodness) ' !

Subjective interpretations matter. For instance an artist finds a bit of driftwood and for him, it looks beautiful. A symbolist may look at the same bit of driftwood and say "this found object symbolises how the soul persists despite battering by life events". A realist looks the driftwood and thinks "I can kindle my fire with that". An archeologist sees the driftwood as possibly remains of an artefact maybe a sunken treasure ship.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:16 pm What I proposed about a possible Jesus who might speak you did not or cannot register. I say he'd have to speak with the depth of a Hamlet. An awareness of a crisis situation. How would that Jesus speak? What would be the terms of his speech? The terms of his discourse? The content of his admonitions? When I said that I propose that he'd have to speak as Richard Weaver speaks -- examining with intense analytical focus on the causes for deviation and the reasons why *the world* has fallen into decadence -- this flew over your head!

Your proposal is essentially that if Jesus wasn't Jesus - and he isn't, because he doesn't exist - then he would be Hamlet or Richard Weaver.

You will, of course, take this farcical rendering of your proposal as further evidence that I just don't get it - that I don't get why you would propose Hamlet or Richard Weaver in particular as models for a modern Jesus.

It's not, though, that it flies over my head, it's - again - that you're contorting concepts and definitions - of a system of belief to which you don't even ascribe - beyond the breaking point.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:57 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:16 pm What I proposed about a possible Jesus who might speak you did not or cannot register. I say he'd have to speak with the depth of a Hamlet. An awareness of a crisis situation. How would that Jesus speak? What would be the terms of his speech? The terms of his discourse? The content of his admonitions? When I said that I propose that he'd have to speak as Richard Weaver speaks -- examining with intense analytical focus on the causes for deviation and the reasons why *the world* has fallen into decadence -- this flew over your head!

Your proposal is essentially that if Jesus wasn't Jesus - and he isn't, because he doesn't exist - then he would be Hamlet or Richard Weaver.

You will, of course, take this farcical rendering of your proposal as further evidence that I just don't get it - that I don't get why you would propose Hamlet or Richard Weaver in particular as models for a modern Jesus.

It's not, though, that it flies over my head, it's - again - that you're contorting concepts and definitions - of a system of belief to which you don't even ascribe - beyond the breaking point.

Harry, is Christianity logical? From John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

What is the word? How can it both be God and be with God? If we don't understand but it is logical, why don't we understand?

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:14 pm Dubious wrote:

There isn't a single line in your post I disagree with. In fact it's an excellent summary of how "transcendental" in human terms reveals itself.

When transcendental reveals itself in human terms, that is what in another post I called epiphany.
I understand most Christian sects insist JC is the one and only unique epiphany.

Epiphanies manifest themselves in a myriad of ways. They are not in the least excluded in those who have no psychological requirement for god the concept of which may actually serve as a limitation in its experience.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:44 pm Let's turn, then, to your "liminal" zone. I think that you reject too much and too readily. The truth is, weird stuff, aka anomalous or paranormal stuff - stuff that "the modern viewpoint and standpoint" cannot explain - continues to happen, and often. In some cases, this weird stuff is weird enough to be described as miraculous. "Modernity" has not in any way abolished the miraculous, let alone the possibility of such a thing, except in the minds of those who haven't sought out or otherwise encountered evidence to the contrary. The same applies to the spiritual and to the divine.

Had you read better what I have written (of course there's no obligation to do so!) you'd have remembered that I mentioned having experienced wide ranges of anomalous phenomena of a spiritual sort. I was just watching the recent Epoch News presentation of an alternative view of 1/6 and toward the end there is a man who describes (within the context of his narrative about the events there) his hearing of the *voice* of what he understood to be 'the Lord' giving him various instructions about what to do, where to position himself in the crowd of protesters and the scene of confrontation that ensued. He also described seeing Bible verses which appeared in the sky and which had specific meaning in the context. So I always listen carefully when personal narratives of personal experiences of that sort are related. The man is 'absolutely sure' that Jesus of Nazareth spoke to his and I presume speaks to him.

One of the characteristics of the American religion (as Harold Bloom described it in his worthy book by that title) is that a large percentage of believing Americans, church-affiliated or non-affiliated, believe that God directly hears them and interacts with them. As evidenced by the narrative of the man I mention. American religiosity is Christian-derived but highly, even heretically, unconventional. The major denominations Bloom examined -- the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism), Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Assemblies of God (Pentecostalism) and Southern Baptism -- are all freak-shows on wheels of adaptations and twistings of (original) Christian doctrines. I wager you will find the same over there where the roos hop: Christian derivatives.

