Christianity

For all things philosophical.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:55 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:19 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:17 pm
So you did NOT say there are "thoughts as causes"? :shock:

Funny. Those were your exact words in your message. Did somebody run in, club you unconscious, and type them for you?

Or are you just not aware -- again -- of the implications of what you, yourself actually wrote?
Context matters.
Hey, it was your context. You wrote it.

Don't blame me for what you say.
The present King of France is not a misogynist.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22265
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:06 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:55 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:19 am

Context matters.
Hey, it was your context. You wrote it.

Don't blame me for what you say.
The present King of France is not a misogynist.
Eh? :shock:

You said "thoughts" can be "causes." That means you cannot be a Determinist, because Determinists believe that thoughts cannot be causes.

It's that simple. You said it, then blamed me for point it out to you, and acted like you'd been ill-used in some way. But you weren't. What you said, you said.

Are you taking it back now? Do you want to say that thought cannot be causes?
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

promethean75 wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:59 pm "The process of existence occurs within the isness of NOW."

Nuh-uh it occurs within the nowness of IS, Nick.
This is correct prom.
Nick has it wrong way round.

NOW implies time.
Where as Isness is this unknowable timeless immediate flux of infinite possibility.

This is best realised by thoroughly noticing your own direct experience.
Ask yourself the question "Can I NOT have the experience I'm having right now?"

Then you can ask "is it ever not right now?"

"Right now" is already appearing the only way it can but you will find no subject and no objects.
Only no-separation. Which is not a thing.

No thing IS because everything IS

JUST THIS
You cannot know THIS because you ARE THIS….this unknowable Isness.


There is no room for two. This is one. Always this one.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:22 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:06 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:55 am
Hey, it was your context. You wrote it.

Don't blame me for what you say.
The present King of France is not a misogynist.
Eh? :shock:

You said "thoughts" can be "causes." That means you cannot be a Determinist, because Determinists believe that thoughts cannot be causes.

It's that simple. You said it, then blamed me for point it out to you, and acted like you'd been ill-used in some way. But you weren't. What you said, you said.

Are you taking it back now? Do you want to say that thought cannot be causes?
Ask yourself, Immanuel, does the present King of France even exist?
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

The human mind/brain is deterministic, if you accept that every event has a reason or cause.

In reality the mind is a myth, thoughts can never claim ownership of ever being causes. No brain ever chooses a thought.

There is no evidence that the universe is non-deterministic, nor is there evidence that it is deterministic…except within the illusory dream of separation…as a mental construction, within this artificial conceptual dream of separation.
…switching context, reality is both determined and non-determined, and yet neither.

Belinda is Right.

Because Belinda understands Nonduality…….whereas IC rejects Nonduality.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22265
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 6:33 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:22 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:06 pm

The present King of France is not a misogynist.
Eh? :shock:

You said "thoughts" can be "causes." That means you cannot be a Determinist, because Determinists believe that thoughts cannot be causes.

It's that simple. You said it, then blamed me for point it out to you, and acted like you'd been ill-used in some way. But you weren't. What you said, you said.

Are you taking it back now? Do you want to say that thought cannot be causes?
Ask yourself, Immanuel, does the present King of France even exist?
I'm not interested in the cute aphorism. I got it the first time. I just thought it was a silly and irrelevant question, and did not bother to pick it up at all. Context won't improve your claim. It went as follows:

You said "thoughts are causes."

If you say that, you're no Determinist, by definition. No context will save that.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:05 pm Then they are actually not "Determinists" by definition, even if they (wrongly) imagine they are. To be a Determinist means to believe absolutely that all events are "predetermined" or "fated" by prior events.
Life is the ultimate puppet master pulling the strings of it's own dancing puppets.

Life is both the puppet master and the puppet in the exact same instantaneous moment of experience...which can only be Known to have happened by knowledge on demand, by recognition, by definition....and is where the idea of predetermined comes from, it comes from memory, which is never the immediate unknown present, rather, knowledge on demand is a simulation, a model representation. . of what is always this immediate seamless singular presentation called reality.

In other words, knowledge on demand simulates the illusion that there is an ever present continuity of an I who is control of events. . but there is no I there/here...because life is always in constant seamless flux, there is no I agency that can stop this flux ...by claiming I am being and doing, or I know I am being and doing....except within the artificial dream of separation...the simulated model of reality.


''A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.''

''Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.''

