Who is/isn't a Christian?

A continuation was requested. Carry on.

Thanks, Nathaniel.

>499 lawecom said: My understanding up to now has been that your position, as opposed to the position of those nasty narrow creedal Christians, is that one is a Christian if one is a part of the community.

Again, we have been using terms without identifiying the various meanings they may have among this diverse group. Christians worldwide are often referred to as the Christian community (also as the Body of Christ). Other meanings when one says Christian community could be: denomination, a single congregation, a group of congregations of the same denomination, a group of congregations not necessarily of the same denomination, etc. You're understanding may apply to some comments regarding who is part of a Christian community, but you may very well be conflating several meanings. Confusion is not surprising. Congregation and denomination have much clearer meanings, but I suppose could still contain ambiguity for some. Church (capital 'C'), I've noticed, is often used ambiguosly as well, as in I'm often unsure if the poster means all Christians worldwide regardless of denomination or if they mean, for example, the Catholic Church.

Regarding the point of the referenced comment: in my experience, a single congregation (and, thus, a community defined as one or more congregations) will often have within it seekers who are not committed to being Christian, but are honestly intent on learning and participating, and are open to becoming Christian at some point. One does not walk in the door of a church for the first time and 'become' a Christian, normally. As I mentioned before, this means a Christian community may have within it folks with beliefs not considered Christian. Some congregations might eject persons if they share those beliefs; many would not, since honest seeking within a Christian congregation is clearly compatible with the Christian's duty to witness.

Os.

There is no elohim but YHVH, and Yeshiva is his prophet. And Paul is Yeshiva's BFF.... And so it goes.

496

I do believe that no religion has a complete grasp of "truth". St Paul's "seeing through a glass darkly" sums that up rather well, I think. However, enlightenment (which can occur in any religious tradition, or none) would see that dark glass clearing somewhat, or even completely - though until that happy day arrives, none of us are in a position to say what it is like. However, I do believe that if (hypothetically of course) Jesus, Krsna, Buddha, Lao Tse, Sankara, & co, were to meet in a room together, there would be no arguments about "truth", and each would recognise, "see", and "know" that the others were the same as themselves, i.e. At One.

This is where the Quakers do not "adhere strongly to a notion of the objective reality of their own beliefs" , and insofar as they recognise the existence of blasphemous statements (which they don't, not really), that would rank at least as an assumption of truth that no man has any right to claim.

"To make the Christian, the Hindu and the Muslim fit in the bathtub together, you have to saw off half their limbs, and the result isn't so much warm, sudsy harmony but a bloody mess and three wailing unfortunates. Anyway, your exclusion of some nasty pagan religions from the tub seems purely arbitrary to me. Surely the ancient Gaul who divined the future by stabbing a prisoner in the back with a sword and minutely attending to his death throes was only merely acting out the directives of his own personal God within(2), and perhaps the God within the dying man too!"

There's so much seemingly wrong here, I hardly know where to begin! Ok, to start with, the Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, would - if they were serious about interfaith dialogue - begin with a recognition that each of them has only a part handle on any kind of absolute truth, that each of their religions grasps at a way of expressing it, however incompletely. Following on from that, they would acknowledge that they were not meeting to convert each other to a lukewarm mushy compromise, but simply to enter into dialogue, to find the areas - that may boil down simply to The Golden Rule - they have in common and can share together.

As for the pagans, no, that wasn't an arbitrary amendment. In that harming your fellow human beings is in no way consistent with The Golden Rule, they CAN be excluded. And they would, of course, have no legal foothold for their existence in the modern era anyway. Having said that, The Westboro Baptist Church is permitted to exist, but they do at least stop short of inflicting physical violence though their hate message would make them unwelcome in most civilised countries.

504

"the absolute truth value of Christianity excludes the truth value of other religions"

I have so many problems with your assertion that I cannot debate it with you. We don't have a common language of dialogue to enable discussion, if you believe that statement you made.

I can correct you on one point however : the Eastern traditions do indeed recognise the "coincidence of opposites"; it's one of the outcomes of Advaita, i.e. the experience of Unity, wherein all opposites come to rest and are reconciled.