"Modernity" has not in any way abolished the miraculous, let alone the possibility of such a thing, except in the minds of those who haven't sought out or otherwise encountered evidence to the contrary.

I would not say that modernity had abolished the 'miraculous', no, and I am aware of lore from many different people and sects that provide interesting testimony, but I am less certain than you seem to be of what, precisely it is evidence. So what do you think? Shall I take the man's story at face value? That Jesus of Nazareth, now 'on the right hand of the Supreme Lord of all Creation and Being', is concerned to guide this man through the boisterous crowd at a Trump-inspired patriotic rally, which means that the Supreme Lord of the Manifest World is that much concerned about the state of American politics? And even rained down Bible verses (from out of an opening in the clouds when a supernal sun shone through) as a bolster to the core message.

That is a pretty miraculous story by any measure.

So I have here with me now a man -- Mr Harry Baird, an eminence by any measure -- who seems to be on the verge of educating me about how I should correctly view these sorts of things. Thank Heavens! I've been somewhat confused.

All sarcasm aside . . . I assume that you are aware that *all of this* is part of the picture of what could be described as a general Post-Christian state of affairs (as it pertains to the Occident). So it is not all all off the mark that it is coming up and being examined.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:44 pmThus, the idea of a divine avatar performing miracles in Palestine some 2,000 years ago is *not* what makes orthodox Christianity impossible to believe in in the modern world. What makes orthodox Christianity impossible to believe in - whether in the modern, medieval, or ancient world - is its internal incoherence. When the Story (to use the capitalised term that you prefer) is examined rationally, it makes no sense - not because it involves miracles or divine beings or avatars, but because it contradicts itself.

This is an interesting perspective. I think you are fundamentally wrong though. The very idea of a divine avatar that manifests in this or any world is an idea that became impossible to believe in and to square such a view with *the way things are*.

What I suggest is that the more people who have been informed with the ideas that inform us actually focus attention on the most elemental tenets (such as the possibility that a divine avatar of the God who created everything did or would incarnate down into that world for specific missionary purposes) becomes just that much more impossible to believe, and to square with the world we know, unless one employs what I refer to as an odd manoeuvre: it is the will to believe anyway, or to declare that one believes what is unbelievable and cannot, in fact, be believed. I am not sure how to describe it.

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

I also think you are substantially wrong when you make reference to the beliefs of the Medieval and the ancient world. Do you believe that the moon orbits the earth? Do you believe that the earth orbits the sun? The answer is that, yes, you believe a whole range of different things and these are 'givens'. They comprise your total view of many aspects of phenomenal existence. They do not require either affirmation or proof. They are.

Similarly, the Mediaeval view of the world was a 'given'. Angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, the soul, the end of man, the ends of the world, the reasons why -- all of this: givens and self-evident as such.

The issue of incoherence, I can assure you, was not for them a problem. Incoherence is a modern issue and for a particularly modern man with a modern mind.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:44 pm AJ, I get it: via extensive, diligent reading - hard work - you have acquired a whole bunch of facts, ideas, and perspectives that you consider to be valuable knowledge and understanding. Roughly speaking, you expect that anybody who did the same reading would end up with the same valuable knowledge and understanding, and value it as highly and in the same way as you do - thus, you expect that they do undertake that reading. Given that it is hard work, anybody who doesn't even though they ought to must then simply be lazy.

I don't share that expectation though, and I don't plan to undertake your reading programme. Nor, presumably, do many of your readers. Why not, then, for those like me, share - in meaningful detail - the valuable knowledge and understanding that you think you've gained, and why you value it so highly, so that we can have access to it anyway and assess its content and value for ourselves? Can there not be a meaningful middle ground between "Oh boy, you guys should get a load of this great stuff in our Christian heritage *waving hands around vaguely and repeating the same general affirmation in hundreds of posts*" and the admonishment to an extensive, decades-long reading programme?

While I do believe I understand what you are trying to say, if I am saying something that has coherency it should not be taken personally.

I do expect that those who had done the reading I refer to would have a much better picture of the components of ideas and perspectives that comprised what has informed our civilization. If I make a bold (or pretentious) accusation about the failure of education I am certain I am on solid ground. Completely certain. The undermining of liberal arts education, the falling away from it, has been disastrous for all of us. And we are living in those outcomes.

