Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Not the point.

You were trying to say what the Christian account of things is. That you disbelieve that account is irrelevant to whether or not that is, in fact, the Christian account.

It may not be your point, Brother Immanuel, that much is true. But it is very much a part of the set of points I work with.

Thus, the entire story is a picture that had its day (as one could say) but its day has ended -- if one is really looking for a descriptive story as to why things are as they are.

Of course I did refer to all this but you have made, and cannot make, and substantive comment about it:

It therefore became necessary to try to understand why all this was the way it was. Why it was happening. And what sort of world this world was and why we are here. However, the consideration of these issues and questions did not begin with the Hebrews. In fact it could fairly be asserted that the Hebrews both borrowed and also distorted the ideas and teachings of other peoples and 'concocted' an ethnocentric and actually rather vicious and terrible tribal philosophy. If this is so, and if it is true that the same tendencies are still visible and recognizable in the Christian conception, then it becom es at that point obligatory to examine the stories themselves and the content of what is asserted in these stories.

That is, to state that they are not *real* in the sense of genuine histories or historical descriptions, but contrivances by a priest-class for whole sets of reasons. Again, I assert that that is the *mature man's* path. The *immature man* requires special examination.

If one believes that the ills of the world, the reality of the very nature of the natural systems that exist in our world, and likely in others, have been caused by those ur-humans, one is believing a rather stupid story. There is not other word but to say *a lie*.

The story that you believe in -- as if it is a real history! -- is the foundation of your interpretation of world.

[Harry Baird]

Let me rephrase then: you're essentially proposing that "Unless one was promised something (in this case justice), one is not entitled to it, and cannot complain about not receiving it".

That's better, Harry...closer to what I'm saying.

It's still, as I wrote, a massive non sequitur. Consider that promises are only made by promisers: that is, personal beings. Your proposal, then, reduces to "Unless some person promised something to you, you are not entitled to it." (Where, of course, God is a person, which is the heart of your apologism).

This is plainly false. I can demonstrate as much to you by example:

Consider the scenario in which a person is physically violated by another out of vengeance for some imagined slight. Neither had "promised" anything to the other, yet the violation is anyway unjust, even regardless of whether or not any higher power had "promised" anything to either party. There is no need for a "somebody, a something, or a some force" to validate the understanding we have that such an act is unjust, and thus that we have been denied that to which we are entitled - it simply is unjust, based on what the word "justice" means.

[Alexis Jacobi]

. . . I think better and more of you, but, as you choose to self-denigrate, self-reduce, that's your business.

The description I gave is one that pictures, if you will, how *we* see the world we live in now. That is, the ecological model, our way of understanding nature and natural systems, that which describes the *real world*. It stands. I did not invent it though. And it does not depend on my attitude about it.

I simply stated that man's world, the world where 'rights' are defined and seen as existing, is not the natural world.

You have no *rights* when, for example, you wander out into the desert, or into the jungle, or into the arctic regions, or outer space. When you leave the human world (the social and civilizational world) you step back into the *real world*. It does what it does and you will be preyed on, devoured, and you will then recycle into that biological world.

You have no rights in that world.

You can scream I have rights here! but this will not matter one iota.

For this reason I say that your ideas are sentimental & romantic.

[FlashDangerpants]

Horses can still exist. Justice can still exist. But you get neither, because you were not promised either.

Then the injustice of inflicting infinite punishment on persons who did minor misdeeds can also exist.

[Immanuel Can]

Not the point.

You were trying to say what the Christian account of things is. That you disbelieve that account is irrelevant to whether or not that is, in fact, the Christian account.

It may not be your point...

It wasn't even YOUR point.

You said "Christians believe X." But X was not quite right. I merely filled in the stuff you didn't know, or forgot to say.

I was not telling you that you believe it. I was telling you what Christians believe. Now you know.

[Nick_A]

Let me rephrase then: you're essentially proposing that "Unless one was promised something (in this case justice), one is not entitled to it, and cannot complain about not receiving it".

That's better, Harry...closer to what I'm saying.

It's still, as I wrote, a massive non sequitur. Consider that promises are only made by promisers: that is, personal beings. Your proposal, then, reduces to "Unless some person promised something to you, you are not entitled to it." (Where, of course, God is a person, which is the heart of your apologism).

