TRUMP AHEAD?

[Immanuel Can]

In many ways, and pre-eminently, in the person of Jesus Christ. See Hebrews 1: 1-3.

I get it. But, of course, Jesus' statements are second hand. They were probably remembered by his followers, and then written down 60 years later. It'sdubious to think they were remembered perfectly, although the faithful probably tried to remember the exact words.

Actually, the majority of the gospel writers were contemporaries. It's not an oral tradition, but a written one. And written words stay where you put them...unless you put them on a computer, of course.

Then Mohammed is not a prophet to anybody but Arabic speakers. To everybody else, he's incomprehensible, you're saying. And that's bad, because as you know, the Koran is the lone "miracle" that is supposed to validate his credentials. Without it, he would not be recognizable as a prophet at all, even to Arabic speakers. So to most of the world, he will never be a prophet, if what you say is correct. They cannot perceive his "miracle,"and thus have no reason to believe the words ascribed to him in the Koran.

But I'll bet you think he's supposed to be a prophet to everybody. But he can't be, if what you say is true.

You lose your bet.

Oh? So Mohammed is just a prophet to Arabs. To everybody else, he has no validation? Have you checked that with your imam?

Muslims all learn Arabic to read the Quran,

They don't, actually. Most Muslims I've met would admit they've never really read the Koran at all...they just take the word of their leaders, and perform the required rituals. And vast numbers speak no Arabic. Would you say that nobody has to "submit" to Islam unless and until they can read fluently in Arabic?

But, to be blunt, I think no amount of appeal to the "original language" is going to save the Koran. To read it, even at a basic content level, is enough to show anybody that. In that sense, I really wish everybody would read the Koran, even though I'm loath to inflict it upon them. I think fewer people would believe it was special at all. It's pretty obviously not.

Of course. And some claim the translations of the Bible are "inspired".

Few would argue that. I certainly wouldn't.
...to think that Jesus "speaks to you" through an English translation of a book written in Greek 60 years after Jesus died is a bit of a stretch.

Not really. The Bible's not just been translated repeatedly into English, but into more languages than any book on Earth. And the message is basically the same. I know. I do translation myself, working from the Greek. The variations are actually quite paltry, and easy to reconcile.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John, 1. What does this mean?

Read more of John 1, particularly 14-18, but all of the rest, too, and the context will explain that very verse. I think you can actually figure it out quite easily.

I'll grant that I don't know the original Greek, but I see it as meaning that God and culture are one.

Well, it doesn't mean that. But with the context, you'll see.

[FlashDangerpants]

You guys are being silly. The •murder• IC refers to is quite clear. You are just being difficult.

Enough …

The dude had to fake Alzheimer's to get out of the difficulties he caused himself with basic clumsiness ...

[Harbal]

If Subjectivism were applied, you can't even require something of yourself.

Unless you have a court order, or something, I think you will find that I can carry on requiring whatever I like of myself.

Heh. You're not "requiring" anything of yourself at all. Your feelings might change in the next five minutes, and feelings are all you have. There's no external metric, you say, by which you can be judged to be moral, and the internal one is clearly highly variable.

You're getting your only guidance from your feelings

Yes, I realise that's the part you are finding difficult to understand.

Only because it's silly. Your feelings are ephemeral, as are all feelings.

To know whether you were experiencing a moral or immoral feeling, you would have to consult something that transcends your feelings, and, so to speak, judges them,

I certainly wouldn't go to the same consultant that you've been seeing.

So far as I can tell, you have none at all. But that's the great thing about objective morality...it's the same for everybody.

No it isn't. Religion based "objective" morality, such as yours, is a question of what religion you happen to belong to. If I were arguing with a Muslim, he wouldn't be telling me quite the same as you are, even though he would be representing the same God as you are. And then there are all those who believe in objective morality for some other reason, whose beliefs will sometimes coincide, and sometimes not. You think you have the real thing, but so do all those others.

[attofishpi]

No it isn't. Religion based "objective" morality, such as yours, is a question of what religion you happen to belong to.

I agree - also culture.

If I were arguing with a Muslim, he wouldn't be telling me quite the same as you are, even though he would be representing the same God as you are.

Actually Muslims don't have a God, they are atheists.