>8 Tid:: I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say, which is probably my fault for not being clear. Your objections appear to be to the opposite of what I actually believe -- i.e. I think what I was trying to articulate is, in fact, in agreement with what you are trying to say. Let me try again.

I do NOT believe that the absolute truth value of Christianity excludes the truth value of other religions. What I was trying to articulate in 504 is that the conclusion that it does so only follows because of the limited nature of human epistemology. From God's perspective, the absolute truth value of Christianity does NOT exclude the truth value of other religions.

This is what I was trying to say in terms of the principle of noncontradiction: it is a logical principle that follows only from the limits of human epistemology. God is NOT bound by it -- and as you rightly point out (as I tried to say in 504), many eastern traditions never bothered with it, choosing instead to recognize the "coincidence of opposites."

I was trying to affirm, in the face of lawecon's insistence that Christianity fit within his logical boxes, that God does not fit within logical boxes and will ultimately be found, not in discrete propositions, but in the coincidence of opposites, when the limits of human logic fail and time-bound being comes to rest in eternal changelessness.

Report of the Commissioners to the Parliament of Paris:

The more true opinion is, that all inanimate and irrational things may be legitimately worshipped," says Father Gabriel Vasquez, treating of Idolatry. "If the doctrine which we have established be rightly understood, not only may a painted image and every holy thing, set forth by public authority for the worship of God, be properly adored with God as the image of Himself, but also any other thing of this world, whether it be inanimate and irrational, or in its nature rational."

"Why may we not adore and worship with God, apart from danger, anything whatsoever of this world; for God is in it according to His essence ... (This is precisely what the Pantheist and Hindu philosophy maintains.) and preserves it continually by His power; and when we bow down ourselves before it and impress it with a kiss, we present ourselves before God, the author of it, with the whole soul, as unto the prototype of the image(follow instances of relics, etc.) .... To this we may add that, since everything of this world is the work of God, and God is always abiding and working in it, we may more readily conceive Him to be in it than a saint in the vesture which belonged to him. And, therefore, without regarding in any way the dignity of the thing created, to direct our thoughts to God, while we give to the creature the sign and mark of submiission; by a kiss or prostration, is neither vain nor superstitious, but an act of the purest religion."

A precept this, which, whether or not doing honor to the Christian Church, may at least be profitably quoted by any Hindu, Japanese, or other “heathen” when rebuked for his worsbip of "idols". We purposely quote it for the benefit of our respected "heathen" friends who will see these lines.
De Cultu Adorationis Libri Tres.," Lib. iii, Disp. i, c. 2.

I have nothing important to say at this moment. I just want this thread to pop up on my "My Posts" list like its two parent threads. So I have to post something, and this is it.

9

My apology. I was too quick to jump to the wrong conclusion. Yes, your last paragraph resonates strongly : whatever kind of God exists (if indeed, exists at all!), then human logic fails, whereas 'eternal changelessness' is one of the characteristics of an Absolute pointed towards by Advaita, or by most faiths and metaphysical philosophies.

10

Bowing to the 'Paramatman' (which is one's own Self) is one of the moment-by-moment surrenders within Advaita. Jesus washing the feet of his disciples must be the same acknowledgement, surely? And the graven idols of Buddhism - with which I've always had a bit of a problem - can be seen perhaps as an exercise in humility and acknowledgement of something beyond one's own petty ego. The icons of the Orthodox Church would have the same function.

11

Something I do too! (Is there a bug in LT at the moment? I'm finding that clicking the Edit button brings up a blank message box, so I have to copy my original message, delete it, then paste into a new message and edit it there.)

>8 Tid: the Eastern traditions do indeed recognise the "coincidence of opposites"; it's one of the outcomes of Advaita, i.e. the experience of Unity, wherein all opposites come to rest and are reconciled.

Richard Rohr, author and franciscan friar, encourages Christians to come to terms with a God who will appear contradictory to humans, the result of finite beings contemplating revelation of the divine. I highly recommend his Everything Belongs. In pursuing the work's primary purpose - to provide encouragement to a Christian to pursue contemplative/meditative prayer - Rohr observes that when mystics of Jewish, Christian, Muslum, and Hindu faiths encounter God (by whatever name God is known), their descriptions of the experience are virtually identical. Rohr also finds much to learn about God in Buddhist experience.

