Re: Christianity
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:37 pm
If Morocco can beat Spain anything is possible here. Don't give up on yourselves!
For the discussion of all things philosophical, especially articles in the magazine Philosophy Now.
https://forum.philosophynow.org/
Sadly, this is true. I'm glad it's understood. I continue, in the meantime, to read and consider.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:44 pm Note that, as is typical of Harry, his energy flags. Understandable.
You can explain to me the merits of yours and Bowden's white nationalist philosophy until the cows come home.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm Race is real and, to all intents and purposes, everywhere and among all people, race is relevant and sometimes highly so. You can propose an idealism, you can try to get people to see it that way, but my personal opinion is that you will fail. I will suggest, politely, that your non-racialist view is abnormal and not morally right. But I'd have to explain more for you, at least, to understand what I mean by that.
That is a misinterpretation of my stance. Did you not see this post - viewtopic.php?p=610267#p610267 - where I clearly stated that all "evil" is, or ever was, is "low consciousness" and the actions resulting from it.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm And if you hold your particular ideal as a moral imperative, and the moral high ground, and present your view as the more elevated one, you will simultaneously say to those other people who (honestly) think and see differently, that there is something wrong with them. That they are immoral and, finally, 'evil'.
Sure, and so can yours.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm So -- and this is really just a starting statement -- while I accept, on some levels, that there is some truth in some of what you propose, I also think your position can be critiqued morally....
Again, the same applies to your views.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm ...Though you see your views as truly of borne of some divine dispensation I am afraid that I see your views as having defective elements....
Yes, I can accept what you are saying, but only if you can accept the possibility that what you are saying could be completely wrong and is a product of not being able to fully apprehend the implications of the following statement I made to you earlier,...
...which is not only an allusion to where we are positioned on the ascending ladder of consciousness in this universe, but also to humanity's utter foolishness in thinking that we occupy the top rung of the ladder.
I have no desire to "preside" over anything, for I'll be long dead before any of my "new paradigm" hopes for the world will be (if ever) achieved. Especially when there are people like you who, even though you obviously have a good heart and good intentions, are nonetheless hellbent on making sure that humanity stays forever divided by reason of race and national ideologies.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm ...Because idealists like you, and mega-ultra idealists like you act in this world like you are God's righteous children. You know the score. You are carrying *humanity* forward, often against its own inclinations, to the New Dawn that you will preside over in one way or another.
Yes, with metaphysical ignorance - resulting from low consciousness - being the primary source of those allegedly "decent" reasons.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm But the world simply does not want to go along and it has numerous decent reasons why.
I take that as a compliment and, hopefully, so does Harry.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm It does not surprise me of course that your views concord with those of Harry -- another extreme idealist. You could be said to be, in some senses, birds of a feather or people cut from the same cloth.
Yes, we must always try to maintain "good will," even in the heat of contentious disagreements.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm Again these are preliminary statements. None of this is simple, none of this is resolved without moving through a good deal of complexity. That takes time, energy and as always good-will.
So, they were telling the truth before, and now they're not?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:37 pmTheir own.Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:17 pm'Legacy news media' in comparison to what great representation of truth?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:46 pm the legacy news media have so blatantly reversed themselves.
Again, let's think about this. Here is the author...just like the rest of us. An infinitesimally tiny speck of existence so utterly, utterly minute in the simply immense vastness of all there is...asserting that the universe must have a transcendent cause.Why did the universe come into being? What brought the universe into existence? There must have been a transcendent cause which brought the universe into being – a cause outside the universe itself.
And thus philosophically God is deduced into existence. Immanuel Can merely takes this "logic" further by deducing the Christian God into existence. In other words, not your God if you are not a Christian.We can summarize this argument thus far as follows:
1. The universe began to exist.
2. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause.
