What you may not know about true religion (2), or, how do we communicate about religious truth?

The most recent course of this discussion centered on methods and modes of communication between Christians (specifically) and other religious or non-religious people. It was especially sparked by southernbooklady's link to a recent Patheos post on What non-Christians want Christians to hear.

Is the dogmatic insistence that non-Christians are wrong necessary in order to communicate the deeply-held truths of Christianity? Are there other modes of communicating the Gospel that balance an adherence to its truth with an openness to the experiences and convictions of others?

>503 Arctic-Stranger: - "A sign of being interested in discussion is talking to other people in ways that are meaningful to them. Spewing out Biblical verses to people who don't believe in the Bible is more like monologue instead of dialog. If you must, you should present them as things you believe, not arguments that people should be interested in."

Why do you get to define the rules for a dialogue?

Any dialogue takes two. "What is required, for a human person to discover something he has not yet found, is that he must be willing to look. (Or, in this case, to listen.)"

You haven't even made the case that there is anything to be found.

Why do you get to define the rules for a dialogue?

If you are happy to engage in the pointless monologuing that you have spewed forth thus far, then continuing what you are doing is a fine start. But if you want to have a dialogue with someone like SBL, you actually have to pay attention to what they say. Thus far, you are showing a marked inability to actually listen to anything said by anyone.

As an example of how two people who disagree on fundamental principles may still find things to discuss and even things about which they agree, I offer once again an account of a conversation I had with one of the Jehovah's Witnesses that came to the house:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/142212#3600881

They come back, periodically. I always open the door. And our conversations are more or less fruitful depending on the person at my door and my own mood. But I like to think that in a day spent going door to door facing the range of hostility they likely do, there is at least one point in their day that offers some brief respite.

494

" I am not interested in debate anyway , which is absurd and impossible when between people speaking different languages and from differing metaphysical foundations, but I am interested in discussion. "

This seems to me pure sophistry. What's more, you're debating with us already, by most people's definition of the word. A debate is simply a formalised discussion.

When I said "Are you able to address this without falling back on evangelical Christian dogma?", I wasn't forbidding ANYTHING. I doubted if you could actually set it aside, remember. But what you never seem to recognise is that you - a passionate convert to Christianity - are (apparently) here to convince everyone here of the "rightness" of your own belief, and if you can, to convert others to your faith. Well that's ok. Good luck to you. But please be honest enough to admit that's what you're up to.

What I wanted you to address earlier - since you ask - was your definition of what "people in darkness" means to YOU, personally. Not what it means to your old Sunday School teacher. What it means to YOU, personally, in your day-to-day life experience. I'm still curious to know.

2

I wouldn't use language like "spewing out Biblical verses" personally, but I do agree that the mere repetition of them isn't going to convince anyone here. It really would be edifying to know WHY you believe them, and WHAT you interpret them as saying, in the light of your own life experience.

7. the mere repetition of them isn't going to convince anyone here.

I think there may be a realization that it's unlikely that anyone's mind will be changed on the spot in some blinding revelation. My guess is that there's more of a feeling that by insistently repeating one's message, one might be "planting a seed" that will sprout at some future point in time. A little like Johnny Appleseed, perhaps, who might have had the feeling that if he but passed along his way again some twenty years later, he would find a full-blown orchard where once was only a barren field.

The key, of course, is never to pass that way again, lest you be disappointed.

I think the "Planting a seed" metaphor aims at a much more subtle encounter.

>7 Tid: - as an example, also for all you others with similar views:
1) "I wouldn't use language like "spewing out Biblical verses" personally, but I do agree that the mere repetition of them isn't going to convince anyone here.

For the umpteenth time, I am not trying to "convince" anyone, nor "prove" anything. The truth that saves, that fulfills, that explains my life and your life and the life of every human being, is not the result of a logical deduction, nor is it "making a sale", nor is it my presentation made in a way that pleases or satisfies you or meets any of your expectations or requirements for an "edifying" experience. I am trying to point you to that which can save, and fulfill, and explain, and give the peace that passes understanding.

