Every time you mention its “in your head” or find “comforting” problematic you are into interpretations that could only be considered psychoanalytic. Be that as it may, what I think of as soul is radically different from how you seem to interpret the word. You are still comparing progressive ideas, which are not to be localized as mine only, with outmoded fundamentalist takes on the subject. In every post you show an unwillingness to understand progressive Christianity, mainly by considering it only my ideas or ideas “in my head”. Progressive Christianity can lead to “surcease of suffering” in the here and now. It involves a radical change in thinking that no longer relies on paternalism, slavery, misogyny., etc., etc. It offers a future based on what is best about humans, not a continuation of the worst.
I’m not clear what this has to do with my point that…
[b]There either is a God or there is not. This God either judges our behaviors or He does not. If He does, there either is a connection between the behaviors we choose here and now and our fate there and then or there is not.
And [re this thread] your new and improved rendition of God in relationship to peace on Earth is either closer to the truth than the old renditions or it is not.[/b]
We think and feel things about God in our heads. They either comfort us or not. This is a manifestation of human psychology embedded biologically in the evolution of life on Earth itself. But what doesn’t change is the extent to which what we do think and feel about God, we are able to demonstrate to others. Otherwise we’re back to merely having had personal experiences which prompt some to think and feel what they do. End of discussion.
For example…
Your experiences have led you to think about the soul as you do. Same with me. Same with the fundamentalists and all the major religious denominations around the globe.
Right?
All I can then come back to is the fact that, with immortality and salvation on the line in the old narratives, getting the soul right would seem to be of crucial importance. In my view you have offered nothing – nothing substantive – beyond your own personal experiences and the arguments of the progressives that might persuade others with very different experiences and access to very different arguments to understand God as you do.
And your understanding of God either gives you comfort regarding immortality and salvation or it doesn’t.
So you say. But all I can say in turn will only be in sync with my own personal experiences and the arguments that I have had access to. Therefore, there has to be a way [in a philosophy forum], to go beyond that such that we are to persuade others that we have ways to actually demonstrate that how we think is how they ought to think too.
For the last time, my opinions about God, are not simply mine, so I resent the use of the word my as if these ideas did not belong to anyone else. That I accept these ideas does not make them mine alone. The Universalist Unitarian Church, an old institution, has espoused such ideas for centuries. There are books and podcasts on the net that show a vast movement of Progressive Christianity. The fundamentalists are not more, they are simply louder. So I am wasting my time trying to convince you of anything other than “What’s in your head”, as if that contains all feeling experience. AT=one-ment or holiness (being Whole) are experienced without words. Of course you can always rely on your mantram "In your head’ to avoid considering anything that cannot fit into your definition of reason, as long as we are talking about personal beliefs. I thought this was a forum for religious and spiritual considerations, not a philosophy forum per se., an excuse you use to deny experiential matters as valid. So, if there is no logical belief, there can be no belief worthy of comment. Can you realize what undue limitations you place on your own ability to think?
Back to the front. How do you interpret the following koan:
“If you see the Buddha sitting at the side of the road, kill him.”
Ierrellus wrote
Ah, how beautiful is the Robin’s red breast in the early morning light.
I know. Having lost my faith in the old Christian narrative in Vietnam, my friend Carol Mays convinced me to give the Unitarian Church right here in Baltimore a chance. But these folks, as truly special as they were, were no more able to assuage my doubts about God. Not given the world that we actually live in. Again, the only argument that ever made any sense at all to me here was Harold Kushner’s. At least to the extent God is actually thought to be a benevolent force in our lives.
Over and again you point this out. Lots of others think like you do. As though, what, that’s a substitute for actually responding to the points I raise?
All you are pointing out here is the obvious: that all of us have accumulated thoughts and feelings in our heads. But what never changes is this: that to the extent we do acquire an ability to think, we are either able to demonstrate to others why we think what we do or we are not.
Whether it’s related to discussions of gardening or parenting or repairing cars or the relationship between peace on Earth and faith/belief in God.
That’s the part in my view that you avoid like the plague. Instead, you are content to point out that in a religious forum in a philosophy venue personal experiences and self-serving arguments are just as acceptable.
Okay, carry on. I simply disagree. Personal experiences and circular, self-serving arguments that go around and around in circles, don’t work for me. At least not any more.