IC..is wrong again.
User avatar
Alexis Jacobi
Posts: 5153
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:00 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Nick_A wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 5:49 pm You and I C are alike in your tendency to classify. But what of those whose ideas cannot be classified. They are either nonsense or have become aware of a sense of scale and relativity. My ideas are closer to those expressed by Sophia Perennis:
I suppose the reason that IC and myself tend to 'discourse' in similar manner is simply because of some sort of association with 'Aristotelian categories'. There is certainly nothing 'wrong' with classification. In fact it is necessary to be able to sift through assertions of ideas.

I think that at bottom you and I differ because of our core and abiding commitments. You are committed, exclusively, to mystical pursuit and perhaps self-realization. And you wish to 'salvage' so to speak the Christian mythological structure because in it there is a veritable outline of a path to the higher realizations that draw your attention. Unfortunately for you there is no one left to understand you! What I mean is that what interests you can only be a path that only a very few are drawn to. Yet you represent it as something that guides humanity to a hight level. But the fact of the matter is that we are in no sense (that I can discern) in a cycle of ascent. More factually we are in a cycle of descent. I am speaking of the cultural, social and economic trends of the day.

Now where I come in is at a different point altogether. I became interested in 'the essence of Christianity' out of a sense of solidarity with the Occident. That is, for reasons of European identity. And I don't think I have concealed that my reasons for this were because of a desire to discover and recover core conservative principles of the sort that are under extreme attack in our present. For this reason I swung way over to what is now called The Far Right. Now I do not really accept that moniker because what *they* mean is really anything that was just a few short years back more or less the Liberal center. They have pushed the Overton window so far to an extreme that what would have been cosnidered basic normaly is now regarded as right-tending extremism. But there is another aspect as well and here is where I do share similar concerns with you (at least I think this is so). To study the (so-called) Far Right and the Traditional Right one must inevitably read people like René Guénon and Julius Evola. Even Plato if read in a certain way could only be considered a rightwing thinker. Traditional ideas -- those grounded in solid First Principles -- are always strict, rigorous, demanding, exclusive and resistant to novelty. And it also has to be mentioned that right-leaning and Traditionalist ideas of this sort all have a link or a relationship to ideas that are today described as 'fascistic'.

The curious thing, and unfortunately from my perspective the thing that has not and I assume will not be discussed in this thread, is the general movement within culture (that which surrounds us) toward a rigorous, traditionalist pole. As we are all aware (yet no one talks about it) there are battle-lines being drawn. But the pole that is being moved toward -- in American at least -- is an utterly bizarre one. It is a Christian pole, largely Evangelical, but one that is totally confused. I do not think this topic interests anyone here but it is the main one that interests me.
A. Huxley: “The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being. This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground—the knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to “Die to self” and so make room, as it were, for God."
I did of course read Brave New World (also BNW Revisited) and The Doors of Perception many years back. But later I read, for example, Proper Studies. Proper Studies expresses a position that could only be considered radical and extremist in today's climate. In my own case, and though I appreciate Huxley's move to a Perennialist metaphysical position in his later works, I do not find it of much use if I can employ such a vulgar term.
Nick wrote: "The Christianity of one living on the exoteric level is completely different then the one having experienced the transcendent level of reality. Yet they have the same name. Having experienced that I am in Plato's cave or at the exoteric level, I am beginning to engage the struggle between my outer an inner man in order to be worthy of the name "human".
I might suggest to you that Plato's cave -- like all mythological stories -- can be applied at almost any point within human affairs and human reality. An average person might genuinely proceed from one set of TV channels with certain programs and programming onto sophisticated levels of film-appreciation and (genuinely) understand that he is ascending from a Platonic Cave enthrallment to a 'higher level' of understanding and appreciation. Take Total Recall and compare it to the Apu Trilogy!
User avatar
Alexis Jacobi
Posts: 5153
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:00 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Dubious wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 3:06 am Got news for you! It's not anything Plato had to say that means anything regarding the universe. It's physics and all the sciences which are in charge and not ancient bullshit theories that barely had a clue how anything works.
If we or when we begin the process of exterminating ourselves through a thermonuclear war, (one time unthinkable, now not so distantly impossible) your "ineffable creator" would be as useless and disinterested in stopping it as if WE or IT never existed. Nevertheless, that won't stop all the planet's idiots from pleading to be saved.
There are over 100 billion planets in the Milky Way alone and one to two hundred billion galaxies in just the observable universe. There ain't no "ineffable creator" ineffable enough to even conceive of such dimensions, but even it were true what would be the source of its ineffability! Without an explanation of THAT, all you're saying is "the buck stops there"; some kind of "I Am that I Am / All-in-All" entity is the IT which has its eye simultaneously on every star and planet in the cosmos.
Not least, if the universe were constructed on laws beyond the limits of time and space, which is your statement, not anything any physicist would believe, it could never have come into being. But, no problem! The paradox is easily resolved by providing for an ineffable creator and there you have it. It's always been the default position - because it takes no effort of the imagination to merely insert a conclusion beyond which there is no surpassing!
All this god and wisdom bullshit - referring to the kind you espouse - to me is equivalent to burying the living mind in a coffin!
All that you say here, it seems to me, highlights the 'core problem' we now face. It is a question of living in the shadow, or within a fading magnetism, of an old metaphysical view (say 'Scholasticism') through which an entire vision and view of the Cosmos came to be realized. Oddly, all of our sense of meaning & value is tightly bound up with this former metaphysics. Unfortunately, through a disassociation from the former metaphysics, not only is the old way of seeing the Universe and ourselves in it rendered unreal and a description that no longer functions, but the same truth-seeing and truth-telling adventure leads also to the destruction and undermining of meanings and values themselves.

