THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST

[felix_dakat]

Yo, Omar–

— So, it’s taken a bit of work, to see that our opinions are not as divergent as they appeared. The denotative ideas of Luther may not have been revolutionary, but there connotative meaning or what they implied were and that includes his placement of the individual conscience above papal authority. Think about that as it relates to Henry VIII for example. As to your idea about other historic event changing Protestantism, I agree and of course in such matters, cause and effect can’t always be determined.
O- Above Papal authority, sure, but not raised as an authority itself. Scripture remained for Luther authority even above the conscience of the individual…he would not have condoned Jefferson’s Bible, edited as Jefferson, the individual, saw fit. Luther simply translated what he took as inspired by God and sacred. He raised the individual to the level of the Pope from the authority of the Bible, not his own authority, not on his say.

I think we agree here. The conscience was a proximal not ultimate authority. But, from the standpoint of authority centralized in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church Luther’s breakthrough opened the Pandora’s Box and out flew anarchy with Henry VII’s “great matter” as exhibit A.

— I don’t know what literal meaning he intended. The only common phrase for having someone else’s mind is figurative. It means you have their opinion on some issue. But Paul held that he lived in a state of mystical union with Christ. Is that what you mean by literal? It seems that literally to know what he meant you’d have to be in the same state.
O- As Jesus was in the Father and the Father was in Him, so too were they in Christ as the Christ was in them. They had the same idea. As Jesus knew the mind of God, so they knew the mind of Christ. Having the mind of Christ is knowing the mind of Christ. In a reasoned discourse, the only possible meaning must be figurative, but in reasoned discourse Jesus could not be God and the Trinity is unreasonable, absurd. Which means that it was a literal understanding from the context of faith, or irrational discourse.

That’s confusing. We agree it’s a trope. The question is a trope for what? All we can do is throw up more figures like “union with Christ”, “Spirit of Christ” etc. which you or I may or may not think we have an understanding. But the trope’s refer to a mystical experience which is literally ineffable. The tropes point to an experience to be entered into not something explainable. If it can’t be explained, it can’t be justified. So I think, as an argument, it’s off the table.

— Even if you were in the same state, how would you be certain that you were?
O- By faith of course.

You have faith that you have the mind of Christ. What makes you think so? Faith. How can you be certain? Faith. You have used faith three times to support a belief without rational explanation or support. That could be a triple-decker sandwich of faith or a prescription for an enigma wrapped in a delusion.

— In any case, references for spiritual matters are always figurative never literal.
O- Except when they are, as we see in the Nicean Creed.

Well no. The Nicene Creed uses plenty of tropes that have no literal meaning. The pictures you form in your mind of the symbols used there refer to spiritual realities or nothing.

— Only in extreme hypothetical situations like the brain in a vat or Descartes’ evil demon, or if the subject is dreaming is it usually a problem.
O- Though extreme, still possible and so, such possibility must condition what we are able to say about the mind in reasoned discourse. Irrationaly? Sure, it is taken for granted that “I” “reflect” “upon” “myself”.

I didn’t think it necessary to go there in this context.

— Quibbling about the metaphor you missed the meaning. My point was that doubts return.
O- I don’t doubt that doubt returns…heh, heh…but that it is the intention of the faithful that it should as a component of their faith. Rather it returns as a challenge, and challenger, to faith.

My point exactly. Doubt is present as a constant challenge to faith. When we achieve faith without doubt, we cross over into fanaticism where ironically the certainty of knowing renders faith unnecessary.

— But that’s an illustration of my point about the “Protestant Principle.”
O- But is it “protestant” at all? By whose definition? Obviously not by the original protestor. I think that based on what we have discussed so far you might as well relabel it as the “Revolutionary Principle”, thus removing it from the sphere of the religious movement started by Luther, and reduce the chance of a misunderstanding, because in Luther you will not find this Principle, so what is the use of a “Protestant Principle” if it is absent in “protestanism”?

I intend to start a thread on the protestant Principle. We can continue this discussion there if you like. If you aren’t interested I don’t know who would be. But in any case, I intend to post a thread on it tomorrow.

[omar]

Hello Felix:

— But the trope’s refer to a mystical experience which is literally ineffable. The tropes point to an experience to be entered into not something explainable. If it can’t be explained, it can’t be justified. So I think, as an argument, it’s off the table.
O- Only prior to Roman Catholicism. Gnosticism for example, could very well represent what you have described here, but the only problem is that Gnosticism did not succeed in defining Christianity- Catholicism did. One of the reasons that led to this was that mysticism within gnosticism left it undefinable. You could not build an institution around this. It is creative, yes, but there is no communion. Everyone ends up with having a private party inside their own little systems.

Of course the dogmas originated in the attempt to externalize what was up to then an individual experience. And insofar as this becomes symbol, representated in language and visions, it becomes a second tier experience of dubious quality. A bit of mendancy is to be expected because of the limitations of language and other symbols.

I think that an oral tradition was less vulnerable to mendancy. Sympathy was likelier during a personal exchange than during the reading of a text. In Rome, unfortunately, the text was raised over the oral, I think for the sake of reaching an end to constests. Gnosticism welcomed constests for the sake of a genuine relation to the Unmediated. There was little argument because there was little shared, very little language, and it was therefore as irrational as it was undebatable. Is that a good thing? That was the question that was implied in the rise of the Romans. They took on the subject with gravity. They made the issue a public issue because the salvation of the many was as stake. It makes a bit of sense. If you want to cure X, then you might feel better of the taking the right approach by the wide-spread acceptance of one specific treatment. Catholicism offered, basically, an assurance, a demonstrable assurance, demonstrable as far as it could be expressed in reasonable, that is public language. This is probably it’s biggest source of mendancy.

Luther raised a protest that changed the fundaments of this. His efforts removed the security of salvation. But he also espoused argumentation and therefore also produced mendancy. While gnostics and mystics had over the centuries earned a confidence in their own salvation and in their own earned rapport with God, spurring creativity to it’s limits, Luther decrease the enthisiam of spirituality, because he removed salvation from the sphere of human action, making man a recipient of salvation and not the mover of his salvation.

