Christianity

[Age]

And some say that 'I' am ACTUALLY the MOST SIMPLEST One there IS. But so what?

So you should consider a bit more humility. (And by the way, it's "simplest" or more awkwardly, "most simple," but not "most simplest"). Humble people do not adopt the tone of a toddler trying to lecture his parents.

And, Truly mature people do NOT adopt the position of; This is MY ASSUMPTION and no matter what you say 'it' is Wrong".

You can ASSUME that 'I' am a "toddler", and continue to SEE 'me' as such, but this is of absolutely NO concern AT ALL to 'me'.

Now, if you would like to address the POINTS I have made, in regards to what you say and claim is False, Wrong, or Incorrect, then please go ahead, but continually only LOOKING AT 'me' continually addressing and/or 'trying to' attack 'my personality' is NOT what is usually considered how philosophical discussions are meant to take place.

REALLY, it is just this SIMPLE; you want to CLAIM that there is this God thingy, which you also CLAIM is a gendered "he" and which has created EVERY thing else. Now, either back up and support this CLAIM, or just be humble and ADMIT you have absolutely NO IDEA HOW TO.

I'd like to think you're capable of more...of a less petulant, irritable, simplistic tone, something less adolescent and more thoughtful. So far, I'm not seeing it.

And talk about one being the 'least humble', having the 'biggest superiority complex', and who speaks in the 'most condescending way' to "others". But, this here is a PRIME EXAMPLE of one with VERY STRONG RELIGIOUS BELIEFS and who ACTUALLY BELIEVES that they are BETTER and/or MORE RIGHTEOUS than "others" are. In fact, what we have here is GREAT EXAMPLE of a "christian". That is; one who is NOT ABLE to back up and support their CLAIMS while LOOKING AT "others" as being 'less than' as well as JUDGING "them" as NOT being 'worthy' to be a "christian".

Maybe it's time to age a little faster, eh?

You have mentioned this; 'you' are MORE MATURE and MORE WISER while 'I' am just A CHILD and NOT AS WISE.

YET, 'I' am the one CHALLENGING 'you', which 'you' have been continually FAILING ON. 'I' am also the one asking 'you' the CLARIFYING QUESTIONS, which, very sadly, for 'you', 'you' are AGAIN FAILING to answer Honestly.

As has ALREADY been PROVED absolutely True, Right, AND Correct.

[Age]

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

QED

It will "never start", because it has always been.

If it has always been, then it's no case of cause-and-effect. Because causes always have to come before their alleged effects. But the cause-and-effect chains are observable. Therefore, everything has not always existed.

False premise.

Cause AND effect, itself, PROVES that there NEVER was "a start". Because there is ALWAYS 'a cause' to EVERY 'effect', the chain can NOT be broken. Unless, of course, you can come up with some 'logical explanation' how there could be a missing link somewhere. Hitherto, NONE of 'you', human beings, have been able to do this.

Also, the CLAIM that just because cause-and-effect chains are observable, then there is NO logical step from there to, "therefore, everything has not always existed".

All 'you' are doing here "immanuel can" is just SHOWING to us what you ALREADY BELIEVE is true, and just 'trying to' find absolutely ANY words that back up and support your CURRENT BELIEF. Which, by the way, is only making 'you' look MORE and MORE FOOLISH here.

If you REALLY want to keep CLAIMING, laughably, "everything has not always existed", then just EXPLAIN how this could even be a POSSIBILITY. Then, we can take a LOOK AT 'that', and DISCUSS.

Until then all 'you' are 'trying to' do here is just SOMEHOW work your BELIEF that "God created everything" in to some sort of sensible and logical wording. But, ONCE AGAIN, 'you' are FAILING absolutely TREMENDOUSLY.

[Immanuel Can]

Funny...I don't remember saying this at all.

It was when we once discussed a book, I forgot the title, that spoke of the next millennia as being, despite what those in Europe and America think, a very Christian millennia.

Oh, you mean on a global scale. You don't mean in Europe.

Yes, that's possible: but it seems unlikely to me that the Europeans will even be aware of it. They, like many, tend to see themselves as typical of the whole world, and to generalize from their own experience of secularizing to the experience they think everybody else is going to have.

And on that assumption, thinks will look to them more and more secular. They won't take the rest of the world into their calculations.

My paraphrase is to say "Christianity moved out of Europe", but I do not mean relocated, I mean that the Pentecostal religious movement has swept the world, specifically the 'global south' and the underdeveloped regions. See Peter Berger.

Yes, it has...but Pentecostalism is a highly-experiential, less cerebral form of Christianity, which apparently often gives way to a more grounded and Biblical form of something like evangelicalism, as soon as the society in question is sufficiently literate to make that move. So the final meaning of that trend is uncertain...though it's interesting.

It seems to me most likely that the impact of Christianity outside of the West will continue and grow for awhile. How long, one cannot say.

[Age]

I am simply proposing that we think more broadly than the platforms we seem to admire and maintain like well-tended yards. I'm actually kind of baffled but intrigued by how you try to fit my questioning proposals into some kind of structure. Are we nothing more than a world of structures debating/fighting/opposing each other? Perhaps people can become so identified with their thought structures, they cannot hear or imagine beyond them? Is it really so hard to imagine living life effectively without big mental stories -- rather, finding a balance between education, experience, and awareness of the current moment, without building or subscribing to a specific rigid platform/structure of some sort? Why would we think we need to be identified through that?

Are these not reasonable questions for a philosophy forum?