This is in some way a response to your bold statement about the inanity of poetry (though you did say 'most poetry' which qualifies the assertion). Theology of a Platonic sort is deeply bound up with mythological stories. Plato is a mythological creature and. of course, all those mythologies are phantasies. A certain sort of mind, with certain intentions, dismisses the core truths in the mythologies, can no longer see and appreciate them. Yet those core truths will never go away and cannot be erased. Though it will happen that a greater majority will no longer be able to perceive the 'value and meaning' in them.

What I find curious in this present conversation is, on one hand, Immanuel Can's intractable insistence that the mythologies of Jesus and Christianity are 'absolutely true' and can only be seen through an absolutist's lens, and on the other the necessary stance (an inevitable one) through which meaning & value are received while the Story, in so many aspects, cannot any longer be believed in.

The implications it seems to me are extraordinary. Because this posits a different sort of mind -- a far more subtle mind -- than that of the crude believer. The 'crude believer' has become, in a way, an untransformed and rather blunt person. Their faith is an enforcement on Reality of structures of view that they must believe are absolutely true.

In respect to Jung, he wrote:
"Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices."
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22265
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:13 pm
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 5:49 pm You and I C are alike in your tendency to classify. But what of those whose ideas cannot be classified.
Ideas that "cannot be classified" are exceedingly rare, Nick. Human civilization has been around a long, long time...truly unique ideas are exceedingly rare, as a consequence. Almost anything anybody thinks can be compared to something previous, or put into some category of similar things.

That doesn't have to be a dismissive exercise: it can be away of putting those ideas in their proper context, and giving them credit for having some pedigree rather than being hare-brained neologisms.

What I hear from you is not, in my experience, unknown. It reproduces patterns we have seen before. But it is not worthless, for all that. Rather, maybe you're tapping into some current of belief that has come before. I think you are: and the fact that you cite others as sources also suggests I'm right about that. But whether or not your ideas are good does not depend on them being new, utterly original, or unseen in previous history.

Very little, then, of anyone's ideas "cannot be classified": and often, that which cannot be is "unclassifiable" because it's incoherent or wrong-headed, not because it's fresh, startling or insightful.
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:13 pm
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 5:49 pm You and I C are alike in your tendency to classify. But what of those whose ideas cannot be classified. They are either nonsense or have become aware of a sense of scale and relativity. My ideas are closer to those expressed by Sophia Perennis:
I suppose the reason that IC and myself tend to 'discourse' in similar manner is simply because of some sort of association with 'Aristotelian categories'. There is certainly nothing 'wrong' with classification. In fact it is necessary to be able to sift through assertions of ideas.

I think that at bottom you and I differ because of our core and abiding commitments. You are committed, exclusively, to mystical pursuit and perhaps self-realization. And you wish to 'salvage' so to speak the Christian mythological structure because in it there is a veritable outline of a path to the higher realizations that draw your attention. Unfortunately for you there is no one left to understand you! What I mean is that what interests you can only be a path that only a very few are drawn to. Yet you represent it as something that guides humanity to a hight level. But the fact of the matter is that we are in no sense (that I can discern) in a cycle of ascent. More factually we are in a cycle of descent. I am speaking of the cultural, social and economic trends of the day.

