Below is a post of mine from another thread. It revolves around something that has always intrigued me in regard to those who worship the God of Moses and Abraham. And yet do so from three different spiritual denominations.
Of course, there are those here who don’t put much stock in Judgment Day at all. Their God is considerably more sophisticated when it comes to connecting the dots between morality “down here” and immortality and salvation “up there”.
God doesn’t think at all like hundreds of millions of Christians, Muslims and Jews around the globe think He does. No, instead, God thinks like they do.
The God of Moses gets judged every day right here on ILP. The history of Post-Temple Judaism is a template of hermeneutics by which the rabbis transformed the God of the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament already started doing that. Before that Philo, a middle Platonist, was already doing it by analyzing the Hebrew scripture Platonically. Without Hellenism, Christianity as we know it could never have developed.
Right, like the judgments we make as mere mortals down here are anywhere near the same as the judgments God makes on Judgment Day itself.
Seriously, though, millions of Christians, Muslims and Jews around the globe seem to insist that if immortality and salvation is your thing, you’d better get with the program. Theirs.
What then might, say, King Solomon in all his wisdom have suggested here?
The nihilistic book of Ecclesiastes is traditionally attributed to him. According to the fundamentalist interpreters he wrote it during a period when he was backsliding. They blame it on him having too many wives. He got depressed, apparently.
Wisdom is knowing when you do not know. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever claimed to know since I’ve been on ILP. And I doubt that anybody else knows either.
Reality is not only stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we CAN suppose!
I think the point is that we know that the scriptures of all ancient traditions are based on their understanding of the world then. So, it doesn’t matter what “hundreds of millions” think, it is down to what your conscience tells you. There is no-one in that number who still thinks like the people 2-3 thousand years ago, even if they think they do. We are children of our time, regardless of what tickles our fancy. I know many fundamentalists and I also know that many of them lead polarised lives, in which professional and private lives are necessarily divided, something which causes them a certain amount of distress.
I have a name for pointing this out, and therefore even those who regard me as a friend will not discuss the point with me (probably because they value our friendship), but it is a choice. I have told you before, I am a Christian because it is the culture I grew up in, and I can differentiate enough to recognise the bumps under the carpet. So, the mindset that you’re alluding to in your last sentence only works for those as cynical as you are. It isn’t the elite idea of sophistication that is significant here, but the open-minded consideration for those who live fragmented lives.
On the other hand, there have been, are now and will be any number of both God and No God objectivists here who not only claimed/claim/will claim to know, but were, are and will be ever ready, willing and able to mock those who refused to know exactly the same thing.
They have always been my own primary target here. With those like you and Bob, I was always more interested in suggesting that moral and spiritual nihilism might be something that given your intelligence you might be willing to accept as well. Or, given your intelligence, you may actually succeed in moving me closer in your direction.
But mainly this thread is for those who have never really given much thought at all to the fact that the God of Moses has historically resulted in three main religious denominations and dozens of additional denominations. And that’s just on this planet. And how “for all practical purposes” that would play itself out on Judgment Day.
Ah, Rummy’s Rule!
Still, one way or another, all are faced with the task of connecting the dots between morality on this side of the grave and the fate of “I” on other side of it.
They might be Christians, Muslims or Jews. Same God. Different spiritual paths. And ever and always looming up ahead: Judgment Day.
And how is one’s conscience not in turn largely the embodiment of dasein? Rooted historically, culturally and individually in lives that can be very, very, very different.
And how on earth might the God of Moses take that into account when a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim – who might have any number of value judgments in conflict – are being judged as worthy of both immortality and salvation. Especially given a history awash in, among other things, inquisitions, crusades and jihads. The whole thing strikes me as completely surreal. This omniscient and omnipotent God is wholly aware of the bloody hell these denominations have put each other through down through the ages…but then suddenly none of that seems to matter. It’s like something out of the theater of the absurd.
