Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

...many things of real value.

There are no "real values" in your world, the one you cast for us. "Values," such as may be, are arbitrary imaginings, like "gods." They lack any referent in reality.

You can say that if you wish. But you cannot ascribe what you say to me.

Now clearly you are not talking to me, you are talking to a 'them': to those people who do see and describe things in non-nuanced manner. Who do describe things in that way. Who are captured by too harsh binaries and either/ors.

A 'god' can certainly be imagined. So I will mention Shiva and, poof, there he appears in your imagination and in that of those reading here. But that is just an image and the image is not 'real'.

I can mention as well a 'value' -- say 'love' -- and it can be imaged and conceived (as a concept). But neither is that *the real thing referred to*.

Yet I am very sure that for a genuine religious practitioner (either shaivite or Christian) that their perception of, or their relation to Shiva or Jesus is real to them. If I spoke, let's say, of the realness of Jesus in my life you would never deny the realness of that. You'd clap and applaud. Why? Because it is a conception that you favor. You have some corresponding experience and you'll say "I lived that as well. I know what you mean!"

But if I were to speak of my relation to Shiva (supposing I had one) your mind would clamp shut like a steel trap. It is not a notion that you can entertain in your imagination. You will not allow it. Your will will not allow it. Or if it were it would be seen and described as possession by a demonic power. And Judaism and Christianity reduce all god-concepts other than those they handle to demons and demonology. (Theological imperiousness).

So it seems to me that you are confused about what things are 'real' and how they are real. And you also seem to lack a necessary psychological (that is psychic) conceptual platform to be able to understand how the world of man actually operates.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I will do some of the world....

Work . . . my laptop performs corrections I do not intend.

[Immanuel Can]

...many things of real value.

There are no "real values" in your world, the one you cast for us. "Values," such as may be, are arbitrary imaginings, like "gods." They lack any referent in reality.

You can say that if you wish. But you cannot ascribe what you say to me.

You should. Rationally, you should.

But like so many, you seem to "taxicab" your beliefs, as soon as they become unpleasant or threatening. You don't "pay full fare" for what you claim you believe.

...you are talking to a 'them': to those people who do see and describe things in non-nuanced manner.

Lack of "nuance" is not their problem. Lack of consistency is the problem.

A 'god' can certainly be imagined. So I will mention Shiva

You said that the God concept is "dead." Now you invoke the concept?

This is what I mean by "taxicabbing." When talking to me, you want to say, "You can't even legitimately use the concept anymore." That's what "God is dead," by way of Nietzsche, means. But now you use the concept?

Shiva is not real. But the concept "Shiva" is apparently not "dead." It still invokes things. People still believe in gods, some 120 years or so after Nietzsche has been dead.

So Nietzsche was wrong...again.

Yet I am very sure that for a genuine religious practitioner (either shaivite or Christian) that their perception of, or their relation to Shiva or Jesus is real to them.

To put it plainly, you only mean they are deluded, according to you.

If I spoke, let's say, of the realness of Jesus in my life you would never deny the realness of that. You'd clap and applaud.

No. I'd ask you what you thought you meant.

But if I were to speak of my relation to Shiva (supposing I had one) your mind would clamp shut like a steel trap.

Actually, it wouldn't.

There may be something that goes under the name of "Shiva" around. It won't be the Supreme Being, but it could be some other entity. And if you say you are an acolyte of that entity, who am I to doubt that you are? What you worship, that's what you worship.

And Judaism and Christianity reduce all god-concepts other than those they handle to demons and demonology.

Close. The Bible does say, "things which they [i.e. the idolaters] sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become partners with demons." (1 Cor. 10:20) And Judaism says, "You shall have no other gods before (or beside) Me."
So it seems there are other "gods," and other things one can worship.

Just none if you wish to be a friend of God.

[Immanuel Can]

I will do some of the world....

Work . . . my laptop performs corrections I do not intend.

A woman I know sent me a text once, saying she was going out "to celebrate the end of [her] latest placenta."

I said: "Ew." And "What?"

She said: "Darn autocorrect! I meant [job] placement."

[BigMike]

Xianity is more usually regarded as a support of underprivileged people(Camels, eyes of needles , lepers, etc.). When Xianity becomes politicised by a powerful hierarchical priesthood in cahoots with greedy aristocrats and politicians in a hierachical political structure Xianity exploits underprivileged people.