Now where I come in is at a different point altogether. I became interested in 'the essence of Christianity' out of a sense of solidarity with the Occident. That is, for reasons of European identity. And I don't think I have concealed that my reasons for this were because of a desire to discover and recover core conservative principles of the sort that are under extreme attack in our present. For this reason I swung way over to what is now called The Far Right. Now I do not really accept that moniker because what *they* mean is really anything that was just a few short years back more or less the Liberal center. They have pushed the Overton window so far to an extreme that what would have been cosnidered basic normaly is now regarded as right-tending extremism. But there is another aspect as well and here is where I do share similar concerns with you (at least I think this is so). To study the (so-called) Far Right and the Traditional Right one must inevitably read people like René Guénon and Julius Evola. Even Plato if read in a certain way could only be considered a rightwing thinker. Traditional ideas -- those grounded in solid First Principles -- are always strict, rigorous, demanding, exclusive and resistant to novelty. And it also has to be mentioned that right-leaning and Traditionalist ideas of this sort all have a link or a relationship to ideas that are today described as 'fascistic'.

The curious thing, and unfortunately from my perspective the thing that has not and I assume will not be discussed in this thread, is the general movement within culture (that which surrounds us) toward a rigorous, traditionalist pole. As we are all aware (yet no one talks about it) there are battle-lines being drawn. But the pole that is being moved toward -- in American at least -- is an utterly bizarre one. It is a Christian pole, largely Evangelical, but one that is totally confused. I do not think this topic interests anyone here but it is the main one that interests me.
A. Huxley: “The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being. This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground—the knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to “Die to self” and so make room, as it were, for God."
I did of course read Brave New World (also BNW Revisited) and The Doors of Perception many years back. But later I read, for example, Proper Studies. Proper Studies expresses a position that could only be considered radical and extremist in today's climate. In my own case, and though I appreciate Huxley's move to a Perennialist metaphysical position in his later works, I do not find it of much use if I can employ such a vulgar term.
Nick wrote: "The Christianity of one living on the exoteric level is completely different then the one having experienced the transcendent level of reality. Yet they have the same name. Having experienced that I am in Plato's cave or at the exoteric level, I am beginning to engage the struggle between my outer an inner man in order to be worthy of the name "human".
I might suggest to you that Plato's cave -- like all mythological stories -- can be applied at almost any point within human affairs and human reality. An average person might genuinely proceed from one set of TV channels with certain programs and programming onto sophisticated levels of film-appreciation and (genuinely) understand that he is ascending from a Platonic Cave enthrallment to a 'higher level' of understanding and appreciation. Take Total Recall and compare it to the Apu Trilogy!
Do you consider the following to be metaphysical or psychological? From Jacob Needleman's book "the American Soul"
Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Throughout history ideas of a certain kind have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious individual instruments of God, and the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psych: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our own profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love.

These are the contours of the ancient wisdom, considered as ideas embodied in religious and philosophical doctrines, works of sacred art, literature and music and, in a very fundamental way, an indication of practical methods by which a man or woman can work, as is said, to become what he or she really is. Without feeling the full range of such ideas, or sensing even a modest, but pure, trace of them, we are bound to turn for meaning.
America once valued these ideas which are essentially Christian. They are essential for freedom. But they have devolved over time and sunk into secularism with the goal of might makes right and all the corruption possible to create might.

The metaphysics of Christianity is in its esoteric methods leading towards awakening. But as we are, all a person has to experience that they are in Plato's cave. This is psychological and what leads to metanoia. Of course it is only for a few but the influence of this few can be a powerful awakening influence to minimize the catastrophic effects of society hitting bottom through the loss of meaning which it must do.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Alexis Jacobi wrote:
I became interested in 'the essence of Christianity' out of a sense of solidarity with the Occident. That is, for reasons of European identity. And I don't think I have concealed that my reasons for this were because of a desire to discover and recover core conservative principles of the sort that are under extreme attack in our present
I too identify as a European and post-enlightenment European. It's a matter of history that Christianity was conserved through European Christendom which was a political/religious power structure. Celtic Christianity went to Ireland more independently with desert monks from the Middle East. Saint Columba and his Iona is a monkish tradition.

I still feel I belong spiritually with a particular congregation of the Church of Scotland. It was there and from my family I learned universalization. Therefore my feeling of European identity is not a permanent part of my identity but a springboard to larger identities.

