Christianity

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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:11 pm This has nothing to do with your intelligence, it has to do with your background education.
Yes, and I am grateful to you for pointing it out. I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand Nick. That's fine. There is no reason why I should be in possession of that knowledge.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:53 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:11 pm This has nothing to do with your intelligence, it has to do with your background education.
Yes, and I am grateful to you for pointing it out. I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand Nick. That's fine. There is no reason why I should be in possession of that knowledge.
Curiosity?
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:54 pm Curiosity?
It started out as curiosity, but not curiosity strong enough to motivate more than a small amount of effort to satisfy it. Mr. Jacobi has made me realise that it doesn't really fall within my sphere of interest. He seems to think I resent his intervention, when exactly the opposite is the case.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:03 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:54 pm Curiosity?
It started out as curiosity, but not curiosity strong enough to motivate more than a small amount of effort to satisfy it. Mr. Jacobi has made me realise that it doesn't really fall within my sphere of interest. He seems to think I resent his intervention, when exactly the opposite is the case.
That's nice. I hope you keep writing.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:53 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:11 pm This has nothing to do with your intelligence, it has to do with your background education.
Yes, and I am grateful to you for pointing it out. I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand Nick. That's fine. There is no reason why I should be in possession of that knowledge.
That is an odd way to put it. You would have no reason to understand your own culture (perhaps you are an immigrant to England and have no substantial connection to England and to Europe?), and yourself as an outcome or product of that culture and its evolution, if there were no reason for you to be concerned. That is true.

But curiously you were likely educated by the public school system in England and yet, somehow, none of your own cultural and social history was offered to you. And when *you* were turned out at the end of your education process -- this I can well imagine -- certainly to turn a wrench or pack groceries or even perhaps be a middle manager or even an owner of a business you'd have no particular need to have any depth understanding about anything at all except your immediate trade. I get all of that.

But this is a philosophy forum, and one imagines that those who write here have some level of cultural and intellectual training. So you'd have to know where we all come from (products of an evolution of those Medieval systems), where we are now (in terms of metaphysical or, as the case may be, of anti-metaphysical orientation), and where we are likely heading.

But in your position -- the position you declare that you have! -- you'd have no reason to be concerned about much of anything.

So I would modify your self-statement: "I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand anything at all" and certainly nothing about Christianity or any religion. Yet you write on a thread devoted to the topic where, as it happens, you simply declare and affirm your ignorance -- indeed your complete lack of interest.

Nothing on TeeVee? 😂
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:03 pm He seems to think I resent his intervention, when exactly the opposite is the case.
Not intervening. Commenting.

Oh no, I say what I think are polite things since by making bold and strong statements it is possible to offend sensitive people. People often misunderstand me and yet I make my intentions and my endeavors very clear: I am interested in exposing and seeing clearly where we all stand and why it is that we cannot and do not share a common platform of understanding! Each of us here on this thread represents, seemingly, an atomized fragment. Since I cannot (or so it seems) convince you (or anyone) to see the value in grasping metaphysical principles, at the very least I can try to understand why this strange situation has come about.

Similarly, I'd imagine that you, puzzled as you indeed are about why people could hold to such nutty ideas as those I defend, could at least see why it is that we stand in opposition. And that could be seen as a facsimile of progress, no?

What is your sphere of interest?
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:22 pm

So I would modify your self-statement: "I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand anything at all" and certainly nothing about Christianity or any religion. Yet you write on a thread devoted to the topic where, as it happens, you simply declare and affirm your ignorance -- indeed your complete lack of interest.
Yes, I'm something of an enigma, aren't I. It's probably my only godlike quality. :)
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:28 pm
What is your sphere of interest?
Entertaining myself. You can't possibly think I come here looking for enlightenment, surely.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:34 pm Yes, I'm something of an enigma, aren't I. It's probably my only godlike quality. :)
And like Belinda I certainly hope that you will keep writing. 😁

I do have a bit of a clue for you. In respect to people like Nick, and like myself I should say, you'd do well to understand that our adamancy has a function for ourselves. For example I have, to all appearances, been unsuccessful communicating certain ideas to Dubious. In fact if "The End" meant what I think it meant my insistence irritated him. (He's a somewhat grumpy fellow at times!)

But in trying to convince you I am in fact shoring up my own sense of what is right and true. This all has great importance for me. None of this is vain conversation. I have to get clear about these things in order to be able to function in a holistic sense.

So what I have done (in the course of these months) is to have retreated from an overt defense of Christianity to a defense of the ideas and the metaphysics that stand behind it. This is, in one sense, a shade or a step below real belief -- but it is the best I can do.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:38 pmEntertaining myself. You can't possibly think I come here looking for enlightenment, surely.
Depends what you definition of 'enlightenment' would be.