This started me to wonder: if one having no knowledge or contact with Christianity were to encounter Christ, would their description of the experience be explicitly identifiable as an encounter with Christ? I suspect not, for cultural and linguistic reasons as much as anything. But, for a Christian, such an encounter by a non-Christian should be considered no less genuine, and the spiritual gain (increased knowledge of God) no less valid. Christ did say, after all, that it is the fruits that help one to discern true revelation of the Divine. I can't put my finger on it, but somewhere in the NT, Jesus did tell his disciples that, if someone who does not actually believe in Christ is telling the truth about Christ, he should not be hindered. We should put no limits on God's ability to reveal Himself to humans. Any such limitations are the result of humans excercising their free will in at least partial ignorance.

Os.

>8 Tid:, 9
Though my understanding of Eastern faiths (and the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith) is limited, it is my impression that the Western culture in which the Christian Church that I know (Protestant, mainly, but to some extent Roman Catholic) developed is heavily influenced by Plato's dualism, leading to an assumption (often without awareness) that there is one 'right' or 'true' answer to the important questions of human existance, and the rejection of all others; while Eastern culture led to the rise of faiths (including Christianity) without such a strict limitation on the nature of truth (the coincidence of opposites mentioned in posts 8, 9). We continue to learn about the nature of the Divine and, as Richard Rohr asserts, everything belongs to that process. That is, everything is used by God for His purposes.

I suspect dualism is the source of much of the heated dialogue in the Christianity group.

Os.

St Paul's "seeing through a glass darkly" sums that up rather well, I think.

Agreed. And I'm glad you picked up on that. Note the next sentence too—"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." I don't think "knowing in part" means casting aside all boundaries to religious truth, and even the principle of objective religious truth itself, but it should at least spur some humility on the topic.

There's so much seemingly wrong here, I hardly know where to begin! Ok, to start with, the Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, would - if they were serious about interfaith dialogue - begin with a recognition that each of them has only a part handle on any kind of absolute truth, that each of their religions grasps at a way of expressing it, however incompletely. Following on from that, they would acknowledge that they were not meeting to convert each other to a lukewarm mushy compromise, but simply to enter into dialogue, to find the areas - that may boil down simply to The Golden Rule - they have in common and can share together.

I see a tension between your first and your second part. I agree with the second. Dialogue between religions should take place in an atmosphere of mutual respect, where the goal isn't conversion—except insofar as one hopes for truth generally, and all movement toward truth is a partial conversion. I also agree that religions should discuss what they share, and can celebrate together—often a great deal!

But the first part is wrong. If the religions aren't trying to convert each other, why start by asking them to convert to the belief that they are all basically equivalent in having only a "part handle on any kind of absolute truth." Most religions make actual claims about truth and reality—claims that are not always compatible with the truth claims of other religions. Making those claims is fundamental to the religion. Islam without the claim that God is one isn't an open-minded Islam, it's absolute nonsense. Giving up such claims is WORSE than a "lukewarm mushy compromise"; it's the refusal to believe even a compromise could have meaning. Standing firm on such beliefs doesn't preclude dialogue—far from it—but dialogue must start from respect; one doesn't respect the differences between religions by first telling them to ditch core their beliefs.

This is what I was trying to say in terms of the principle of noncontradiction: it is a logical principle that follows only from the limits of human epistemology. God is NOT bound by it -- and as you rightly point out (as I tried to say in 504), many eastern traditions never bothered with it, choosing instead to recognize the "coincidence of opposites."

I certainly think that many thinks WE think are contradictions turn out not to be contradictions once God considers the problem. For example, I bet God isn't the least bit bothered by particle/wave duality… But not everything.

My question, Nathaniel: Could God make a stone so heavy he could not lift it? I know I'm playing on your turf here :)

~9

"I do NOT believe that the absolute truth value of Christianity excludes the truth value of other religions. What I was trying to articulate in 504 is that the conclusion that it does so only follows because of the limited nature of human epistemology. From God's perspective, the absolute truth value of Christianity does NOT exclude the truth value of other religions."

