Christianity

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Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 10:55 am
Dubious wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 10:26 am "Wiping away the horizon" was inevitable since the horizon presented the same view from the place we viewed it from. Can there be a horizon when the difference between here & there is virtually nil. When perspectives conflate they subtract into a near timeless immediacy. It's distance is wiped.
Thats nice! well said. :D

I've personally never been able to cross the horizon ..have you? :D I tried it once, but I could not for the life of me manage to catch up with it.

Now, DAM knows that the horizon is subjective or intersubjective.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:30 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:40 am
Dubious wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 11:56 pm ...you consistently do the same to others!
The same what? I haven't done anything to anyone.
...saying I don't know squat about the bible.
You make statements about Christianity and about God (and, of course, about me personally, though I care little for that) that show very little understanding of what you're talking about, and lots of petulance and prejudice.

It's a perfectly fair conclusion, therefore; and I'll warrant that if I check further, I'll find it's exactly as I have said.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 7:54 am The historical facts are that prior to the Turin event he wrote brilliant works now regarded as among the most influential in recent history.
Oh yes...he's definitely influential. And I've said that he is.

Historical influence can be good or bad. Those that Nietzsche has influenced have fared very badly.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 12:03 am Nothing I have said about you...
Well, let's put a summary to this, because I think we've hit a point of difference we can't cross.

First, some points of agreement. You and I are both of conservative concern, it seems. And we read some of the same books, and we think quite a number of things in common. In particular, we're both concerned about things like the manipulating of people and of political processes through media, and with the rise of large power-groups interested in mendacious manipulation of nations...among other things. Neither of us is keen or optimistic about the major social trends of our day. We both see them as precipitating civilization and people in bad directions; and both of us are concerned to figure out where the best site of resistance to that trend is.

On all that, we seem to agree. Fair enough? (You may even think of other things, I'm sure.)

One key are where we differ is on the level at which our diagnoses take place.
  • You are of the opinion that insight takes place primarily at the group and national level, and even at the level of "civilizational" blocks, like "European civilization."
  • I'm convinced that insight takes place at the level of the individual, and analysis of masses and political situations is only secondary to that. There are no political solutions, only personal ones; but the solving of the personal ones solves the political ones, whereas any attempt to solve the political issues with unimproved persons is doomed.
  • You're interested in political and theoretical analysis more than existential and spiritual analyses, it seems to me.
  • You're convinced there's such a thing as "Christian Europe," and that it's an important construct for analysis, and possibly (and here I'm deducing) an important thing to reconstruct or save.
  • I'm convinced there's no such thing, and never has been; that it's a figment of secular historicism, reflecting in traditional historians the desire to get ahold of a diverse and difficult (almost impossible) group of people and to render them pliable to generalizations.
  • I look at Christianity from the inside; you tend to speak about it from an external, more detached position, as a thing to be analyzed, not as a spiritual challenge to be responded to.
  • And here's maybe the most important difference: for me, Christianity expresses a faith, meaning something that demands a personal commitment; for you, it's an element in a theoretical-historical scheme of what's gone wrong with Western civilization. So I'm always speaking on the level of what-does-this-demand-of-us-personally, and you tend to speak on the level of how-can-we-unpack-general-trends. My view is more about personal belief, and yours about historical analysis.
All the above can be true without us being in opposition. And understanding it can help us speak less suspiciously of each other's motives...let me put it that way. We simply have a difference in our basic paradigm, and so our analyses will be on different levels. The key question, in view of further discussion, is whether you and I can recognize and accept that difference, and keep it civil.

I should think we can. How do you feel about that?
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Belinda wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 9:50 amThe Sea of Faith Network is based on the matter of the poem by Matthew Arnold "Dover Beach" in which the tide of faith is felt to be withdrawing from society. As you and Nietzsche note, loss of faith is scary. We have largely recovered from loss of faith in miracles but still have difficulty with loss of the fixed horizon towards which we naturally steer. The existentialists especially perhaps Sartre have led many to trust that a lone yachtsman can with courage find his own meaning. All that is required for faith is what we can all have, courage and reason, as we are inevitably future-oriented. The 'leap of faith' springs from courage and reason and saves us from complete disorientation.
I have a couple of thoughts here. At the moment I have begun to re-read CG Jung's Aion. I'd read it, and other Jung works in the past but my present reading is bearing more fruit and I see more that is relevant at the very least to me personally.