[attofishpi]

Am I missing anything that Islam would remove from BRITISH FREEDOMS? (in the Tommy thread)

BRITISH FREEDOMS - that Islam would remove
Bangers and mash (mostly bangers - pork sausages)
Eggs and Bacon for breakfast (mostly bacon)
Our LADIES being allowed to dress however they like (because we British gentleman don't rape them unlike Muslims that blame the way they dress)
Girls not being molested from age 0-8 and then forced to have sex with "men" at the age of 9.
Having a nice ale or two with friends
While having an ale or two, the freedom to talk about ANYTHING.
Beautiful Churches and Cathedrals - places of solace to contemplate what Christ did for us.
Children being allowed to play with dolls.
Christmas - and all the beautiful decorations throughout our cities to brighten up dark winter days.
Music in schools.
The ability to vote for those with power within our goverment. (democracy)


..there are probably loads more, clearly I am not aware of ALL the stupidity that Islam demands.

[commonsense]

They're not rape abortions, or incest abortions, or anything of that kind. Less than 1% are those. So if you will begin by agreeing with me that 99% of abortions are immoral, I'll answer your question for you.

You haven't told him why you think they are immoral, so how does he know what he is being asked to agree with?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Ugh sorry … these topics are too big to get into here. Nondualism is a whole different world, and yet it's the same world. Did you know that you probably also were a nondualist once, for a short time, in very early childhood, before it got overwritten..

I do not believe I have a problem imaging a non-dual perspective. And I was thinking about what that position, your position, would entail for the life you live, the definition of values et cetera.

As I said earlier my •religious conversion• (such as it is) developed through my view that I had to realize (make real) my commitment to Europe through re-emersion in its categories. Now I feel I have a better platform through with to relate to •our culture• and definitely our civilization.

“Too big”? What are you talking about?

[Alexiev]

Actually, the majority of the gospel writers were contemporaries. It's not an oral tradition, but a written one. And written words stay where you put them...unless you put them on a computer, of course.

Scholars debate who actually wrote the gospels. Matthew and John were apostles, but there is no evidence of written versions of their gospels until 100 years after Jesus' death. I won't bother with linking articles about this, because there are dozens of them, easily found. In addition, there are non-canonical gospels, which may have been written by (or derived from) close associates of Jesus. The decision about which gospels to accept was made in 382 (Council of Rome) or, for the Orthodox Church, 692 (Council of Trullan). So faith in the biographies of Jesus differs from faith in Jesus. It requires acceptance of the human judgement of the Four Evangelists, of the actual writers who either copied written versions or transcribed oral traditions, and of the Church which canonized the four gospels.

They don't, actually. Most Muslims I've met would admit they've never really read the Koran at all...they just take the word of their leaders, and perform the required rituals. And vast numbers speak no Arabic. Would you say that nobody has to "submit" to Islam unless and until they can read fluently in Arabic?

Doubtless. And most Christians have never read the entire Bible. Neither have I (although I've read most of it).

Read more of John 1, particularly 14-18, but all of the rest, too, and the context will explain that very verse. I think you can actually figure it out quite easily.

As I explained, I have figured it out. My point was that there are many ways to interpret Bible passages. The context does not make the meaning of the first sentence indisputably clear. "The Word became flesh..." is unclear. How can words become flesh? Perhaps it means that one person (Jesus) embodied the cultural traditions metaphorically described as "the word". Also, the Greek "logos" is translated as "word". So the more accurate (although less poetic) translation might be "The divine order of logic and reason became flesh." That may change the meaning, but the meaning is still unclear. (Personally, I like "word" better. Who cares about the accuracy of translation? But the passage demonstrates that there are difficulties in translation that cannot be easily overcome.)

[Atla]

Ugh sorry … these topics are too big to get into here. Nondualism is a whole different world, and yet it's the same world. Did you know that you probably also were a nondualist once, for a short time, in very early childhood, before it got overwritten..

I do not believe I have a problem imaging a non-dual perspective. And I was thinking about what that position, your position, would entail for the life you live, the definition of values et cetera.

As I said earlier my •religious conversion• (such as it is) developed through my view that I had to realize (make real) my commitment to Europe through re-emersion in its categories. Now I feel I have a better platform through with to relate to •our culture• and definitely our civilization.

“Too big”? What are you talking about?

One can't just choose to "imagine" the nondual perspective. I've never seen that happen before. Nondualism isn't really about values, it's more like a general transformation of consciousness. I'd say the process takes about 1-2 years and you get transformed (back) in a way you didn't see coming.
Anyway that has little to do with objective and subjective morality, and evidences for them. I just said that nondualism is a third way in addition to the experience of ecstatic mysticism and the experience of established theleological ways of life. (Plus nondualism is fact unless proven otherwise.)