Could you give us a reference in Christian Scriptures or in the first 1800 years of Christian commentaries on those
Scriptures where anyone else agrees? Not agrees with G-d, Nathaniel, since you aren't G-d or his prophet and he isn't a participant in this thread, but agrees with what you conclude above.

"This is what I was trying to say in terms of the principle of noncontradiction: it is a logical principle that follows only from the limits of human epistemology. God is NOT bound by it -- and as you rightly point out (as I tried to say in 504), many eastern traditions never bothered with it, choosing instead to recognize the "coincidence of opposites."

"I was trying to affirm, in the face of lawecon's insistence that Christianity fit within his logical boxes, that God does not fit within logical boxes and will ultimately be found, not in discrete propositions, but in the coincidence of opposites, when the limits of human logic fail and time-bound being comes to rest in eternal changelessness."

Yes, all very true. There have been and still are a number of human beings who find it to be inconvenient to apply logic to their own views. Some of those human beings have good motives, some have bad motives (for instance, some want to avoid otherwise obvious contradictions that would disrupt their communities, some are like Mussolini in his Doctrine of Fascism, who don't want people to think systematically about what is being done around them). John has made a similar point numerous times - as have a number of other people who find that their world views are not self-consistent, but who KNOW that they and their affinity groups are GOOD PEOPLE.

Sadly, as I have pointed out an equal number of times, that conviction of rightness, never mind anything else, is shared by all sorts of people who are generally deemed in history to have been very bad people. That is why the consensus, for a while at least, was bending toward evidence and logical consistency, and away from strong beliefs that one and one's group HAVE TO BE RIGHT. But I can see that in certain circles that consensus is rejected.

14

"This started me to wonder: if one having no knowledge or contact with Christianity were to encounter Christ, would their description of the experience be explicitly identifiable as an encounter with Christ?"

This is a fascinating question. Ramakrishna, the Bengali monk, having realised his God-nature in the Hindu meaning of it, decided he would realise his God-nature in all the major faiths - which was of course a deliberate exercise, and involved him having prior knowledge of Christianity. On the other hand, a Hindu having a mystical experience would naturally tend after the event, to interpret it according to Krishna rather than Christ - for exactly the cultural reasons you mention. However, if a Hindu really did "encounter" Christ, one would have to quiz him/her about how that came to be known, and some subconscious knowledge of Christianity might then reveal itself. Certainly, to have no knowledge at all of a proselytising religion like Christianity one would have to live in a very remote region.

15

Yes, the core element of Eastern philosophies is non-dualism, which has to be reached through the apparent dualistic nature of the phenomenal world. The ultimate duality we all know about arises at a very young age : "Me" and "everything else".

16

"even the principle of objective religious truth itself"

At the risk of being accused of lacking humility, I don't recognise the concept of "objective religious truth". And this is where I bridle at your "But the first part is wrong. If the religions aren't trying to convert each other, why start by asking them to convert to the belief that they are all basically equivalent in having only a "part handle on any kind of absolute truth."" Just on a picky semantic point, I used the word "convert" in a religious sense, where your second use of it stands simply for "agree upon". What are the participants in interfaith dialogues being asked to agree on? Exactly what I proposed : that their religions (each of which arose in a particular culture at a particular time in a part of a world that is a tiny rock orbiting an average star in a galaxy of billions of such, in one universe comprising billions of galaxies) CAN only make a clumsy attempt to define absolute truth; if any dialogue between them is to take place - or else what's the point in even trying? - then each of them will accept that as fact without dismissing their core principles, ethics, or rituals. Yes, respect is an essential ingredient, but each claim that 'my religion' possesses 'exclusive truth' does nothing but erect a fence, a boundary, around themselves.

Bede Griffiths showed how far two completely different religious philosophies could overlap, and his Christian ashram in India used Hindu practices to show how to realise God in a real way, for both Hindus and Christians. Now that's what I call true humility, and a true inter-faith encounter.

> 19. The ultimate duality we all know about arises at a very young age : "Me" and "everything else".