All I can say is that when you have *thought more broadly* than the existent platform, that you will be naturally defining another. And if, as you say, this just goes on and on (as is implied) I wonder if anything will ever be decided at all? Will one ever be in a position to *act decisively*? Or will one always be encumbered by the doubt (in your case the certainly?) that there is something more to realize. [/quote]

What can be CLEARLY SEEN here is that "lacewing" is SO FIXED or STUCK in its BELIEF that there is NOT One Truth of things, and that there is ALWAYS MORE, that it has NOT YET SEEN and NOTICED that this BELIEF of theirs is ACTUALLY STOPPING them from SEEING that there REALLY IS ACTUALLY MORE than this One Truth that they are 'trying' SO HARD to HOLD ONTO and NOT 'let go'.

And, what is Truly humorous to watch and observe here is that this one is doing EXACTLY what they are TELLING "others" NOT to do.

I don't think you need to be intrigued or baffled by my propensities -- they are quintessentially human on one hand but also (it must be said) masculine. Decisiveness and action are masculine traits (at least in the traditional view).

Well that is ANOTHER GREAT EXAMPLE of just how Wrong and DISTORTED some of those, so-called, "traditional views" ARE, EXACTLY.

For example, "lacewing" here is MORE "decisive" in their BELIEF that there is One and ONLY One Truth that there is "NO one truth and that there is always more", and they are VERY "actionable" in that they are STEADFAST in this BELIEF, and is "lacewing" "masculine"?

I was chary of quoting what Camille Paglia wrote (and she wrote many different things) but it was:

"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts."

Obviously, Paglia's work is overall a defense (or explanation) of the masculine mind. She says that the Christian idea of God (and indeed all ideas of God) are some of the most quintessential masculine creations. (She is, I gather, an atheist).

Just because VERY OLD ideas of 'God' were seen in, and from, the so-called "masculine" perspective does NOT mean 'God' is "masculine" AT ALL.

This would be like CLAIMING, because human beings CLAIM some 'thing' is true, then that 'thing' MUST BE TRUE. Which is OBVIOUSLY a False, Wrong, AND Incorrect CLAIM.

I hope that by quoting Paglia I do not appear as offensive?

Well 'you' are coming across as expressing a typical adult male view, from the typical adult male perspective, (in the days prior to and up to when this was being written anyway). But, I must say, is a view that was exponentially becoming less and less, back in those days when this was being written. Just how condescending that view was can be CLEARLY SEEN here. And, what is the funniest part of all of this is that some males ACTUALLY BELIEVED being "masculine" was somehow 'better' and that their view was more true or more better than "other's" views.

I honestly do not mean to. But I do think there is a very real difference between how men act -- as tool-makers, as creators, and as conceptualists -- and how women taken on the whole feel inclined to act.

SERIOUSLY, WHY would ANY one even 'TRY TO' take this discussion to "males" are better than "females", or even that "males" are somehow different than "females" ARE.

OBVIOUSLY 'females' ARE DIFFERENT than 'males' ARE. And thee One and ONLY DIFFERENCE is the sexual organs of the body ONLY. And, if ANY one would like to DISPUTE this, then PLEASE feel absolutely FREE to express, IRREFUTABLY, what so-called "other" DIFFERENCES there are.

(And it was Paglia who said what she said, not me!)

Who cares?

Was what "paglia" said ABSOLUTELY and IRREFUTABLY True, Right, AND Correct?

If no, then AGAIN who cares what that one said.

So what I want to ask you -- if I may -- is what do wish to create (or should I say uncreate?) with what you propose?

OBVIOUSLY, they are just expressing is that there is ANOTHER WAY to LOOK AT and SEE things, other than from the perspective of this is what I SEE and BELIEVE is true, and by being ABLE to LOOK AT and SEE things from MORE than just ONE perspective, then this would OBVIOUSLY help in living a MORE productive and beneficial life NOT just for that one but for "others" AS WELL.

Which, literally, in turn, will UNCREATE the MESS that 'you', human beings, are living in, in the days when this is being written, and CREATE a FAR MORE peaceful AND harmonious life "ourselves" and "others", or for just EVERY one.

I find that I cannot visualize what it is that you want to see happen.

SEE if this helps. STOP BELIEVING 'things' are true and just be MORE OPEN to what is ACTUALLY True.

(But I have no choice but to approach what you propose as something that will result in action of one sort or another! Forgive me, I was born like this!)

Just out of CURIOSITY, WHY did you bring up the 'male' verse 'female' agenda here?

I can NOT YET SEE how that would be nor could be logically linked to this discussion here. But, maybe you will SHOW us otherwise.

[Age]

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.

Some part of what he *saw* can be described as speculative fantasy, but then if that is true all interpretations of life are similarly speculative, and all fantasies.

Umm... I really have to admit that I don't understand the logic of that conclusion. Nietzsche was speculative, therefore all interpretations are speculative? You're going to have to prove that one, I think: it's not obvious to me it's even plausible.

The conclusion is OBVIOUSLY True, Right, and Correct. But what is OBVIOUS is that that conclusion does NOT logically follow on from the previous premise.

Which should NOT be to surprising for 'you', "immanuel can", considering the actual amount of times that 'you' do this "yourself".

I admit that this world he saw is the world as defined by science and scientific view.

Oh, heavens, no. There's nothing "scientific" about Nietzsche.

You might argue he presupposed Materialism perhaps, but that's the limit of that.

...that world envisioned by Nietzsche et al is a world in which metaphysics does not apply.

That's true...and if Nietzsche had been consistent, that also would have been his conclusion. But Nietzsche also tries to "rescue" a kind of metaphysics, bringing it back in unannounced, through the back door. For while he says that, for example, we should be "beyond good and evil," devoid of such categories altogether, he still wanted us to think "life" and "will to power" were values, and that the ubermenschen were admirable models.

How is that possible in a world devoid of value standards? Well, it's not. Not even survival itself is a virtue in a world without any virtues.

Do 'you', human beings, even KNOW WHY 'you' 'try to' make out that 'you' KNOW what "others" were MEANING, EXACTLY, in what they said, even after they are NOT around to ask anymore?