[Alexis Jacobi]

No it isn't. Religion based "objective" morality, such as yours, is a question of what religion you happen to belong to. If I were arguing with a Muslim, he wouldn't be telling me quite the same as you are, even though he would be representing the same God as you are. And then there are all those who believe in objective morality for some other reason, whose beliefs will sometimes coincide, and sometimes not. You think you have the real thing, but so do all those others.

No, in reality an Objective Morality is conceived at philosophical levels and through philosophical processes. It is •inevitable• in this sense. The problem is that those values are defined in a thought-realm where all is perfectly ordered and balanced.

And the application of absolute moral rules is always difficult and problematic within our chaotic, shifting, mutable circumstances. And then the problem of our divided will and our unwillingness. And what about those situations where standing for a value will cost us our life?

Ethical and moral systems are enough similar (over the Earth) to be amenable to clarification through, say, a council of intellects. But you-alls real problem, the base problem and stumbling block, is simply Christian valuation which is one element of your-plural general hatred of Christianity. Your-plural reactions always seen to have a psychological element which (it seems to me) you refuse to examine.

However, really genuine Christian and Catholic values — to actually live them (I read a lot of traditional materials like the Baltimore Catechism) — is tremendously difficult. And in out Post-Sixties world, that world in which we are immersed, we are rebels from the hard demands of an ethical and moral system that we generally have failed.

In those conditions — a falling away from a tangible link with Spirit (yes a real thing) — and lost in the self-centeredness of our own wills, we degenerate. Our relationships degenerate. Our communities degenerate. Actually our minds degenerate.

Spirit & Logos need to be seen together. The loss of the two results in the falling away (degeneration) I refer to.

Harbal: you cannot even identify the topic nor what is really of value and at stake. You are circling around it though. Your own rambling ambling processes seem to lead you to decisive positions and their concomitant statements.

To say that each God is the same God requires examination. First, we intellectually assume One God (if we roll that way) but it is the man who conceives God who imagines that God through the filter of his own self.

The Islamic and the Christian god-concepts, and the vastly different ethical and political productions of each religious system, cannot be compared. Except by a sophomoric mind.

The more that you understand the depth and breadth of Christian thought, the less comparable it is to any other religio-cultural system on our planet. At least that has been my resolved conclusion.

Within Greco-Christianity with a notable Aristotelian intellectual force that powers it, Objective Morals are necessary and self-imposed by men who value their manhood, their manliness. It is harder that way. And we should not shy away from what is difficult and demanding.

C’mon girls — you softened sentimental Uranians. Put away those embarrassing intellectual self-pleasure devices and recover your self respect.

[Harbal]

Harbal: you cannot even identify the topic nor what is really of value and at stake.

If you are as passionate as you say about all this religious malarkey, how come you don't spend more time in church, and less time droning on about it here?

[Immanuel Can]

But that's the great thing about objective morality...it's the same for everybody.

No it isn't. Religion based "objective" morality, such as yours, is a question of what religion you happen to belong to. If I were arguing with a Muslim, he wouldn't be telling me quite the same as you are, even though he would be representing the same God as you are.

Right. And one of us would be right, and one would be wrong, with regard to what the objective morality is. Or, plausibly, we'd both be wrong, and the Hindu would be right, or somebody else would be...and everybody else would be wrong.

But it must be obvious that that changes nothing about the existence of objective morality. It would only mean that it's possible to be wrong about what the true, objective morality requires of one. And that's a trivial and easy observation. One only has to know the Law of Non-Contradiction to see that that's bound to be true. And one only has to observe the contradictions among moral systems to know it's inevitable.

You think you have the real thing, but so do all those others.

Somebody will be right, and somebodies will be wrong.

And actually, you agree with this. For do you not say that I am "wrong" about there being an objective morality? If so, you must suppose that the Muslim, the Hindu and the Christian are all wrong, and you're right.

So you and I, and the Hindu and the Muslim, are not actually disagreeing about objective truth, which in this case, is also about the existence of objective morality; we're just disagreeing about who's objectively right.

[Immanuel Can]

You guys are being silly. The •murder• IC refers to is quite clear. You are just being difficult.

Enough …

The dude had to fake Alzheimer's to get out of the difficulties he caused himself with basic clumsiness ...

Joe Biden is here?

[Harbal]

But that's the great thing about objective morality...it's the same for everybody.