I'm not sure that I agree with your characterization here. Taking account of the Piaget stages of development, it seems like a slow process by which a person realizes that there are aspects of "Me" that are not under the conscious control of the emerging mind. Perhaps at first there is only undifferentiated "Me". Then, slowly, the person starts a process of identifying the individual constituents of "me". For example, at around age 7 to 9 months, infants begin to realize that an object exists even if it can no longer be seen. This is called object permanence: a sign that memory is developing. What's happening is that the "object" (as a mental phenonmenon) is simply acquiring a second characteristic, a memory image that exists in "me" in contrast to the physical image that's the immediate object of sensation to "me". In either case, it's all "me". As a bonus, through imagination, I can make the memory object do things I can't make the immediate object do.

21

I was specifically referring to the emergence of the ego at the age of about 2, hence the "Terrible Twos" that most parents have to go through. Before then, the infant has no real working concept of themself as a separate autonomous individual, even though they do indulge in "toys out of the pram" experimentation. Once the ego has formed - long before the child goes to school - the world effectively divides into two: the duality being "What's within" (i.e. Me) and "What's without" (i.e. the rest of the world, with its people, objects, concepts, activities, sensory impact, and so on).

Before the emergence of the ego, the baby is really little more - subjectively - than an extension of its parents and siblings, but especially its mother. So when I speak of the "ultimate duality" I'm really speaking of the 'bubble', the version of the real world which we create for ourselves, and which forms the Great Illusion which Hindus speak of as Maya. Our problem is that we think of it as very real.

that their religions (each of which arose in a particular culture at a particular time in a part of a world that is a tiny rock orbiting an average star in a galaxy of billions of such, in one universe comprising billions of galaxies) CAN only make a clumsy attempt to define absolute truth

Well, I've said it before, but this is where virtually all religious people get off the bus. They might believe that their understanding is partial—that divine grace is offered to the self-aware slime-molds of Alpha-Centauri differently than it is offered to us—but they won't believe that is essentially inept. This is particularly true for religions that involve revelation—God may show us only part of himself, but his revelation is not "clumsy." That most liberal religionists will acknowledge the cultural circumstances of revelation is clear, but if modern Christians, Muslims or Jews thought that their faiths did not transcend their originating cultures, they wouldn't seek to engage with the content of them at all, but just wait around for God's new revelation to the Albanian-American Middle Class of Illinois, or whatever.

if any dialogue between them is to take place - or else what's the point in even trying? - then each of them will accept that as fact without dismissing their core principles, ethics, or rituals

Religion does not only consistent of "principles," "ethics" and "rituals" it also consists of beliefs. Real religious dialogue happens all the time. Sometimes it focuses on principles, ethics and rituals alone—for indeed some think it's pointless to discuss beliefs—but it certainly doesn't start by mutually agreeing on the ineptitude of each others' beliefs!

23

You seem to have twisted my main points out of all recognition. IF there is a God (or divine principle at the heart of the universe) then his/her/its revelations couldn't be clumsy, and if you'd read what I wrote you will see I never said that. I was talking about the attempts of mere mortal human beings to describe such revelations; which are to one person at a time and of such a nature that words are utterly deficient to convey. The problem with religion is that the mystical experiences of individuals are thought to be capable of formulating and encoding into some sort of organised structure. To take the obvious example - Jesus was dealing directly with the people he encountered, especially his immediate group of followers. The greatest value of Christianity is that individuals within the religion have had their own insights, enlightenment, and mystical experiences.. which are equally incapable of being described, formulated or organised. That's not to say that the attempt is a complete waste of time - even inadequate descriptions of something ineffable can be inspirational to those who are struggling along on the lower slopes (as with the writings of Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, and countless more).

"if modern Christians, Muslims or Jews thought that their faiths did not transcend their originating cultures, they wouldn't seek to engage with the content of them at all"

Which is exactly what they did in medieval Moorish Spain, debating the philosophical differences between their faiths in a largely harmonious spirit of enquiry, before Ferdinand and Isabella decided to impose their brand of muscular Christianity and ended what must have been a truly wonderful period when the three religions cohabited equably without EITHER losing their individual identity OR going to war over them.
THAT, and the example of people like Bede Griffiths, prove that the most effective interfaith encounters don't encapsulate "I'd love to talk with you, but at heart I know I'm right, and you won't shift me on that".