But allow me to comment: Some people are locked into, perhaps even imprisoned, within conceptual structures that do not allow them to excel and prosper. They live in conceptual prisons. Trapped. So let us suppose that you accept that what I describe is real and some people do live in such prisons.

Would you then be able to accept that gaining conceptual knowledge that would enable them to begin to leave such conceptual prisons could be possible? And if that did happen would that be 'progress' in your book?
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:44 pm
I do have a bit of a clue for you. In respect to people like Nick, and like myself I should say, you'd do well to understand that our adamancy has a function for ourselves. For example I have, to all appearances, been unsuccessful communicating certain ideas to Dubious. In fact if "The End" meant what I think it meant my insistence irritated him. (He's a somewhat grumpy fellow at times!)

But in trying to convince you I am in fact shoring up my own sense of what is right and true. This all has great importance for me. None of this is vain conversation. I have to get clear about these things in order to be able to function in a holistic sense.

So what I have done (in the course of these months) is to have retreated from an overt defense of Christianity to a defense of the ideas and the metaphysics that stand behind it. This is, in one sense, a shade or a step below real belief -- but it is the best I can do.
My brain just isn't wired up like Nick's, I am never going to be able to appreciate what his vision is. From time to time I do make a slight effort to understand this type of thing, but it never ends in success. I have been rather horrible to Nick in the past, which I don't feel great about, so this was just an attempt to understand him. I am nowhere near Nick's concept of what a human being should be, but if he really knew me, I don't think he would disapprove of me as much as he probably does.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:52 pm
Depends what you definition of 'enlightenment' would be.

But allow me to comment: Some people are locked into, perhaps even imprisoned, within conceptual structures that do not allow them to excel and prosper. They live in conceptual prisons. Trapped. So let us suppose that you accept that what I describe is real and some people do live in such prisons.

Would you then be able to accept that gaining conceptual knowledge that would enable them to begin to leave such conceptual prisons could be possible? And if that did happen would that be 'progress' in your book?
I don't have any thoughts on how people should live their lives. Contentment seems the most desireable goal to me. If spending all your free time watching third rate rubbish on TV brings you contentment, and it causes you no problems, that is probably what you should do. I don't have a TV set, which is probably why I try to make my experience here as entertaining as possible. If the world was full of deep thinkers, life would probably be Hell for everyone.

Sorry about all the probablies.
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:52 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:13 pm
Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:02 pm

I dare say he is, but it doesn't really matter. It's not as if I'm about to follow him down the path he's on.
Since you cannot, even slightly, understand what he is talking about, you certainly could not follow him or his path. Only when you actually understood the terms and concepts he is working with could you then make any sort of reasoned decision.

And this is just what I have been talking about: Once the capability of understanding certain ideas and concepts has been undermined, and the conceptual pathway disturbed or broken, those ideas seem outrageous and ridiculous -- unworthy of consideration by a sensible person! And they are dismissed.
In my experience the conceptual pathway is not inherent but learned . I can't lose the conceptual pathway if I never learned it in the first place. It's true that general respect for education is inculcated by the prevailing culture via significant others in early childhood as any primary school teacher will agree. If respect for education has to be learned by children of school age it's done with as much entertainment and playfulness as may be. Novels and cartoons are quite helpful.

A culture of understanding may become materialistic as has happened due to regimes' scorn for academia and its knock on effect in education policies. Even scientists are not officially taught philosophy of science as there isn't time to learn it. Keep up the good fight!

The field of human ability has not lost its potential fertility, because Lamarckism is not true.

BTW my recent try at theodicy by clustering demiurge, satan, and trickster did not work for the reason you gave earlier. The problem of evil remains in place.
Plato used the term in the dialog Timaeus, an exposition of cosmology in which the Demiurge is the agent who takes the preexisting materials of chaos, arranges them according to the models of eternal forms, and produces all the physical things of the world, including human bodies. The Demiurge is sometimes thought of as the Platonic personification of active reason. The term was later adopted by some of the Gnostics, who, in their dualistic worldview, saw the Demiurge as one of the forces of evil, who was responsible for the creation of the despised material world and was wholly alien to the supreme God of goodness.
Why do you accept Gnostic duality and assume the demiurge are evil rather then Plato's explanation of the demiurge responsible for bringing order into chaos. Is that evil?
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:38 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:28 pm
What is your sphere of interest?
Entertaining myself. You can't possibly think I come here looking for enlightenment, surely.
People comparing ideas is a recognised way to learn new ideas.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:07 pm
People comparing ideas is a recognised way to learn new ideas.
I'm sure I must have picked lots of stuff up here without realising it. I'm not so sure that I've given much back in return, though.
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