Ronald Beiner and his book "Dangerous Minds"

[Dubious]

It seems to me that Chesterton's declaration, to be fully understood, has to be taken more from a metaphysical angle. Obviously, Chesterton had personalized his statement through his own Catholicism and apology for Christian view generally. But his statement (at least in my mind) has a larger application.

I take it as expressed because it's expressed so clearly. Any further thought laminations can only belong to the interpreter. For myself, no further analysis is necessary because it is so consistent and blends so easily with theism's ostracizing of other modes of thinking which don't conform with its own scripture. This has always been the modus of theists and theism which couldn't exist without its complex of lies and a bureaucracy to impose them.

Theism properly belongs to the genre of politics being only a specialized version within it as conditioned by a host of Divine Rights and infallibilities. When such institutions can no-longer defend themselves in the manner once accepted, they turn to lies, subterfuge, misrepresentation and every dirty trick in the book to do so not even attempting to avoid the kind of non-sequitur absurdities like the one mentioned by Chesterton.

Nevertheless, one is free to ponder as desired.

[Belinda]

Alizia, you understand what I'm saying about believing on compared with believing that.
Biological reality: it's one frame for describing reality, one that we measure. We are fond of measuring. My version of Christian reality is perhaps different from your version of Christian reality.

[-1-]

even Islams spread is dwarfed by the enlightenment of the peoples who turn to atheism

This is completely false and demonstrably so too

Half the worlds population are either Muslim or Christian and there are almost a billion Hindus and a billion Buddhists
Religion has always been dominant in human civilisation and shows absolutely no sign of disappearing not even today
Atheism might be more popular than it has ever been but it is still insignificant compared to the great belief systems

Surreptitious57, where have you put your brain? It's not the BIGGEST and MOST POPULOUS religions that we are naming; it is the FASTEST GROWING religions we are naming.

Almost all of Industrial Europe and the old Eastern Block is atheist.

South America is turning fast to atheism.

USA is Christian. Africa, the Arab world and some other parts of Asia are Muslims. India is Hindu. CHINA IS ALMOST COMPLETELY ATHEIST.

Over one-quarter of the world's population turned to atheism over the course of the last eighty to a hundred or so years.

I call it the fastest growing segment.

You call it what you want, please be my guest, because you don't understand concepts, such as a difference between "biggest" and "fastest growing". I ask you just one thing: please don't call the quarter of the world an insignificant amount.

If you believe that they are insignificant, then you ought to have each person in that segment step on your toes, and you'll begin to see the light.

[-1-]

I see your point, but again you are speaking from the position of one who (if I understand correctly) does not 'believe in' a determining, encompassing, conscious shall I say, reciprocal, metaphysical order. To be more precise: you do not 'believe in' the Christian metaphysical order.

Therefore, what you seem to say -- I see no other conclusion -- is that it is only 'scientific facts' that can be 'believed in'. All else is 'supposed' 'intuited' 'imagined' 'dreamed' 'hoped for' or (one must include this:) hallucinated. (Projected would be a lighter term).

If I asked you to describe to me the Order of life in this 'world', I assume that you would have no other option but to reduce the world (our human world) to a biological description. 'Human' would be located there.

Yet, you might still hold to or perhaps I could say 'cling to' the older orders of 'belief' because a) it offers some comfort and b) some 'good' is seen as coming from that.

Yet, you state at the same time that it (a metaphysical order such as Christian belief describes) is essentially, basically unreal.

But as a real metaphysical system? I think that we would have to say that we live in a fractured one. One that is half-dissolved. Or, one that we might say is half-recreated.

Alizia, we are born to proselytize. Whether we are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist or Sun-worshippers.

This is what fractures the world: once you are committed to one or the other world views, it's hard to break out of that mold.

In fact, the only ones I have seen it do were Christians who became atheists under the weight of an incredible amount of bullshit in the Bible, and an incredible amount of evidence (not proof) on the side of scientism.

One of religion's many roles in human history was to be a cultural icon that unified a community, and it actually did a very, very good job at it. Apparently it's still performing that function in today's world.

