Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Simultaneous infinity is absurd, but what is improperly with infinity in time?

Anything that requires an infinite chain of prerequisites (causes) never gets started.

The point is that also your hypothesis about the "first impulse" does not require "creation from nothing", on the contrary, the "first impulse" pushes the already existing matter.
(as in the Big Bang hypothesis).

Actually, the Big Bang, whatever we regard it to be, is not the first moment in the causal chain...or if it is, then the Big Bang is the creation from nothing.

There are only two rational possibilities for the BB: one is that there was nothing in existence before it, or the second is that there was something already in existence to make the explosion we call the BB possible. Very clear?

Now, scientists currently theorize that things like hydrogen and quark-gluon plasma were already possibly present before the Big Bang: you speak of "already-existing matter." Both produce the same problem: where did those come from? Were they, themselves the result of prior causes, or did they just pop into existence from nothing?

But we're still stuck with the infinite regress of causes problem. If we point to an infinite chain of prior causes, then nothing would exist in the universe, because nothing would ever get started -- the chain would recede infinitely again. But then, we are inescapable drawn to the conclusion that somehow the BB or whatever "already existing matter" it came from, had to come from nothing.

But what "first impulse," to use your term, shall we posit for such a thing happening? What can produce something from nothing, and generate a universe thereby?

The hypothesis is then very hard to evade: it must have been an "impulse" of immense power, capable of infusing not only great bursts of energy but also tremendous amounts of order into the universe, and then of creating stable rules and conditions in which the universe could continue to exist without instantly collapsing again, like most explosions normally would.

The hypothesis is getting narrower by the minute, isn't it?

[Immanuel Can]

Nevertheless, the notion of a Holy Spirit is an idea that people do not talk about a great deal.

True. There's something very private about such a conversation.

But that would be 'the spirit of inspiration', a creative spirit that, as it is conceived, can and does enter into human situations.

Not the way the Bible speaks of the Spirit. It does speak of "the spirit of man," but not always in complimentary terms. There's something very wrong with that "spirit." And it's always in contradistinction from the Spirit of God. (See, for example, 1 Cor. 2:12)

So though both are mentioned, it's not the same "spirit" in each case.

The idea of a spirit that operates independently of time -- eternally -- and guides or influences things in the mutable human world is an idea that must be thought about.

Indeed so.

I do not see how one can then dismiss the operations of this Holy Spirit.

Oh, I'm not doing that: I'm just pointing out that there is more than one "spirit" mentioned in this context, and that it's not "the Holy Spirit" that is always doing the "operations." So one would have to decide if the "operations" performed by the monolythic Catholic institution were generated from men or from God.

How one would do that is described in the Bible itself: "To the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn." (Isaiah 8:20)

Your view is essentially that it is your own view, your own position in history, in time, in the present, that justifies your particular interpretation.

That's actually not my view. My view is that it is God who justifies anybody's interpretation: and that if man's interpretation -- any man's interpretation, including my own -- fails to accord with God's, there can be no question at all of who is wrong.

...when they purify themselves...

Now, there's one thing no man can do. One can't purify oneself with dirty water. (See Romans 3)

... if there is a 'spiritual influence' it occurs to a person, within a person, and in no way independently of that person's self.

Right. That's what makes it merely "the spirit of man." It comes from man, and is not independent of him at all. And that's why it's not the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

It seems to me that the *correction* you speak about will often take place within a social -- for example a church -- setting. And it is in that setting that the influence one will receive comes through subjective persons who make the best effort they can to 'interpret' the influences of spirit.

It doesn't seem so. While there's no reason it can't come on a gathering (see, for example, Acts 10:44), far more frequently, it's revealed to lead the individual (See Gal. 5:18). So while "a social setting" is optional, it's by no means required for, or necessary to, the leading of the Spirit.

The key passage for understanding this would be John 16, when Jesus is speaking to his disciples, just before His death and resurrection...


"...if I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world regarding sin, and righteousness, and judgment: regarding sin, because they do not believe in Me; and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you no longer are going to see Me; and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present time. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take from Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; this is why I said that He takes from Mine and will disclose it to you."


So we can see that the Spirit is not something men have always had, or that all men have. He is given by God, to those who have believed in Christ. And the world knows nothing about Him, since it does not regard God as even existing, nor does it listen to any but its own "spirit." No wonder, then, that Christ says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:5)

Again, one must be born again, born from above, to experience the leading of God's Spirit. It's not a universal human experience.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Then you understand neither philosophy nor science. There are phenomena - that is the foundation of modern philosophy: I think, therefore I am. Science is the study of phenomena: observing, measuring and prediction. Philosophy is the explanation. If you are as smart as you hope, you will appreciate that the explanation makes no difference to the observation, measuring or prediction. Meh, sometimes prediction. For that reason some scientists insist that philosophy is useless. Wakey wakey, Gus, you're actually quite bright; that fucking idiot is dragging you down.