— You have faith that you have the mind of Christ.
O- No, but I suppose that Paul must have.

— What makes you think so? Faith. How can you be certain? Faith. You have used faith three times to support a belief without rational explanation or support. That could be a triple-decker sandwich of faith or a prescription for an enigma wrapped in a delusion.
O- Faith deserves it’s own post. But my contention is that as we reach outside of ourselves we do so by faith. You got to have faith in order to believe in God, let alone His mind and even less the capacity for you to know it. But this means that you can think about these. Can you be certain? Only if you have faith. Faith is the essential thing behind our thoughts, our ability to reason with abstract concepts. Some concepts we feel certain of. Saying that one is certain cannot be said without faith. Paul does not say that he has faith and certain that he has the mind of God. He simply says that he has the mind of God. This statement includes the triple-decker only if you begin to break it down and analyse the source his meaning. But it is one fell swoop. How often we say: “I know what you’re talking about” or “I know how you feel”. From the perspective of unsympathetic reason, you get that three-faith problem, but within the context of a conversation, a personal encounter, sharing the air, feeling the warmth, the solidity it will not need to be explained using words that fail to convey the irrational rapport reached between two people. Reached in fact because people have this innate, animalistic faith, in their ability to intuit what another person is feeling. And it is a faith because we are suceptible to error. But the social animal depends on this social instinct.

— Well no. The Nicene Creed uses plenty of tropes that have no literal meaning. The pictures you form in your mind of the symbols used there refer to spiritual realities or nothing.
O- They point to a dogmatic mystery, more exact, the Trinity as a concept. But the mystery is created by the insistence on the literal meaning of it’s parts. If one was to take Jesus sonship as a manner of speaking, not a literal fact, then there is no greater mystery to accept unconditionally. the difficulty, the mystery, would disappear. Of course it would then raise other questions.

— My point exactly. Doubt is present as a constant challenge to faith. When we achieve faith without doubt, we cross over into fanaticism where ironically the certainty of knowing renders faith unnecessary.
O- We reach thought, reason…the idea, the concept. Sure, it apparently renders faith apparently unnecessary, but only because we have faith. But it is faith that remains the foundation of our sureness. It is not necessarily a negative aspect, like fanatism, that makes us banish the demon of faith, but the need to think about something else. Before we can discuss string theory, we have have to take, as if true, certain theoretical concepts. Faith is vital to reason, in creating favourable conditions for reason to develop, for certainty/trust to develop.

— I intend to start a thread on the protestant Principle. We can continue this discussion there if you like. If you aren’t interested I don’t know who would be. But in any case, I intend to post a thread on it tomorrow.
O- Look forward to it.

[felix_dakat]

— But the trope’s refer to a mystical experience which is literally ineffable. The tropes point to an experience to be entered into not something explainable. If it can’t be explained, it can’t be justified. So I think, as an argument, it’s off the table.
O- Only prior to Roman Catholicism. Gnosticism for example, could very well represent what you have described here, but the only problem is that Gnosticism did not succeed in defining Christianity- Catholicism did. One of the reasons that led to this was that mysticism within gnosticism left it undefinable. You could not build an institution around this. It is creative, yes, but there is no communion. Everyone ends up with having a private party inside their own little systems.

Of course the dogmas originated in the attempt to externalize what was up to then an individual experience. And insofar as this becomes symbol, representated in language and visions, it becomes a second tier experience of dubious quality. A bit of mendancy is to be expected because of the limitations of language and other symbols.

I think that an oral tradition was less vulnerable to mendancy. Sympathy was likelier during a personal exchange than during the reading of a text. In Rome, unfortunately, the text was raised over the oral, I think for the sake of reaching an end to constests. Gnosticism welcomed constests for the sake of a genuine relation to the Unmediated. There was little argument because there was little shared, very little language, and it was therefore as irrational as it was undebatable. Is that a good thing? That was the question that was implied in the rise of the Romans. They took on the subject with gravity. They made the issue a public issue because the salvation of the many was as stake. It makes a bit of sense. If you want to cure X, then you might feel better of the taking the right approach by the wide-spread acceptance of one specific treatment. Catholicism offered, basically, an assurance, a demonstrable assurance, demonstrable as far as it could be expressed in reasonable, that is public language. This is probably it’s biggest source of mendancy.

Luther raised a protest that changed the fundaments of this. His efforts removed the security of salvation. But he also espoused argumentation and therefore also produced mendancy. While gnostics and mystics had over the centuries earned a confidence in their own salvation and in their own earned rapport with God, spurring creativity to it’s limits, Luther decrease the enthisiam of spirituality, because he removed salvation from the sphere of human action, making man a recipient of salvation and not the mover of his salvation.

I was just referring to the mysticism of possessing the mind of Christ. Not only Gnosticism but Catholicism and Protestantism have elements of mysticism defined as the experience of God. As far as Catholicism offering certainty, their is evidence that it didn’t. The anxiety of that period is evident in the demand for more pilgrimages, the need to collect and adore relics, the need to pray “Our Fathers”, buying indulgences, self torturing asceticism, all to rid oneself of guilt.

— You have faith that you have the mind of Christ.
O- No, but I suppose that Paul must have.

Then we have come full circle, because unless you have had that experience you can’t know what it is. Paul is claiming something that the rest of us just have to put in brackets. To an outsider it just sounds grandiose.

— What makes you think so? Faith. How can you be certain? Faith. You have used faith three times to support a belief without rational explanation or support. That could be a triple-decker sandwich of faith or a prescription for an enigma wrapped in a delusion.
O- Faith deserves it’s own post. But my contention is that as we reach outside of ourselves we do so by faith. You got to have faith in order to believe in God, let alone His mind and even less the capacity for you to know it. But this means that you can think about these. Can you be certain? Only if you have faith. Faith is the essential thing behind our thoughts, our ability to reason with abstract concepts. Some concepts we feel certain of. Saying that one is certain cannot be said without faith. Paul does not say that he has faith and certain that he has the mind of God. He simply says that he has the mind of God. This statement includes the triple-decker only if you begin to break it down and analyse the source his meaning. But it is one fell swoop. How often we say: “I know what you’re talking about” or “I know how you feel”. From the perspective of unsympathetic reason, you get that three-faith problem, but within the context of a conversation, a personal encounter, sharing the air, feeling the warmth, the solidity it will not need to be explained using words that fail to convey the irrational rapport reached between two people. Reached in fact because people have this innate, animalistic faith, in their ability to intuit what another person is feeling. And it is a faith because we are suceptible to error. But the social animal depends on this social instinct.

