Christianity

[Harbal]

How about that for a tall tale.

.

Not bad, and I thought the headless chickens were a particularly nice touch.

[Dontaskme]

How about that for a tall tale.

.

Not bad, and I thought the headless chickens were a particularly nice touch.

Not so tall without a head now am I

[Dubious]

I think the answer though, to your hypothetical, is that philosophy would only be able to concern itself with the 'facts'. It would no longer have any concern for 'wisdom' (of those types of wisdom generally understood in traditional cultures). It would become entirely utilitarian, wouldn't it? a branch of mechanics: reductionist materialism. It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

Those are your words, not mine; your presuppositions of my views are too extreme. You seem to understand little of what I wrote and so often repeated. The way you describe it would mean the end of philosophy.

You seekers of truth and wisdom have a problem in attempting to reify, make factual in some way, any sort of principle imagined beyond physical realms, in effect, creating its own set of statistics as if wisdom were a science; but where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality? Wisdom is a word for interpreting our own theories as they apply to culture, art, philosophy. If the universe didn't supply it, what or who do you think did? What would a human type of consciousness be for if it didn't? Free will, in a way, is what allows you to create your own values in a universe which doesn't have any.

It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

It's not that it couldn't or shouldn't concern itself with any sort of "principle"; it's just that physical phenomena, as we understand it even at the quantum level, is completely responsible for your entire being and every thought you ever had or will have. What you think, believe, imagine thereafter requires no external counterpart.

And you will always be able to claim *rightness* if you hold to the 'material facts'.

It's not "claimable" if it's bona fide ascertainable. You can't claim an insurmountable truth as if it were someone's mere opinion!

Your view is that if some 'principle' that is by nature 'epiphenomenal' is recognized and valued that it could only come about through consensus of opinion. There is no such 'principle' that corresponds to a material phenomenon and thus no verification through measurement and instrumentation.

Have we ever truly noticed it being otherwise except for those who so easily or passionately conflate imaginative metaphysical structures with the facts of nature and reality?

I doubt you would state that 'epiphenomena' is unreal however in effect. And since the epiphenomena that we are talking about is all of it human material, it all proceeds from man's psyche.

Of course I wouldn't, I made that very clear in my previous posts. Whatever has meaning has value which of course varies among groups and cultures. Except creation, the universe has no idea what you're referring to or what you mean by meaning or value, etc. It has zero reference to any and all of your conscious cravings. You're just another mite on its butt trying to exist for as long as you can.

But what proceeds from man's psyche is everything that has made our human world -- our world of values, our worlds of construction.

Absolutely! Without doubt! Never once did I infer otherwise! How could it not be if the universe itself has nothing more to declare than pure, raw existence?

All of these products, according to your view, are founded on subjective impressions or perhaps 'personal choices'. In your view there is no background principle that can be adduced. And if there is what is adduced is adduced simply by consensus of opinion.

Collectively yes, since consensus is required for societies and cultures to exist. Personally no, because the output of one's psyche (the background principle) has tendencies to operate independently of what is termed consensus. If that weren't true, nothing would ever change.

The "background principle" as you call it is different for societies than the kind in charge of individual psyches. History shows they are often disjointed at odds with the status quo.

The bottom line is that within the universe nothing ever showed up to lessen the probability that humans are just another form of fractal based on DNA which progressed into its own version of consciousness. There is no soul, spirit, or principle which encapsulates it forcing it into another mode of existence beyond what it actually is.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What about The Goy’s Teeth, dammit!!! You weaseled out of that one, oh man did you ever!

[Dubious]

The End!

[Nick_A]

The universe isn't here to serve life within it. Rather we are here to serve the necessity of of this great machine we call our universe.

I think it is more that we are a by-product of the prcesses that occur within the universe. We don't have a function, or a role to play, and the fact that we fall into the category of life, and possess consciousness, is of no interest to the universe.