LOOK, 'you' do NOT even KNOW what 'you' MEAN in what 'you' say, a majority of the time, let alone even KNOW what the "other" IS MEANING, in what they say, when 'you' are in the midst of having a discussion WITH "them".

All of this ASSUMING, in the days when this was being written, was just leading 'them' ALL on a downhill spiral. As is CLEARLY EVIDENCED and can be CLEARLY SEEN here.

And therefore it seems to me that what Nietzsche is doing, or what is being done in him (by events and causality set in motion previously) is disrupting metaphysical view. Is it a disease of the mind? Is it a sickness? Is it an *error of perception*? I think that you must say that it is.

No. It's just a wicked and selfish man, but one being courageous with his commitments, insofar as he pushes the logical conclusions of his worldview farther than most Atheists will even dare. They're impressed by his fortitude and dazzled by his high rhetoric, but they're also afraid to follow him there. Atheists generally, I've found, do not manage to be as wicked as Nietzsche tells them to have the courage to be.

To enter your world you will have to 'suspend judgment' and indeed 'suspend knowledge' of the Earth that Nietzsche described in what I quoted.

Not at all. For what Nietzsche offered was not "knowledge," in the sense that it was not the necessary reading of things. It was a reading of things derived from his first commitment: "God is dead." And if Nietzsche had been right, then the rest would have followed logically (...or most of it would have, I should say, since not even Nietzsche managed to be consistent with Nietzsche on that, as noted earlier.) But Nietzsche was not right; and his first premise, the death of God, stood on nothing but Nietzsche's rhetoric itself.

So no, one does not have to suspend judgment or reason or knowledge at all: one merely has to be willing to doubt Nietzsche's first premise, and take an alternate reading of the facts, using reason, from there. And one will arrive at the premise that God is not dead, and subsequently, that value categories are real and objective, and that life has a telos or direction, and meaning is possible, and "will to power" is not the secret of the universe, and the stars are not all black.

What you ask of people is I think literally 'the leap of faith'. But that leap is 'speculative' and literally unprovable.(Except that I think you will not say this, and that might mean that you won't admit it.)

You should give me more credit. I'll "admit" to you what's true. But what would be the merit in me agreeing to "admit" something I don't believe is true? So I will question it, instead.

I think you're perhaps being overimpressed with the phrase "leap of faith." I don't deny that there are people whose faith is "leapy," but I'm not one of those. So I suggest maybe we just drop the exaggerated metaphor, and just speak of "faith."

What is faith? Depending on whom you ask, you're going to get some different answers. Atheist cynics will tell you it means "believing what you know ain't true," or plunging blindly into a lie of some kind, because you're afraid of the truth, maybe. Some Pietists will say it means something like, "believing when you have no reason to believe." That's highly emotional, perhaps, and it's maybe what they themselves are admitting they are doing; but it's not a representation of Biblical faith.

Biblically speaking, faith is conviction that God's word and God's character are reliable, especially when circumstances do not immediately give us their assurances. Biblical faith is grounded in the trust that God is a Keeper of His promises, and that circumstances do not change that fact. So it casts beyond the present, but on the basis that God gives us reason to do so. And it does not step outside those parameters, speculating in some other way.

So faith isn't a "leap," when you know the One you're having faith in is the eternal, omniscient God. Rather, it's a calm, rational conviction that your trust is anchored in the only truly relaible place. And this imparts to faith a stability, rationality and certainty that the prior definitions would certainly suggest no "faith" can have.

Spiritual life can take shape in many ways and has many levels. One level is simply following the ethical commands (or 'sensible recommendations') of a respected authority.

That would actually be a definition of "compliance," and would fit any totalitarian system admirably.

Many people in many churches do just that. How could one criticize them? Maybe they cannot do anything more?

Why "cannot" they?

I think they can. And if they can and don't, then they're certainly criticizable on that basis.

Others seem to launch into other, more involved spiritual projects. This is where I refer to *the novel* (and I do not agree that the novel only began in the 18th century though it certainly developed there. The Golden Ass is a 'novel' or a man's journey, which is essentially a spiritual journey, and it far predates the 18th century).

There's debate about the origin date of the novel -- when did, for example, the mere "epistolary method" become capable of the features of what we should rightly define as a "novel"?

Most experts accept that the few earlier "proto-novels" were not true novels, and that the form did not really come into its own until novels like "Pamela" in the 18th Century. But it's of little consequence, since the "novel" form is certainly not very old, historically, and nowhere near old enough, by any account, to have relevance to the Bible.

I see you as, perhaps, unfairly condemning of Nietzsche. You see him as 'benighted' and that is only part of the story.

No, I seem him as (mostly) consistent with his own (incorrect) theory of how things are. I wouldn't call him "benighted" in that sense, because he at least used reason to extend his suppositions fairly far; but his were the wrong suppositions, and they were only his "suppositions," so the conclusions were, to that extent, not "light" but "darkness."

The natural world is a cruel world that operates according to strict, determined laws of relationship. One thing feeds off another. It is a closed system, an energy system, and whatever it is, though it may have been *intelligently designed*, is not the Christian imagined world.

Actually, it's exactly what the Christian "imagines" it is. It's a good world, but one marred by sin. It's fallen, and is deeply not what it ought to have been; but it's also inherently a gift from God, as all life is derived from Him, and contains both good and bad elements, though not in equal proportions. And as a Christian "imagines," it's also a temporary world, a moribund world, one headed toward its own end. But it is a redeemable world, as well, one in which the grace of God is still present and active, and rescues men from the doom toward which they are precipitating themselves.

All of that is eminently realistic, I think, and reflects the observable world quite accurately. There's a profound realism to Christianity, a kind of truth-telling that the fatalistic pessimism of the Materialist and the utopian dreaming of the ideological Atheist wholly misses, I think.