I agree faith is a huge topic. With Protestantism, faith went from something objective to a subjective state. The Catholic idea was of faith in the magical grace of the Eucharist. The idea that there is still merit in believing things that are impossible and absurd. Faith in the protestant sense is not merely intellectual assent to creedal propositions.

– Well no. The Nicene Creed uses plenty of tropes that have no literal meaning. The pictures you form in your mind of the symbols used there refer to spiritual realities or nothing.
O- They point to a dogmatic mystery, more exact, the Trinity as a concept. But the mystery is created by the insistence on the literal meaning of it’s parts. If one was to take Jesus sonship as a manner of speaking, not a literal fact, then there is no greater mystery to accept unconditionally. the difficulty, the mystery, would disappear. Of course it would then raise other questions.

People think they are assenting to something literal in the Nicene Creed. But there’s no way to do that beginning with “God” which is a symbol with no literal referent that you can point to.

— My point exactly. Doubt is present as a constant challenge to faith. When we achieve faith without doubt, we cross over into fanaticism where ironically the certainty of knowing renders faith unnecessary.
O- We reach thought, reason…the idea, the concept. Sure, it apparently renders faith apparently unnecessary, but only because we have faith. But it is faith that remains the foundation of our sureness. It is not necessarily a negative aspect, like fanatism, that makes us banish the demon of faith, but the need to think about something else. Before we can discuss string theory, we have have to take, as if true, certain theoretical concepts. Faith is vital to reason, in creating favourable conditions for reason to develop, for certainty/trust to develop.

You can think about string theory, kick it around in your mind, play with thought experiments without one iota of faith in it. If you banish all doubt from your mind about string theory, you have lost touch with reality. Likewise religion. I have known people who have crossed over into fanaticism. It’s pathological. If you were a fanatic this conversation would not involve the exchange of ideas. You would be telling me how it really is period. If I was a fanatic I would be certain of everything I am saying here rather than recognizing the grounds for my assertions for what they are: circumscribed by the limits of what little I know by experience.

— I intend to start a thread on the protestant Principle. We can continue this discussion there if you like. If you aren’t interested I don’t know who would be. But in any case, I intend to post a thread on it tomorrow.
O- Look forward to it.

On second thought, let’s just continue here. “The Protestant Principle” was outlined by theologian Paul Tillich in several of his works. You can see examples of what he said about it on line. To me it is summarized as the idolatry of putting anything in place of what is ultimate. By that definition it is in line with prophetic tradition and the perennial philosophy. So to exalt or worship the Bible, the church, nor even our concept of God is idolatry.

[omar]

Hello felix.
Still waiting for that new topic.

— As far as Catholicism offering certainty, their is evidence that it didn’t. The anxiety of that period is evident in the demand for more pilgrimages, the need to collect and adore relics, the need to pray “Our Fathers”, buying indulgences, self torturing asceticism, all to rid oneself of guilt.
O- Guilt, yes, but the certainty I meant was in that they offered the believer recourse, a set of specified means to reach the specified ends. Luther left the matter beyond the means of men and so guilt remain and no direct recourse that could be taken.

— Then we have come full circle, because unless you have had that experience you can’t know what it is. Paul is claiming something that the rest of us just have to put in brackets. To an outsider it just sounds grandiose.
O- Like the idea of a man dying and coming back to life three days later. Again, I am talking about how Paul may have understood it, not as Julian the Apostate would understand it.

— People think they are assenting to something literal in the Nicene Creed. But there’s no way to do that beginning with “God” which is a symbol with no literal referent that you can point to.
O- The Church never denied the possibility of a direct access to God. For Paul, “God”, the word, had an actual referent, which he encountered.
The Bible would never have been penned or declared Holy without the belief in a literal referent, the God that bends down from Heaven to meet His Creation. Either the Bible refers to God or to the vain imaginings of men.

— You can think about string theory, kick it around in your mind, play with thought experiments without one iota of faith in it. If you banish all doubt from your mind about string theory, you have lost touch with reality. Likewise religion. I have known people who have crossed over into fanaticism. It’s pathological. If you were a fanatic this conversation would not involve the exchange of ideas. You would be telling me how it really is period. If I was a fanatic I would be certain of everything I am saying here rather than recognizing the grounds for my assertions for what they are: circumscribed by the limits of what little I know by experience.
O- This is the Bob-effect again. I have abandoned the name “Christian” for just what you’ve said. To be really “open” one means that you lack meaning- that traditional qualifiers are unable to encircle what you “are”…in fact you no longer are, but only provisionally appear. It has it’s drawbacks…

[felix_dakat]

Omar–

Still waiting for that new topic.

Somehow you missed what I typed in the previous post.

— As far as Catholicism offering certainty, their is evidence that it didn’t. The anxiety of that period is evident in the demand for more pilgrimages, the need to collect and adore relics, the need to pray “Our Fathers”, buying indulgences, self torturing asceticism, all to rid oneself of guilt.
O- Guilt, yes, but the certainty I meant was in that they offered the believer recourse, a set of specified means to reach the specified ends. Luther left the matter beyond the means of men and so guilt remain and no direct recourse that could be taken.

Luther took it away from men and gave it to the only one who can offer real assurance about slavation.

— Then we have come full circle, because unless you have had that experience you can’t know what it is. Paul is claiming something that the rest of us just have to put in brackets. To an outsider it just sounds grandiose.
O- Like the idea of a man dying and coming back to life three days later. Again, I am talking about how Paul may have understood it, not as Julian the Apostate would understand it.

Yeah we are really going in a circle. I think paul was refering to an ecstatic experience. We would have to have a similar expereince to venture a guess about what he means.