The absolute by definition is neither hierachical nor laden with values. If a connection between the temporal and the absolute is to work the connection must be a supple one so as to be universally inclusive.

If by "the temporal" you mean "that which is mortal or which decays or disintegrates over time" and by "the absolute" you mean "that which is eternal and indestructible," then I must be convinced that "the absolute" exists before I can even consider how, if at all, it might be connected to "the temporal."

Are you willing to elaborate?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Immanuel said: There are no "real values" in your world, the one you cast for us. "Values," such as may be, are arbitrary imaginings, like "gods." They lack any referent in reality.

I responded: You can say that if you wish. But you cannot ascribe what you say to me.

You should. Rationally, you should.

But like so many, you seem to "taxicab" your beliefs, as soon as they become unpleasant or threatening. You don't "pay full fare" for what you claim you believe.

I see *the world* differently than you do. The world is quite distinct from an ideal world of our conception. We certainly conceive of ideal worlds. And we also imagine that our ideal conceptions can, and should be applied in this world.

But there is a disconnect. Or it can be described as a difference of 'levels'. This world (where we are now) has laws and rules and limits that do not allow idealism to enter. Or when such enter they are distorted by the place itself.

Is the *ideal world* unreal? Does it exist or does it not exist? I answer that by saying it certainly exists, and its existence is in some senses, not all but some, more real than this world itself.

So there are certainly values. Beyond any doubt there are values. Do they lack 'inherent reality'? Yes, in the sense that they are not discreet objects that can be located. Where are they located? or how do they exist?

They enter our world through our psyche. Apparently we are the only creatures (or 'critters' -- now where in the heck has Henry got off to?) that perform this strange action. But where or in what do they *reside*? Where do they originate?

That is a harder question to answer.

So no, rationally I should not say what you believe I am saying. If you could broaden your conceptual limits you'd also be able to understand what I am saying. But you are inhibited. What inhibits you? Sets of ideas to which you are wedded. Ideas that are *set in stone* and allow no variation.

As to the 'taxicab' comment -- again I think you are speaking to a wider world of *them*. So far, there is no view I've expressed that makes me queasy. But I do have some thought (that I do not share) which do.

But in some sense the *you don't pay full fare" is not without some sense: I do make efforts, when I propose 'metaphysical ideas that arise part-and-parcel with the manifestation" I perform a sort of manoeuvre whereby I seek to protect or validate non-physical and non-locatable ideas that stand behind both meaning and also value and which enter our world via the god-concepts.

I do not deny a supreme being either. Nor do I deny Ishvara (the sense of personal god, or the reality as it is perceived by a practitioner). But I cannot, it seems, ascribe absolute reality to these concepts except as an ideal exercise, an expression of idealism.

We are in a world that is very very difficult to understand. We always look for methods of explanation though.

[attofishpi]

I think you may need to think a tad deeper about the birth, life and death of Christ.

Birth: To a virgin..Y?
..........among the animals in a stable. Now here is wisdom, 666. Y?
Life: lots of stuff.
Death: Went to his death rather gruesomely and resurrected. Y?


..made this shape on the crucifix: Y

So.

At both ends of the life of Jesus the Christ, he has proven the power of God..or at least given great reason for FAITH.

[Immanuel Can]

The world is quite distinct from an ideal world of our conception.

Yes, we all know the world isn't ideal.

I'm not sure where you're going with that.

...there are certainly values.

It's only "certain" and "beyond doubt," as you put it, that people try to "value" things. It's not at all certain or beyond doubt that they are false or delusory things that they are "valuing," given, especially, that you claim the world as we conceive of it is not what it seems.

They enter our world through our psyche.

So do delusions. What's the point?

As to the 'taxicab' comment -- again I think you are speaking to a wider world of *them*.

No. I see it in you. I see it in Atheists, too. But I think it's a human propensity. We try to avoid the full implications of our beliefs, whenever those implications make demands on us. That's part of our fallen human nature: we're all unable to live up to our best beliefs, our ideals. If we could, perhaps we could imagine we are unfallen, unsinful creatures; but it's evident that even the best of us falls short.

However, as JP points out, one function of an ideal is to direct aspiration. They point us in the right direction, if they are the right ideals, and give us a trajectory to pursue that potentially ends in the right outcomes. That much, ideals can still do -- even while they expose how short we fall of those ideals, too.

I seek to protect or validate non-physical and non-locatable ideas that stand behind both meaning and also value and which enter our world via the god-concepts.