This is plainly false. I can demonstrate as much to you by example:

Consider the scenario in which a person is physically violated by another out of vengeance for some imagined slight. Neither had "promised" anything to the other, yet the violation is anyway unjust, even regardless of whether or not any higher power had "promised" anything to either party. There is no need for a "somebody, a something, or a some force" to validate the understanding we have that such an act is unjust, and thus that we have been denied that to which we are entitled - it simply is unjust, based on what the word "justice" means.

Sometimes it is necessary to admit the party is over. Harry and humanity as a whole denies the GOOD described by Plato. The result is the loss of the experience of meaning and the realization of purpose. Proof:

These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness. Anthony de Mello

I look at these variables and agree that each of these Christian values are denied in favor of might makes right. The result? The inevitable destruction of a culture.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You said "Christians believe X." But X was not quite right.

What I said was that in the Christian conception the disobedience of Adam and Eve led to man's suffering. Within *suffering* death was certainly included. The entire condition of man's suffering, and death, in the human situation was caused by the Original Misdeed.

I said that Christian believe that and that this belief is foundational to this system of belief.

Thus in no sense was it wrong. It is in fact exactly right. But it is typical of you to invent strange red herrings as a strategy for your odd activities.

It wasn't even YOUR point.

It most certainly was. But if it pleases you to say differently have at it. Till the proverbial cow jumps over the moon!

[Gary Childress]

Life's just nasty, then, possibly, or maybe it's kind; but it's never "unjust." It is whatever it is. "Suck it up, Buttercup" is all the universe has to 'say' about that. You live, you die, you get sick, you stay healthy, you get eternal bliss or eternal perdition -- none of it is "injustice" if nobody's promised you anything different than whatever it is you get.

Why do you think the world ISN'T that way? I mean, parents say that sort of stuff (suck it up) to their children all the time, maybe because justice only works in so far as we imperfect humans can bring it about. We're taught at a young age not to expect justice in return for justice. I mean, Hitler escaped the hangman. Martin Luther King was murdered for his activism. In the end, we all end up in the grave, regardless of what kind of life we've lived. It seems to me that the difference between what the world would look like without God and what the world does indeed look like are pretty similar. Justice may well be a human construct. It looks like a human construct. It behaves like a human construct. Therefore, perhaps it is.

[Immanuel Can]

...promises are only made by promisers: that is, personal beings.

Absolutely right.

So what started your beliefs that you were owed "justice"? Was it a different "god"? Was in the universe itself? How did it happen?

Consider the scenario in which a person is physically violated by another out of vengeance for some imagined slight. Neither had "promised" anything to the other, yet the violation is anyway unjust, even regardless of whether or not any higher power had "promised" anything to either party. There is no need for a "somebody, a something, or a some force" to validate the understanding we have that such an act is unjust, and thus that we have been denied that to which we are entitled - it simply is unjust, based on what the word "justice" means.

Think more carefully, Harry.

You look at the action...let's say it's "physical violation," to use your general term. From whence comes your conviction that life could not so arrange things that you would be "physically violated"? From whence comes your belief that you "deserved" not to be? What makes that sensible? What makes it rational? What will redress your concern?

You could say, "Well, society will do it." Then you're stuck with two problems, one far more serious than the other. The "light" problem is that there are different societies with different laws: in Pakistan, a young woman may be legally and (allegedly) 'virtuously' "physically violated" by way of restoring family "honour." So you need to say which society's code should count, to the exclusion of all the contrary ones.

But a second problem with that answer, and a terminal one, is that according to your worldview, societies themselves have no "person" or "force" or "law" that transcends them, from which their particular conception of "justice" can be drawn, and against which it can be judged to be right. It's just another arbitrary, human-made code, with no ultimate "injustice" involved in its enforcement or violation.

But you want to launch an accusation against God Himself. To which society, with its concept of "justice," would you appeal, in order to do this? What convinces you that the Supreme Being owes you a particular outcome in life or death?