— People think they are assenting to something literal in the Nicene Creed. But there’s no way to do that beginning with “God” which is a symbol with no literal referent that you can point to.
O- The Church never denied the possibility of a direct access to God. For Paul, “God”, the word, had an actual referent, which he encountered.
The Bible would never have been penned or declared Holy without the belief in a literal referent, the God that bends down from Heaven to meet His Creation. Either the Bible refers to God or to the vain imaginings of men.

I never meant to imply that the Church did. An actual referent yes. But your next statement illustrates the problem. God DOES NOT literally BEND DOWN. Heaven IS NOT was far as anyone can point to A PLACE. And God cannot literally be spoken of in terms of “HIS”. So the literal content of your statement is virtually nil as are most literal statements about God.

— You can think about string theory, kick it around in your mind, play with thought experiments without one iota of faith in it. If you banish all doubt from your mind about string theory, you have lost touch with reality. Likewise religion. I have known people who have crossed over into fanaticism. It’s pathological. If you were a fanatic this conversation would not involve the exchange of ideas. You would be telling me how it really is period. If I was a fanatic I would be certain of everything I am saying here rather than recognizing the grounds for my assertions for what they are: circumscribed by the limits of what little I know by experience.
O- This is the Bob-effect again. I have abandoned the name “Christian” for just what you’ve said. To be really “open” one means that you lack meaning- that traditional qualifiers are unable to encircle what you “are”…in fact you no longer are, but only provisionally appear. It has it’s drawbacks…

The “Bob-effect” apparently refers to an experience of yours not mine so I don’t know what you mean. The word Christian means different things to different people anyway. I guess, in a correspondence like this, what we are is nothing more than what we say.

[omar]

Hello Felix:

— God DOES NOT literally BEND DOWN. Heaven IS NOT was far as anyone can point to A PLACE. And God cannot literally be spoken of in terms of “HIS”. So the literal content of your statement is virtually nil as are most literal statements about God.
O- God, it could be argued, does not do anything at all literally; that His ways are not our ways, literally or poetically. But then what does man relate to? What does man interact with? God bends down in the language of man. Revelation is initiated by men to address other men, to communicate the virtually incommunicable. Language is a symbol. All words offer a symbol of our thoughts and not them Literally. That is conceded, that is agreed. That said, the words are a symbol to an actual experience that the person who uses language to describe it, interprets as a “bending down” (to use a mystical example as found in The Theologica Germanica, a work that influenced the young Luther). Does that mean that God “bends down”? Yes, in the sense intended by the communicator. Does that mean “literally” bending down or “metaphorically”? That depends on the mystical experience.
We tend to apply modern lenses to archaic experiences. But when it comes down to language, we cannot rule out the literal interpretation, however absurd it may strike us. How can God bend down? Sure, sure, if if taken literally, that is absurd, …until you consider that Jesus is God and God is Jesus, that Jesus is seen as the incarnation of God or God in the flesh. How much metaphor shall we inpute into Christianity? How much metaphor? That is ever debatable. But I do not doubt the sincerity of certain writers in conceiving God as literally “bending down” to met them. Your prohibition is entuirelly arbitraerly and artificial, applicable only to your self and only stands as an invitation to join in for everyone else…such is the perversity of language. God CAN BE spoken, and IS spoken literally because the spoken word is a symbol of the literal experience of the believer. God can be spoken as a virtual man, because that is how a believer MAY experience or interpret his own, personal, experience of the Unmediated.

— The “Bob-effect” apparently refers to an experience of yours not mine so I don’t know what you mean.
O- True, true. The Bob-effect is not really an experience of mine, so much as it is a name I invented ad hoc. Think of a person telling you that he has a “dragon” in his garage. You tell the person that dragons don’t really exist, so he cannot have a dragon in his garage. But he challenges you to verify it with your own eyes. He open the garage door and it is empty. You say to him that you don’t see anything. He says that it is an invisible dragon. Surely, you think, you can prove to this fellow that there is no dragon, even if you conceded his assertion that it is invisible, so you play along. You propose to put flour on the floor to see it’s foot steps, but he replies that the dragon floats in air. You propose checking with a heat sensor it’s fire breaths, but he replies that his fire is also heatless.
The moral in all of that (thank you Carl sagan) is that what you mean and what I mean are possibly entirely different things. People often forget that philosophy in Plato and Socrates, began with a dispute over meaning of simple words we take to have a public accpeted value when they do not. The Bob-effect is what I called the situation where a person calls himself a “Christian”, but does not mean the same thing as most use the term.
— The word Christian means different things to different people anyway.
O- If the word “car” means different things to different people then “car” has no meaning, or can have any meaning…if what you say is true. or it could be that car means one thing but that people use the wrong word to express what they mean which is not-car. or it could be that car means one thing that is invariably found in all users of the word and that the differences are in type, requiring only qualifiers and not entirely new words. Some think red car when they say “car”, and others think big car when they say “car”, but then they mean the same in what is similar in their thoughts, which is probably a set of four wheels and a chasis, and differ only in what is unique to their car. These differences are picked up by qualifiers to their “car”, or ida of “car”, which is probably a shared meaning or an essential figure. Maybe not initially, as Socrates found, but after a dialogue it is found a public meaning to the term car that is filtered of all accidental qualifications.

“Christianity”, I believe, has a public meaning. Otherwise it is nothing, or no-thing or no-single-thing and can be any-thing. As such it would lose it’s value in language. It would fail to be public- it would become meaningless as a term. Now, like I said, I believe that Christian is a term that has meaning and this is because there is a shared set of common facts that are accepted by a broad section of those that call themselves “Christian”. Now, against this base, others add new “facts” enriching the meaning of “Christian”. Against them are some that reject their amplified meaning. When all is said, we are still dealing with a common denominator (a common trait or characteristic) but different connotations (configurations of suggestive or associative implications constituing the general sense of an abstract expression- i.e. “Christianity”- beyond it’s literal, explicit sense).