Believe what you will. That is in one of the tenets of the Charter of Rights (in Canada) and the Bill of Rights (I think it's called) in the USA.

But ask any religious person (or an atheist) and she will tell you your religion is wrong, worthless, unacceptable, unless of course you go to the same church with her.

[Alizia]

Alizia, you understand what I'm saying about believing on compared with believing that. Biological reality: it's one frame for describing reality, one that we measure. We are fond of measuring. My version of Christian reality is perhaps different from your version of Christian reality.

You know what would be fun? and also interesting: Is if you were to describe 'the world'. What is 'the world' for you? How would you describe what world-life and world-existence is? When one does this, one gets right to the bottom of one's metaphysics!

[Alizia]

Almost all of Industrial Europe and the old Eastern Block is atheist.

South America is turning fast to atheism.

USA is Christian. Africa, the Arab world and some other parts of Asia are Muslims. India is Hindu. CHINA IS ALMOST COMPLETELY ATHEIST.

Over one-quarter of the world's population turned to atheism over the course of the last eighty to a hundred or so years.

Interestingly, I just looked up China. One fifth is Christian. From material I have read Christianity is not diminishing. Though in some sectors it is. The third millennium is being described as a Christian Millennium (at a world level I mean, and mostly in the underdeveloped 'south'.

[Immanuel Can]

Interestingly, I just looked up China. One fifth is Christian. From material I have read Christianity is not diminishing. Though in some sectors it is. The third millennium is being described as a Christian Millennium (at a world level I mean, and mostly in the underdeveloped 'south'.

In point of fact, you are absolutely correct...there may indeed be more Christians in China than anywhere else in the world...though exact numbers range in the millions, for obvious reasons. And you are correct -- the southern hemisphere is the largest growth area, by far. The next Christianity, numerically speaking, will be southern and eastern, not from the west.

We, in the developed west, get a different impression only because we don't travel to other areas of the world, and if we ever do, spend no time on investigating the religious disposition of the locals. So it's easy for Westerners to get the completely wrong idea that they are typical of the general human condition and experience. But I've not just travelled but lived in some of these places. And I can tell you that here ain't there.

[-1-]

Almost all of Industrial Europe and the old Eastern Block is atheist.

South America is turning fast to atheism.

USA is Christian. Africa, the Arab world and some other parts of Asia are Muslims. India is Hindu. CHINA IS ALMOST COMPLETELY ATHEIST.

Over one-quarter of the world's population turned to atheism over the course of the last eighty to a hundred or so years.

Interestingly, I just looked up China. One fifth is Christian. From material I have read Christianity is not diminishing. Though in some sectors it is. The third millennium is being described as a Christian Millennium (at a world level I mean, and mostly in the underdeveloped 'south'.

Alizia, it's interesting how your reading supports a Christian spread, and my reading supports a Christian shrinkage.

I guess this is what I meant by tribal cohesion, and by how everyone is a proselytizer. To you it's important to believe that your faith is spreading, even if your source of claim is a reading in a publication by your local Christian Fundamental Church.

A "Christian Millenium" is a myth, an ill-thought out self-aggrandization by Christians. The world is nothing like that.

I saw a map once made by the National Geographic society, which showed the religious break-down of Yugoslavia and other Balkan states. It was staggering to see that the NGS map allotted 100 percent of the population some faith or another (Islam, RC, eastern Orthodox, etc.), WHILE in reality 95 percent of the entire population was atheist.

And NGS is not a biassed, Christian publication. And yet they made such one blaring mistake. Why? I dunno. Because they are a North American company, and they took USA publications as sources to arrive at the statistics? And the USA publications were audacious enough to leave no soul as Atheist on the map.

So your Christians in China, about three hundred million or four, maybe similar wishful lie by the publisher.

I don't know. I haven't gone to China and counted the souls who are Christians.

[-1-]

Alizia, I took these statistics from the Internet today:

National surveys conducted in the early 21st century estimated that some 80% of the population of China, which is more than a billion people, practise some kind of Chinese folk religion; 10–16% are Buddhists; 10% are Taoist; 2.53% are Christians; and 0.4% are Muslims.

government’s tally of registered religious believers is around one hundred million, or less than 10 percent of the population, according to several sources, including the UN Human Rights Council’s 2013 Universal Periodic Review.

