Christianity

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:42 pm ...the harsh strictness of IC's position...
Well, well. :D Let's see your evidence of this "harsh strictness." Let's see what you're chirping about.

So far as I know, I've been in no way "harsh" or "strict" with you, at least not beyond the levels I've gotten from you. But go ahead...
As someone commenting on the assertions of Phillip Rieff pointed out:
If the dominant character type of the twentieth century is really what Rieff calls 'psychological man', the consequences for western society are quite incalculable.
Freud transformed the way Man is understood and the way men understand themselves.

This is a bit antiquated. What we know today is that Freud was very often wrong, for which reason, current psychology rejects him as a lead character and relegates him the the ranks of "somewhat mistaken forefathers." Current psychotherapists and psychologists, you will find, object immediately and quite strenuously if you ever characterize their discipline as "Freudian."

But Freud did mess with Western suppostions. And one of Freud's various mistakes is what Rieff is talking about. Freud treated subjective feelings and interpretations (which he made personally, based on only the neuroses of a handful of subjects, all female) the touchstone of truth in psychological matters. Of course, put that way, it's exposed as both ridiculous and unscientific -- as mere speculation, not data. However, Reiff is quite right that Freud was taken far too seriously by Western psychology, and then eventually, in poorly-understood, popularized reductions, by the culture as a whole.

Rieff points out that this has been a disaster. And he's right. It's issued in what has been called, by multiple sociologists, a "culture of therapy," (Reiff et al.) a "culture of interpretation," (Lundin et al.) or "a culture of narcissism." (Lasch et al.)

But if you'll look, you'll find that none of these indicts the previous culture for its eventuality. It was not narcissistic, not subjectivist, and not therapeutic in orientation at all. Rather, the fault for this lands at the feet of the Nietzsches, the Freuds and Jungs of the world, the pretentious secular speculators, not in the culture that therapeutic culture supplanted.
It is 'incalculable' what it has done to theology.

It's debased any theology it has touched. It has not done anything actually to disprove theology, but has corrupted the understanding of the masses in incalculable ways. One of those ways is that the public has come to see theology, like everything else, as therapeutic: namely, to imagine that religion exists not in order to speak truth but in order to help people become "better," or even just to make them "feel good."

And you see the results in every Liberal denomination around the globe. They're all shrinking and dying: because nobody takes up theology for the mere "feel goods" of it, for mere therapy. They take it up only if they think there's at least a chance of it being true, instructive, moral, and realistic. Therapeutic thinking denies that truth, morality, and even instruction have any purpose but the therapeutic.
What does this mean?

The above. You're living in an age in which truth is exchanged for therapy. That's what Reiff is saying.
In my own case it is still coming into focus. Yet a few things can be said. One is that whatever we perceive and experience is experienced through a sort of solitariness. If at one time -- say by being an incorporated member of a Catholic Church congregation -- our participation was on all levels, from the shared ritual of Mass to those years spent in school with one's peers, through marriage and child-raising, to shared events and activities outside of Church but in communal association -- now all of this has disappeared, vanished into thin air (for most). If such community exists it is a shadow or a mere trace of what it once was. And for most it is still dissolving, often right in front of our eyes. (And few can understand why so they observe the dissolution in mute silence).
By your own explanation, you were a nominalist in both Judaism and Catholicism. Not surprisingly, the credibility of these things has vanished, for you. But you've not yet considered that a thoughtful commitment to Judaism or Christianity might prove much more informative. You've bounced off the surface of the issue, having experienced a kind of religiosity which, by your own account, if not merely reduced to the therapeutic, was at most nominal, superficial, cultural, occasional, routine, highly ritualistic and uncommitted. And not surprisingly, you find yourself not drawn to that.

I wouldn't be either.
We are thrown back onto and into our own selves.
That won't help. That's what the therapeutic invites you to do: to center your consciousness in yourself, yourself only, and insist that you are, yourself the measure of all things. It's utterly solipsistic, egocentric and vapid.