If I told you that someone is a Christian, you ought to expect, at least I would, certain telling facts about such person. A belief in God, a belief in Jesus, a belief in the Bible and a belief in the importance of each…at the very least. If someone told me they are an “atheist Christian” then I would tell them that that is an oxymoron, even if they argue that “Christianity is different things to different people”. To me, their perspective is flawed and under scrutinity fall away or their self-defining-term does.

[felix_dakat]

Omar–

O- God, it could be argued, does not do anything at all literally; that His ways are not our ways, literally or poetically. But then what does man relate to? What does man interact with? God bends down in the language of man. Revelation is initiated by men to address other men, to communicate the virtually incommunicable. Language is a symbol. All words offer a symbol of our thoughts and not them Literally. That is conceded, that is agreed. That said, the words are a symbol to an actual experience that the person who uses language to describe it, interprets as a “bending down” (to use a mystical example as found in The Theologica Germanica, a work that influenced the young Luther). Does that mean that God “bends down”? Yes, in the sense intended by the communicator. Does that mean “literally” bending down or “metaphorically”? That depends on the mystical experience.
We tend to apply modern lenses to archaic experiences. But when it comes down to language, we cannot rule out the literal interpretation, however absurd it may strike us. How can God bend down? Sure, sure, if if taken literally, that is absurd, …until you consider that Jesus is God and God is Jesus, that Jesus is seen as the incarnation of God or God in the flesh. How much metaphor shall we inpute into Christianity? How much metaphor? That is ever debatable. But I do not doubt the sincerity of certain writers in conceiving God as literally “bending down” to met them. Your prohibition is entuirelly arbitraerly and artificial, applicable only to your self and only stands as an invitation to join in for everyone else…such is the perversity of language. God CAN BE spoken, and IS spoken literally because the spoken word is a symbol of the literal experience of the believer. God can be spoken as a virtual man, because that is how a believer MAY experience or interpret his own, personal, experience of the Unmediated.

In no way am I deniying the reality of God. But three sources show the limits of language for dealing with God: mysticism, ontology and linguistics. I am using the word symbol as distinct from ordinary words which we might call signs. Signs are manipulatible according to the rules of logic. Symbols are not. Symbols seem to carry some of the numen of that to which they refer.

O- True, true. The Bob-effect is not really an experience of mine, so much as it is a name I invented ad hoc. Think of a person telling you that he has a “dragon” in his garage. You tell the person that dragons don’t really exist, so he cannot have a dragon in his garage. But he challenges you to verify it with your own eyes. He open the garage door and it is empty. You say to him that you don’t see anything. He says that it is an invisible dragon. Surely, you think, you can prove to this fellow that there is no dragon, even if you conceded his assertion that it is invisible, so you play along. You propose to put flour on the floor to see it’s foot steps, but he replies that the dragon floats in air. You propose checking with a heat sensor it’s fire breaths, but he replies that his fire is also heatless.
The moral in all of that (thank you Carl sagan) is that what you mean and what I mean are possibly entirely different things. People often forget that philosophy in Plato and Socrates, began with a dispute over meaning of simple words we take to have a public accpeted value when they do not. The Bob-effect is what I called the situation where a person calls himself a “Christian”, but does not mean the same thing as most use the term.

Ah. I think I see. Well, the word Christian was imprecise from the start. We are told that it was first used of the followers of Jesus in Antioch. It has been used for Jesus followers of all stripes. The fundamentalist thought they owned the term. So they talk about real and false Christians. At the end of the day, God only knows who or what is Christ or Christian for sure. But authenticity is a hot issue in religion isn’t it? By my reckoning most of the religion I see is false. Yet the pursuit of authenticity could be the defining characteristic of religion.

O- If the word “car” means different things to different people then “car” has no meaning, or can have any meaning…if what you say is true. or it could be that car means one thing but that people use the wrong word to express what they mean which is not-car. or it could be that car means one thing that is invariably found in all users of the word and that the differences are in type, requiring only qualifiers and not entirely new words. Some think red car when they say “car”, and others think big car when they say “car”, but then they mean the same in what is similar in their thoughts, which is probably a set of four wheels and a chasis, and differ only in what is unique to their car. These differences are picked up by qualifiers to their “car”, or ida of “car”, which is probably a shared meaning or an essential figure. Maybe not initially, as Socrates found, but after a dialogue it is found a public meaning to the term car that is filtered of all accidental qualifications.

Car is easier than “Christian” because it isn’t mainly about abstractions like faith, hope and love, etc.

“Christianity”, I believe, has a public meaning. Otherwise it is nothing, or no-thing or no-single-thing and can be any-thing. As such it would lose it’s value in language. It would fail to be public- it would become meaningless as a term. Now, like I said, I believe that Christian is a term that has meaning and this is because there is a shared set of common facts that are accepted by a broad section of those that call themselves “Christian”. Now, against this base, others add new “facts” enriching the meaning of “Christian”. Against them are some that reject their amplified meaning. When all is said, we are still dealing with a common denominator (a common trait or characteristic) but different connotations (configurations of suggestive or associative implications constituing the general sense of an abstract expression- i.e. “Christianity”- beyond it’s literal, explicit sense).

Right, but how much of what is called Christianity is composed of elements that are not intrinsically Christian in any sense of the word? All that is essentially Christian boils down to the Spirit of God in Christ doesn’t it? How tangible is that? All I can tell you is that I seek the presence of God. I believe I will recognize the presence of God if I ever experience it again.

If I told you that someone is a Christian, you ought to expect, at least I would, certain telling facts about such person. A belief in God, a belief in Jesus, a belief in the Bible and a belief in the importance of each…at the very least. If someone told me they are an “atheist Christian” then I would tell them that that is an oxymoron, even if they argue that “Christianity is different things to different people”. To me, their perspective is flawed and under scrutinity fall away or their self-defining-term does.

That’s right as far as it goes. But much of “belief” is mere mental assent which misses the mark. This was pointed out in the gospels where it states that even the demons believe. The only direct referent we have for belief is our own subjectivity. For the sake of discussion, we have to draw a line somewhere, and "atheist christian’ may be out of bounds of what Christian means for most practical purposes. But, I suspect the reality of the inter-subjective situation includes more shades of gray then we are aware of. I was surprised to learn that even radical atheists Hitchens and Harris ascribe spiritual states to themselves. How much different these states are from those of one whom we would agree is a Christian is anybody’s guess. We should subject them and some bonifide Christians to PET scans or functional MRIs while they are each feeling spiritual and look for similarities and differences.