If the universe is a machine which serves its creator it is like a car. It has no mind but serves its creator which is man. If God is limited to being responsible for the conscious creation of our universe as potentials, what conscious beings are responsible for bringing order into chaos? For me it is the demiurge permeating our universe which manifests creation.

By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Edit History

Demiurge, Greek Dēmiourgos (“public worker”), plural Demiourgoi, in philosophy, a subordinate god who fashions and arranges the physical world to make it conform to a rational and eternal ideal. Plato adapted the term, which in ancient Greece had originally been the ordinary word for “craftsman,” or “artisan” (broadly interpreted to include not only manual workers but also heralds, soothsayers, and physicians), and which in the 5th century BC had come to designate certain magistrates or elected officials.

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.

IMO it was the Gnostics and their infatuation with good and evil which screwed this up. Materiality isn't evil but a necessary part of creation. I don't expect you to agree with the idea of the demiurge but post it as food for thought for anyone concerned with the purpose of our universe and the qualities of consciousness necessary to work with its laws and bring order into chaos

[Nick_A]

The universe isn't here to serve life within it. Rather we are here to serve the necessity of of this great machine we call our universe.

I think it is more that we are a by-product of the prcesses that occur within the universe. We don't have a function, or a role to play, and the fact that we fall into the category of life, and possess consciousness, is of no interest to the universe.

Nature actually fluked when consciousness became aware of itself as a separate self...because consciousness was then able to know it lives and dies. No intelligent creator would have intentionally chosen to act out this game of live to die, and die to live. In reality the universe has absolutely no concept of life or death, neither does it intentionally kill or murder potential life in favor of actual life...this knowledge is the by-product of a conscious living brain braining... that grew too big to contain itself as the whole living universe, so it had no other choice but to explode into millions of separate little parts of knowledge, aka conceptual things....things that then wanted to come together again in their desperation and despair of believing they were separate autonomous entities roaming aimlessly around an indifferent universe like headless chickens not knowing what or where they came from, and not knowing what to do with themselves except make up more stories.

How about that for a tall tale.

.

The universe is governed by both laws and consciousness. The laws create the machine and consciousness or the demiurge knows how to fix it.

[Nick_A]

I think the answer though, to your hypothetical, is that philosophy would only be able to concern itself with the 'facts'. It would no longer have any concern for 'wisdom' (of those types of wisdom generally understood in traditional cultures). It would become entirely utilitarian, wouldn't it? a branch of mechanics: reductionist materialism. It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

Those are your words, not mine; your presuppositions of my views are too extreme. You seem to understand little of what I wrote and so often repeated. The way you describe it would mean the end of philosophy.

You seekers of truth and wisdom have a problem in attempting to reify, make factual in some way, any sort of principle imagined beyond physical realms, in effect, creating its own set of statistics as if wisdom were a science; but where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality? Wisdom is a word for interpreting our own theories as they apply to culture, art, philosophy. If the universe didn't supply it, what or who do you think did? What would a human type of consciousness be for if it didn't? Free will, in a way, is what allows you to create your own values in a universe which doesn't have any.

It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

It's not that it couldn't or shouldn't concern itself with any sort of "principle"; it's just that physical phenomena, as we understand it even at the quantum level, is completely responsible for your entire being and every thought you ever had or will have. What you think, believe, imagine thereafter requires no external counterpart.

And you will always be able to claim *rightness* if you hold to the 'material facts'.

It's not "claimable" if it's bona fide ascertainable. You can't claim an insurmountable truth as if it were someone's mere opinion!

Your view is that if some 'principle' that is by nature 'epiphenomenal' is recognized and valued that it could only come about through consensus of opinion. There is no such 'principle' that corresponds to a material phenomenon and thus no verification through measurement and instrumentation.

Have we ever truly noticed it being otherwise except for those who so easily or passionately conflate imaginative metaphysical structures with the facts of nature and reality?

I doubt you would state that 'epiphenomena' is unreal however in effect. And since the epiphenomena that we are talking about is all of it human material, it all proceeds from man's psyche.