There is no 'heaven world' for any other creature (that I am aware of) except man who visualizes a 'world beyond'.

The Bible speaks of "a new heaven and a new earth." And while "other creatures" do not come into blessing apart from mankind's salvation, the natural world is most certainly cleansed and restored to life in the Kingdom of God. As the saying goes, "The lion lies down with the lamb" in the new world. So I think, maybe, you aren't aware of the right passages on that.

...the abstract God that Christians visualize.

"Abstract"? Such a word. Now I'm certain you aren't aware of what Christianity actually "visualizes."

I have no idea what your frame of reference, or your experience, makes you inclined to think "Christians" are or believe about that. I'm quite certain it's nothing like what Christianity actually teaches, or like what I think. But I think that further exploration of what the Bible actually says about that would be useful. However, that's a topic as large as the Bible itself, really.

[Immanuel Can]

You propose (you predicate) for example "Either Christ was a historical figure, or He was a figment of a man's imagination" and this is an example of your predilection for strict binaries.

Not at all. I actually see at least five categories of views, and know that various people hold each.

I've already named nominal or pseudo-Christianity as a view I find improper, but which people practice. Another I've pointed out as inadequate is the political-institutional form, which has no basis in Scripture and has historically done a lot of things no real Christian could ever agree to do. The other alternative, the gnostic option, I would simply say is not up to being considered seriously. It's just not "Christian" in any reasonable way. It's actually a kind of revived paganism, whether in its Eastern or its Jungian form. It "co-opts" Christianity for its own mythic purposes, and makes no reasonable effort to discipline itself to the premises that Christianity actually offers, and interprets in direct contradiction to the explicit words of Christ, in various ways. It's just another pseudo-Christianity, in other words.

I'm really only concerned with the "Christianity "that is Christian. And I do think it's the only version worth considering. It's the version whose parameters are not spelled out by me, but by God Himself, in the Person of Christ. What else could a "Christian," be?

I say, let God speak, and men be silent. God can say who He is. He is not subject to our human frailties of knowledge.

...you are a representative of a Belief System....

But of course. So are you. We all "represent" what we believe to be true: and if somebody doesn't, he's definitionally being deceptive, isn't he?

But what does *God* ask for?

First, an ear. Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." That means that the first thing a person has to be willing to do is to hear Christ speak...not trying to make his words into something they're not, and certainly not to make them fit a pre-set ideological or denominational agenda. One has to simply hear what Jesus says, and decide.

This is one of the things the gnostics get so badly wrong. They want to complicate something that's not at all complicated. They don't want to hear Jesus say what He wants to say, what He so plainly says, but they want Him to confirm, authoritatively, what they would already prefer to believe, and sanction their own religion instead of His own message. Esoteric reading is the only tool they can use; because taken at face value, he does not back their play.

...whatever it is that we define as God.

See, that phase is simply not sensible.

Would you like to be "defined" as something other than you really are? Would you suppose the Supreme Being would thank anybody for such an exercise? And if, as I believe, He wishes to be know and to have relationship with his creatures, how is that purpose served by fudging the identity of the most important Person in the universe? How can somebody come to know somebody whose identity is so fluid they can "define it" for themselves?

It is inconceivable, to me, that God if I could ever define God or *encapsulate* God

Let God "define" God. Let Him say who He is. What arrogance we would have if we let any man do such a thing.

[Immanuel Can]

But that is the wonderful thing about these conversations: everything can be brought out and examined.

Indeed so. And difference of opinion can be handled agreeably. I think the present conversation an exemplar of that.

[RCSaunders]

Lace: Why would we think there's 'a being'?

Why would we think there's not?

To think there is something there must be some evidence of it--something that can be seen or heard or perceived in some other way that raises the question, "what is that?"

Everything that is perceived is evidence of itself. What is the evidence for, "a being?"

If you walk up on a camp fire (there's no one there: just the nice little camp fire [logs arranged just so, a circle of stones surroundin' those logs], will you take that camp fire as a natural event or as sumthin' put in place by a now absent person?

The camp fire is evidence of itself, yes, but it's also evidence of an intelligent, purposeful, currently absent, fire starter, right?

The inability to differentiate between the man-made and the metaphysical is the same mistake that fails to differentiate between the psychological (epistemological--like language, knowledge, science, history, fiction) and material (natural--like mountains, oceans, planets, and stars) ontological existence.

There is nothing that exits ontologically, i.e. naturally, that requires a cause beyond itself. It is the ultimate existence. If there were such a thing as a, "first cause," or better, an "ultimate explanation," for what exists, material existence and its nature are that explanation.

The only things that exist that require more explanation are those produced by living organisms or created by human beings. For all such things there is clear evidence of how the behavior of those organisms produced those artifacts.

If I see the remains of a camp fire, I recognize it as something a human being created, because I know they create them, and even how they do it, and that camp fires do not occur without human action. The rocks, rivers, wind, and rain all exist and are what they are, and would be, even if there were no living creatures. Life and creation do not exist independently of physical living organisms.

[henry quirk]

There is nothing that exi(s)ts ontologically, i.e. naturally, that requires a cause beyond itself.

Really? Does lightning, a discrete natural phenomenon, cause itself or is it spawned by pre-existing conditions?

[Age]

Alexis,

if that infinite regress proposes that when one has completed it one is (to put it colorfully) *in the presence of God*.

An infinite regress, in context, simply means there ain't no beginning; the causal chain or chains just extend back infinitely and (presumably) forward infinitely (infinite progress). Such a thing is counter-intuitive, not supported by our current understandin' of Reality, and -- of course -- precludes the possibility of a Creator-God.

