Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

That's twice you have accused me of being a liar.

I'll await the quotation showing that's the word I used.

[henry quirk]

1. The world is currently a shit show.

Of course it isn't. Some of the people in it are garbage, yes, and those garbage people do their damnedest to screw the pooch for everybody, yes, but the world is not a shit show (maybe your little part of it is crappy...what are you doin' to fix that?).

2. God created everything in the world.

Yes, God created the whole thing includin' all the free wills (like me, like you) who have a choice and a say the world.

3. God is omniscient and knows the world is a shit show.

Some folks say He is. If He is, and if we're free wills, then He must abstain from seein' it all, or maybe, as I've suggested elsewhere, free wills flummox omniscience. Either way: His omni-nature doesn't absolve you of moral responsibility.

4. God is benevolent and does not wish for the world to be a shit show.

I figure God is just, which is not the same as benevolent. And, yeah, He'd probably prefer it if the garbage folks didn't cause atomic mushrooms to sprout up all over. If He's payin' attention (and I really don't think He is) He may be wonderin' why so many free wills are sittin' idle while a comparatively small number of garbage people screw everyone's pooch.

5. God is omnipotent and has the power to make the world a NON-shit show.

I have no doubt He can do just that (make the world a non-shit show [if it were a shit show {which it isn't}]). I also have no doubt His direct intercession in the world would render each of us robots, meat machines. His exercise of Himself in the world would negate free wills (that is: us). No thanks. I like bein' a person.

So when is God going to fix this shit show?

If the world were a shit show (which it's not): that would be our job.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Where is the vomit emoji when you need it

[attofishpi]

Where is the vomit emoji when you need it

(we Christians drink blood)
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[Dubious]

But don't worry. He knows better now.

You will know,

Not according to your narrative, I presume. According to your narrative, if it is like Nietzsche's, we will all know nothing.

The future is certain 'to be as all that came before'

Oh dear.

Are you really trying to cite the "Eternal Return" idea to me? Nietzsche was not only wrong about that, he was so wrong that he was mathematically wrong. What he proposed isn't just unlikely, but actually mathematically impossible.

In a field of infinite alternatives, there can be no "return," let alone an infinite series of returns to the same set of variables. That's not even mathematically plausible to expect. It is, in fact, infinitely unlikely.

So no, Nietzsche was wrong yet again, there.

Absolutely nothing to do with Nietzsche, had he lived or not. But regarding Eternal Return à la Nietzsche, it was a thought experiment and never really went with further with the idea. It was meant to be more of a psychological challenge than scientific. It's clear you'll put him down at every opportunity which merely verifies that your opinion of him means nothing, pure prejudice has an agenda opposite to analysis.

No, what I was referring to finality as described poetically here...

Of time disrobed, sanctioned through her silken door
unto realms unresonanced that kling no more.
The least and all of nothing to inherit
in forever fields of unscriptured merit,
not to be but be as all that came before
a single fold in its robes
of recursive time
unfolded

[Immanuel Can]

It's clear you'll put him down at every opportunity

He shouldn't give me so much opportunity.

I'll only point out his errors when he makes them. They're frequent enough.

P.S. -- Do I need to point out that a poem isn't an argument for anything?

No, I probably don't.

[Dubious]

It's clear you'll put him down at every opportunity

He shouldn't give me so much opportunity.

I'll only point out his errors when he makes them. They're frequent enough.

P.S. -- Do I need to point out that a poem isn't an argument for anything?

No, I probably don't.

It's obvious from day one you'll put down whatever you don't like regardless of merit. Nothing new here. Eternal Recurrence is the method by which a mind which never changes keeps repeating itself. Must be the reason why to many here you come across as somewhat loopy.

Now please, don't let me down and forget to claim an ad hominem!

The poem wasn't meant to be an argument for anything. It's not a rival to Paradise Lost seeking to justify the ways of God to men.

[Harry Baird]

Some thoughtful posts, AJ. There's too much for me to respond to point by point, so I'll just pick out a few:

But what, in any *ultimate* sense is salvation? The term only has relevance in relation to the system of understanding of which it is an expression.

It could sort of be adapted for alternative systems though, don't you think? There are all sorts of things that we could need to be saved from other than the Christian idea of eternal torment in hell as a consequence of our sinfulness. As a minor adaptation, we could, for example, simply be in need of salvation from the lower parts of our nature, or, riffing off your idea of unmooring, from our existential confusion and flailing, or, riffing off Buddhist ideas, from the otherwise apparently-inevitable suffering of existence. All of this could be described as a sort of relief (unburdening). What do you make of that idea? Salvation as, ultimately, relief (unburdening).

Herschel wrote:

[...]The prophet not only conveys; he reveals. He almost does unto others what God does unto him. In speaking, the prophet reveals God. This is the marvel of a prophet's work: in his words, the invisible God becomes audible. He does not prove or argue. The thought he has to convey is more than language can contain. Divine power bursts in the words. The authority of the prophet is in the Presence his words reveal.