Of course I wouldn't, I made that very clear in my previous posts. Whatever has meaning has value which of course varies among groups and cultures. Except creation, the universe has no idea what you're referring to or what you mean by meaning or value, etc. It has zero reference to any and all of your conscious cravings. You're just another mite on its butt trying to exist for as long as you can.

But what proceeds from man's psyche is everything that has made our human world -- our world of values, our worlds of construction.

Absolutely! Without doubt! Never once did I infer otherwise! How could it not be if the universe itself has nothing more to declare than pure, raw existence?

All of these products, according to your view, are founded on subjective impressions or perhaps 'personal choices'. In your view there is no background principle that can be adduced. And if there is what is adduced is adduced simply by consensus of opinion.

Collectively yes, since consensus is required for societies and cultures to exist. Personally no, because the output of one's psyche (the background principle) has tendencies to operate independently of what is termed consensus. If that weren't true, nothing would ever change.

The "background principle" as you call it is different for societies than the kind in charge of individual psyches. History shows they are often disjointed at odds with the status quo.

The bottom line is that within the universe nothing ever showed up to lessen the probability that humans are just another form of fractal based on DNA which progressed into its own version of consciousness. There is no soul, spirit, or principle which encapsulates it forcing it into another mode of existence beyond what it actually is.

This indicates that we are all riding on the ship of fools having no foundation or north star to guide us. It is easier just to kill those in the past who disagreed.

From Book Six of Plato’s Republic. Socrates and Adeimantus are discussing the different models by which a government can rule wisely, and Socrates offers this analogy to Adeimantus:

Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering — every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary.

They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly kaids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.

Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

[Dubious]

I think the answer though, to your hypothetical, is that philosophy would only be able to concern itself with the 'facts'. It would no longer have any concern for 'wisdom' (of those types of wisdom generally understood in traditional cultures). It would become entirely utilitarian, wouldn't it? a branch of mechanics: reductionist materialism. It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

Those are your words, not mine; your presuppositions of my views are too extreme. You seem to understand little of what I wrote and so often repeated. The way you describe it would mean the end of philosophy.

You seekers of truth and wisdom have a problem in attempting to reify, make factual in some way, any sort of principle imagined beyond physical realms, in effect, creating its own set of statistics as if wisdom were a science; but where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality? Wisdom is a word for interpreting our own theories as they apply to culture, art, philosophy. If the universe didn't supply it, what or who do you think did? What would a human type of consciousness be for if it didn't? Free will, in a way, is what allows you to create your own values in a universe which doesn't have any.

It could not concern itself with any sort of 'principle' that was thought to exist above physical phenomena.

It's not that it couldn't or shouldn't concern itself with any sort of "principle"; it's just that physical phenomena, as we understand it even at the quantum level, is completely responsible for your entire being and every thought you ever had or will have. What you think, believe, imagine thereafter requires no external counterpart.

And you will always be able to claim *rightness* if you hold to the 'material facts'.

It's not "claimable" if it's bona fide ascertainable. You can't claim an insurmountable truth as if it were someone's mere opinion!

Your view is that if some 'principle' that is by nature 'epiphenomenal' is recognized and valued that it could only come about through consensus of opinion. There is no such 'principle' that corresponds to a material phenomenon and thus no verification through measurement and instrumentation.

Have we ever truly noticed it being otherwise except for those who so easily or passionately conflate imaginative metaphysical structures with the facts of nature and reality?

I doubt you would state that 'epiphenomena' is unreal however in effect. And since the epiphenomena that we are talking about is all of it human material, it all proceeds from man's psyche.

Of course I wouldn't, I made that very clear in my previous posts. Whatever has meaning has value which of course varies among groups and cultures. Except creation, the universe has no idea what you're referring to or what you mean by meaning or value, etc. It has zero reference to any and all of your conscious cravings. You're just another mite on its butt trying to exist for as long as you can.

But what proceeds from man's psyche is everything that has made our human world -- our world of values, our worlds of construction.

Absolutely! Without doubt! Never once did I infer otherwise! How could it not be if the universe itself has nothing more to declare than pure, raw existence?