Here is ANOTHER GREAT EXAMPLE of just how False, Wrong, AND ABSURD so-called "current understandings" were, "back in the OLDEN DAYS", as some say.

If God created the universe and everything in it, how will you explain God's relationship to it? As a completely exteriorized energy? As something part-and-parcel of God? To what degree does God inhabit or infuse the *world* that God created ex nihilo? Is some part of God in the creation? If so, in what way?

I reckon God, as Creator, has the same relationship the novelist has to his novel, or an artist has to his work: one extends as codified thinkin' from the other (the art from the artist). The art bears the stamp of the artist, but is not the artist.

Well, although this is an OBVIOUSLY Wrong, False, AND Incorrect view or thought of things here, it is just ANOTHER view AND thought.

The intelligent design people go so far as to say that *the idea of all things* had to preexist the creation of all things, and in this sense God must be the architect of all that is possible and all that is real and takes shape, right? This will sound like trivialization but we will be forced to agree that a ham & cheese sandwich had to exist within the Mind of God, would we not? So too the milkshake.

Not necessarily. We write open-ended comp sims, settin' up initial conditions and often findin' those sims go in unexpected directions. The video game industry takes advantage of this thru open world games.

So, what has what 'you', human beings, make up and create actually got to do with God and what It makes up and creates, and HOW It ACTUALLY does this, EXACTLY?

Minecraft, for example: what a player does, creates, attempts, occurs within a world extendin' out of the initial conditions, but the initial conditions don't dictate what the player does or creates or attempts; in the same way, the initial conditions may say, for example, 'there will be mountains', but the initial conditions say nuthin' about where mountains will be, the sizes or shapes of those mountains, or what treasures, if any, they'll contain. Further, if a player inputs random numbers (the seed) into the world-generation software, all manner of absurdity can pop up in flora, fauna, and geography, all possible within the context of the initial conditions but none overtly predictable from those conditions.

As I (as a deist) conceive The Creator, He set the initial conditions (cause & effect, universal constants, etc.).

But HOW, EXACTLY?

When 'you' are able to answer this, properly AND correctly, then you will SEE and KNOW what IS ACTUALLY True, Right, AND Correct here.

Somewhere in those initial conditions He inserted the necessity for free will, reason, and conscience (givin' the game its purpose).

LOL What do you even mean by 'initial' conditions?

The result is our deterministic, but open-ended, Reality and Wildcard us.

But 'this Life' is NOT open-ended. As what comes about AFTER the way of life, the people in the days when this was written, has ended was ALWAYS intended to happen and occur.

So it seems to me that everyone works with (what I call) an imagined picture. The idea of the *world* (and all successive worlds) is only and always an IDEA held in the mind, in the imagination, of man. But the picture is not the reality. The picture is just a picture.

I'm a direct realist: I think we experience the world largely as it is.

OF COURSE the human animal experiences the so-called 'world' as it IS, just like EVERY other animal does.

BUT, it is HOW 'you', human animals, interpret 'the world' how and why 'you' FAILED so tremendously.

'you', adult human beings, do NOT LOOK AT 'the world' as it IS, but rather take an interpreted version of 'the world', and SEE or BELIEVE that interpreted version as being the true, right, and correct version.

And where direct experience isn't possible, we can reason our way to understanding.

LOL How could a sensual animal NOT be able to have direct experience?

Also, the 'reasoning' hitherto, up to when this was being written, was OBVIOUSLY NOT that great AT ALL. But this VERY SLOW and GRADUAL process of coming to True UNDERSTANDING is EXACTLY HOW things are and were meant to pan out, and come about. After all, this living in Peace and Harmony, when it was reached, lasts for eternity anyway.

Also, does ANY one of 'you' REALLY think or believe that "reasoning out" and 'understanding' that God, thee Creator of Everything, is an actual "he" sound like good and proper 'reasoning' AT ALL?

Coming to thee True UNDERSTANDING was meant to be a slow and gradual process, but come on, surely we can move along a bit faster than we have been here. Seriously, what does it take for 'you', adult human beings, in the days when this is being written, to just REALIZE that putting the label "he" onto God, Itself, was, and STILL IS, just an ABSURDITY, which was just done by 'you', male human beings, BECAUSE 'you' had such a NARROWED and SHORT SIGHTED view of things?

[Age]

The Bible speaks of "a new heaven and a new earth." And while "other creatures" do not come into blessing apart from mankind's salvation, the natural world is most certainly cleansed and restored to life in the Kingdom of God. As the saying goes, "The lion lies down with the lamb" in the new world. So I think, maybe, you aren't aware of the right passages on that.

If in this world there are 'lions & lambs' and they do not lie down together now, it is my own view, and I say it is a necessary one, that they will never lie down together.

Could 'lions and lambs laying down together' just be a fable about how 'you', human beings, will get along with "your" 'Self'/"each other", after this greedy and selfish way of life, which ALL of 'you', adults are creating here, in the days when this is being written, and when the new life begins, that is; AFTER 'you' CHANGE "yourselves" and thus 'your ways'?

Or, are there REALLY some people who ACTUALLY BELIEVE that lions will NOT need to kill other animals, and will just STOP eating meat, one day?

The phenomenal world and the world of biological being will go on & on & on & on just as it has for all those millions and billions of years.

What you do (it seems to me) is refer to a story the elements of which you take as 'reality'. That the world, this world, will be wrapped up one day, renewed, made afresh, and all the relationships in that world will change.

Besides the last bit here this is EXACTLY what does happen and occur.

Just as you say: the lion will not eat the lamb, the lion will lie down with the lamb. The shark will not eat carrion and will not attack seals. Enzymes will no longer decompose leaves in the forest. The entire format of the world will become something radically else.

Death shall have no dominion is I guess a way to put it.

I see all of this as Story. I am sorry if I can do no better.