Well, "gods" is one concept. "God" is another. So there is not one concept, nor do all such concepts have behind them good ideals.

I do not deny a supreme being either. Nor do I deny Ishvara (the sense of personal god, or the reality as it is perceived by a practitioner).

As I say, those are two very different concepts. The Supreme Being is the ultimate Deserver of our aspiration; the personal "gods" are merely expressions of our own appetites and preferences, or of non-ultimate forces, all unworthy of our aspiration.

An "ideal" doesn't become good just because we "idealize" it. It is good if it intrinsically suits the character and relationship one ought to have with the Supreme Being. If it falls short of that, it's no good "ideal."

[Alexis Jacobi]

The world is quite distinct from an ideal world of our conception.

Yes, we all know the world isn't ideal.

I'm not sure where you're going with that.

To know where I am 'going with that' you would have to do what for you would be an extraordinary thing: read without bias, inquire, ponder, listen.

Further, I did not say that the world isn't ideal I drew a distinction between an ideal world as a conception of man, and the real world in which we actually live.

You act as an insipid intellectual brute and how glorious an advance for you if you could do just one thing: read better.

[Alexis Jacobi]

They enter our world through our psyche.

So do delusions. What's the point?

That they enter our world through our psyche. The statement itself is sufficient. What one does with the statement or in relation to it is another and separate issue.

[Immanuel Can]

I did not say that the world isn't ideal I drew a distinction between an ideal world as a conception of man, and the real world in which we actually live.

Same thing.

Convince me otherwise.

[Alexis Jacobi]

As to the 'taxicab' comment -- again I think you are speaking to a wider world of *them*.

No. I see it in you. I see it in Atheists, too. But I think it's a human propensity. We try to avoid the full implications of our beliefs, whenever those implications make demands on us. That's part of our fallen human nature: we're all unable to live up to our best beliefs, our ideals. If we could, perhaps we could imagine we are unfallen, unsinful creatures; but it's evident that even the best of us falls short.

I am sure that you *see* all manner of different things in me and in what I write as well as in all others you converse with. But I am not at all sure that you have sufficient discriminatory and analytical power to make statements that inspire confidence -- in me in any case.

I am aware that you regard all of your interlocutors as lacking a special element that you possess (truth you call it) and that it therefore follows that you say that "we try to avoid the full implications of our beliefs, whenever those implications make demands on us". My response is that you can make any statements that pop into your grey matter but that does not mean they are accurate, correct nor justified.

It does not matter if man is fallen or unfallen -- he cannot live up to the ideals of abstract ideal worlds. He can only live in this world and it is very far from ideal. And will never be ideal. Further, I do not at this point (though I may have at one time) go along with the implications in claiming that man is fallen in the precise Christian (and Hebrew) sense. There are alternatives to that view.

And I definitely do not accept your implication in "don't want to pay the taxi fare" in association with a statement about fallenness.

Clearly, your mind works in ruts and channels and I do understand that.

You are indeed speaking to a "wider world" and those you see in a condition requiring a specific intervention. How could you see differently given your predicates?

[Immanuel Can]

It does not matter if man is fallen or unfallen -- he cannot live up to the ideals of abstract ideal worlds.

Of course it matters. And it also explains why that happens.

[Immanuel Can]

They enter our world through our psyche.

So do delusions. What's the point?

The statement itself is sufficient.

Well, all it means is that values may be delusions, and you don't know whether they are or not.

Not a stunning intellectual discovery on your part...

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, "gods" is one concept. "God" is another. So there is not one concept, nor do all such concepts have behind them good ideals.

To conceive of a supreme creator or to believe that all creation has arisen out of something we will tend to define as 'divine' implies a monism, I grant that. Yet I have done enough research into the notion of polytheism (a multiplicity of gods) so that the way that life and existence could be understood through that lens, as it was understood by polytheists, makes sense to me. The particular source that influenced me in this was The Homeric Gods by Walter F. Otto.

I can say at this point that I am not at all inclined to embrace the concept that you embrace and that monotheism in your style embraces. Not that I cannot conceive of a supreme or originating deity but rather because it leads to a monopole within thinking and conceptualization that must claim possession of the god so defined.

I've pointed out to you that you have been and are of real usefulness to me. You demonstrate in such clear manner the errors of certain ways of seeing and certainly of 'believing', and you push me to confront the false ideas and to propose more expansive alternatives.

Thank you.