Alizia, your quote of 1/5th of China being Christian is a huge lie. Your lie is spread maliciously and nefariously by people who rely on lying to prove their truths.

It is true that I am an atheist, and you are likely a Christian, but one would not expect a Christian to "provide false witness" when it is condemned and especially forbidden by his or her God in the scriptures.

According to you, you can fool me, or try to, you can fool yourself, but you can't fool your believed god.

So...whom are you trying to fool, Alizia, by spreading a known and obvious lie?

[Immanuel Can]

Problem.

Official government sources in China are not inclined to give good estimates of the number of Christians, for the very obvious reason that Communism does not like them, actively suppresses and persecutes them, and ideally, does not want the rest of the world even to consider them as existing.

The Chinese government will only admit to 29 million -- far too low. The most generous estimates run about 108 million -- possibly too high.

Here's a better source: it's neither dependent on Chinese government statistics nor on Christian demographers. Its incentive to misrepresent on either side would be harder to explain.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... years.html

Pew Research estimates 67 million. It also adds:

"Although there are challenges with measuring other religious groups in China, researchers face a particularly daunting measurement challenge regarding Christianity. Here, the central issue is not so much the diffuse nature of Christian identity and practice in China, though that is also an issue, but also the large number of Christians who do not affiliate with either of the two state-approved denominations. Christians who decline to put themselves under the theological and administrative oversight of these two denominations operate in what Prof. Yang Fenggang of Purdue University refers to as grey and black religious marketplaces. Indeed, unregistered churches operate on the edges of the law – in the realm of administrative policies – because there are few laws that establish the limits of the government or the freedom of religious groups in society. And because of the ambiguous, sometimes adversarial relationship between the government and Christian groups that are not willing to join state-approved denominations, attempts to measure these groups often are met with suspicion by all sides – the government, the state-approved churches and the unregistered groups."

[Belinda]

Alizia, you understand what I'm saying about believing on compared with believing that. Biological reality: it's one frame for describing reality, one that we measure. We are fond of measuring. My version of Christian reality is perhaps different from your version of Christian reality.

You know what would be fun? and also interesting: Is if you were to describe 'the world'. What is 'the world' for you? How would you describe what world-life and world-existence is? When one does this, one gets right to the bottom of one's metaphysics!

This world is relative and temporal. This world may be contrasted with eternity which is absolute and timeless. We live and die and can'
t be compared with eternity 'where' there is no living or dying.
I am a little surprised at you as I thought you as a rather studious RC would have a very good idea about this world and its relation to eternity.

[Belinda]

-1- wrote:

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:50 pm

Almost all of Industrial Europe and the old Eastern Block is atheist.

South America is turning fast to atheism.

USA is Christian. Africa, the Arab world and some other parts of Asia are Muslims. India is Hindu. CHINA IS ALMOST COMPLETELY ATHEIST.

Over one-quarter of the world's population turned to atheism over the course of the last eighty to a hundred or so years.

These stats are interesting however what shouldinterest all of us here a lot more is the contrast between on one hand religionism in politics and on the other hand private devotions. Saudi Arabia has detained women's rights activists. I mean, no Christians of any denomination ought to religionise politics as do islamists, but should align themselves more with secular ethical movements. The Bible itself is rich in ethics and history of ethics from early tribal gods through the prophets to Jesus plus the wisdom traditions, and the man-god is not bound to a book of rules so is well placed to be the icon of choice.

The man-god is a moral icon that can govern secular state morality too. An objection is that any politician given enough charisma might become a man-god. But how to identify the right icon; it's evidence of disinterest including lack of vanity and victory over personal fear.

[Immanuel Can]

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:50 pm

Almost all of Industrial Europe and the old Eastern Block is atheist.

South America is turning fast to atheism.

USA is Christian. Africa, the Arab world and some other parts of Asia are Muslims. India is Hindu. CHINA IS ALMOST COMPLETELY ATHEIST.