Saying, "I am sorry if I can do no better", is just a cop out or EXCUSE for NOT even 'trying to' do better.

At ANY given moment, 'you', human beings, CAN DO BETTER. But that is ONLY if 'you' WANT TO.

Now, OF COURSE, they were STORIES, but there is MUCH MORE Truth in those STORIES, than 'you', human beings, realize YET, in the days when this was being written. Also, it could said, there is FAR MORE Falsehoods in those STORIES as well. But ALL of these are just the Wrong INTERPRETATIONS of the STORIES that 'you' have been and continue to make.

If there is a World-to-Come it will be another sort of world. For example a world in another plane of existence. A higher, spiritual world. This is something that makes sense to me. And it seems conceivable.

Except for the Fact that there is ONLY One place and ONLY One Existence.

And the so-called 'spiritual world' just refers to the thinking AND KNOWING 'worlds'. Being able to distinguish and decipher between the two, just, literally, lifts one up into the REAL and True 'world'.

So as you now must surely note I have no other means available to me but to employ gnosis (knowledge, subtlety) in an endeavor of exegesis.

[Age]

Then what you are saying, what you propose as true or the way things are, is that within the simulation that is man's world man could invent things about which God had no knowledge? That did not, in the sense we are talking about, originate in God?

Kinda, yeah. I imagine Him aware of all the possibilities, but see no reason He must be aware which possibilities would or will translate into actuality.

BUT, God ALREADY, literally, KNOWS 'what', EXACTLY, translates.

If, and when, one considers what the word of God refers to, EXACTLY, and is ACTUALLY about, then, literally, ONLY God KNOWS thee 'translation'.

And, as I think on it, there's no reason He has to be aware of all the possibilities.

CERTAINLY NOT when considering that there is REALLY ONLY One True and POSSIBLE outcome, anyway.

Remember: I'm not a theist. I'm not bound up by the idea God is intimately involved in Creation. Mebbe one of His reasons for makin' this universe was to experience surprise.

Surprise, to who and/or what, EXACTLY?

I think the idea is that nothing can exist, in any sense, independently of God.

So, this would infer that God is ACTUALLY intimately involved in Creation, somehow, correct?

If this is NOT correct, then what IS, to you?

All things are expressions of *ideas* (intelligent designs is how it is described) and had to pre-exist prior to the manifestation.

Well, it depends on God's nature and intent, yeah?

The Christian God is said to have numbered every hair on my head (damn few left now) before I was conceived. The deist God is mebbe uninterested in my hair and would have to count them if He became interested (simply becuz He doesn't know).

WHY do 'you', human beings, persist will 'trying to' come across as though you KNOW what is ACTUALLY True, especially considering that it is BLATANTLY OBVIOUS that 'you' do NOT.

There is NO so-called "christian God", NOR "deist God". However, there is the word 'God', which OBVIOUSLY exists, and which OBVIOUSLY would refer to some thing that ACTUALLY EXISTS.

Which, by the way, is ALSO BLATANTLY OBVIOUS. That is; when one just LOOKS AT 'things' from thee Truly OPEN perspective.

As I said up-thread: I used to call God Crom. Here's why...

He dwells on a great mountain.

Is this the ONLY place the NONE "he" dwells?

Could 'great mountain' just be referring to UP HIGH, where, literally, ALL can be SEEN, and thus UNDERSTOOD, and KNOWN, with 'dwell' referring to where God just lives/exists?

Or, does that saying HAVE TO MEAN that there is some male gendered being sitting/standing on some mountain, which is somewhat bigger or greater than some other mountains are?

What use to call on him?

Could it be because of what God is ACTUALLY, and because of this Fact God then KNOWING better than what 'you', little human beings, THINK you know?

Little he cares if men live or die.

If one STOPPED with the incessant and OBVIOUSLY INSANELY Wrong term "he", then 'they' would be CLOSER to SEEING and KNOWING what thee One and ONLY ACTUAL Truth here is "them self".

Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune!

WHAT is this ASSUMPTION based on, EXACTLY?

He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? Robert E. Howard

Meaning: He made man a free will (self-directing & - responsible) and He gave man a compass (conscience). What we do with ourselves is on us.
[/quote]

Here is a GREAT EXAMPLE of just HOW easily AND simply people "see" 'things', which just VERY COINCIDENTALLY align PERFECTLY with their ALREADY GAINED ASSUMPTIONS and BELIEFS of what is true and right or not. Or, in other words, just plain old 'confirmation bias'.

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

the God that we recognize and acknowledge is revealed uniquely through our own selves. I guess I would say that we are the metaphysical instrument, and we have a relationship with God (if we have one) through the instrument of our psyche.

I fail to see how that can possibly be the case. The parents who rear a child typically are the initial channels through which the child understands God, or anything else.. The child could not even learn his native language unless he was in a social situation.

For example I myself was reared in a Christian community, and I was Christened when I was a baby. The import of this ceremony was that my parents introduced me to the church community who would help them to rear me according to the Christian faith.

It's possible that some individuals at my Christening believed there was a mystical supernatural event happening, but such a belief would have been eccentric.

[Age]

All I can say is that when you have *thought more broadly* than the existent platform, that you will be naturally defining another.

Just as we do from the time we are born and throughout our lives WHILE accomplishing a lot. What is it that makes us think we have to stop and build a kingdom on a particular platform?

What 'it' IS is EXACTLY what I have been POINTING OUT and have been SHOWING to you. But, which you have been REFUSING to LOOK AT.

WHY 'you', "lacewing", are a PRIME EXAMPLE of one who STOPS and ATTEMPTS to 'build a kindgom on your OWN particular platform' is for the EXACT SAME reason EVERY one of 'you', adult human beings, do. That is; 'you' have been taught that it is the Right thing to do, and NOT only that 'you' have been taught that 'you' HAVE TO actually do this.

