Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 24, 2023 8:35 pm
But that, of course, is hogwash, on two counts: one is that belief in God has verifiably not died at all...there are more Theists in the world now than at any point in history. But that's unimportant, compared to the fact that you're only assuming -- and doing nothing to prove -- that God does not exist, or that "God" is merely a human construct. That latter was Nietzsche's mistake. And absent any such proof, there really is no reason to take that claim seriously at all. In fact, we all ought to find it extremely dubious, and ask any such speaker, "How do you think you know such a thing?"
I do not say "God does not exist", I say that the belief in God is thoroughly unsupportable by any reasoned means unless one makes a subjective choice to get involved with the faith-position. The God that you define, therefore, is more an ideal, or a mind-constructed edifice than something mathematically or scientifically real, but that God cannot be shown to operate in nature except by speculating that God was the originator of everything. That is one aspect, and the second is that this god-concept always remains completely outside the affairs of the world. That God is in reality absolutely silent, absolutely removed.
So, for moderns the idea of God has become a shadowy abstraction, and not something that can be depended on and much less *proven*.
My view, and I base this on months and months of conversation with you, is that the God that dominates your argumentative discourse -- bizarre theological polemics and your battles against faithlessness -- is
very definitely a construct. This is the major salient point. You have invested so intensely in the construct that you make it real in your imagination, and what is made real in imagination, you imagine has an actual existence. I resort to the metaphor of Plato's Cave and I believe that your conscious self is *located* in a phantasy-realm that comes to life in your imagination. And in your case this *god-concept* is really an extension of your own self, a sort of shadow-self that stands behind you.
You are in a strange way the terrible Yahweh whose cause you advocate for! His threats are your threats. His power a power you seek.
For this (and other) reasons you present to me a psychological and social problem. You
are that problem.
I do understand that Pentecostalism has spread on a world-level as rapidly as has Islam -- but it is important to note that this takes place in the Global South. What that means is that it takes place among pre-moderns. For example I notice the phenomenon in the culture in which I live (formally semi-rural and now rapidly modernizing South America). I pass by the Pentecostal church and observe their enthusiastic ceremonies. I believe I can understand, and even sympathize, with their choice to get involved in an intensely emotionalized system-of-belief that seems to provide a solid foundation for the Self. I would not and do not condemn someone, say a family, choosing to orient themselves within a system of biblical ethics and enthusiastic faith. (In fact my wife is a sincerely practicing Catholic and though different from Protestantism has a *function* for the individual that could be served by various religious modalities).
Belief in God -- enthusiasm -- is a type of existential choice undertaken, and in some sense performed by, a given individual. If such a choice spreads like wildfire that spread does not
validate the choice. The Dionysian religion spread like wildfire among hysterical and sensitive women. Christian Evangelicalism, in which you are deeply involved, shares similar features. Obviously religious enthusiasm serves social, personal and also spiritual functions. But getting involved in these functions does not mean that the functions will draw one close to defining *reality* accurately. In a way an enthusiastic religious modality can be seen as having a very different end in view. Consider the function of a religious sect in a time of social anxiety and upheaval. The distressed individual needs to seek out what seems to him to be a solid foundation.
These are very very basic notions, Manny, and it should surprise me that you are fundamentally ignorant of these factors. But that is how your fanaticism operates: in your subterranean chamber your entire being is focused on your mental phantasies. True, these are shared at a mass-level and I am sure that you attend Evangelical ceremonies where groups perform their ritual trance-performances (these practices are most notable in Pentecostal ceremonialism where *getting out of your head* is a requirement and people writhe with The Spirit as in the Black churches).
I think that what you find
here (this forum)
predominantly is that you are in conversation with both European moderns and post-Christians (and post-religious). As I have said a dozen times we cannot return to the lower levels of the Platonic cave to participate with you in your enthusiastic orgies. So in this sense our *secularism* is something inevitable for us. I will admit that the loss of a religious foundation is not a small thing and that it has many levels of effect, not all *positive*. We are aware of the specter of nihilism. We are also aware that, say, the class of person that we find *losing their head* at a Pentecostal church is a sort of person who if deprived of a full-body means of experiencing religious trance, is still a person susceptible to it -- who
needs it is perhaps a better way to put it. So people do seek out fully encompassing modalities to get involved with as a sort of *substitute* for religious ecstasy.
At the level of social ethics -- now this is a different area. We live in countries whose ethical systems are deeply enmeshed with Christian religiosity. When religiosity fades,
what then for a metaphysically-bolstered ethics? Well, like it or not people (we) are going to have to examine ethical propositions and make decisions about them. And indeed this is what is happening in a post-Christian world.
If you wish to know where, or how, I orient myself, or how I solve these problems and challenges -- well that is a separate question. But this much is plain: no matter what I would say you would disregard it as theologically invalid. There is so much that you cannt hear because of your anchoring in that specific modality in which you have invested
everything.
For those of us *extruded on the other shore of enthusiastic religion* -- what then for us? Some hunker down into a neo-atheistic stance and perform their battles against the religious maniac (in this case you!). Any notion of *God* or things metaphysical is rejected in the same way that childish Christian religious beliefs are rejected. I am unsure if that is the best route. There are numerous routes of course, but a notable one is that taken by for example Aldous Huxley. I am not saying it is either *good* or *bad* bust simply noting that it is a viable alternative. The hyper-rationalist's turning to
perennial ideas that are common in various religions and their existential descriptions and recommendations for lived activity. The conversation on what are the alternative modes and choices would be an interesting one, but you are excluded from it.
That latter was Nietzsche's mistake.
Much more could be gained were you to realize and focus on your own mistakes. But since you cannot, that task is left to us! And you are
wonderfully serviceable to everyone who confronts you and is confronted by you.