"it certainly doesn't start by mutually agreeing on the ineptitude of each others' beliefs!"

?????
What? Who said that?

Happy Christmas, Tim.

I apologize for any misrepresentations I made, but I don't really see things differently. The model you seem to propose is that God discloses himself well—not ineptly—but that human beings simply cannot understand this self-disclosure, or at least communicate it to other humans in any way that isn't deficient. It would seem to follow—tell me if I'm wrong—that you think different religions should admit that their understandings are equally deficient misapprehensions—equally close but also equally far from whatever God wanted to impart.

Now, I suppose this sort of thinking works if God is "out there" and many periodically attempts to understand him, without his help, then we are all like bad telescopes pointing at an interesting astronomical phenomenon. But if God has something he actually wants to convey, and he can't express it in a way that his hearers can grasp even such distinctions in content as exist between Buddhism and Christianity, well, I don't really see the purpose in self-disclosure.

To take it from a Christian perspective, for example, what mystical insights are we to give $0.02 for in God actually becoming man if the core content of Christianity—God became man to rescue us from sin—is just our deficient understanding of the ineffable. That turns God becoming man, which ought to have something to do with communication, into a terribly tragedy, by which we can't even understand much of him when he becomes one of us.

The problem with religion is that the mystical experiences of individuals are thought to be capable of formulating and encoding into some sort of organised structure

That's entirely your prerogative to believe. But in believing this you set yourself fundamentally at odds with what most believers actually believe! As such, it's a very poor basis for conversation between believers.

Which is exactly what they did in medieval Moorish Spain, debating the philosophical differences between their faiths in a largely harmonious spirit of enquiry…

I'm quite sure they didn't start off the conversation by proclaiming that they had fundamentally deficient understandings!

what must have been a truly wonderful period when the three religions cohabited equably without EITHER losing their individual identity OR going to war over them

Although I suspect your image of Moorish Spain is largely modern myth, coexistence without a loss of identity or war is certainly both good and possible.

muscular Christianity

That's something of a term of art. I don't think Ferdinand and Isabella would have liked it.

Happy Christmas, Tim.

And a Merry Christmas to you too!

Not sure who I'm agreeing with or disagreeing with in Tim's and Tid's discussion, but here goes.

1. I believe God reveals himself directly and, therefore, perfectly.
2. I believe His revelation resides unmarred in our spiritual core. In fact, I am coming to believe (imperfectly, I must admit) that God resides at our spiritual core and, thus, revelation mentioned in 1 is actually the result of either an intentional effort on God's part to push our ego aside and get our attention or...(see item 3, next)
3. Our conscious self is only occasionally, if at all, able to sweep the ego out of the way to experience our spiritual core. What results from such an experience is a perfect though partial revelation that our conscious self is unable to hang on to perfectly, but our ability to retain such understanding improves with repeated experience.
4. I believe that our language and intellect limits our ability to accurately relay what we are able to consciously retain about that revelation (and this thread is a good example of such difficulty).

Thus, we misunderstand the revelation that others have had, while we struggle to witness to the revelation we have had. We pray for the Holy Spirit to guide our words and, at the same time, guide the understanding of others which is, in effect, a separate revelation to each, sometimes built upon or, at least, using our witness.

Even Jesus was occasionally frustrated at the lack of comprehension on the part of the disciples. But, ultimately, the revelation of the Cross and the aid of the Holy Spirit provided them both a better understanding (perfect, perhaps, as far as it went) and worked through their witness to reveal God to others.

Statements 1-4 apply, regardless of the particular faith, if any. The last two paragraphs reflect 1-4 experienced by life spent in a Western, Christian culture.

Os.

>18 lawecon: That is why the consensus, for a while at least, was bending toward evidence and logical consistency, and away from strong beliefs that one and one's group HAVE TO BE RIGHT. But I can see that in certain circles that consensus is rejected.