As is PROVED True by watching and OBSERVING the way EACH and EVERY one of 'you' was 'brought up'.

'your' own upbringing, "lacewing", was NOT different AT ALL, in this regard.

What is that about? We say we've found the answer and we've figured it out. Really?

Yes REALLY this is what 'you', "lacewing", CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY DO, as can be CLEARLY SEEN throughout this forum.

And if, as you say, this just goes on and on (as is implied) I wonder if anything will ever be decided at all? Will one ever be in a position to *act decisively*?

Perhaps the natural response to the proposal of 'thinking beyond boundaries' is to imagine that we will 'fall off the edge'.

WHY would you call that a "natural response"? To me, 'thinking or LOOKING beyond those boundaries', which 'you', human beings, continually 'try to' put and build up upon, makes me NATURALLY just SEE that there is absolutely, and literally, NO edge AT ALL that one could 'fall off of'.

'you', "lacewing", do have this very bad habit of SEEING EVERY one the SAME, and SEEING that because 'you' used to LOOK AT and SEE 'things' in a particular way in the past, then EVERY one "else" MUST do that also.

But this is just ANOTHER type of BOUNDARY that 'you', human beings, do PUT UP, for "yourselves".

By the way, the APPARENT CONTRADICTION here, like EVERY thing else I write, was ON PURPOSE.

When we think beyond the platforms we've settled onto, we are not suddenly leaping off into uncertainty... we are simply allowing ourselves to think further.

WHY do you NOT just STOP 'that', which is causing you to STOP thinking, and thus SEEING, further?

I have been continually TELLING you what 'that' IS, EXACTLY.

How about INSTEAD of building these platforms, and resting upon them, on your way up the spiritual ladder to True ENLIGHTENMENT, you just STOP doing what causes and creates these 'resting places'?

And by doing so, new stepping stones appear... perhaps one-at-a-time, at the pace we can handle.

Thee ONLY 'thing' SLOWING 'you', adult human beings, to KNOWING and UNDERSTANDING what thee ACTUAL Truth of things ARE is basically your OWN Dishonesty, but also your WANT to NOT change and your DISTORTED thinking, that is; ASSUMING or BELIEVING that 'you' ALREADY KNOW what is true. As example here, profusely.

We can follow those to see and accomplish more than we would have experienced sitting on a particular platform.

Like the 'platform', "there is NO one truth", which this one is NOT just resting on but is NOT able to SEE PAST. And, this is because of their FEAR that they will FALL of the edge, that is; if they EVER even tried stepping off from.

Similar to how we've moved through our uncertain lives... seeking new options when we need to move beyond the current territory.

Do we... as 'adults'... eventually consider ourselves successful when we get everything ordered well enough that we can convince ourselves we don't NEED to move, expand, or think much anymore?

Well considering that this is EXACTLY what 'you' are doing here, "lacewing", do you feel "yourself" as successful?

And, how is this BELIEF of 'yours' REALLY working out for 'you'? Is 'it' ordered well enough for you? Have you convinced "yourself" that you do NOT NEED to move, expand, nor think much more anymore? After all you have NOT budged NOR moved at all from this BELIEF, and self-made platform, of yours here.

Maybe we translate this into: we've got it 'figured out'... and we're sitting/positioned in 'truth'. Then, we fight with other adults over the correctness of platforms.

Spoken like a true EXPERT.

If it has NOT YET ALREADY BEEN NOTICED, but 'adult' human beings 'fighting' with "other" adult human being, or just among "themselves" over the, lol, "correctness" of their OWN made up 'platforms' is what EACH and EVERY one of 'you' was TAUGHT to do in and from childhood.

So, why not question these platforms and how they might actually be limiting us?

GREAT QUESTION. WHY do 'you', "lacewing", NOT question the platform your build and are sitting and resting on right now, and question HOW, EXACTLY, that might actually be limiting 'you'?

The ANSWERS are VERY OBVIOUS, well to me they ARE anyway.

We can still use what we've learned from them, to look beyond them.

OF COURSE, and the platform/conclusion 'you', "lacewing", have, and have build here, and what you have learned from that KNOWING is one of the GREATEST LESSONS available to 'you', human beings, and which is a GREAT stepping stone, or step up, along the path and ladder up to Heaven/Peace. But, you just have to FOLLOW your OWN advice and learn to take the LEAP of FAITH and LOOK BEYOND/STEP OFF from that platform, and then and ONLY THEN will you move onto the next and/or HIGHER platform along your journey in Life.

How much more broadly might we be able to comprehend... in a way that isn't so intently focused on serving ourselves?

This is STILL UNIMAGINABLE to 'you', human beings, in the days when this is being written.

The INSIGHTS and EMOTIONS, which are VERY SOON to come about and be gained, are even FAR BEYOND what was IMAGINED and ENVISIONED or what was even ANY EXPECTATION by 'you', people, in the days when this was being written.

Perhaps we are perfectly happy to stay on those platforms without looking further, but then we shouldn't exclaim that they are the ultimate truth. That doesn't make sense.

What does NOT make REAL sense is that 'you', "lacewing", KNOW what is ACTUALLY True, Right, AND Good for 'you'. But you STILL remain on YOUR platform, without looking further, while exclaiming that YOUR VIEW is the 'ultimate truth'. And, it is this, seemingly, to you, 'ultimate truth' of YOURS, but ACTUALLY False and Wrong Truth of YOURS, which is the ACTUAL 'thing' that is STOPPING and PREVENTING 'you' from LOOKING FURTHER and BEYOND.

What is AMUSING to OBSERVE here is that DEEP within 'you', 'you' KNOW thee ACTUAL Truth but what is STOPPING 'you' from being ABSOLUTELY FREE to SEE and RECOGNIZE this ACTUAL Truth is 'that truth', which 'you' BELIEVE is the 'ultimate truth'.