Over one-quarter of the world's population turned to atheism over the course of the last eighty to a hundred or so years.

These stats are interesting ...

These are not "statistics," unfortunately:tThey're a list of wishes from that writer.

According to the CIA fact book, the number of genuine Atheists hovers around 4%: and no wonder, because Atheism is internally incoherent. There are just as many declared agnostics, and over ninety percent of the world remains convinced of the existence of some kind of God or gods.

South America is one of the fastest growth zones for Christianity, and of a Pentecostal-Charismatic sort, for the most part.

The USA still has many Christians, but is not a Christian country: its separation of church and state assuring that its policies will remain secular.

China, as you have seen from the statistics, is rapidly Christianizing.

And the world as a whole is not turning to Atheism at all.

...however what shouldinterest all of us here a lot more is the contrast between on one hand religionism in politics and on the other hand private devotions. Saudi Arabia has detained women's rights activists.

I do not understand why all the women's rights activists in the developed West are not campaigning against places like Saudi Arabia every day and all night. I mean that sincerely. And if they were sincere about their caring for women's rights, that's what they'd be doing. There isn't any place where atrocities against women are more rampant.

"Detained" doesn't half cover it. Revenge rapes, child "brides," forced female circumcision, deprivation of legal standing, human slavery...Where are the real feminists when it counts?

I mean, no Christians of any denomination ought to religionise politics as do islamists, but should align themselves more with secular ethical movements.

The very word "secular" is derived from Christian theology, actually. It marks the line between matters pertaining to "the sacred" and those that do not. And it emphasized the freedom of conscience God gave to every man (Locke) so that he could give account for his choices to God.

In other words, the reason we have a "secular" realm is because of Christian theology. Islam, as you note, recognizes no such zone. Instead, it has the "land of peace and submission" zone, and the "land of the hated heretics" zone: dar-al-Islam and dar-al-harb. (literally, "houses" of "submission" and "war") The message could not be clearer from Islam: submit to us, or we will make war on you until you are gone. They have no third realm, the realm of "secularism" that they are prepared to allow to exist. That would just be another bit of dar-al-harb.

The man-god is a moral icon that can govern secular state morality too.

When mankind starts to worship itself, that is the opposite of Christianity. However, Christianity itself has no political dimension, and no legitimate political ambitions of its own, according to the explicit words of its Founder.

[Alizia]

This world is relative and temporal. This world may be contrasted with eternity which is absolute and timeless. We live and die and can't be compared with eternity 'where' there is no living or dying. I am a little surprised at you as I thought you as a rather studious RC would have a very good idea about this world and its relation to eternity.

Well, there are a few things I can clarify and I do so 'in the spirit of interesting philosophical exchange'. I think that the exchange of philosophical, religious and existential perspectives in such interesting, and strange, times as ours can and should be 'fun'.

1) I consider myself a not very good Christian, nor a very good RC Christian.

2) I have 'heretical tendencies' insofar as I do not have any other option, given the way my mind is structured, but to see that all Story conceals, or 'shrouds' might be the word, what I refer to as 'metaphysical truth'. A metaphysical truth is a truth that functions outside and beyond 'manifestation'. The visible makes a reference to the invisible, is the only way I know how to express it. I understand 'metaphysical truths' to determine everything that happens (appears, takes place) within 'the world': this place where we are manifest. As far as I am aware one cannot find these sorts of descriptions in Catholic theological tracts! But that may not be completely true: Catholicism is -- it really is -- a restatement of a good deal of Platonism. I have a 'Platonic mind'.

3) I am also (I think I must say this) heretical in other senses, and this brings me back to why I began this thread on its specific note. I think this came out in my exchanges with Immanuel Can. I am more interested in Christianity in its militant and immanent aspect. Essentially I am oriented this-worldly. When I refer to transcendent ideas or ideals, it is most often a point of reference: because I think that it is (ultimately) metaphysics that drives man. I say man specifically as it is only man (as far as I know) that could ever conceive of or hold to a transcendental or a metaphysical idea. Now, we are here in this thread, in my opinion and as I conceive it, discussing (and also disputing) this issue. The issue then has to do with 'directing metaphysics'. I hope that my terms do not confuse.

