Christianity

[henry quirk]

When you go back into the infinite regress, you arrive at God, the God that put everything in motion, right?

I never accepted infinite regress as an atheist; I certainly don't accept it as a deist.

No, the universe had a beginning, is finite, and will end.

You go back (if I am not mistaken) to the existent being out of which all contingent existence comes.

The Unmoved Mover, the First Principle, the Reality behind Reality: God (I used to call Him Crom, but nobody really got the joke).

Is that Being that you define as eternal God? If yes did that Being have an origin?

No, He's eternal (wouldn't be much of an Unmoved Mover otherwise, though I'll say deism, in its vanilla form, sez nuthin' about the Creator in that area).

No. It is not possible to propose that. In this sense one can describe God as eternally existent and in this sense as *Existence* (or perhaps the possibility of existence).

It doesn't follow, no, that becuz God is eternal, His Creation is also. Logically, the creation follows the creator.

I do not think that the view I express here, which is logically consistent (undeniable in fact) means that the existent world is God's body. That seems to be how you are taking it.

If God is not synonymous with the Creation, if God and Creation (or existence) are two, not one, then I'm missin' sumthin' in your posts (cuz it seems to me you're sayin' the two are synonymous).

[Immanuel Can]

I used to call Him Crom, but nobody really got the joke).

I did. C the B.

[henry quirk]

I used to call Him Crom, but nobody really got the joke).

I did. C the B.

yes, you did...

[Immanuel Can]

I used to call Him Crom, but nobody really got the joke).

I did. C the B.

yes, you did...

Awesome. I was just about to ask for my "thumbs up."

[Lacewing]

Awesome. I was just about to ask for my "thumbs up."

Wow. Mr. Can wants to sit on Henry's thumb when Henry takes a break from sitting on it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I actually agreed with you thus far. Nietzsche's not speaking of any fact there: he's using a metaphor for "Modern people tend not to even have a relevant place for the God concept anymore."

He is speaking of facts in certain senses. One is that 'the modern view' undermined, in numerous senses, the 'story' through which Christianity had been normally communicated. One metaphysical system (a means of explanation) overturned the previous one in certain important, relevant, crucial and also somewhat irrefutable ways. For example: the notion of the Red Sea parting, the notion of a primordial garden in which two God-created beings existed in deathlessness.

Really there are a whole range of things that cannot any longer be believed by people who have been raised up in the new metaphysics (which is sort of a non-metaphysics) unless they make a deliberate choice to believe what cannot be believed.

Oddly, the will must enter in here to *patch up* the belief-fabric that had been rent.

The way I see it is that the Christian Story operates in much the way that the former Epics did. They are stories which have been concretized in absoluteness. They are *set in stone* so to speak and cannot be altered. If they are altered, and to push on my metaphor of fabric, they unravel in weird ways. And then (it seems to me) people exist within a semi-unbelievable story that is hard to defend. In fact they might try (as you seem to try by referring to Adam & Eve as some original mating pair) in a willed act of reconciliation, an attempt to bridge or reconcile two distinct epistemes.

But we can only deal with Christianity, and the elements of belief, as in a Novel. And the Novel is still being written. (If you catch my drift).

To say 'God has died . . . and we killed Him' is to express a series of ironical truths. The first Christ was nailed to the cross, but the undermining of the Story of Christianity is a murder in another sense.

As you know my view is that the Christian Story requires a special exegesis, but that exegesis is necessarily gnostic. However, I also tend to believe that most people either find a way to hold together, intact, a Story that they can believe in and do not have the energy, or perhaps the mental agility (?) to penetrate the many seeming metaphors that Christianity deals in.

It is also true that the more that one sees how the World really functions (I refer to ecological and natural systems and the reality of *will-to-power* as an accurate description of how power actually functions in this world) the more that one must internalize this understanding, and that means seeing that we are all profoundly complicit within *systems* that cannot but operate according to these principles.