No it isn't. Religion based "objective" morality, such as yours, is a question of what religion you happen to belong to. If I were arguing with a Muslim, he wouldn't be telling me quite the same as you are, even though he would be representing the same God as you are.

Right. And one of us would be right, and one would be wrong, with regard to what the objective morality is. Or, plausibly, we'd both be wrong, and the Hindu would be right, or somebody else would be...and everybody else would be wrong.

But it must be obvious that that changes nothing about the existence of objective morality.

Yes, I didn't believe there was such a thing before, and I still don't.

You think you have the real thing, but so do all those others.

Somebody will be right, and somebodies will be wrong.

And actually, you agree with this. For do you not say that I am "wrong" about there being an objective morality? If so, you must suppose that the Muslim, the Hindu and the Christian are all wrong, and you're right.

I don't believe there is such a thing as objective moral truth, so whoever claims to have it, I must inevitably think they are wrong.

So you and I, and the Hindu and the Muslim, are not actually disagreeing about objective truth, which in this case, is also about the existence of objective morality; we're just disagreeing about who's objectively right.

I'm not sure how you've arrived at that conclusion, but if that's how you want to think of it, I don't object.

[Immanuel Can]

Actually, the majority of the gospel writers were contemporaries. It's not an oral tradition, but a written one. And written words stay where you put them...unless you put them on a computer, of course.

Scholars debate who actually wrote the gospels.

The most current ones don't. In fact, Gary Habermas has just written a book describing how we can trace the originals to very early days after Christ's resurrection, long before the Nicean Counsel or Constantine, or whatever. You're channelling old, debunked arguments there, I'm afraid.

But I'm not surprised. The skeptical literature never manages to keep up with scholarship, because its project aims at dismissing, not confirming; so they get real happy when they think they've got something, and then are reluctant to let it go when they lose it.

Another interesting fact: most of the early witness and apostles died horribly for their faith. If they had been perpetrating a fraud, they would have had every reason to recant rather than to suffer torture and death. But they didn't back down. Even in a court of law today, such a dying declaration would carry incredible force.

They don't, actually. Most Muslims I've met would admit they've never really read the Koran at all...they just take the word of their leaders, and perform the required rituals. And vast numbers speak no Arabic. Would you say that nobody has to "submit" to Islam unless and until they can read fluently in Arabic?

Doubtless.

Which "doubtless"? "Doubtless" most Muslims don't read the Koran in Arabic? Or "doubtless" nobody has to submit to Islam, unless they're Arabic scholars? I would say that both are true. It cannot be otherwise, if, as the imams insist, the credentials of Mohammed are hung on the Koran, and the Koran is unperceivable as an attesting miracle by everybody but educated Arabs.

And most Christians have never read the entire Bible.

Sadly, that's true. Fortunately, for the present moment, you're not talking to one of those.

Read more of John 1, particularly 14-18, but all of the rest, too, and the context will explain that very verse. I think you can actually figure it out quite easily.

As I explained, I have figured it out.

Then why did you get it so manifestly wrong? Didn't you actually read the context of the chapter itself?

My point was that there are many ways to interpret Bible passages.

There are a few obscure passages that remain, but none that are related to a single major doctrine. Biblical scholars, you will find, are pretty much reconciled on what the text says; the remaining conflicts tend to be over whether or not what it says are true. And that's the difference between the skeptics and the believers -- not serious differences about what it says, but of how to apply what we can see it says.

The context does not make the meaning of the first sentence indisputably clear.

It does a heck of a lot, actually. It tells you, for example, that "The Word" refers to a Person, and who that Person is, and what He came to do, and why He's the Word of God, and how to come to know Him, and a whole lot more.

Perhaps it means that one person (Jesus) embodied the cultural traditions metaphorically described as "the word".

You will never find Jesus Christ explicated as any metaphor for "culture." He was, in fact, a thoroughly counter-cultural person, if you know Pharisaic Judaism, which was the dominant culture of First Century Judea.

Also, the Greek "logos" is translated as "word". So the more accurate (although less poetic) translation might be "The divine order of logic and reason became flesh." [/quote] Now you're starting to realize he polyvocality of Scripture. It's really quite incredible, actually: Christ is, in this passage, not only identified as the Communication Medium of God-manifest-in-flesh, but also the Ultimate Utterance of God, the Center of the Reasonableness of God, and the embodied Meaning of the World. Rather than changing or contradicting the concept "Word," it explodes it outward with radiance of implication...with no contradiction at all.

Fantastic writing, that.