All of these products, according to your view, are founded on subjective impressions or perhaps 'personal choices'. In your view there is no background principle that can be adduced. And if there is what is adduced is adduced simply by consensus of opinion.

Collectively yes, since consensus is required for societies and cultures to exist. Personally no, because the output of one's psyche (the background principle) has tendencies to operate independently of what is termed consensus. If that weren't true, nothing would ever change.

The "background principle" as you call it is different for societies than the kind in charge of individual psyches. History shows they are often disjointed at odds with the status quo.

The bottom line is that within the universe nothing ever showed up to lessen the probability that humans are just another form of fractal based on DNA which progressed into its own version of consciousness. There is no soul, spirit, or principle which encapsulates it forcing it into another mode of existence beyond what it actually is.

This indicates that we are all riding on the ship of fools having no foundation or north star to guide us. It is easier just to kill those in the past who disagreed.

From Book Six of Plato’s Republic. Socrates and Adeimantus are discussing the different models by which a government can rule wisely, and Socrates offers this analogy to Adeimantus:

Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering — every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary.

They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly kaids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.

Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

...absolutely! It was the policy of the Christian authorities to kill all heretics who disagreed with their dogma without necessarily ceasing to be Christians or in forcible conversion efforts to bring the soul's of the benighted to the one true god even if it meant near genocide.

Depend on Plato to come up with a stupid story; one which makes no sense on any level! You don't create credibility for your case which such an egregious distortion of reality.

[Nick_A]

Those are your words, not mine; your presuppositions of my views are too extreme. You seem to understand little of what I wrote and so often repeated. The way you describe it would mean the end of philosophy.

You seekers of truth and wisdom have a problem in attempting to reify, make factual in some way, any sort of principle imagined beyond physical realms, in effect, creating its own set of statistics as if wisdom were a science; but where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality? Wisdom is a word for interpreting our own theories as they apply to culture, art, philosophy. If the universe didn't supply it, what or who do you think did? What would a human type of consciousness be for if it didn't? Free will, in a way, is what allows you to create your own values in a universe which doesn't have any.

It's not that it couldn't or shouldn't concern itself with any sort of "principle"; it's just that physical phenomena, as we understand it even at the quantum level, is completely responsible for your entire being and every thought you ever had or will have. What you think, believe, imagine thereafter requires no external counterpart.

It's not "claimable" if it's bona fide ascertainable. You can't claim an insurmountable truth as if it were someone's mere opinion!

Have we ever truly noticed it being otherwise except for those who so easily or passionately conflate imaginative metaphysical structures with the facts of nature and reality?

Of course I wouldn't, I made that very clear in my previous posts. Whatever has meaning has value which of course varies among groups and cultures. Except creation, the universe has no idea what you're referring to or what you mean by meaning or value, etc. It has zero reference to any and all of your conscious cravings. You're just another mite on its butt trying to exist for as long as you can.

Absolutely! Without doubt! Never once did I infer otherwise! How could it not be if the universe itself has nothing more to declare than pure, raw existence?

Collectively yes, since consensus is required for societies and cultures to exist. Personally no, because the output of one's psyche (the background principle) has tendencies to operate independently of what is termed consensus. If that weren't true, nothing would ever change.

The "background principle" as you call it is different for societies than the kind in charge of individual psyches. History shows they are often disjointed at odds with the status quo.

The bottom line is that within the universe nothing ever showed up to lessen the probability that humans are just another form of fractal based on DNA which progressed into its own version of consciousness. There is no soul, spirit, or principle which encapsulates it forcing it into another mode of existence beyond what it actually is.

This indicates that we are all riding on the ship of fools having no foundation or north star to guide us. It is easier just to kill those in the past who disagreed.

From Book Six of Plato’s Republic. Socrates and Adeimantus are discussing the different models by which a government can rule wisely, and Socrates offers this analogy to Adeimantus:

Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering — every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary.

They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly kaids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.

Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

...absolutely! It was the policy of the Christian authorities to kill all heretics who disagreed with their dogma without necessarily ceasing to be Christians or in forcible conversion efforts to bring the soul's of the benighted to the one true god even if it meant near genocide.

Depend on Plato to come up with a stupid story; one which makes no sense on any level! You don't create credibility for your case which such an egregious distortion of reality.

We have a thread of over 300 posts yet no one has defined the unique purpose of Christianity. Yet we make up our own descriptions of Christianity and all these man made interpretations when taken together are just variations of Christendom. You refer to Christianity but do you know what it is?

Plato describes what happens when Man doesn't have a foundation to build upon or the inner awareness of the North Star pointing the way home for the sailors. It is normal to kill each other to determine the stronger so naturally, those who know the way must reign superior. The others must perish

[Dontaskme]

I think it is more that we are a by-product of the prcesses that occur within the universe. We don't have a function, or a role to play, and the fact that we fall into the category of life, and possess consciousness, is of no interest to the universe.

Nature actually fluked when consciousness became aware of itself as a separate self...because consciousness was then able to know it lives and dies. No intelligent creator would have intentionally chosen to act out this game of live to die, and die to live. In reality the universe has absolutely no concept of life or death, neither does it intentionally kill or murder potential life in favor of actual life...this knowledge is the by-product of a conscious living brain braining... that grew too big to contain itself as the whole living universe, so it had no other choice but to explode into millions of separate little parts of knowledge, aka conceptual things....things that then wanted to come together again in their desperation and despair of believing they were separate autonomous entities roaming aimlessly around an indifferent universe like headless chickens not knowing what or where they came from, and not knowing what to do with themselves except make up more stories.

How about that for a tall tale.

.

The universe is governed by both laws and consciousness. The laws create the machine and consciousness or the demiurge knows how to fix it.

A machine can never know it’s creator.

[Dontaskme]

The universe is governed by both laws and consciousness. The laws create the machine and consciousness or the demiurge knows how to fix it.

Everything is as it is.

How or what or when or who or why or where it is, that is imagination......real imagination.

Imagination is solid thought. *Think On These Things* Imagination freeze frames what can never be framed.

Life is in constant seamless flux of perfect symmetry...there is no time machine to go back and fix what is never broken.

[Harbal]

I don't expect you to agree with the idea of the demiurge but post it as food for thought for anyone concerned with the purpose of our universe and the qualities of consciousness necessary to work with its laws and bring order into chaos

As long as you don't condemn me for not agreeing with your ideas and views, I am easily able to respect your right to hold them.

[Dontaskme]

And a 'Demiurge' only reality is an existence within the dream of separation within the mental sphere of knowledge that artificially splits reality into two, which is impossible.


.

[Dubious]

You refer to Christianity but do you know what it is?

You say "We have a thread of over 300 posts yet no one has defined the unique purpose of Christianity".

What does this highly dubious conclusion amount to. What it concludes is the ultimate in irony; that in two thousand years (compared to 300 posts) we still don't know what Christianity is in spite of it's very long deep-rooted culture in the West, its innumerable histories written by scholars in many disciplines and the endless tomes of documents and dogma archived in the Vatican and other libraries, etc.

The question being thoroughly illogical, deformed as to fact, can only result in ONE conclusion that, though all of the above are available, no answer will ever or can ever suffice...so round the merry-go-round we go once again.

Is there anything at all "real" in your philosophy which consists of nothing more than other people's views going back to Plato?

Plato describes what happens when Man doesn't have a foundation to build upon or the inner awareness of the North Star pointing the way home for the sailors. It is normal to kill each other to determine the stronger so naturally, those who know the way must reign superior. The others must perish.

Interesting! But there remains something of a quandary in this statement. Who's to sail the ship home if only those are left who reign superior! Who are these superior beings or being going to command? Not a good idea to kill off sailors just because they got a little over ambitious. I figure they all had one goal in common, the superior and the not so superior, namely, getting to the port called home with all hands on deck.