Now, more than ever, the manoeuvre that I better understand is that of 'withdrawing projection' from the outer world, and from externalized perception, and turning one's attention back to the *inner world*. If the world and the 'outer horizon' was erased, and it significantly has, and if 'faith' had been in the imagined picture of a god or divinity or directing intelligence 'out there' somewhere, but the possibility of this conception has collapsed, well then the inner world opens up.

I would not so much say that the loss of faith in former pictures is what is scary, but rather that when the Guiding Story (for example the one offered by standard Christian conception), which is what the *horizon* refers to largely, no longer seems to function, one is disoriented to a degree, but then, when the shift of focus occurs, in fact one has not lost but gained. The 'fixed horizon' becomes a less fixed and inner horizon, but the sense of it all, and the meaning, actually become more real because one is dealing essentially with *self*.

It seems to me that many people who have *experienced* Nietzsche as the dynamite he purported to be then veer off into modes of reaction -- reaction in the sense of re-assessment, re-examination, re-consideration and all the rest. I suppose that 'atheism' would then seem a necessary belief-option but in fact this is not how it has worked out. Or it has worked out that way for some but not for others. If the shift moves to the inner plane and if 'divinity' exists -- the notion of higher, guiding consciousness -- it opens up when a different 'conceptual model' replaces the old, collapsed one.

I have a feeling that in this present conversation we have different and almost archetypal representatives here. IC represents and defends the *old mode of conception*, the largely collapsed one, but one that if it is to be maintained can only do so through a rigid sort of willed insistence. You [Belinda] seem to represent a post-Christian conceptual position where the influence of your upbringing, in a Christian sense, still operates and functions, while your preferential choice seems to be a model that is more similar to an atheistic position. But this might mean (if any part of what I intuit is right) that you might not be able to say "God exists for me but strictly on an inner plane" (or something similar).

Dubious and Promethean seem to come from a more strict or common atheistic position (atheism as it is culturally conceived and explained by those on the cultural landscape who dedicate themselves to this task, and there are many). RC is another (somewhat odd) case insofar as he has turned away from the exterior model to one that has interior-focused leaning, but it is still closed-off and (as I said) rather solipsistic. Nick's general position is the closest to my own and he seems to represent a form of mysticism. Which is personal and personally undertaken. People like Nick are found on the fringes of religious traditions that allow such a mode of being. In his case Eastern Orthodox Christianity and in my own cast to Roman Catholic forms. My position is quite different though because I quite literally chose to *impose* it on myself, I did not grow up in it. And in fact I grew up within a general explosion and under parents who abandoned all their matrices and cultural commitments.
The existentialists especially perhaps Sartre have led many to trust that a lone yachtsman can with courage find his own meaning.
I certainly would admit that this strategy has been a part of the cultural and social evolution. But I see Sartre as *being captured by reaction* since, as it seems, the rebellion of the French culture was so extensive -- how could *belief* be maintained when the current operating against it was so strong? But the importance of finding what is inside of one's own self (steering mechanism) is open to anyone who simply turns his or her attention to the 'inner dimension'. In one way or another something speaks back.

Unfortunately, the loss of faith as a cultural malady is extremely real. If the internal relationship is lost then one is left with the surrounding monuments which are fantastic and even glorious in appearance but what was formerly numinous in them, and was a light that shone out of them, became dulled (I am thinking of a glorious old-school Catholic church for example). Then, one wanders in ruins. Also one is deprived of the sense of community and communal, shall I say, 'worship' which also means a shared purpose. That loss is large (and devastating) indeed.
All that is required for faith is what we can all have, courage and reason, as we are inevitably future-oriented.
There is another thing too but it is difficult to talk about -- problematic I would say because there are so many possibilities of misunderstanding. Frankly, it is what might be termed the opposite of 'reason'. Opening up to intuitive, inner 'processes' (for want of a better word) where the rational needs, to some degree, to be suspended. I think this would amount to a very difficult operation for many because it involves a degree of surrender of one's own power in the face of something -- higher intelligence, and even 'the divine' if one is still capable of using that word -- which seems to require what you refer to as 'leap of faith'.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:20 pm Those that Nietzsche has influenced have fared very badly.
Huh! ..Why do you say that IC?