And of course it matters that hundreds of millions around the globe believe that their own path to God makes them the “chosen ones”. After all, entire communities – even nations – reward and punish particular sets of behaviors based entirely on this assumption.
On the other hand, there are any number of fundamentalists who might then note all of the people like you that they know. And, from their entirely sincere perspective, you will no doubt be “left behind” along with those like me. And living polarized lives is precisely the point. And whatever distress they might feel is likely to be readily subsumed in the great comfort and consolation they have knowing that they are on the One True Path to God. So of course they are knocking on doors or becoming missionaries. The very souls of the infidels are at stake!
Right. Here you are flat out admitting that the reason you are a Christian is because, adventitiously, it just happens to be the culture that you were brought up in. Nope, nothing cynical about a spiritual conviction of that sort.
Others are brought up in a Jewish culture, or an Islamic culture, or a Hindu culture, or a Shinto culture.
But then on Judgment Day that all becomes merely incidental to God.
Everyday is Judgment Day. The new comes to light. The old passes away. What are the gold, silver and precious stones that endure? You be the judge. Your point of view can be the context.
Oh, that’s a sophisticated reaction to the points I made.
Look, you’re felix daStooge on this post, okay? It’s still just a judgment call hopelessly rooted subjectively in dasein, but I feel more confident about this one.
Another classic “general description spiritual contraption”.
And even though your point of view about it is rooted subjectively in dasein, that need be as far as you go in order to avoid an actual, say, existential context?
Now let’s get back to the God of Moses and Judgment Day.
Felix is up at the Pearly Gates and argues that, “Everyday is Judgment Day. The new comes to light. The old passes away. What are the gold, silver and precious stones that endure? You be the judge.”
So, sure, you be the judge here too. Does he go up or down?
“Sophisticated”? You’re the sophist here not me. You stand for sophist positions. “Man is the measure of all things.” Moral relativity. Polemics. Your shit comes straight out of their playbook!
Have we learned nothing in 2400 years? Oh yeah technology has advanced. We’ve got more people and more suffering and we’re in danger of bringing down life on the planet with us. (This latter observation is rhetorical, not necessarily aimed at you.)
Okay, given a particular context, let’s explore the manner in which you construe a Sophistic point of view. As it relates to connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then. Then, using the same context, we can move on to the Milesians and the Pythagoreans, the Pluralists and Atomists.
Of course, my contention in regard to human suffering is how so much of it revolves historically around the God and No God objectivists gaining the political power necessary to enforce their own dogmas.
Only, as a moral nihilist, I also own up to the fact that, historically, moral nihilism has itself been used to sustain all manner of ghastly injustice. From the “show me the money” crony capitalists that own and operate the global economy to the sociopaths that can make life a living hell for anyone who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Which is why those like you need your “general description spiritual contraptions” to anchor yourself in…in order to bring whatever measure of comfort and consolation you can manage.
I’m not only curious about the God of Moses, but any religious path in which there appears to be one or another rendition of Judgment Day in the Scriptures.
Or those religious paths that link so-call enlightened behaviors on this side of the grave with, say, reincarnation on the other side.
What of those people who in all sincerity or through childhood indoctrination, place their bets on the wrong God/Buddha? How, historically, for all practical purposes, do you imagine that works? You are judged given how much to worship and adore any given God but any number of people may have gone from the cradle to the grave never even having heard of this God. Or scarcely knew anything about Him. Do they get a free pass for this? Meaning that those who have been made aware of Him but choose to worship and adore their own God instead are punished for that? They actually would have better off never having been aware of the God at all?
I wonder: How many religious folks ever really think things like this through at all. Though I’d like to believe that those who come to a philosophy venue would be willing to.
Though I suspect that to the extent such an exploration begins to chip away at their own faith, any number of folks will back off.
UUUmmmm…sorry for intruding…but you’re missing something.
A context.
Don’t be fulminating fanatics spreading us/them in the here/now.
Take it down from the conceptual stratosphere.
Thanks…
Return to your without a context discussion.
Boring. Same tropes, different day.