3. Therefore, the universe has a transcendent cause.
I figured mathematics would come to factor into this somehow.By the very nature of the case, that cause of the physical universe must be an immaterial (i.e., non-physical) being. Now there are only two types of things that could possibly fit that description: either an abstract object like a number, or an unembodied mind/consciousness. But abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations to physical things. The number 7, for example, has no effect on anything. Therefore the cause of the universe is an unembodied mind. Thus again we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its Personal Creator.
It is here that I recommend *lingering*. That is, hovering over an issue, examining it from different angles, as well as understanding that different people have different ideas and everyone who builds a case for their ideas generally speaking has a sound set of reasons. I can of course only speak from my own position. What is that? It is the position I have gained by resolving to examine, in detail, a range of positions (political, spiritual, religious, social, cultural) that I'd not been familiar with and indeed rejected because they did not sound right or seemed 'immoral'. Having spent more than 10 years doing just that I now have perspectives that I would not have had. I am glad that I can see things from perspectives I'd have considered radical or even lunatic at other times (I do not necessarily see them as lunatic now but I might still see them as radical) but it does not help me to have conclusive opinions or positions from which I can construct an activist's platform.
So as I often say, if we are to understand where we are, what we have become, where we are situated within a social philosophy, and what general attitudes we now have, and if we are to carry on like philosophers not as activists (of specific positions) we have to willing to examine causation: the causal chains. And therefore it is valid to examine 'social engineering' of all sorts and this in respect to a 'present that has been (significantly) engineered 'by men we never see'. So here I refer to Bernays who wrote in Propaganda (1928):deviance: he condition of being abnormal: aberrance, aberrancy, aberration, abnormality, anomaly, deviancy, deviation, irregularity, preternaturalness, unnaturalness.
Are you with me here? I am not making statements about what is right or wrong or about what is good or bad, and I skirt the issue of social activism, and I am simply setting the stage so that the reality of social manipulation and engineering can be examined philosophically. I may have opinions and biases (I do not conceal that I do) but I can at least broach a topic from a more or less neutral position, as should be done, to then be able to examine it more carefully.“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
So what is it that I am trying to draw to your attention here? Let me speak fairly but also truthfully and directly. We are dealing with a literal cultural movement the purpose of which was to normalize what is considered, or had been considered, to be sexual deviancy. What is the core method or technique? The transvaluation of values. To go to work on an established social value presented as a *good* ("homosexuality is not desired or welcome and is bad") and to use PR techniques and psychological manipulation techniques proper to public relations and propaganda to *engineer* the view that it is the deviancy which is, in fact, the good, and the one who opposes it in fact that bad.In Dover's strict dichotomy, the erastês (ἐραστής, plural erastai) is the older sexual actor, seen as the active or dominant participant, with the suffix -tês (-τής) denoting agency. Erastês should be distinguished from Greek paiderastês, which meant "lover of boys" usually with a negative connotation. The Greek word paiderastia (παιδεραστία) is an abstract noun. It is formed from paiderastês, which in turn is a compound of pais ("child", plural paides) and erastês (see below). Although the word pais can refer to a child of either sex, paiderastia is defined by Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon as "the love of boys", and the verb paiderasteuein as "to be a lover of boys". The erastês himself might only be in his early twenties, and thus the age difference between the two males who engage in sexual activity might be negligible.
It is one thing, obviously, to work to alter social attitudes toward homosexuality or, let's say, to make life easier for those who are homosexual and simply want to *carry on*. But it is really quite another thing when the sexual field becomes the object of tremendous and sustained engineering efforts for a range of different purposes. What are we to say of where things have evolved from 30-odd years ago? Do I have to point out *the causal chain* I mentioned earlier?The spectacular success of the homosexual movement stands as one of the most fascinating phenomena of our time. In less than two decades, homosexuality has moved from "the love that dares not speak its name," to the center of America's public life. The homosexual agenda has advanced even more quickly than its most ardent proponents had expected, and social change of this magnitude demands some explanation.