But salvation (even if we only understand that term as "rescue from deception") lies not in that direction. And one of the things we need to be saved from is ourselves. :shock: Because manifestly, when we examine ourselves honestly, we are not what we should be, nor are we inclined to think according to truth, especially when the therapeutic imperative is invoked; and the delusion that we are personally the center of the universe will not stand up to any logic, nor to the existence of a single other person who believes the same.

That much is obvious, if we will open our eyes. Rieff saw it.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:09 am One more thing...

You say...
I am confused by another element: Jesus Christ is defined by the Gospels, and through the Gospels, as being -- literally -- the Godhead incarnated into a man's body. Jesus Christ is, therefore, God incarnate. Do you hold that view?
Do you?

After all, you also say...
I have explained that I am not closed to the notion, and the real existence of metaphysics -- ideas let's say that are in no sense part-and-parcel of our world and which only come into the world through human kind but which are enormously powerful and transformative -- and I am not closed to an 'idea of God' nor to the god-experience that saints and mystics describe.
If I read you right: you have, shall we say, doubts?
First question: I do not think I can realistically hold to the idea if I am asked to comment about 'our reality'. If there is one divine man who incarnated, why not others? But on the other hand I do not regard the idea 'held in the mind' of believers as being unreal. It has real effect and ramifications.

Second question: I see a given culture (Hebrew, Vedic, etc.) as functioning like a receiver and also as a lens. What is received is the stuff of metaphysics (as thought and concept, meaning & value are essentially metaphysical). These seem to me to have always existed. They are part-and-parcel of the manifested kosmos. They are gathered (received) by men.

Then they are expressed through lenses of projection. They are expressed into projected forms. Also each person is an eye (a pun on an 'I') and is himself a lens.
“This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
Do you know I have posted this Blake quote at least a dozen times on various forums and no one to date has commented on it?

What is seeing 'through the eye' as opposed to 'with' the eye?
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:14 pm So far as I know, I've been in no way "harsh" or "strict" with you, at least not beyond the levels I've gotten from you.
Stop the whimpering. Take it like a man!

When I referred to 'strictness' (you read terribly) I refer to the strict regulations and prohibitions (and admonitions) of classically strict Christianity. The old containers (the churches) became too restrictive on a host of levels. They required being broken out of. It is also true, as Rieff suggests, that freed of one Cage we are now housed in isolated private cages. He referenced Rilke's The Panther:

The Panther
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
Rieff, all the modernists, what is happening and why -- all these things have to be explored carefully. It all takes time.

IC is not the subject here. IC is deeply sensitive and seems frail. That is why it is best to talk about him.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

"We are thrown back onto and into our own selves."
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:14 pm That won't help. That's what the therapeutic invites you to do: to center your consciousness in yourself, yourself only, and insist that you are, yourself the measure of all things. It's utterly solipsistic, egocentric and vapid.
What I notice is the 'declarative certainty' in the asserted statement. It is not precisely possible to say 'it won't help', we are not certain where everything will go and how things will turn out. It is possible to make some statements about both the negative and the positive aspects of 'being thrown back against the self' and 'into the self'.

But this requires careful, thoughtful, fair and just discourse about these things. My impression to date? IC can hardly be relied on for any level of objectivity.

That is one (negative) side-effect of religious fanaticism. Religious fanaticism could be said to be 'the bars of a cage'.

I propose that 'cages' generally can become the topic of our conversation.

Selah
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Der Panther

Someone put up a free ('trot') translation for help in grasping the poem:
His gaze has from the passing of the bars
so tired become/grown that it holds nothing more.
To him it is as if a thousand bars it offered/gave,
and behind the thousand bars no world.

The smooth motion/gait/walk of the supple strong stride,
which himself in the very smallest circles turns,
is like a dance of power round a middle/centre,
in which numbed/deadened a big will stands (erect)
Only sometimes moves the curtain of the pupil soundlessly upwards.
Then moves an image in, moves through the limbs’ tense stillness
and in the heart stops being.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:34 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:14 pm So far as I know, I've been in no way "harsh" or "strict" with you, at least not beyond the levels I've gotten from you.
Stop the whimpering.
:lol: Charlie, you are the least threatening thing in my life! I promise you.