And here we’re just stuck.
the ‘problem of evil’ in theology has been poised by many different philosophers, and each of them have their own particular excuses for it… following some complicated line of reasoning or other. but one thing that seems to stick out in all of them is this notion that there is a dialectic at work in our evolution which requires the existence of such ‘evil’ in order for there to be progress. now this would only make sense to us if we were able to imagine our reality as a kind of ‘stage’ in some ongoing process… later stages which would then justify and excuse the horror we experienced during this stage. but the further you delve into these theological ‘systems of explanation’, the greater the number of dubious theoretical claims result. finally you’re into a hypothetical thought model so complex you can’t tell forward from backward and you just drop the whole thing. but everyone knows the basic gist of the idea: somehow an omnipotent god has created creatures with freewill who are supposed to use it to partake in this progression of becoming as they pass through the dialectical stages. hegel liked to think of this moving toward an absolute final state of pure ‘spirit’, whatever that means. but something like that might happen in the distant future when we’ve completely interfaced with computers. some kind of quantum machine that produces eternal dream like states of consciousness without any need of a physical substratum.
could this be what hegel meant but didn’t know? dude was a character. it’s reported that one time he went to give a lecture, and a student noticed he had forgotten to put on both shoes. that’s when you know you have a serious thinker; when the nigga forgets to put both shoes on in a rush to get to university.
While I cannot believe in an absolute final stage of human development, I’m open to the idea that we could have evolved to a certain peak of intelligence that is beset by periods of devolution, a sort of step backward for each step forward; and, as Alice noted, “I takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place.” The twentieth century’s excellence in technology was not met by an excellence of spirit. So we get the forecast of a final end that is us destroying the ecosytems we need in order to survive. Ignorance of our connection to Nature may be our downfall.
“All we are saying is give peace a chance.”–JL
Postmodern ethical relativism will not do it.
Sure, let’s add this to the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of sheer speculations that have been promoted regarding one or another possible future for the human race.
That way we can just assume that our own sheer conjectures about God fit into that perfectly.
And, fortunately, believing it “in our head” is all it takes to make it true. To sustain, among other things, peace of mind.
“God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I’ll say it again
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don’t believe in magic
I don’t believe in I-Ching
I don’t believe in Bible
I don’t believe in tarot
I don’t believe in Hitler
I don’t believe in Jesus
I don’t believe in Kennedy
I don’t believe in Buddha
I don’t believe in mantra
I don’t believe in Gita
I don’t believe in yoga
I don’t believe in kings
I don’t believe in Elvis
I don’t believe in Zimmerman
I don’t believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that’s reality
The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dream weaver
But now I’m reborn
I was the Walrus
But now I’m John
And so dear friends
You just have to carry on
The dream is over” JL
In other words, from my frame of mind, Lennon’s own trajectory here is not all that far removed from my own. He situated “I” in the peace movement politically. As I once did myself. Then, given his actual experiences, the narrative collapsed for him. As did my own idealism.
Now there were just the two of them. John and Yoko. I merely took the narrative further. Over time [back then] I began to see John and Yoko and myself more and more as existential contraptions rooted in dasein. At least insofar as value judgments were concerned out in the is/ought world.
As for “postmodern ethical relativism”, it’s not a question of it “doing it” for me. Instead, in my view, it revolves far more around the actual fact that the global economy [and thus our lives] is owned and operated by men and women – the “show me the money” nihilists by and large – who are far less interested in intertwining God and peace on earth, and far more interested in profiting on one or another ghastly human conflict.
Then it becomes a question of the extent to which your own understanding of God fits into all of that.
Would you be willing to tell us?
“God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I’ll say it again
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don’t believe in magic
I don’t believe in I-Ching
I don’t believe in Bible
I don’t believe in tarot
I don’t believe in Hitler
I don’t believe in Jesus
I don’t believe in Kennedy
I don’t believe in Buddha
I don’t believe in mantra
I don’t believe in Gita
I don’t believe in yoga
I don’t believe in kings
I don’t believe in Elvis
I don’t believe in Zimmerman
I don’t believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that’s reality
The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dream weaver
But now I’m reborn
I was the Walrus
But now I’m John
And so dear friends
You just have to carry on
The dream is over” JL
In other words, from my frame of mind, Lennon’s own trajectory here is not all that far removed from my own. He situated “I” in the peace movement politically. As I once did myself. Then, given his actual experiences, the narrative collapsed for him. As did my own idealism.
Now there were just the two of them. John and Yoko. I merely took the narrative further. Over time [back then] I began to see John and Yoko and myself more and more as existential contraptions rooted in dasein. At least insofar as value judgments were concerned out in the is/ought world.
As for “postmodern ethical relativism”, it’s not a question of it “doing it” for me. Instead, in my view, it revolves far more around the actual fact that the global economy [and thus our lives] is owned and operated by men and women – the “show me the money” nihilists by and large – who are far less interested in intertwining God and peace on earth, and far more interested in profiting on one or another ghastly human conflict.
Then it becomes a question of the extent to which your own understanding of God fits into all of that.
Would you be willing to tell us?[/quote
Why should I try to tell you anything? Your nihilism denies all sensible response. I will not set hope up to be mocked.