A partial explanation of the homosexual movement's success can be traced to the 1989 publication of After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. Published with little fanfare, this book became the authoritative public relations manual for the homosexual agenda, and its authors presented the book as a distillation of public relations advice for the homosexual community. A look back at its pages is an occasion for understanding just how successful their plan was.
I do grasp your 'you people are on the low-consciousness scale argument'. I think you are avoiding the implication of it.seeds wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 5:59 amThat is a misinterpretation of my stance. Did you not see this post - viewtopic.php?p=610267#p610267 - where I clearly stated that all "evil" is, or ever was, is "low consciousness" and the actions resulting from it.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:30 pm And if you hold your particular ideal as a moral imperative, and the moral high ground, and present your view as the more elevated one, you will simultaneously say to those other people who (honestly) think and see differently, that there is something wrong with them. That they are immoral and, finally, 'evil'.
So, no, I'm not saying to those "other people" that they are inherently evil. I am merely suggesting that they are functioning at a level of consciousness that prevents them from realizing that their actions can be construed as being evil when viewed from a slightly higher level of consciousness.
I've even created some illustrations to drive that point home; illustrations that represent my own version of the "Great Chain of Being" that we discussed earlier.
They are illustrations that not only suggest that there are vast differences in degrees of consciousness and capabilities between the varying rungs of what I call the "ascending ladder of consciousness" in this universe...
It's not arbitrary, on his part: it's rationally inescapable.iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 3:33 pm Does God Exist?
William Lane Craig says there are good reasons for thinking that He does.
Again, let's think about this. Here is the author...just like the rest of us. An infinitesimally tiny speck of existence so utterly, utterly minute in the simply immense vastness of all there is...asserting that the universe must have a transcendent cause.Why did the universe come into being? What brought the universe into existence? There must have been a transcendent cause which brought the universe into being – a cause outside the universe itself.
Did you watch any? They're not just "videos." Each one presents an argument.Or, here, Immanual Can's "proof" that the Christian God must exist because it says so in the Bible and the Bible must be true because it is the Word of God. Well, and the videos, of course.
You'd better say what you mean by "transcendent," if this is going to hold as a fair representation of the argument. It's evident from the earlier, that you aren't sure.We can summarize this argument thus far as follows:
1. The universe began to exist.
2. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause.
3. Therefore, the universe has a transcendent cause.
There you go: that's the problem with the explanation you might try to offer, suggesting a "transcendent-but-not-intelligent" cause for the universe's existence.By the very nature of the case, that cause of the physical universe must be an immaterial (i.e., non-physical) being. Now there are only two types of things that could possibly fit that description: either an abstract object like a number, or an unembodied mind/consciousness. But abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations to physical things. The number 7, for example, has no effect on anything. Therefore the cause of the universe is an unembodied mind. Thus again we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its Personal Creator.
It does. It makes the argument a slam-dunk, actually.I figured mathematics would come to factor into this somehow.
Well pay attention then! Look at your diagram. Note the *eye*. Go into that eye and then ascend up up up & further up until you enter a domain of blinding light. There, can't you see? Accustom your spiritual eyes. There I am like a gossamer filament flitting about. I descend here as an act of Grace though it is spiritually painful for me. Try to show just a bit of appreciation!
First of all I do not have. *white nationalist ideology* (!) but I am aware that many different people, in many different lands, have a protective attitude about their culture, their cultural forms, their religious traditions, their history, and everything that they are. About those people and about their attitude (I might say) *race is real & race matters*.If I were to offer my own assessment of that question,...
...I would say that setting aside the fact that you are an eloquent wordsmith who believes that you can back up your white nationalist philosophy with, as you say "...solid reasonings, that *race is real and race matters*..."