Or will one always be encumbered by the doubt (in your case the certainly?) that there is something more to realize.

There are countless things we don't know and have not experienced.

For example?

And when 'you' say 'we' who and/or what are you referring to, EXACTLY?

Are we encumbered by that realization? Or do we ignore it (and its potential lure or unsettling uncertainty) by subscribing to a platform that suits us? Are our 'traveling days' over?

What thee ACTUAL Truth IS, is that 'you', human beings, ACTUALLY ALREADY DO KNOW ALL the IMPORTANT and MEANINGFUL 'things' in Life. This KNOWLEDGE was with 'you' when 'you' were born and is instinctively and instructively build into the very fabric of the bodies dna. This KNOWLEDGE is the EXACT SAME for EVERY one, but it just remains UNCONSCIOUSLY KNOWN. Although, this KNOWLEDGE is just NOT YET CONSCIOUSLY KNOWN by 'you', adult human beings, in the days when this is being written, 'IT' will soon be learned, and thus just become 'everyday', or consciously known, KNOWLEDGE. From which thee Truly PEACEFUL life, in HARMONY, begins.

But what is ALSO, OBVIOUSLY, True is the Fact that there are STILL countless OTHER things that 'you', human beings, do NOT YET know and will ALWAYS REMAIN NOT YET KNOWN. After all, thee ACTUAL Universe that 'you' have found "yourselves" within, and are ACTUALLY living in, is infinite in size and eternal in passage. So, there will, literally, ALWAYS be MORE to explore and wonder about.

I don't think you need to be intrigued or baffled by my propensities -- they are quintessentially human on one hand but also (it must be said) masculine. Decisiveness and action are masculine traits (at least in the traditional view).

Ah. Interesting consideration.

I was chary of quoting what Camille Paglia wrote (and she wrote many different things) but it was:

"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts."

Probably true.

And, it could VERY WELL BE ARGUED much HAPPIER ALREADY, and STILL.

Obviously, Paglia's work is overall a defense (or explanation) of the masculine mind. She says that the Christian idea of God (and indeed all ideas of God) are some of the most quintessential masculine creations.

And such creations are often intended to serve and glorify man, and to give man 'power', yes?

I hope that by quoting Paglia I do not appear as offensive?

Not at all.

So what I want to ask you -- if I may -- is what do wish to create (or should I say uncreate?) with what you propose? I find that I cannot visualize what it is that you want to see happen. (But I have no choice but to approach what you propose as something that will result in action of one sort or another! Forgive me, I was born like this!)

Hee hee. I was born like this too.

When 'you', adult human beings, say that you were born like 'this', then what do you ACTUALLY MEAN?

Because OBVIOUSLY there are SOME things that the body was born with, but just about EVERY thing else was just 'learned', along the way.

Okay, my honest answer is that I wish to continue painting this life with as many beautiful colors and techniques as I can discover, to expand and improve the experience.

But WHY would ANY one even want to paint OVER, what is ALREADY PERFECT in Picture, and in COLOR?

Not in a frantic 'answer-seeking' way... but in a calm and happy state of enjoyment.

So, WHY NOT just ENJOY what IS HERE-NOW, ALREADY?

AGAIN, WHY would you want to continue painting this life, which has OBVIOUSLY ALREADY been 'painted'? WHY NOT just live 'life' and ENJOY IT, for surely 'you' have NOT much left "lacewing".

And I do this by following stepping-stones that appear beyond my own ideas.

LOL
LOL
LOL

EXCEPT for stepping past your OWN idea that "There is NO truth". Which, if you STILL have NOT YET SEEN and NOTICED is A 'truth', which you, obviously, so far have just NOT been able to shake, let go off, nor step beyond.

Stepping stones that lead me to see and do and receive things I wouldn't have otherwise thought of if I'd fully subscribed to any particular platform or reality or truth. So, my 'reality' keeps expanding.

LOL Your 'reality' has NOT changed since 'I' came into this forum "lacewing" regarding YOUR TRUTH that there is NO TRUTH.

You have been ON this platform and NOT moved AT ALL.

There is not a particular structure or end result.

And, what are you basing this "TRUTH" of YOURS on here, EXACTLY?

There is a broader experience and more capability than I would otherwise have, moment-to-moment throughout life. I have built/created many structures for various purposes, but they (as everything) are temporary -- so I utilize them while they stand, but I do not limit myself to them, nor define my life or myself through them.

The CONTRADICTIONS and HYPOCRISY here is BLINDING.

They are props for an experience. Does that make sense to you the way I described it?

Yes. OF COURSE. You, unfortunately, do NOT actually follow that way, "yourself".

[henry quirk]

As I said up-thread: I used to call God Crom. Here's why...

He dwells on a great mountain.

Is this the ONLY place the NONE "he" dwells?

Could 'great mountain' just be referring to UP HIGH, where, literally, ALL can be SEEN, and thus UNDERSTOOD, and KNOWN, with 'dwell' referring to where God just lives/exists?

Or, does that saying HAVE TO MEAN that there is some male gendered being sitting/standing on some mountain, which is somewhat bigger or greater than some other mountains are?

What use to call on him?

Could it be because of what God is ACTUALLY, and because of this Fact God then KNOWING better than what 'you', little human beings, THINK you know?

Little he cares if men live or die.

If one STOPPED with the incessant and OBVIOUSLY INSANELY Wrong term "he", then 'they' would be CLOSER to SEEING and KNOWING what thee One and ONLY ACTUAL Truth here is "them self".

Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune!

WHAT is this ASSUMPTION based on, EXACTLY?

He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? Robert E. Howard

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if you wanna know the secrets of Howard's passage, go read some Conan, you xeno