3a) I am interested in a developing anti-liberal movement now developing in Europe. We are (IMHO) at the beginning of a large social and cultural struggle. I define as important the renovation of Europe. This is a wide-ranging idea and assertion on my part. I have made efforts here to explain myself. In my view, the most important part of this is: an internal, spiritual renovation of a given person's relation to the large 'metaphysical questions'. One either has an 'answer' (if you will) here, or one does not. I conceive of 'answers'. That means that I believe that there are answers. I also do believe that in the essences of Christian revelation -- in the internal parts -- the better 'answers' are offered. Therefore, I state my position openly. However, I have just as many problems as anyone -- even including some atheists! -- in defending Christian beliefs (gardens, Falls, arks, resurrected dead: the structure of Story) as anyone else. I have conceptual problems, or better put I suffer from the problem of conception and description. I need to know: What is this World! What does 'world' mean?

4) Fellow contributor -1- asserts that -- at least to one of my statements -- that I am being deceptive or participating in a deception. And I think I understand his larger position: any declaration about 'metaphysical truths' as they are imagined impinging on our life and this world, is essentially folly: misperception at best, lie at worst. And one could inquire of him (or her, I am unsure) and then he (I will stick with this) would fill out his reasoning as to what atheism means and why he is one. It would make sense. I mean, it would follow a line of reasoning. Therefore, in this respect, I see 'idea wars' going on in our cultures. These idea-battles extend into all areas! These have to do with essential metaphysical predicates, or, perhaps, the lack of them. I desire to get down to the 'bare bones' or arguments and see what is there. Expose the skeleton of the argument so that it can, at least, be seen in its bare, open form.

5) I notice -- and I say this with complete respect and only to stimulate exchange -- that your description of 'the world' is quite vague. Yes, I do understand it, I mean, I can entertain it in my imagination. But it is very open-ended. How did our world of Being come to be for us? Is there a purpose that was structured into the created world? Or, is it up to us to invent purpose? Do we merely 'invent purpose'? When you speak of 'eternity, do you mean an eternal state of being? Will we eventually live in an eternal state of being? Is this a a possibility for us? Is there a Directing Intelligence that operates in this 'world' (kosmos is perhaps a better word). Is there a Directing Intelligence that is, let us say, especially or particularly concerned for us, that is we human beings? What is the nature of that being? Is communication possible? Do we communicate with it, does it communicate with us? What does 'communication' mean if such exists? Therefore, what is the purpose of 'worship'? If one examines all the religious modalities, which of them gets closer to answering the larger, fuller, most important and relevant questions? And what actions, non-actions, are recommended? (I could I think go on and on and on with lists of questions).

I asked for your description of The World. It is really a large question, this I know, and I hope that by better stating how I conceive it, that you might be able to say a bit more of how you view things. And this goes for all participants here! Speak! Reveal! Declare! Assert!

[Alizia]

Yesterday I came across what I think is a very interesting conversation in a YouTube video. As I said, I am interested in 'this-world' aspects of European cultural life (and I extend 'Europe' to mean the former colonies and the anglophone world) and I am interested in 'European Renovation' (which I am working to define).

In my view: We either 'renovate' or we perish. OK, I see things in a rather alarmist way. And I do admit that I read a great deal in these areas and that 'a sense of alarm' is part of the vehicle through which some potent or radical ideas are communicated. I am not afraid to examine any part of my own alarm, or conservatism, or reaction.

What I find interesting in this particular conversation is that Jayda defines herself, unequivocally, as Christian/Catholic. I also find it interesting that the interviewer defines herself as pagan. Yet, they both share larger concerns. I stand in the middle!

I am going to suggest watching and listening to this conversation only because it 'brings down to the ground' what I understand 'the struggle' to be. Here in one of its numerous but not infinite dimensions. I am very interested in your comments. Especially if you live in Britain.

Here is one quote that, I think, sums up her activism:

Our nation is becoming a totalitarian state and unless we rise up to defend our rights, they will be lost forever.

Jayda Fransen.