[finishedman]

.

[The_Paineful_Truth]

@felix dakat

So for you, Jesus is, in this sense at least, not Christ. I wonder how many New Testament verses you would have to throw out to get to your picture of Jesus.

I disagree with Jefferson’s radical redaction, even though I agree with the point he was trying to make. A lot may be learned by studying fabrications, myths and legends. Lies are lies because they avoid the Truth, and often thereby, reveal it. I don’t even really agree with the high points of Jesus’ philosophy, of the glory of poverty, the evil of wealth, or the supernatural elements of Judaism which he promoted. I don’t think, however, that he would agree with the modern version of compassion. If nothing else, he believed that charity was voluntary, not mandatory.

I think there is a historical, heroic core to Jesus, in that he believed he was the Messiah whose mission was to lead Israel to cleanse the Temple of its corrupt priesthood, thereby preparing it for the re-installation of God which would bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. But God didn’t show. Faith so much as a mustard seed that can move mountains still must be founded in reason. All it will ever be able to do is grow a new mustard plant–which is a sort of miracle. So there on the cross, face to face with a God who does not (can not) intervene, he still felt betrayed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His faith in the Jewish, interventionist God was strong till the last. It was his last chance to avoid pathos, and to witness for the Truth as he had just claimed to be doing a few hours before to Pilate. But he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. A lifetime of meaning reduced to a split second decision in torment.

[felix_dakat]

TPT–

That’s one plausible construction of the life of Jesus. Maccoby, who’s viewpoint you seem to have largely adopted, posits that Jesus’ “spirituality” or charisma was due to mania. Your view is consistent with a deism that seems to leave you with an understanding of God as a distant hypothetical concept that has little or nothing to do with your life. That’s how you prefer it, right?

[omar]

Hello Felix:

— In no way am I deniying the reality of God. But three sources show the limits of language for dealing with God: mysticism, ontology and linguistics. I am using the word symbol as distinct from ordinary words which we might call signs. Signs are manipulatible according to the rules of logic. Symbols are not. Symbols seem to carry some of the numen of that to which they refer.
O- Myticism, ontology are different from language. Mysticism has no limit. The mystic has an extraordinary experience of God. The problem is discussing God. The problem is there but the raison d’etre of God is linguistical. It is when people proceed to “implement” the consequences of gods that difficulties with language apply and yet, because of the ultimate purpose of gods, such limitations are brushed aside with only a minority giving them a second thought, because if adhered to then nothing could be said or done that was extra-human. Gods are not used as symbols but as signs, which is why they usually get a proper name. This has culminated in the American trend of asking WWJD? and promoting a “personal” relationship with God and so on and so forth. We cringe, we can diffuse their enthusiasm by pointing out the vacous use of language and the transcendent nature of God. But doing so destroys the ability of God to make a change in our lives. That God is mighty is accepted, but as Einstein said, while He may work in mysterious ways, He does not play dice. Where it matters, language is seen as right on. An act of faith is a symbol of our worth, a token. But as a token and to be a token, it’s value is not vague, but precise. Symbols are not beyond manipulation as we see from advertising, and so they follow the same path as signs.

— Ah. I think I see. Well, the word Christian was imprecise from the start. We are told that it was first used of the followers of Jesus in Antioch. It has been used for Jesus followers of all stripes. The fundamentalist thought they owned the term.
O- More importantly they believed and created a boundary between X and non-X.

— So they talk about real and false Christians.
O- As does the Bible. So the concept is older than fundamentalists. The fundamentalists just tried to framed what defined each.

— At the end of the day, God only knows who or what is Christ or Christian for sure. But authenticity is a hot issue in religion isn’t it? By my reckoning most of the religion I see is false. Yet the pursuit of authenticity could be the defining characteristic of religion.
O- Sure. I am with that myself, but then what would people do on Sunday? And even then, despite my dislike to judge, the Bible does invite the contrast. The Bible itself compels the community to preach the word and to save others of the world. A bare minimum, then, must have been accepted, or needed to be created (as it was) to distinguish between the unbeliever and the believer, so that the proselytizers could in fact know who was their target audience and when to leave a person as a “convert”.
Christianity, we agree, is predicated on radical change and a very important choice. Christianity begins with a choice for many Protestant Christians. I guess it was to be expected that fundamentalism would be strong there since a choice, to be properly made, but be between two known values. Fundamentalism tried to define the value, the meaning of the contrasting alternatives.
As I admitted, I am not out to cast the first stone, to define who is what and who isn’t, and would prefer that God sort them out. But religion is the paradox that although God is the ultimate judge that “we” can also make or prefigure that ultimate judgment and people already worry about their future state because of that, and some fear while others offer them relief, a relief that is paradoxically impossible for them to offer but biblically endorsed.

— Car is easier than “Christian” because it isn’t mainly about abstractions like faith, hope and love, etc.
O- Sure it is easier. My only point is that it is about use and even an abstraction provides a distinction, a usable boundary between itself and what it is not. And further, that abstractions are consequential because they are “felt”, and there, limitations, based on ontological or linguistical limits, are ignored.

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Paineful Truth:

So there on the cross, face to face with a God who does not (can not) intervene, he still felt betrayed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His faith in the Jewish, interventionist God was strong till the last. It was his last chance to avoid pathos, and to witness for the Truth as he had just claimed to be doing a few hours before to Pilate. But he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. A lifetime of meaning reduced to a split second decision in torment.

[b]An analysis of Jesus’ realization of the Truth? But then, what Truth do you insinuate Jesus learned, in torment, upon the cross? That God does not exist and he (Jesus) is, and was, nothing more than just another human being in a godless world susceptible to the pangs of mortality like everyone else?

Is the lesson of Jesus you propose a knock-down, dragout argument for this "Truth’ ? Is this Grand Secular Reality all that lies behind religious delusion…or is something else we can’t see going on?