When I spoke of entertaining ideas by people who are on the outside of 'allowed debate' and ideation it is people like Sunic, and many others, that I refer to.In this book Dr. Tomislav Sunic describes the origins and dynamics of America's founding myths. Quoting and translating from many long-forgotten or suppressed sources from the fields of literature, history, anthropology and philosophy, the book represents an interdisciplinary compendium dealing with the topic of Americanism. The genealogy of early Calvinist Puritanism mixed with the techno-scientific religion of boundless economic progress and legally veiled in the obscure para-Biblical and Jewish-inspired sense of political self-chosenness, created a system that has little in common with its original design. Postmodern Americanism, with its abstract theories of multiculturalism and its global desire for world improvement, turned America into a menacing and self-destructive continent that puts not only the survival of America's European heritage at risk, but threatens the heritage of other peoples worldwide as well.
On the contrary, in the OP of this thread -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382 -- I intertwine what dasein means to me philosophically into the very life that I have lived. Existentially. First in the God [Christian] World then in the No God [atheist] world.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:44 pm
What Iambiguous is revealing is, neither more nor less, exactly where he is situated when, as it happened, the reigning moral imperative imploded. And he goes on to assert that *this is in fact the true human situation and condition*. In other words he can find no alternative. So his effort is to *reveal and explain how things really are*. Thus the axial declaration that any 'moral position' and all ethics depend on dasein: a not-at-all-easy-to-grasp-set-of-complex-predicates-about-human-being-and-existence. It is not surprising that, in the course of Iambiguous' expositions the term is tossed in but never talked about except as a vague reference.
Right, a declarative definition that allows one to employ it in resolving the moral conflagrations that revolve around issues like abortion. As though defining abortion as a medical procedure and defining words that will allow us to declare that it is either moral or immoral is, what, interchangeable?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:44 pmIs there a way to reduce the term to some sort of simple, declarative definition? Iambiguous' use of it seems to roughly translate to "situational ethics that depend on the person, the moment, and the general situation, where each person, moment and situation is different and demands different decisions".
My point, however, is that sans an omniscient and omnipotent God, mere mortals don't seem to have access to a secular equivalent. A No God argument that does resolve the conflict.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:44 pmCuriously, he then plunges into a moral and ethical conflict fought over in our own day. He is unable to solve the issue. He sees *both sides* which nullify each other (according to his presentation). If there is no god there is no soul. If there is no soul then there cannot be conceived any special stance of protection offered by those born and alive to that soul involved in being a fetus which will, successively, develop into a full-fledged human being and take a place among the community of the living. Thus that embryo cannot be understood to have any particular or innate value or *right*.
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 5:58 pmOn the contrary, in the OP of this thread -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382 -- I intertwine what dasein means to me philosophically into the very life that I have lived. Existentially. First in the God [Christian] World then in the No God [atheist] world.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:44 pm
What Iambiguous is revealing is, neither more nor less, exactly where he is situated when, as it happened, the reigning moral imperative imploded. And he goes on to assert that *this is in fact the true human situation and condition*. In other words he can find no alternative. So his effort is to *reveal and explain how things really are*. Thus the axial declaration that any 'moral position' and all ethics depend on dasein: a not-at-all-easy-to-grasp-set-of-complex-predicates-about-human-being-and-existence. It is not surprising that, in the course of Iambiguous' expositions the term is tossed in but never talked about except as a vague reference.
Yes, I remember reading that. And that is why I recently wrote:7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
So, if I understand you right you object to my statement about a 'vague reference' but not to the general attempt at a fair description of where you stand?What Iambiguous is revealing is, neither more nor less, exactly where he is situated when, as it happened, the reigning moral imperative imploded. And he goes on to assert that *this is in fact the true human situation and condition*. In other words he can find no alternative. So his effort is to *reveal and explain how things really are*. Thus the axial declaration that any 'moral position' and all ethics depend on dasein: a not-at-all-easy-to-grasp-set-of-complex-predicates-about-human-being-and-existence. It is not surprising that, in the course of Iambiguous' expositions the term is tossed in but never talked about except as a vague reference.
So, the big deal for you is their lack of consistency?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 1:28 pmOr vice versa.
They stand condemned by their own account. They don't need my help.