I think that is what Nietzsche *saw* is just this:

“And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”

In my view this is a description, an overpowering one that must have come on him quite strongly, that has to do with the 'world outside of ourselves'. That is to say the natural and the ecological world of 'life' within a material biological system.

What 'God' is, and how God enters this world, only occurs in human persons. I do not see the Christian God as being present in the natural world, because that world is really cruel and amoral. If mankind were subtracted from the picture, there would be no Christian God operating in this material-biological world. Whatever God is there, in that world, would carry life on as it now exists in the jungles and forests. It is a world that feeds on itself. Life and death in a horrifying, yet beautiful (in an utterly strange sense), system.

God in this sense comes through men (through people). God 'imposes' in men through the invisible world of metaphysics. How could metaphysics apply in the natural world (that is through a transcendental metaphysics?) What need as *the world* (the natural world) for transcendentals? None at all that I can discern.

So it seems to me that with Nietzsche (and I suppose many others) the order of focus shifts. That is, if one has seen what Nietzsche saw. I almost feel bad in pointing some of these things out but even Sartre, in a way, got it ironically right.

At a certain point the realization dawns: It is just you & me and here we are stuck in this strangely decorated room, no longer really fitted to us, where we have no choice but to work it out here.

[henry quirk]

Special Order for Ms. Lace Wing...

22B04F6D-429B-4F11-8A31-5766F30EE4B6.jpeg (36.51 KiB) Viewed 1221 times

[Lacewing]

Special Order for Ms. Lace Wing...

You fellas just carry on with your thumb, Henry. It appears you both need it, and surely no one here has any hurt feelings about that.

[Immanuel Can]

Really there are a whole range of things that cannot any longer be believed by people who have been raised up in the new metaphysics (which is sort of a non-metaphysics) unless they make a deliberate choice to believe what cannot be believed.

I don't think that's true at all. But what is true is that people cannot believe much if they've been raised as Materialists, other than that Materialism is true, which they believe without questioning.

Oddly, the will must enter in here to *patch up* the belief-fabric that had been rent.

I think that if the "fabric" was "rent," it certainly wasn't real belief or real faith in the first place. So I'm not too worried.

...they might try (as you seem to try by referring to Adam & Eve as some original mating pair) in a willed act of reconciliation, an attempt to bridge or reconcile two distinct epistemes.

You mistake my point. My interlocutor was saying how "ridiculous" he/she thought it was to suppose there even WAS an original mating pair. I was merely pointing out that that supposition is not at all dependent on one's belief system, but rather was by far the most obvious way to think things were, no matter which paradigm -- Creationist or Evolutionist -- one was taking.

And there, my point stopped.

But we can only deal with Christianity, and the elements of belief, as in a Novel.

I don't see why. Is that the way you deal with history? Is that the way you deal with road maps? Is that the way you deal with a medical prescription? There are many ways of dealing with text: the important thing is to select the right one.

The novel is an 18th Century literary form. It's hardly the inevitable one for anybody to use.

As you know my view is that the Christian Story requires a special exegesis, but that exegesis is necessarily gnostic.

If that's your supposition, that's your supposition. Nobody else has reason to suppose it, unless you provide some.

I think that is what Nietzsche *saw* is just this:

“And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”

In my view this is a description, an overpowering one that must have come on him quite strongly, that has to do with the 'world outside of ourselves'. That is to say the natural and the ecological world of 'life' within a material biological system.

In my view, it's pure speculative fantasy. And there are good reasons to think so, actually. The idea of the Eternal Recurrence, for example is actually contrary to mathematical probability to an infinite degree.

Nietzsche was a rhetorician, really. But this I'll grant you: he saw the sort of nasty, incoherent, power-driven, ethics-bereft world that secularism promised to deliver, and named it for what it was.

What 'God' is, and how God enters this world, only occurs in human persons. I do not see the Christian God as being present in the natural world, because that world is really cruel and amoral.

Open your eyes again, I guess.