Nietzsche has influenced me a lot throughout life. So has Schopenhauer. So has Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Have I fared badly under their influence ? No, not at all.

I read and make up my own mind, I make my own interpretation of what I am reading. Reading the content of other peoples world views, to me, is like looking at a piece of ART WORK...you look at it, and you'll either be drawn to it or you'll be repelled by it...Or, you'll just not have any opinion about it whatsoever....will looking at a piece of ART change the person you are, the person you were naturally born to be? ...NO of course it won't...you'll always be just you. I've personally come within an inch of my life several times during my lifetime at the actions of some very bad people...through no fault of my own, while I was just minding my own business and trying to breathe like everyone else...Have those bad experiences made me a bad person? ..NO, not at all.

I've personally had a sucessful life. Maybe I got lucky and just happened to be born with highly aware intelligence. I was always very aware that life was extremely fragile, maybe a little bit broken, and that it was often a dangerous place to be. But as for my personal life, I've made a success of it. My house is fully paid for... I worked hard all my life to earn the money to pay for it. I've never been a slacker, I even raised 4 successful kids single handed, two of them are computer genies making them very wealthy people. So if this life is some kind of test, then I'm almost 100% certain I've passed the test with flying colours. Would I ever choose to live again...not in a million eternities.

.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

I love the Jews. I was about to say something I thoguth==ah fukit I'm on a US forum, what do I do if I come across a Jew?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:55 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:20 pm Those that Nietzsche has influenced have fared very badly.
Huh! ..Why do you say that IC?
Think about it.

Who are the plausible candidates for people who have taken Nietzsche most seriously, and have acted on his proposals?
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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:21 pm
Think about it.

Who are the plausible candidates for people who have taken Nietzsche most seriously, and have acted on his proposals?
I have absolutely no idea who these people are.

I can only know and speak for the reality bubble that is my acting role.

I asked you why you think people fare badly, but you haven't given an answer to my question, you've just answered with another question. :D

If someone influenced me to act a certain way, I'd be more concerned about my own self, than I would the influencer. I'd be like why am I trying to fill the shoes of someone else, when I can just make up my own mind who I want to be.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:21 pm
Think about it.

Who are the plausible candidates for people who have taken Nietzsche most seriously, and have acted on his proposals?
I asked you why you think people fare badly, but you haven't given an answer to my question, you've just answered with another question.
Yep. It's called "rhetorical questioning." It's what you do when the answer's obvious, and you want to give another person the chance to think for herself and realize the truth without you being dogmatic.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:30 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:21 pm
Think about it.

Who are the plausible candidates for people who have taken Nietzsche most seriously, and have acted on his proposals?
I asked you why you think people fare badly, but you haven't given an answer to my question, you've just answered with another question.
Yep. It's called "rhetorical questioning." It's what you do when the answer's obvious, and you want to give another person the chance to think for herself and realize the truth without you being dogmatic.
Okay so why worship a god, or pray to a god, or need guidance when we can just know the obvious and think for ourselves anyway?
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

“The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you my brethren, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supra-terrestrial hopes! …
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this lightning, he is this madness! …
Behold, I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Übermensch.”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue
The Ubermensch is not satisfied with "wretched contentment". He has organized the inner chaos within his being and has become master of himself. This is the ultimate for animal Man on the earth but the beginning for Christianity; to become more then the earth.

Matthew 4:
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Jesus was man as overman. He was inner unity and master of himself and not subject to inner chaos. He could rule the world. Rather then ruling the world he chose to serve the universal needs of the father by becoming nothing and allowing the Crucifixion making the Resurrection possible.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:51 pm ...
Sorry, DAM. I"m just not interested in a conversation-to-nowhere.
Dubious
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dubious »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:53 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:51 pm ...
Sorry, DAM. I"m just not interested in a conversation-to-nowhere.
Nowhere describes your ability to answer a perfectly logical question.

Why indeed worship a god, or pray to a god, or need guidance when we can just know the obvious and think for ourselves anyway?

What you're really interested in is avoiding questions you can't or even attempt to answer...as if that hasn't already been obvious ages ago. :lol:
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 7:41 pm Nowhere describes your ability to answer a perfectly logical question.
Still having grammar problems?
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