I think that folks who believe they "HAVE TO BE RIGHT" are as likely to be the "bending toward evidence and logical consistency" crowd as they are to be the "strong beliefs" crowd. The Enlightenment and Age of Reason effected all of Western culture, religious or not.

A person of faith may 1) stand on their rock and argue their convictions with logic and reason, determined to convince the 'other' that they are right, going to bed with ideas of how they will argue the point tomorrow; or, 2) accept the philosopher's contention that truth is subjective and what matters is the truth you come to know in your own head (based on logic and reasoning, or prayerful study, or both), and conclude that everyone's concept of the Divine is equally valid in their own reality, or 3) accept that their knowledge of truth is always incomplete, but can grow by revelation through prayerful study, contemplative prayer, and dialogue with others of the same faith, other faiths or even no faith. But, this person believes that objective truth does exist, a partial understanding of it can be achieved, and that understanding should not be sacrificed simply because someone else argues strongly that it is off base. There are probably other approaches, but these three are the ones that seem most common in Western culture.

I suspect that this thread and others like it on this LT group have many of the first type; few, if any of the second type (since debate would seem pointless) and some of the third type. To the first type, the third type will often look like the second type.

Os.

>1 nathanielcampbell:-890
then
>1 nathanielcampbell:-525
then
>1 nathanielcampbell:-25

Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy New Year.

Os.

>24 Tid:: "as with the writings of Julian of Norwich"

Yet, Julian is at pains throughout her writings to square her experiences with the teachings of Holy Church. Indeed, the entire impetus for her theological project is that she is not willing to reject any of the teachings of the Church, no matter how much they may seem on the surface to contradict her spiritual insights. Her thought would be far less vibrant if didn't engage in that dialectic.

"Which is exactly what they did in medieval Moorish Spain, debating the philosophical differences between their faiths in a largely harmonious spirit of enquiry, before Ferdinand and Isabella decided to impose their brand of muscular Christianity and ended what must have been a truly wonderful period when the three religions cohabited equably without EITHER losing their individual identity OR going to war over them."

As Tim has pointed out, your view of medieval Spain might be a nice myth but is decidedly lacking in historical veracity. An excellent book that documents the real complexities of interreligious relations in that time period is Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages by David Nirenberg.

And of course, a holy Christmas to all!

~27

I think that you and I are using the term "argue" in different ways. When I say "argue," I mean what Karl Popper meant - that is, take a strong position and marshal all evidence and logic you can in support of that position. I also mean, however, that you should have as little emotional attachment to your position as is possible for a human being who may have spent many years advocating that position. If you see that as "subjectivism" I can't help much. I see it as a rejection of the doctrine that human beings are omniscient or have perfect intuitions of "what really is," but effectively no intersubjective evidence to support their intutions. (Which views both Popper and I would identify with Plato.)

As a part of the above I also reject the "all religions are equally good for some people some time" a view, which I do understand as gross relativism. There are several very well written nontechnical books on that topic that I would highly recommend to you God Is Not One , Voices of Faith, Volume 1, Paul Eppinger (ed) and Voices of Faith, Volume 2, Paul Eppinger (ed) (For some reason the touchstones don't work on the Eppinger volumes, but they are obtainable through Amazon.)

> 30. no intersubjective evidence to support their intutions.

What you seem to be asking for violates the very definition of intuition, which is: "the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference."

25

Your first paragraph sums up pretty closely what I was trying to say (except that I wouldn't posit a "God with desires"). The second one doesn't follow from that; why does an imperfect ability to use the linguistic cortices of the brain to convey the mystical experiences that occur in another, deeper centre of ourselves, imply that any God is "out there"? If God is really "immanent", then we are spoken to in a way that bypasses the ego and the intellect (see Os's points 2. and 3. below), potentially transforms our private little world in the most radical way, but it does not inevitably follow that we are thus invited to set up some kind of religious structure/organisation.