There is none such in your account. "Nobody" promised you anything. And you will get "nothing," when it comes to "justice," by your own account...if we believe it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Life's just nasty, then, possibly, or maybe it's kind; but it's never "unjust." It is whatever it is. "Suck it up, Buttercup" is all the universe has to 'say' about that. You live, you die, you get sick, you stay healthy, you get eternal bliss or eternal perdition -- none of it is "injustice" if nobody's promised you anything different than whatever it is you get.

Why do you think the world ISN'T that way? I mean, parents say that sort of stuff (suck it up) to their children all the time, maybe because justice only works in so far as we imperfect humans can bring it about. We're taught at a young age not to expect justice in return for justice. I mean, Hitler escaped the hangman. Martin Luther King was murdered for his activism. In the end, we all end up in the grave, regardless of what kind of life we've lived. It seems to me that the difference between what the world would look like without God and what the world does indeed look like are pretty similar. Justice may well be a human construct. It looks like a human construct. It behaves like a human construct. Therefore, perhaps it is.

You have to understand how deeply, how fundamentally, Immanuel is invested in the worldpicture that he lives through. Once it is understood that no deviation from it (from literalism) will or can be allowed, you will (and we will all) better understand him. It has nothing to do with reason or sensibility though. It has to do with something else, something very different.

[henry quirk]

The description I gave is one that pictures, if you will, how *we* see the world we live in now.

It's how you see the world, and yourself in it. It's your, as you say, interpretation.

*

You have no *rights* when, for example, you wander out into the desert, or into the jungle, or into the arctic regions, or outer space.

No matter when or where: I am my own. What I lack, in the desert, the jungle, the arctic, space -- when apart from others -- is the privilege conveyed by others. I don't cease to exist in the absence of others, my right to myself, therefore doesn't cease in the absence of others.

*

You have no rights in that world.

I have no privileges. The bear may get me or I may get the bear. Bein' a free will doesn't guarantee success or wisdom; bein' my own doesn't guarantee survival.

Your observations are picayune: try harder.

[Immanuel Can]

Life's just nasty, then, possibly, or maybe it's kind; but it's never "unjust." It is whatever it is. "Suck it up, Buttercup" is all the universe has to 'say' about that. You live, you die, you get sick, you stay healthy, you get eternal bliss or eternal perdition -- none of it is "injustice" if nobody's promised you anything different than whatever it is you get.

Why do you think the world ISN'T that way?

Because of a couple of things. One is merely empirical: I can see that life is made up of both good and bad things.

But the second is more important: I believe in God. God promises justice. I believe God, and trust His word on that. And I believe He will bring about ultimate justice, even if some of us don't see it right now. I'm fine with that, because my relationship with God gives me that confidence. I don't have to know all the details myself, because I'm not even capable of processing all that could go into a universal restoration of justice: it would take a God to understand such a thing.

So it's about Who I know, not merely what I know. Because I am a limited being. And so are we all. We all have to leave "justice" in the hands of God, or leave in entirely in the hands of Harry's "nothing."

I mean, parents say that sort of stuff (suck it up) to their children all the time, maybe because justice only works in so far as we imperfect humans can bring it about.

And we don't do a great job, do we? And you don't have to be "on the Right" see that. Why is it that the Left screams so much about "social justice," if we're already doing such a good job?

We're taught at a young age not to expect justice in return for justice.

I think we just experience it. Often, nobody sits down and teaches us that formally: we just come to realize it.

I mean, Hitler escaped the hangman. Martin Luther King was murdered for his activism.

Right. And would the hangman have atoned for 6 million dead Jews and 8 million dead Germans, plus all the soldiers and civilians killed in the conflicts Hitler started? If there's any "justice" for Hitler, it won't be on this Earth.

In the end, we all end up in the grave, regardless of what kind of life we've lived.

That has to be the secular conviction. The Bible says there's a judgment after that.

It seems to me that the difference between what the world would look like without God and what the world does indeed look like are pretty similar.

At present, I totally agree with you. But Biblically, the reason for that is that the time of justice is NOT YET.

Justice may well be a human construct. It looks like a human construct. It behaves like a human construct. Therefore, perhaps it is.

Well, if it's a "human construct" and refers to nothing more than that, then there really is no such thing. Human "constructs" include such magical inventions as unicorns, and also such merely contingent inventions as "parliament" or "currency," which retain their authority only from the fact that some set of people continue to believe they possess an objectivity that, in fact, they lack. "Parliaments" can be disbanded, and "currencies" get devalued.