Thus I on occasion give a Bible reference - as, you might note, others here give other references which trouble no one. Why is the Bible mocked or politely dismissed, but in general is seen as inappropriate, while secular references are admissible?

2) It really would be edifying to know WHY you believe them, and WHAT you interpret them as saying, in the light of your own life experience."

Why would that be good for you? I can tell you, based on my experience, that it would not be good for you - in fact, it would be counterproductive. Such "interesting" conversation is a waste of time for you and for me - only postponing (for you) the conversation that would in truth seize your heart and mind and soul. The conversation that would in truth be edifying would be the one between you and God.

Do you want such a conversation, really? If you do, I can tell you what is needed.

>3 StormRaven: "You haven't even made the case that there is anything to be found."

There are people who are searching, seeking, hungering, longing for something they know not. Go to any restaurant or bar or waiting room, and watch people's faces when someone new walks in the room. Where do they look, and why? Count the addicts of the world - addicts of drugs, legal and illegal, addicts of pornography, of overeating, of buying ever-more stuff, of fantasy books, fantasy TV, fantasy movies, fantasy music - addicts of fantasy, seeking any postponement of the dreaded fact of reality as it is known.

Then, there are some, at least in theory, who are quite satisfied with life as they know it. They have found all that they want or need. I'll admit the possibility of this, but I still doubt the reality of it. God made us to seek greatness; the human soul was not made for mediocrity, or pusillanimity.

So - to sum it up - I am not trying to prove anything to you, certainly not that there is something to be found. I accept the truth of that premise: there is something of great value that must be found, lest one's life be a tragic waste.

For the umpteenth time, I am not trying to "convince" anyone, nor "prove" anything.

Your behavior tells a different story. You even contradict yourself in the same post that you say this when you say this:

I am trying to point you to that which can save, and fulfill, and explain, and give the peace that passes understanding.

You see, this is trying to convince people. You are just doing a piss-poor job of it. It is this sort of contradiction, when you say you aren't trying to do something and then immediately admit that you are trying to do the thing you said you weren't doing, that makes me think that you are either not particularly bright or fundamentally dishonest.

Why is the Bible mocked or politely dismissed, but in general is seen as inappropriate, while secular references are admissible?

Because secular references are usually supported and make supportable claims. The Bible is based on nothing but wishful thinking. By itself it is no more convincing than Star Wars or Harry Potter.

There are people who are searching, seeking, hungering, longing for something they know not. Go to any restaurant or bar or waiting room, and watch people's faces when someone new walks in the room. Where do they look, and why? Count the addicts of the world - addicts of drugs, legal and illegal, addicts of pornography, of overeating, of buying ever-more stuff, of fantasy books, fantasy TV, fantasy movies, fantasy music - addicts of fantasy, seeking any postponement of the dreaded fact of reality as it is known.

Even if someone were to accept this was true (and to be honest, I find most of your claims in this quoted piece to be complete crap), that doesn't mean that there is anything to be found. You haven't established that there actually is anything to be found.

Wanting something to be there and something actually being there are two entirely different things. You wishing for magic fairies and pixie dust doesn't make magic fairies and pixie dust actually exist. No matter how hard you clap your hands and want it to be so.

10

To limit "God" to a parochial, supernatural being lurking somewhere just outside the Solar System, surveying the inhabitants of Planet Earth to make sure they are all Christians .. well, you get my point I'm sure. As for the "peace that passes all understanding", it's been discovered by the practitioners of all religions and none. I'd recommend you look into the wide branch of mysticism, where such experiences actually happen to real people. But it's useless trying to tell you of this - as far as you are concerned, anyone who has a spiritual experience but is not a Christian, is "in darkness" or error.

" For the umpteenth time, I am not trying to "convince" anyone, nor "prove" anything. The truth that saves, that fulfills, that explains my life and your life and the life of every human being, is not the result of a logical deduction, nor is it "making a sale", nor is it my presentation made in a way that pleases or satisfies you or meets any of your expectations or requirements for an "edifying" experience. I am trying to point you to that which can save, and fulfill, and explain, and give the peace that passes understanding."