J.[/b]

[felix_dakat]

O-Symbols are not beyond manipulation as we see from advertising, and so they follow the same path as signs.

Right but manipulation of the kind of symbols we are discussing does not follow the rules of logic. The psychology of advertizing recognizes that symbols have an irrational power beyond their functions as signs.

O- More importantly they believed and created a boundary between X and non-X.

Such a boundary is important for determining group membership. However, not for oneself as an individual.

O- As does the Bible. So the concept is older than fundamentalists. The fundamentalists just tried to frame what defined each.

Yes, the Bible does deal with this. However, I think two issues separate issues are being confounded. The NT deals with both issues. One is “how do we decide who to include in the group?” The other is “what is my relationship to ultimate reality?” If one is charged with responsibility for the group, one ought to be concerned about the first issue. Otherwise, the second issue ought to be the primary one. Judgments about others are practical and provisional if they are necessary at all. Fundamentalists err on the side of literal mindedness. This can lead them to think that they KNOW who is and who is not a true Christian.

O- Sure. I am with that myself, but then what would people do on Sunday? And even then, despite my dislike to judge, the Bible does invite the contrast. The Bible itself compels the community to preach the word and to save others of the world. A bare minimum, then, must have been accepted, or needed to be created (as it was) to distinguish between the unbeliever and the believer, so that the proselytizers could in fact know who was their target audience and when to leave a person as a “convert”.
Christianity, we agree, is predicated on radical change and a very important choice. Christianity begins with a choice for many Protestant Christians. I guess it was to be expected that fundamentalism would be strong there since a choice, to be properly made, but be between two known values. Fundamentalism tried to define the value, the meaning of the contrasting alternatives.
As I admitted, I am not out to cast the first stone, to define who is what and who isn’t, and would prefer that God sort them out. But religion is the paradox that although God is the ultimate judge that “we” can also make or prefigure that ultimate judgment and people already worry about their future state because of that, and some fear while others offer them relief, a relief that is paradoxically impossible for them to offer but biblically endorsed.

Right, so for practical purposes a church makes these distinctions. However, if the decision-makers understand their epistemic limitations, then they will realize that they really do not know who is or is not a “true” Christian. For example, in my opinion, the Roman Catholic Church made a mistake thinking that their decisions about who is a member hold in heaven.

O- Sure it is easier. My only point is that it is about use and even an abstraction provides a distinction, a usable boundary between itself and what it is not.
And further, that abstractions are consequential because they are “felt”, and there, limitations, based on ontological or linguistical limits, are ignored.

Ignoring the limitations of abstraction is perilous. Based on such ignorance religious wars have been fought and so-called heretics burned at the stake. Every human being is a child of God at least potentially if not consciously. Why not leave it at that?

[felix_dakat]

@phenomenal_graffiti

Paineful Truth:

So there on the cross, face to face with a God who does not (can not) intervene, he still felt betrayed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His faith in the Jewish, interventionist God was strong till the last. It was his last chance to avoid pathos, and to witness for the Truth as he had just claimed to be doing a few hours before to Pilate. But he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. A lifetime of meaning reduced to a split second decision in torment.

[b]An analysis of Jesus’ realization of the Truth? But then, what Truth do you insinuate Jesus learned, in torment, upon the cross? That God does not exist and he (Jesus) is, and was, nothing more than just another human being in a godless world susceptible to the pangs of mortality like everyone else?

Is the lesson of Jesus you propose a knock-down, dragout argument for this "Truth’ ? Is this Grand Secular Reality all that lies behind religious delusion…or is something else we can’t see going on?

J.[/b]

Good questions J. You might want to pose them to Paineful Truth [TPT] on one of his threads. There’s no telling when he might be back this way.

If Jesus was merely a good man, then he may have been so in your “Grand Secular Reality.” If he was the Christ, then some kind of theistic reality exists. But those are not the only alternatives. Based on my discussions with TPT, I understand him to be an agnostic deist who does not believe in divine revelation. I suppose he might think that Aristotle reasoned his way to God via logic. In TPT’s version of deism, God does not intervene in human affairs. Therefore, Jesus was mistaken to think God would act on his behalf.

[omar]

We agree about the dangers of fundamentalism. Now I would like to discuss why I think fundamentalism is attractive.

— Ignoring the limitations of abstraction is perilous. Based on such ignorance religious wars have been fought and so-called heretics burned at the stake. Every human being is a child of God at least potentially if not consciously. Why not leave it at that?

Like everything else it comes down to power. There are limits to what we can know, what we can discuss. Gorgias apparently taught that:
Nothing exists;
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and
Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others.

Some consider him a nihilist, but his points rest on accepting the limitations in which we find ourselves. If he had been in Athens, I think he would have had to share Socrates poison. Delphi would not have allowed him to dock, because if he is right, and he is, what is left for man to do, to think, to discuss between himself and others?
Witgenstein speculated that the limits of his language to be the limits of his world, literally what he could think about. I think he has a point. Not everything can be put into words, like love. We cannot define love in a nutshell; something is always left out, and I think, from what we have discussed that you would not mind if I used love as an analogy. But in order that we may know that we are in love or that we love another or any other predicate to that ambiguous word “love”, one has to give it a center, a nexus, a pivot, which stands in place of what cannot be expressed. It has to be because we have no conception of love until we extend a boundary for it. And when we do, as Kirpe would suggest, the in-itself, the original feeling, that which can’t be put into words is “dropped”, and when it is it becomes part of our world, as a unit of language.

Love does not exist, one could say, because it is not an object of the mind, and until it is, we could not bear witness to it. But if did exists, in itself, outside of the boundaries of our concepts, still nothing could be known about it. But if it could be known then it would be unlikely that we could say what it is to another.
But Love does exists because we ignore such limitations, because we want to communicate not just any given thing, but the one thing, love, a public thing that we can then exchange. What each actually feels is probably widely and wildly diverse, but that is dropped that we may communicate it’s facsimile. That is how we know that someone “loves” us or that we know how to show our love or recognize love towards us.