"Justice," if it is a "social construct," is the same as those: our belief in it is the only thing that makes it look "real" to us. Beyond that, it dissolves like tissue in water.

[Harry Baird]

[W]hat started your beliefs that you were owed "justice"?

Uh, dude, the very meaning of justice is that it is that which one is owed. Of course, nobody promises or guarantees that one actually receives it. Those of sufficient moral character try to ensure it anyway.

But you want to launch an accusation against God Himself.

You're such a dissembler. The only one launching accusations against God here is you: that a loving, just God would punish finite, potentially minor transgressions with infinite, unimaginable torment.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Your observations are picayune: try harder.

Your view is your own, certainly. I do not think there is anything I could say that could influence you to change it. To all appearances it has been solidified. All that I have done is to react to what you say. Your view seems specious to me. But as you say that is just my interpretation. And what we do on this forum is just for fun, for entertainment, for some intellectual work, but also to clarify our own views vis-à-vis other views, right?

[Gary Childress]

Life's just nasty, then, possibly, or maybe it's kind; but it's never "unjust." It is whatever it is. "Suck it up, Buttercup" is all the universe has to 'say' about that. You live, you die, you get sick, you stay healthy, you get eternal bliss or eternal perdition -- none of it is "injustice" if nobody's promised you anything different than whatever it is you get.

Why do you think the world ISN'T that way?

Because of a couple of things. One is merely empirical: I can see that life is made up of both good and bad things.

But the second is more important: I believe in God. God promises justice. I believe God, and trust His word on that. And I believe He will bring about ultimate justice, even if some of us don't see it right now. I'm fine with that, because my relationship with God gives me that confidence. I don't have to know all the details myself, because I'm not even capable of processing all that could go into a universal restoration of justice: it would take a God to understand such a thing.

So it's about Who I know, not merely what I know. Because I am a limited being. And so are we all. We all have to leave "justice" in the hands of God, or leave in entirely in the hands of Harry's "nothing."

I mean, parents say that sort of stuff (suck it up) to their children all the time, maybe because justice only works in so far as we imperfect humans can bring it about.

And we don't do a great job, do we? And you don't have to be "on the Right" see that. Why is it that the Left screams so much about "social justice," if we're already doing such a good job?

We're taught at a young age not to expect justice in return for justice.

I think we just experience it. Often, nobody sits down and teaches us that formally: we just come to realize it.

I mean, Hitler escaped the hangman. Martin Luther King was murdered for his activism.

Right. And would the hangman have atoned for 6 million dead Jews and 8 million dead Germans, plus all the soldiers and civilians killed in the conflicts Hitler started? If there's any "justice" for Hitler, it won't be on this Earth.

In the end, we all end up in the grave, regardless of what kind of life we've lived.

That has to be the secular conviction. The Bible says there's a judgment after that.

It seems to me that the difference between what the world would look like without God and what the world does indeed look like are pretty similar.

At present, I totally agree with you. But Biblically, the reason for that is that the time of justice is NOT YET.

Justice may well be a human construct. It looks like a human construct. It behaves like a human construct. Therefore, perhaps it is.

Well, if it's a "human construct" and refers to nothing more than that, then there really is no such thing. Human "constructs" include such magical inventions as unicorns, and also such merely contingent inventions as "parliament" or "currency," which retain their authority only from the fact that some set of people continue to believe they possess an objectivity that, in fact, they lack. "Parliaments" can be disbanded, and "currencies" get devalued.

"Justice," if it is a "social construct," is the same as those: our belief in it is the only thing that makes it look "real" to us. Beyond that, it dissolves like tissue in water.

I agree with most of what you say except the part about there being a God. Perhaps all we get is this life and once it's been fucked up by either natural or else man made forces beyond our control then it's been fucked up and I can't even envision how heaven would make up for it--unless it's non-stop sex with a Playboy centerfold or something. However, I kind of doubt that given the wording of the Bible. Otherwise, just "existing" for eternity without a body or senses sounds beyond boring and monotonous, in fact, it sounds more like punishment to me.