Your third paragraph brings in a wholly Christian faith perspective. Touché! You know I don't share that, so if I cannot debate with you after you declared your pure belief, then my blueprint for interfaith dialogue is obviously mistaken, yes? Well ok, let me try then:
"the core content of Christianity—God became man to rescue us from sin" - yes, I recognise this is pure Christian dogma to many (though as has been said many times here - not all). However, I don't see where "mystical experience" comes into this? Rather than revelation to one man, what you've just expressed was the result of a few centuries of theological debate within the Christian Church(es), and I can see no causal link between 'theology that leads to orthodoxy' on the one hand, and mysticism on the other.
"That turns God becoming man, which ought to have something to do with communication, into a terribly tragedy, by which we can't even understand much of him when he becomes one of us." - and this is where I have to part company completely with Christianity, as the existence of an immanent God (or Brahman or Void or Real Self) means we are all God in our essence, but are too selfish / pleasure-bent / stupid / petty / trivial-minded / easily distracted / mistaken / egocentric to realise it. And Jesus? A template for what we can be, the Son of Man, our spiritual evolution.

26

Bravo. The only point I am unsure about is 4 and after - are you suggesting that everyone has 'mystical revelation' (and cannot express it)? Or, as I think you may be saying, that those who do have mystical experience / revelation i.e. only a very small subset of the human race, struggle to express it?

27

I'm not in the first group! (You knew that LOL). The second seems to describe those who argue that truth is always relative, and I feel I cannot subscribe to that view either. So put me down as a paid-up member of the third group :D (though I would widen the definition of 'prayer' to sweep up meditation and any similar activity followed not only by religious people but also agnostics, and some atheists.)

25, 29

Yes, I readily accept that my view of what happened in medieval Moorish Spain may be through rose-tinted glasses, but it was nevertheless a phenomenon that puts the state of play in - e.g. - modern Palestine to shame.

>14 Ealhmund:, 19 This started me to wonder: if one having no knowledge or contact with Christianity were to encounter Christ, would their description of the experience be explicitly identifiable as an encounter with Christ?

This is something which missionaries often grapple with. Vincent Donovan is perhaps an extreme example, but once one starts to explore the concept of inculturation or, a stage further, incarnation of the Christian message into a different culture, it raises interesting questions.

>20 Tid: I used the word "convert" in a religious sense

That statement needs unpacking. I think the deepest religious sense of "conversion" is metanoia, which is to do with converting oneself, transformation, inner change, rather than "conversion" in the sense of joining a particular religion (although hopefully the latter includes something of the former).

>30 lawecon: I think that you and I are using the term "argue" in different ways. When I say "argue," I mean what Karl Popper meant - that is, take a strong position and marshal all evidence and logic you can in support of that position. I also mean, however, that you should have as little emotional attachment to your position as is possible for a human being who may have spent many years advocating that position. If you see that as "subjectivism" I can't help much.

No, that's a pretty good description of what I meant by argue, and No, I don't see that as subjectivism.

Os.

Oh, and thanks for the references.

>32 Tid: are you suggesting that everyone has 'mystical revelation' (and cannot express it)?

No - I see that I worded it to imply that, but I simply meant, as you said, that what revelation one has is often (always?) incompletely related to others.

So put me down as a paid-up member of the third group :D (though I would widen the definition of 'prayer' to sweep up meditation and any similar activity followed not only by religious people but also agnostics, and some atheists.)

Well, these are probably not the only ways people view/pursue truth, but the most common in Western culture, I believe. I also would include meditation in the 'prayer' umbrella. What is called "centering prayer" is a quieting and focus on our own center, specifically including pushing the ego out of the way.

Os.

Edited to add response to second comment.

33

" >20 Tid: I used the word "convert" in a religious sense

That statement needs unpacking. I think the deepest religious sense of "conversion" is metanoia, which is to do with converting oneself, transformation, inner change, rather than "conversion" in the sense of joining a particular religion (although hopefully the latter includes something of the former)."

You'd have to look back at 16, John, where Tim used the word "convert" in two distinct senses : first, of religions trying to convert members of other religions; then, of participants in interfaith dialogue having to "convert" to the belief that they are all basically equivalent in having only a "part handle on any kind of absolute truth" (which was a part-distortion of a point I made just before). I was just explaining to Tim in what context I'd used the word.