The way that I'd respond to the last part of the second paragraph is to refer back to your admission (or perception) that Weaver did not speak concretely to first principles in his book. I responded by saying that every truthful statement he made, and all true statements that can be made, have to be predicated on first principles even if they are not stated (as bullet points). These are operative ideas. Or they are the substance that makes the elaboration of them possible (through rhetorical configuration).

It is true that here, at times, and on other forums I have taken the tack you notice: point out that sufficient background and informing is lacking. However I do not back away from the assertion. In fact the assertion is more and more true and relevant the more that I (feel that I) recognize the nature of the disastrous outcomes.

It is a pretty central tenet of my view at this point (and it came into focus you-know-where and in relation to QRS). The reference will make no sense to anyone else and does not have to be explained.

Can there not be a meaningful middle ground between "Oh boy, you guys should get a load of this great stuff in our Christian heritage *waving hands around vaguely and repeating the same general affirmation in hundreds of posts*" and the admonishment to an extensive, decades-long reading programme?

Here, you simply say "I have no energy! It is too difficult! I cannot do that!" But that is simply a manifestation of the negative outcome I try to describe. When millions and millions of people -- even billions -- do not have an adequate comprehension of material that was considered elemental just a short while back, and when these people gain or are given power (through democratic idealism) that is a recipe for disaster.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

The demerits of too much reading...

On this Schopenhauer comments:

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk.

Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thoughts.

Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person’s thoughts continually forced upon it. And just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like.

From all this it may be concluded that thoughts put down on paper are nothing more than footprints in the sand: one sees the road the man has taken, but in order to know what he saw on the way, one requires his eyes.

https://fs.blog/schopenhauer-on-reading/

There is a severe problem in quoting that Schopenhauer in our present context. It is very simple: hardly anyone reads at all. (I recognize this is a forum where many, most possibly, have read widely)(though at times I have doubts). Even the most elemental stuff (grammar school material). So if they relied on their eyes alone one must ask where those eyes would lead them. I have my eyes open in this world and I am not inspired by what I notice around me.

Thanks a million for trying to undermine my noble declarations Dubious. What a guy!

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:47 pm I have my eyes open in this world and I am not inspired by what I notice around me.

We have at least that in common. But nevertheless it's true that too much reading can be toxic to one's mental faculties.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:18 pm The demerits of too much reading...

On this Schopenhauer comments:

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk.

Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thoughts.

Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person’s thoughts continually forced upon it. And just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like.

From all this it may be concluded that thoughts put down on paper are nothing more than footprints in the sand: one sees the road the man has taken, but in order to know what he saw on the way, one requires his eyes.

https://fs.blog/schopenhauer-on-reading/

If that is Schopenhauer's concept of what reading involves then his concept of reading stops short at the age and school level when reading was nothing but knowing the meaning of texts. I and my little chums reached that level by the age of eight years. At more advanced levels reading involves a mental conversation with the author and that involves taking issue with the author's ideas or claims. At a still more advanced level of reading the reader not only might rebut the author's claims but also may produce better alternative claims.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:52 amIf that is Schopenhauer's concept of what reading involves then his concept of reading stops short at the age and school level when reading was nothing but knowing the meaning of texts. I and my little chums reached that level by the age of eight years.

Schopenhauer was obviously not referring to any school-level reading. The function of that is learning how to read in the first place based on whatever type of reading is presented. A lot of reading we had to do in school was memorizing catechism.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:52 am At more advanced levels reading involves a mental conversation with the author and that involves taking issue with the author's ideas or claims. At a still more advanced level of reading the reader not only might rebut the author's claims but also may produce better alternative claims.

Exactly that! The most interesting writers (for me) are those who make you think; their sentences being catalysts in the creation of one's own thoughts either as extension, ramifications, or contention. Simply to read in order to accept the way people do with the bible is giving the brain no nourishment, nothing to really chew on. No book or philosophy was meant to be inscribed as scripture.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:21 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:47 pm I have my eyes open in this world and I am not inspired by what I notice around me.

We have at least that in common. But nevertheless it's true that too much reading can be toxic to one's mental faculties.

No, we have an opinion expressed by a man of renown who makes that case for his own reasons. “Can be toxic” is hypothetical.

He is speaking to a class of intellectuals for whom he feels embitterment. And you piggy-back on his argument for your own purposes.

I can attempt to guess about the nature of those purposes but will leave it to you. What are you trying to get at?

It is imperative to read widely. Not to do so, dereliction of intellectual and moral duty.