Some conservative principles are simply wrong by virtue of universalization. Samaritans were not Jews. You cannot be both a follower of Jesus and also a conservative.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22265
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:42 am Alexis Jacobi wrote: I became interested in 'the essence of Christianity' out of a sense of solidarity with the Occident. That is, for reasons of European identity.
I too identify as a European and post-enlightenment European.
What's a "European"? Does he or she speak Dutch, Italian or Spanish, and live in Sweden or the Riviera? Europe does not have "an" identity: it has a bunch of warring identities, different in culture, language, habits, geography, history, resources, traditions, and so on.

Saying "I'm a European" is like saying, "I'm from the Developing World," or "I'm a Western Hemispherian." It's such a vague generalization that it conveys practically nothing, except "Not Asian" or "Not African."
You cannot be both a follower of Jesus and also a conservative.
If you suppose that, you don't know what a "conservative" is, I would think. It isn't a religious category, but rather a vague orientation to the past, to an unspecifiable set of possible "traditions" or "legacies" in civilizational history. It's another extremely broad generalization, and to suppose it's impossible to be within that generalization and Christian at the same time would need proving.

And certainly, being "Leftist" is no guarantee of one's metaphysics...Leftists are often Atheists, since ethusiasms for human politics are always non-Christian, and Leftists, if they are enthused for one thing, are enthused for human politics.
User avatar
Alexis Jacobi
Posts: 5153
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:00 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:19 am Do you consider the following to be metaphysical or psychological? From Jacob Needleman's book "The American Soul"
Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Throughout history ideas of a certain kind have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious individual instruments of God, and the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psych: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our own profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love.

These are the contours of the ancient wisdom, considered as ideas embodied in religious and philosophical doctrines, works of sacred art, literature and music and, in a very fundamental way, an indication of practical methods by which a man or woman can work, as is said, to become what he or she really is. Without feeling the full range of such ideas, or sensing even a modest, but pure, trace of them, we are bound to turn for meaning.
I would answer 'essentially metaphysical'. It seems to me that we require a perspective based in metaphysics in order to make sense of our material situation. Or put another way if we do not have a metaphysics, if we cannot even conceive of a visionary perspective (a perspective from which we look down on or look over 'our world') we will inevitably exist in a non-empowered state. We will be victims, in one way or another, of circumstances. In Platonic language I suppose that would mean that we'd be in thrall to becoming because we could not situate ourselves in being.

The entire critique that Needleman deals on in those paragraphs reminds me of The Crisis of the Modern World by René Guénon. And as it happened, and after reading Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah, I began reading the writings of the 'traditionalists'. I think Guénon is one of the most lucid. His view -- or my interpretation of his view -- is that behind each system (Christianity, Vedism, Islam, etc.) there are metaphysical truths that can be discerned. But to propose that metaphysical truth exists is to posit something that is only perceived by minds of a certain sort. It involves both imagination and intuition and then attempts to condense or concretize what is abstract and invisible into a system that is then applied to a world in which 'metaphysics' is meaningless. You have to agree to accept the tenets of metaphysics; you have to be schooled in them. I quoted Sir John Davies (early 1600s) in a previous post:
This substance, and this spirit of God's owne making,
Is in the body plact, and planted heere,
That both of God, and of the world partaking,
Of all that is, Man might the image beare.

God first made angels bodilesse, pure minds,
Then other things, which mindlesse bodies be;
Last, He made Mn, th'horizon 'twixt both kinds,
In who, we doe the World's abridgment see.
The image, of course, refers exclusively to what is metaphysical. And man is a point of conjuncture between the sensible and the non-sensible world. My view is that once people have lost the ways and means to even discern 'metaphysical meaning' that they then fall into a sort of thralldom to purely material powers.

Similar to Guénon but more controversial because of his association with Italian fascism is Julius Evola (who was influenced by Guénon.)
“Nothing is more evident than that modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic view of life on which both systems are based is identical; both of their ideals are qualitatively identical, including the premises connected to a world the centre of which is constituted of technology, science, production, "productivity," and "consumption." And as long as we only talk about economic classes, profit, salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth and goods, and that, generally speaking, human progress is measured by the degree of wealth or indigence—then we are not even close to what is essential...”

― Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist
“The essential task ahead requires formulating an adequate doctrine, upholding principles that have been thoroughly studied, and, beginning from these, giving birth to an Order. This elite, differentiating itself on a plane that is defined in terms of spiritual virility, decisiveness, and impersonality, and where every naturalistic bond loses its power and value, will be the bearer of a new principle of a higher authority and sovereignty; it will be able to denounce subversion and demagogy in whatever form they appear and reverse the downward spiral of the top-level cadres and the irresistible rise to power of the masses. From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity.”

― Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist
Yesterday I began reading Proper Studies (Huxley, 1929) again and realized that it had influenced me quite a bit. And I would have to also point out that Needleman, Evola and Guénon (and you in certain respects!) are dealing in Utopian idealism. The Utopians have a tendency to insist that man is or can be essentially different from what man actually is -- if thus-and-such would only occur. They tend not to see man as man really is but as they imagine he should be -- or could be or would be if they directed man's affairs: "From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity."
User avatar
Alexis Jacobi
Posts: 5153
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:00 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:42 am I still feel I belong spiritually with a particular congregation of the Church of Scotland. It was there and from my family I learned universalization. Therefore my feeling of European identity is not a permanent part of my identity but a springboard to larger identities.

Some conservative principles are simply wrong by virtue of universalization. Samaritans were not Jews. You cannot be both a follower of Jesus and also a conservative.
Well it is a curious thing, but somewhat alarming and unsettling, to think of Americanism as being empowered by a twist on Universalism. (Manifest destiny, the American Way understood to be obviously right and good, the penetration of Americanism everywhere, etc).

I also think a substantial defect can be noticed within Christianity itself when it expresses itself as universal idealism. Universalism, ultimately, must necessarily destroy Particularism (I am capitalizing simply for accent and for no other reason). Is it possible to define a Christian particularism? That is, an exclusive Christianity? (People are making this effort and I could cite a few sources).

But be that as it may I would only suggest that there is a movement afoot which seeks to oppose Universalization. I am not precisely sure how you use the term and I am guessing to some degree but since my endeavor is to research and understand the gamut of ideas that are operating today I can say with certainly that there is a sound and coherent argument against it. And I also have to say that there is one against Christian universalism which is seen not as a 'good thing' but as a 'destructive thing'. (My view takes both into consideration).

Take Pierre Krebs Fighting for the Essence (here reviewed by Tomislav Sunic on Counter-Currents). Sunić writes:
Krebs’ book actually urges the reader to decolonise his mindset, purging from it the images and concepts that have been contaminating White European brains over the last two millennia, and which resulted in a distorted perception of objective reality and a perverse form of White identity. In a word, this book can be described as an epistemological primer for those looking not just for the reasons behind the ongoing decadence in Europe and America, but also for those interested in the root causes of that decadence. Before combating the vileness of the present system, a modern man or woman of European extraction must make an effort to critically examine the origins of the founding myths of that system. Why waste time on futile talk about the ‘dying White race’, ‘the troubles of Europe’, ‘the dictatorship of the ideology of comfort’, or the ‘immigration disaster’ if the heart of the problem is wilfully ignored? In doing so, one only cures the symptoms of the disease while failing to address its causes.
Here is the blurb for Kreb's book Fighting for the Essence. (I do realize this is highly controversial material and that Counter-Currents deals in extremely radical ideas).
Dr. Krebs offers a devastating critique of multiculturalism, showing that although it claims to be the watchman of racial and cultural diversity, it is actually destructive to both, as it denies the significance of racial differences altogether. He traces its origins to the legacy of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and shows how this has developed into many of the most powerful tools of liberalism of our times. These are serving the interests of the global marketplace by turning all of humanity into compliant consumers. Those who endorse multiculturalism are, in fact, the enemies of all traditional culture. Dr. Krebs also takes issue with the use of the term 'West' to describe our culture, which he sees as an effort to deprive the various European cultures which comprise it of their unique characters and histories. This will lead to their replacement by a grey conformity divorced from any authentic roots, as well as a value system that is frequently used as a weapon against those nations which refuse to share them. This assault is not limited to Europe, but is something that is going on in every corner of the globe. Dr. Krebs says that it is time for all those who believe in the worthiness of their heritage and unique ethnic identity to return to the wellsprings of their peoples, and defend what is rightfully theirs. With a deeper trench between the camps of multiculturalism and traditional culture being dug all the time, this is the conflict that will define the 21st century. Drawing examples from many of the most notable contributors to science, philosophy and religion, Dr. Krebs illustrates a truth that is difficult to deny. Anyone who heeds his warning will find it impossible not to accept his challenge to take sides in the ongoing struggle against universal conformity.
Post Reply