Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 12:51 pm
Truthfully, what the forum •is• (the way things are conducted) is really its own specific, distinct and odd thing.
Sure, it's weird, but not about responding to people's presentation of their ideas, trying to understand and yes often critique them. The way that's done here can be very weird and antagonistic, but that process, the one I was describing and felt a part of, that's common to any philosophy forum and probably nearly every discussionf forum.
You, and so many others, seek out territories and topics for extended expressions of your opposition. It is (to me) very tiresome. So I simply side-step the invitation. Yet that too seems to infuriate!
I have written so much about my sense of what renovation at a spiritual level is that I simply do not feel inclined to write it out again.
I'm not really sure what your hoping to do in the thread.
Let's look at the beginning of the OP
The following is a quote from Christopher Dawson's The Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life (Routledge, 1960) I read this book some years back and it has very much influenced my outlook. As it happens -- and this note goes out to all who participated in the Christianity thread that endured for so long -- my own position has become full-circle. I accept the necessity of a renovation of the relationship to what is presented, metaphysically, through Christianity and *the Christian picture*. For some that amounts to a wishy-washy way of putting it and I acknowledge that critique. All I can say is that each person, inside of their mind, and with their imagining faculty, will visualize what I so often refer to as a "metaphysical reality" according to their interpretive means and equipment. Even the absolute atheist does this, in my view.
Personally, I am now far more certain and far more committed to the notion and the undertaking of *restoration* and *revivification* of that relationship to what I (somewhat abstractly of course) refer to as *metaphysical reality*. I am certain -- more certain in any case -- that it is the inner relationship that determines if there is relationship at all. What this means, in the most essential sense, is that the individual has, or does not have, that relationship. Everything begins from that point. Or put another way, it comes to an end when the relationship is broken or inhibited.
If we recognize, and I do, that our culture is sick, we must also understand that we manifest this sickness in one way or another, in one degree or another. Obviously then, I am an advocate for defining "A way to the renewal of Christian culture" which, necessarily, involves an inner renewal.
I bolded the portions where you are presenting your beliefs as your beliefs. And yet you find it odd that in your thread where the OP opens with you expressing your beliefs and pretty directly calling them your beliefs, I respond in part by asking for clarifications of your beliefs. Yes, you mention someone else's work. And you suggest
So what I propose -- it remains to be seen if the topic will gain any traction -- is an examination, from the perspective of Christopher Dawson and other apologists of his sort, of just what happens when the conceptual pathway to that *supernatural* world of metaphysical reality is broken and shattered, as is occurring strongly and noticeably in our culture(s) and then, if this is established, to ask the question and examine what such *renewal* would involve -- and if it is even possible.
Now I took that as - here's an author who at a general level agrees with me, let's think about what I said above this, about my beliefs, in relation to what he says.
And I didn't ignore him. I responded to part of what he said also, though for me it is in the context of what you said about your beliefs.
If you really want people not to want to try to understand your beliefs and criticize, seek to get clarity around them, then my suggestion would be to ONLY quote someone's work. Perhaps then add on something you think about what he or she means, and seek other input. I could imagine participating in an interpretive thread or having a clearer sense that you want us to critique his position, if anything. But as presented his quote seems part of your presentation of your ideas.