There is something powerful in being able to say who and what is pleasing to God, and I’ll say even natural. I think that children are predisposed to make distinctions. Religion simply perpetuates a behaviour that comes quite naturally to just about any higher animal. Why can’t we say that all are children of God? We can, but it is not that we are taught distinctions but that we are taught the lack of distinctions or that “we are all children of God”.

[felix_dakat]

Omar–

Gorgias takes a position of extreme skepticism. One only has to try to imagine putting his philosophy into practice to see that his beliefs is inconsistent with survival. That thought experiment alone places that degree of skepticism in doubt. I’m not advocating a skepticism nearly that extreme. I am acknowldeging the limits of language when discussing spiritual things.

Love is an enormous topic in itself. So before I embark on a discussion of it, please clarify for me the relevance of love to our discussion.

The attraction of fundamentalisim is the appeal of existential certainty in a complex and troubled world. Such certainty is achieved at great cost, quite possibly including denial of evidence, freedom of thought, and compassion for others.

[omar]

Hello felix,
Yes I know that Gorgias is an extreme sceptic, just as others are extreme believers. My point is that reason predisposes us to be unable to accept such extreme scepticism. But there is nothing petently incorrect about what he has said. The limits are there. We simply cannot conduct life if we accept them.
People CAN discuss spiritual things only after they ignore the proper limitations of language (which not only Gorgias but also Nietzsche explored, and then ignored). And we need to exceed those limitations again and again, and not only in spiritual matters. Even talking about ourselves, would be impossible if we adopted the limitations that exist. But we do not. And therefore there is a level of fancy in most things we think about.

Love is not the subject but an analogy. What applies to Love can apply to God as well. I could have used “Omar”, “Felix” or “Beauty”. How many things are out there that are determined, in part, by our fancy, and it is by virtue of that fantasy that we live the higher life than what scepticism would allow. I often see posters on this board enumerate the rational obstacles to faith in God, and they challenge the believers to refute them. But there is no refuting of every single rational objection to faith. There is nothing wrong with reasoned extreme scepticism…except of course that I would demand of such posters a bit of consistency and apply such intense rigidity to every other aspect in the life. What we find then is that their life, the very speaker of such objections, is annihilated. So I say, be careful what you wish for…

So, to sum up, such scepticism is an extreme. At the other end we have fundamentalism, made up of what I call “extreme believers”. Generally, life happens somewhere in the middle. You speak the truth when you say: “The attraction of fundamentalisim is the appeal of existential certainty in a complex and troubled world.” But a bit of extremism is sometimes needed if something rather than nothing is to be done. Sometimes positive change is delayed because people appeal to uncertainties. Look at Global Warming debate.

[felix_dakat]

Omar –

Yes I know that Gorgias is an extreme sceptic, just as others are extreme believers. My point is that reason predisposes us to be unable to accept such extreme scepticism. But there is nothing petently incorrect about what he has said. The limits are there. We simply cannot conduct life if we accept them.
People CAN discuss spiritual things only after they ignore the proper limitations of language (which not only Gorgias but also Nietzsche explored, and then ignored). And we need to exceed those limitations again and again, and not only in spiritual matters. Even talking about ourselves, would be impossible if we adopted the limitations that exist. But we do not. And therefore there is a level of fancy in most things we think about.

I don’t think it is necessary to ignore the proper limtations of language to discuss spiritual things, only to recognize that one is using metaphorical language when one is.

Love is not the subject but an analogy. What applies to Love can apply to God as well. I could have used “Omar”, “Felix” or “Beauty”. How many things are out there that are determined, in part, by our fancy, and it is by virtue of that fantasy that we live the higher life than what scepticism would allow. I often see posters on this board enumerate the rational obstacles to faith in God, and they challenge the believers to refute them. But there is no refuting of every single rational objection to faith. There is nothing wrong with reasoned extreme scepticism…except of course that I would demand of such posters a bit of consistency and apply such intense rigidity to every other aspect in the life. What we find then is that their life, the very speaker of such objections, is annihilated. So I say, be careful what you wish for…

Yes. On another thread I cited Plato’s Symposium which has influenced my thinking on this issue.

So, to sum up, such scepticism is an extreme. At the other end we have fundamentalism, made up of what I call “extreme believers”. Generally, life happens somewhere in the middle. You speak the truth when you say: “The attraction of fundamentalisim is the appeal of existential certainty in a complex and troubled world.” But a bit of extremism is sometimes needed if something rather than nothing is to be done. Sometimes positive change is delayed because people appeal to uncertainties. Look at Global Warming debate.

The action taken based on such misplaced certainty can be expected to bring unintended consequences. Fundamentalists makes the spritual concrete. They also view God as a strict Father rather than a nuturing parent. On these points, I disagree with them.

[omar]

Hello Felix:

— I don’t think it is necessary to ignore the proper limtations of language to discuss spiritual things, only to recognize that one is using metaphorical language when one is.
O- But the self, for example, is not intended as a metaphor. It is a root belief. I cannot recognize it because it is imbeded on the very self. I am that metaphor that uses metaphors, but that second metaphoric level requires the literal application of the first metaphor, which is the “I”.

But overall Felix, I have run out of ways of arguing here. At this point all I can say is that I agree.

[felix_dakat]

@omar

Hello Felix:

— I don’t think it is necessary to ignore the proper limtations of language to discuss spiritual things, only to recognize that one is using metaphorical language when one is.
O- But the self, for example, is not intended as a metaphor. It is a root belief. I cannot recognize it because it is imbeded on the very self. I am that metaphor that uses metaphors, but that second metaphoric level requires the literal application of the first metaphor, which is the “I”.

But overall Felix, I have run out of ways of arguing here. At this point all I can say is that I agree.

I agree the the self is fundamental. So,there is the self as subject and the self as object. The self as subject is doing the experiencing. The self as object is embodied. Via our embodied self we are connected to each other, to other living things and to the physical world. These everyday embodied experiences are the fundament upon which conceptual metaphors are mapped.

Say, that reminds me of our previous discussion about the trinity. I am thinking about started another thread comparing Guth’s cosmological theory with the Kaballah and Logos Theology. i’m pretty sure you will find plenty to disagree with me about there!