Ierrellus,
Do you feel that there are ever times when hope needs to be mocked?
No, it suggests only that what makes sense to us about God and peace on earth “in our head” is either able to be demonstrated to others or it is not. And it suggests further that if what makes sense to you is based on 1] personal experiences I cannot possibly be privy to and 2] general description arguments that go around and around in circles, then this clearly works for you to sustain access to a far greater measure of comfort and consolation than I have.
And, in my view, with immortality and salvation alone at stake, the only thing that can mock hope here is when it is poorly defended.
Still, that in itself is no more than my very own profoundly problematic conjecture rooted existentially in dasein. It’s not like I myself can demonstrate to others that they should think the same.
It depends on what the hope is for. My hope is that Christianity can evolve along the lines expressed by Bishop Spong, i.e,. to divest itself of supernatural explanations for natural needs.
"The difficulties of the anti-theists begin when they try to engage with anyone who does not agree with them, when their reaction is often a frustrated rage that the rest of us are so stupid. But what if that is not the problem? Their refusal to accept that others might be as intelligent as they, yet disagree ,leads them into many snares. (2010) Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher.
So, Iambiguous, you espouse a hopeless philosophy of nihilism and dismiss all attempts to think otherwise.
To parody Blake–the philosopher never lost so much time as when he stopped to learn from the psychologist.
Immortality is not my goal, not what I hope for, not what drives my energy forward.
As Arc neatly observed, “Saved from what?”
Iambiguous,
Was your JL quote made before or after “Imagine”?
Yes, you are perfectly free to claim this is an accurate portrayal of the arguments I pose above. That way [as with KT and others], the problem becomes me far more than the points I raise.
The problem, in other words, is reduced down to my own frustrated rage at the fact that others are too stupid to agree with me.
And, sure, if others [for their own reasons] choose to agree, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. Other than to discuss and debate it with them.
I can only keep making my points and perusing the reactions they engender. And I am always the first to acknowledge I am no more able to demonstrate to others that my own views on God and religion are the right ones than they are to me.
All I can do is to focus the beam on the actual existential relationship between those who do believe in God as that relates to how they connect the dots between the behaviors they choose on this side of the grave and their imagined fate on the other side.
I dare them to go there. Why? Because that way their general description assumptions about human interactions and God can’t devolve into assumptions like you make: that progressive Christians have a more pertinent understanding of God than those who still embrace the old narratives.
Well, as long as you basically insist this is true merely because you believe that it is. And not because believing it comforts and consoles you in a world that is bursting at seams with reasons to need comfort and consolation.
As for nihilism, it certainly can sustain a sense of hopelessness. No doubt about it. At least if what you hope for is immortality and salvation. On the other hand, it can also be liberating. In the sense that if you don’t believe in either God or objective morality your behavior options increase dramatically.
And I never dismiss attempts to think otherwise. After all, what could possibly be more crucial to me than someone able to convince me that human existence is not essentially meaningless and that my “I” will not topple over into the abyss that is nothingness for all of eternity.
Okay, but your rendition of God either encompasses immortality or it does not. How any particular individual reacts to it is another thing altogether. So, do progressive Christians believe in an afterlife or don’t they?
Well, saved from the obliteration of “I” for all time to come. Or, in regard to the far, far, far more numerous adherents of the old narratives, saved from Hell itself.
Given that “God” was on his first solo album and “imagine” on a later one, before.
But all that denotes [to me] is at that at one point in his life a set of experiences prompted him politically to embrace peace on Earth. Then another set of experiences prompted him to become more disillusioned and cynical. To record “God”. Then a new set of experiences prompted him to become more optimistic and record “imagine”.
But that’s my point, isn’t it? “I” being largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein rooted in the life that one lives.
So, when he asked us to imagine there was no religion, would he be more or less in sync with your own frame of mind? And, more to the point, is there a way for philosophers [among others] to determine what one ought to imagine here?
“Tom Krattenmaker is part of a growing conversation that acknowledges–and seeks to address-- the abiding need for meaning and inspiration in post-religious America.” (Jacket blurb on author Krattenmaker’s “Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower” 2016.)
“growing conversation” and" post-religious America" are the key words here, describing a movement that is well underway and opposed to the old religious narratives. Krattenmaker does not believe in God; neither does he believe Jesus is God. He does not believe in the traditional concepts of heaven and hell. He does not oppose atheists or evangelicals. Instead, he offers a way of thinking about Jesus that could benefit secular minded individuals.
I am skittish about posting anything here because of your adamant philosophical mindset. Probably at the bottom of my bucket list is oblivion. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, but long for a better world here for my children than the one I now experience. I really don’t need to hear more postmodern garbage about conflicting goods or existential problems. I went through all that when I was a young man.