Oh, mercy you're funny. :lol:
...classically strict Christianity...
You don't even want to define "Christian," and I think you can't.

You don't even know what a Christian is, let alone what one believes. So trust me, the last thing I ever feel from you is a sense of danger.

Lovely. Just lovely, that. 8)
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:40 pm
"We are thrown back onto and into our own selves."
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:14 pm That won't help. That's what the therapeutic invites you to do: to center your consciousness in yourself, yourself only, and insist that you are, yourself the measure of all things. It's utterly solipsistic, egocentric and vapid.
What I notice is the 'declarative certainty' in the asserted statement.
You should actually read Reiff, instead of just pretending you did, then. He says the same. So blame him, the guy whose coat-tails you're trying to ride.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:55 pm You should actually read Reiff, instead of just pretending you did, then. He says the same. So blame him, the guy whose coat-tails you're trying to ride.
Note: I read ‘according to my lights’ and not necessarily with the grain (according to the intentions) of the author. Reiff (and any author) has a communicable perspective. But he could be read ‘against the grain of his own intentions’.

What Reiff ‘says’ is what he says. He is a point of reference in a far larger conversation. He’s one stop along a winding path.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Y is it..this bloke said this...and this bloke said that...wtf!!

Why don't U BOTH man up, and speak from the heart of yourselves?



..or hang on, R U indeed trying to impress others or each other with how well read U R. FFS.


GRANDFATHER TIME

Time speaks to me
like a restless man
of too many thoughts
thoughts that are fraught
with knowing too much
and so little
I take my time
it abides by me
as I sip on the essence
of lost memory
it keeps me warm
and I get pittance
to labour on
time's piss ant pawn
Is time a man?
We know it not
events occurring
flicker here
flicker
flicker there
missed her
Mr who?
Miss?
Misses?
I like you,
we did both, you and I
did and our soul did
cry
in our youth, masters we were
but now sent adrift
seeking the shore
and I ashore you not
this shipwright's knot
let's caulk the seams
breathe
for we will sink
with our dreams
to fathom below
deeper we'll go
into the fathoms
darker still
where light retreats
and glazes our gleam
blinding us again
the time
the light
that emits
no more
usurped
the mass
the priest
the chalice
bedded now
into a
watery
ground.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

attofishpi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:42 pm ...or hang on, R U indeed trying to impress others or each other with how well read U R. FFS.
Because of one reference to one author who wrote on an important theme?

Atto tell me: what books are you reading these days?

Is reading relevant to you?

Should those who write on a philosophical forum have read philosophical books?
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Note: I assert you could not have written the submitted poem. An overflow of correct punctuation! 8)

OTOH some of the word-play could well be yours.
Last edited by Alexis Jacobi on Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:06 pm
attofishpi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:42 pm ...or hang on, R U indeed trying to impress others or each other with how well read U R. FFS.
Because of one reference to one author who wrote on an important theme?

Atto tell me: what books are you reading these days?

Is reading relevant to you?

Should those who write on a philosophical forum have read philosophical books?
Absolutely. But they should have analysed what they have read, and comprehended their own context, without continually referencing the source.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:11 pm Note: I assert you could not have written the submitted poem. An overflow of correct punctuation! 8)
..well, if that's the reason U think I did not write it, then I am offended in two ways.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:55 pm You should actually read Reiff, instead of just pretending you did, then. He says the same. So blame him, the guy whose coat-tails you're trying to ride.
Note: I read ‘according to my lights’ and not necessarily with the grain (according to the intentions) of the author.
Modern ideologues call that reading procedure, "co-opting the narrative."

If that's what you did, then you didn't really read; you just looked for anything in which you could imagine he was in harmony with your existing theory, and let the rest slide off you like water off a duck's back.

So citing Reiff as an authority is of no use to you, in that case. He doesn't agree with you. It's just you agreeing with you again.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

attofishpi wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:14 pm . . . well, if that's the reason U think I did not write it, then I am offended in two ways.
When you wrote that I may have been trying to impress IC I went into a violent tantrum and ended up crying into my vodka. We’re even. :mrgreen:
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