Interesting: prophet as revealer of God. There are echoes here of (paraphrased?) Christ's "He who has seen me has seen the Father", recently quoted in this thread, and a suggestion as to the basis on which Muslims see Jesus as a prophet (as opposed to - the - redeemer).

Now let us turn back to our *real situation*: extraordinary & profound (possibly irreconcilable) differences that to all appearances do not look as though they can be, or will be, bridged.

So far, the differences have not quite reached the basic level of the democratic system, which - rioting at the Capitol excepted - is still for the most part universally accepted. There are signs though that irreconcilable differences are starting to reach that level. That, it seems to me, would be dangerous. Democracy seems, after all, to be the "least worst" option available to us. I wonder, though, what hq thinks of that? Presumably, he rejects it, but would he welcome the fracturing of our system of democracy as a consequence of irreconcilable differences? That could lead in some sense to a type of anarchy, but of the type that hq endorses?

There are two distinct lines of activity it seems to me. One is the personal and the strictly subjective: how we *orient ourself* within the existential problem? What do I say to myself about where I am and what I am? What do I say to 'god'? How do I become reconciled to the fact of my real existence here, in a temporal condition, with death and utter breakdown just over the next hump in the road? (An essential grasp of the reality of our situation). What shall I do? Pray to be relieved of the burden? Pray for crafty intelligence ('cunning intelligence' -- Metis [Ancient Greek: Μῆτις, romanized: Mêtis, lit. 'wisdom', 'skill', or 'craft'] -- is an important Greek idea and indeed a method for getting through life) in order to, to put it directly, better connive my way through the material entanglement? This involves being smarter than the average person or 'the next guy'. It implies seeing life and life's struggles as a game and thus brings out the notion of gaming; of good use of investments; or careful and strategic planning; of being ahead of the curve.

Great questions. Now, let's have some answers!

The other side of the equation is in What is my relation to other people and what are my obligations? Where will I place my allegiance? To whom will I (or must I) offer my service? This is not an easy issue to answer because I will have to answer a range of other questions first and these, also, have all sorts of metaphysical implications.

Ditto!

So here I have at least opened up the issue to examination and further discussion.

Indeed.

[Harry Baird]

Given our communications over the years, I note with interest that you seem to be more amenable to the reality that indigenous lands were stolen by Europeans than you ever have been in the past, just as I note with interest that you seem to be more amenable to the reality that Zionism embodies a similar injustice than you ever have been in the past.

There is a possibility that you mis-perceived my former statements or my *position*. I have always recognized theft and what I call 'straight power-principles' in all dimensions of life.

Perhaps I just framed - or phrased - poorly what caught my interest, which, perhaps, is more that I have never before seen you independently raise these issues of land theft in a critical context. In our past exchanges, it has always been me pointing it out and emphasising it as a serious problem, and you responding (if you'll forgive the crude paraphrasing) "Yeah, well, that's just the way of the world".

So, over the course of time (that you and I have been conversing) you have noticed that I have a core and persistent problem and it is one that I do not think there is a solution for. All construction in this world involves various levels of 'harm done'. To grow a field of crops involves, definitely, the destruction of a living ecosystem (the prairie, etc.)

To claim something, to build something, always involves displacement. You have to push someone or something aside in order to create something. Creation always involves duality. On one hand you create an entire circumstance that redounds to your and many other people's benefit (such as establishing a colonial outpost and funneling resources back to *your people*. On the other side of the funnel, however, there is loss, taking away, deprivation and displacement.

You've got a point. Unless the various claimants as to the possibility of living without eating turn out to be or have been correct, then staying alive in the modern world given its agricultural practices inevitably causes some degree of harm. We can, though, make choices that minimise that harm, and those choices aren't arbitrary.

So what I would like for you to do -- a supreme act of Christian charity! -- is to provide for me a way to get out of the existential conflict that I have outlined. Guide me to the Promised Land! If I am a discordant note, resolve me!

All I can offer at this point is to reiterate my sentiments above: although we might not be able to totally eliminate harm, we can minimise it in ways that are not arbitrary.

[Harry Baird]

Harry,

[Ammon Hennacy quotes snipped to avoid clogging up the thread with redundant content]

I appreciate the principled nature of that position, hq.

[Harry Baird]

Don't stay away too long now!

But of course not, my droog. What meaning for a clown outside of the circus?

[Gary Childress]

1. The world is currently a shit show.

Of course it isn't.

Nuclear weapons, climate crises, ecological crises, asteroids on near-collision courses, possible mass extinction--what isn't a shit show about all that?

[Gary Childress]

Is Yahweh the terror god or something?

[attofishpi]

Is Yahweh the terror god or something?

Nah, you're just a worry wart.

[Gary Childress]

Is Yahweh the terror god or something?

Nah, you're just a worry wart.

Many of our children worry too. They worry how much longer there will be a world for them to grow up in. Everything humanity has done to improve our situation in the world, from inventing plastic to the combustion engine has come back to bite us in the ass. There's no reason for optimism in this world and I can't find it in my heart to worship the being who allegedly presides over it. Therefore, I assume I will go to hell also.