You'll see a world which in which cruelty sometimes takes place, and in which amoral people sometimes act; but you'll also see a beautiful world, a majestic place ruled by systems of laws and regularities that defy any explanation in mere "chance" or "time." Look at the probabilites of your own existence, the elegance of mathematics, the rhythms of music, the myriad affairs of mankind, the radiance of light, the cadences of poetry, the delights of love and new life. Look again, and you'll see history laid out, and the works of God in it. And consummately, look again and you'll see God incarnate manifest in flesh.

In other words, don't open your eyes selectively or reductionally. See it all. There is ugliness here, as there is bound to be in a sin-flawed world; but there is tremendous design, aesthetics, life, wonders and coherence. See what makes sense of both, not just of the negatives.

If mankind were subtracted from the picture, there would be no Christian God operating in this material-biological world.

That's not the Christian explanation of things. Genesis says that man was one of the last things God created, not the first. The first words of the Torah are, "In the beginning, God..."

At a certain point the realization dawns: It is just you & me and here we are stuck in this strangely decorated room, no longer really fitted to us, where we have no choice but to work it out here.

Really? It does not seem so to me.

Rather, I would suggest that if it's just you and me in this "room," then you and I have no means to "work out" anything at all. What are the rules? What are the goals? What are the parameters? What is the purpose of you, me or the room? How will we know who won, and when? Is our relation antagonistic, a matter of power, or is it moral, a matter of ethics? And what's the whole sorry edifice for?

These questions are unaskable and unanswerable in Nietzsche's world... a world so absurd that even Nietzsche couldn't live in it.

[Age]

And just as you can never start writing, so too a universe can never begin if it requires an infinite chain of causes.

So the fact of the matter is that the material world never began, but always was.

Impossible, if the Material world is subject to cause-effect relations.

WHY do you say "IF the material world is subject to cause-effect relations?

Is there absolutely ANY ACTUAL thing that would even suggest otherwise?

And empirically, we can see it is. A cause-effect chain simply can never be eternal in the past.

LOL

And, supposedly, WHY NOT?

Also, a cause-effect chain MEANS there could NOT be an ACTUAL start NOR beginning.

But, an ACTUAL motion of continual cause-effect happening NOW is not just possible, logically AND empirically, but IS what ACTUALLY occurs HERE, ALWAYS.

Which, by the way, because this is thee ACTUAL Truth and Fact of things, this can NOT be refuted.

[Janoah]

...there is no problem in a chain of cause-and-effect infinite in time, back to the past, and forward to the future.

Yes, there is. And I gave you a very straightfoward experiment to prove to yourself that there is.

To experiment, you would have to live forever. I don’t advise you, you will die of boredom.

[bahman]

...there is no problem in a chain of cause-and-effect infinite in time, back to the past, and forward to the future.

Yes, there is. And I gave you a very straightfoward experiment to prove to yourself that there is.

To experiment, you would have to live forever. I don’t advise you, you will die of boredom.

Is infinity reachable? It is endless by definition.

[Immanuel Can]

WHY do you say "IF the material world is subject to cause-effect relations?

Wow. You're pretty simple if you don't understand what a hypothetical is.

But I'm really not interested at all, Age. I've said so before, and it's still true. Your "conversations" are so devoid of thought and content that they offer nothing to anybody.

[Immanuel Can]

...there is no problem in a chain of cause-and-effect infinite in time, back to the past, and forward to the future.

Yes, there is. And I gave you a very straightfoward experiment to prove to yourself that there is.

To experiment, you would have to live forever. I don’t advise you, you will die of boredom.

Correct. That experiment would last forever, because the infinite regress would never start.

QED

[Janoah]

Yes, there is. And I gave you a very straightfoward experiment to prove to yourself that there is.

To experiment, you would have to live forever. I don’t advise you, you will die of boredom.

Correct. That experiment would last forever, because the infinite regress would never start.

QED

It will "never start", because it has always been.
After all, we are at a philosophical forum, Aristotle figured it out, and for some reason you do not want to understand this well-known.