Sure, within the realm to which science and measurement devote themselves.

So I think that you are wrong: I don't think I misunderstand science. I think I understand it well enough.

But I do think that you have a strict and limited view of philosophy. Which follows, of course, given your core position as an atheist. That is to say that you have many many good reasons (reasons you define as good and necessary) to seek to undermine religious belief.

[Immanuel Can]

...when we speak of things metaphysical, when we speak of 'spiritual influence' or the intervention of spiritual forces in our own world, we are speaking of things not only somewhat different from this *external world* that surrounds us, and non-comparable, but of entirely subjective perceptions that must pass through the filter of our own subjective being.

Now, I understand why you might assume that. If one had had no other experience but that, that is exactly what one would think, of course. One would think that anything "metaphysical" could not be real or objective in the same way that the external world is.

But let me submit to you that that is not the only way things can be. If one person has not experienced a real London, that does not mean that a real London does not exist, or that London can only be an "imagination." It may well be true that the first person only "imagines" London, since she has no first hand knowledge of it at all; but it does not mean the second person has only an imaginary London. Perhaps he or she lives there.

So in this sense the mutable being, the mutable vehicle -- our biological selves encased in biological instruments of (limited) perception -- that must perceive, analyze, think choose and decide. Everything about us is constantly mutating. The very platform of our selves will eventually fall away. The structure, the instrument, that perceives, will eventually dissolve away.

This is true: but we must be very careful here, not to make a mistake that many people -- indeed most people today -- seem to make. And that error is to make an epistemological claim (i.e. a statement about what we know) and then use it to make a further claim about ontology (i.e. about what really exists, independent of our knowledge).

It is quite true that the "instrument" with which you and I understand the word is flawed and failing. Think of it like a murky telescope. But that's a very different question from whether or not the object at the other end of the murky telescope exists.

So yes, we obviously have to adapt ourselves to the physical world that surrounds us. There is really no choice in that matter. And all beings, all living beings and all of humankind does this -- can do nothing else but this.

Right. Now you've sorted out epistemology and ontology. No matter what, individually, we know or fail to know, it's only the things that correspond to the real world that will prove adaptive.

Our mind, our perceptions, what we think, what we envision, the entire view that we have, and indeed our entire *imagined world* is just that: something that is unalike the surrounding world, something largely epiphenomenal to that world.

A murky telescope indeed.

However, even a murky telescope does show us something real. If it does not, it's not a telescope at all. It's a sealed tube of some kind.

So if one speaks of 'God' one is referring, really, to an imagined notion. An image one holds in the mind.

No, no...let's not slip into that error now.

The "imagining" is a product of our murky telescope. It says nothing at all about the real condition of the Entity at the far end.

But Weaver's thesis is, like a true Platonist, largely the same as what I am saying, is it not? It is the restricted, limited, fallible being that can only use its fallible instruments to develop the most accurate picture possible.

I won't speak for Weaver or the Platonists, of course. But the limitations of our epistemology do not say anything about the ontological status of the being at the end of the telescope.

And I think you agree, do you not? For you accept, I think, that there is a real world "out there," so to speak, and one that does not morph with the failures and waverings of our perceptions. Indeed, were there no real, actual, objective world out there, there would be nothing for us to see at all...no cause of the perceptions, however flawed those perceptions might sometimes be.

Something "out there" is making you perceive a computer screen right now. And even if your visual accuity is never 100%, the fact that you're looking at a computer screen, and not a goat, a battleship or an armchair, is being "imposed on" your consciousness by something. And that something is really there.

[Dontaskme]

...in the irony void between Mr Can's ears:

The above quote is another example of a Christian distortion.

It can't be. It's a direct quotation from the Bible.

Which was written by...

IC doesn't understand nonduality. He's just another parrot, regurgitating the same old man-made story, from cradle to grave, wandering around the mazes of his own imagination never quite finding the exit point. It doesn't matter, he knows not what he is, says, or does. So who cares.

[Alexis Jacobi]

This is true: but we must be very careful here, not to make a mistake that many people -- indeed most people today -- seem to make. And that error is to make an epistemological claim (i.e. a statement about what we know) and then use it to make a further claim about ontology (i.e. about what really exists, independent of our knowledge).

I think I had already worked this out and quite some time ago.

Let me put it this way: If I recur, let us say exclusively or solely, to the sort of epistemological methodology that Uwot employs and is committed to, I will only be able to come to his conclusions. And those conclusions will appear to me (I will *self-convince*) to be absolutely and undeniably true.

But in my case I cannot come to those conclusions because I would have to turn against core, inner experience (or experiences) that arise out of a different epistemology. It is one that many 'hard materialists' (If indeed Uwot defines himself as such) cannot understand. And that sort of *hard materialist* has a great deal or power and influence today. Why? Because the explanatory system in which he and they ensconce themselves has a tremendous utility and functionality within the specific domains that it presides over.

It answers many many questions. But it can never get to the heart of the largest and the most important questions.

Now, I stand in relation to Christianity -- the Christian revelation, and the Jewish revelation -- as one with this perspective. I guess it would have to be described as mystic (in the general sense of that word). It is definitely not *scientific* nor rationalist in the strict sense.

The problem of my view, when it faces or confronts The Christian Edifice is that it (this stance, this view) also sees the Christian Construct as just that: a construct. It is an entire system that organizes perceptions, and orders them systematically.

Yet what is conceived of -- which indeed is something impossible to define or encapsulate (or explain) -- is existence itself! The fact that things exist. The fact that I have consciousness that perceives.

And also consciousness that must interpret! I have to create pictures, but the picture is not the reality. The reality can, I gather, be intuited but I do not think it can be directly perceived. Thus it can only be intimated.

So, within the position that I have, I can look at and consider various different systems for what they in fact are: attempts to describe, attempts to picture.

I am both less amenable and yet somewhat amenable to seeing the Christian revelation is the absolute and strictly exclusive terms that you employ (or that Christianity employs). Why? Because it leads to an imperious overbearing assertion that *my view is the right one*.

On the other hand, one must be able to see and distinguish one thing from another. That is to say to conceive of, and also appreciate, respect (and defend) hierarchies-of-value.

[Alexis Jacobi]

regurgitating the same old man-made story

This would imply a story that is not man-made. What story is that?

[Dontaskme]

regurgitating the same old man-made story

This would imply a story that is not man-made. What story is that?

The belief in man as a writer. It's an imagined story.

The entire contents of the bible is unwritten.

Just as the entire contents of consciousness has no reality separate from the consciousness itself.

[Dontaskme]

regurgitating the same old man-made story

This would imply a story that is not man-made. What story is that?

What IC fails to accept is that there is only one of us here. This absolute truth terrifies him.

Every one is alone in their own aloneness too. This spirit entity is totally alone..all ONE.

People like IC refuses to accept this truth, and so conjures up an imaginary friend in terror.

[henry quirk]

the picture is not the reality

Of course not. But, if the picture is meant to inform (rather than entertain or satisfy or distract) it ought be fidelitous, yeah?

We ought be fidelitous, yeah?

[Dontaskme]

the picture is not the reality

Of course not. But, if the picture is meant to inform (rather than entertain or satisfy or distract) it ought be fidelitous, yeah?

We ought be fidelitous, yeah?

There is only the beloved. Tag, you're IT

You do not need to show up to your own show. Idol worship.

[henry quirk]

the picture is not the reality

Of course not. But, if the picture is meant to inform (rather than entertain or satisfy or distract) it ought be fidelitous, yeah?

We ought be fidelitous, yeah?

There is only the beloved. Tag, you're IT

You do not need to show up to your own show. Idol worship.

[Dontaskme]

the picture is not the reality

Of course not. But, if the picture is meant to inform (rather than entertain or satisfy or distract) it ought be fidelitous, yeah?

We ought be fidelitous, yeah?

There is only the beloved. Tag, you're IT

You do not need to show up to your own show. Idol worship.

Who questions must answer.

[henry quirk]

'Man requires God's'? What do you mean?

God created man. We exist cuz He willed it. God, as I see it, doesn't need us to believe in Him, but our existence depends on His interest in us.

So, to you, a person created man.

You exist because a person will it.

And,

A person does not need man to believe in the person, but your existence depends on a person's interest in you.

If this is not correct, then why not?

yes: God created man

yes: I exist becuz God willed it

...and...

yes: God doesn't require my interest in Him, but I require His interest in me

it's correct

[henry quirk]

There is only the beloved. Tag, you're IT

You do not need to show up to your own show. Idol worship.

Who questions must answer.