It's a shame that your first sentence is contradicted by your last.

>14 Tid: Tid, please listen to what I did say, not to what you (apparently) hear and equate. The 1st sentence does not contradict the last. Listen! I am trying to point you to Truth, not to "convince" or "prove" anything. If you were to encounter Truth, then you would realize that God is not "a parochial, supernatural being lurking somewhere just outside the Solar System," etc. NOR is He the lowest common denominator of what all religions think Him to be.

As long as you cling to your misconceptions, you will never hear anything else. You have to let go of them, opening yourself to hear that which you cannot control or redefine to fit your present beliefs.

But - the question is, do you want anything that you do not have? If what you have, with its limitations and imperfections and shades of gray, is enough for you - well, I'd have to ask why you are wasting your time here on this thread.

There IS truth, and there are many degrees of mixtures of truth with error, and there is the absence of truth entirely. If you want truth, then seek it. If compromise and opinion suffices, then that is all you will end up with. But know this: Jesus came, and suffered in innocence, and died so that all men might have life in abundance, in the fullness of truth. Listen to Him! He is the answer to your questions, and your hungers. All I am trying to do is point to Him.

>15 ThomasRichard: Listen! I am trying to point you to Truth, not to "convince" or "prove" anything.

Ah. You are committed to leading every horse to water, even if you can't convince them to drink.

But neither will you let them leave. Speaking from the point of view of the horse, it is a bit annoying to be constantly dragged towards the pond when you aren't even thirsty.

15

"Listen! I am trying to point you to Truth, not to "convince" or "prove" anything. If you were to encounter Truth, then you would realize that God is not "a parochial, supernatural being lurking somewhere just outside the Solar System," etc.

...

There IS truth, and there are many degrees of mixtures of truth with error, and there is the absence of truth entirely. If you want truth, then seek it."

And this is the kernel of what is wrong with your approach. You are trying to point me to Truth, not truth. And "Truth" is YOUR truth, not mine.

Try this truth on for size :

There is nothing in the universe apart from consciousness. The qualities of consciousness to those who experience it in all its purity, untainted by illusion, is sat-cid-ananda, which is 'awareness, knowledge, and bliss', which is also the true nature of everything. There is nothing else. No God. No matter. No time. No space. Just consciousness, which is One and Eternal.

Is that any less important or real than your Christian "Truth"? Is it more trivial? More limited? Less vital?

What I've just described is what Hinduism grew out of, and is otherwise called Advaita Vedanta. It's a religious philosophy practised by some, and contains its own sages.

If I wanted a "Truth", I'd look no further than that, which is simpler by far than most religions. Or else Zen which is even more pared down. (The two systems are not so fundamentally different).

So stop searching in religious irrelevance and discover a "Truth" that is there all around you, right now, if you would only stop for a moment, and experience it.

......

I've just done what you do, only I've used a different system, a different philosophy. Who is to say which is more correct, more "truthful"?

I know what I know. I don't need you to tell me what I SHOULD know. Thanks, but no thanks.

Goodnight.

#2: What part of that do you disagree with? Simply taking umbrage that someone else might offer a definition of something without responding to the content isn't much of a dialog.

Dialog is the communication between two or more people. If you want to communicate to someone else, you can't expect them to put emphasis on the same things you do, and one way to fail at communication is to put a lot of emphasis on something you care about that the person you're talking to doesn't. If you really want to communicate, and you're talking to someone who sees the Bible as a quaint ancient religious volume along the lines of the Dhammapada or Analects of Confucius, pulling out the Bible as if it's the final answer in the conversation is not dialog.

#15: If you want truth, then seek it.

There are people who are seekers of truth. You, on the other hand, believe that you've found it; you're not seeking the truth anymore, nor do you really encourage it in others when they look somewhere other then where you're pointing.

But know this: Jesus came, and suffered in innocence, and died so that all men might have life in abundance, in the fullness of truth. Listen to Him! He is the answer to your questions, and your hungers. All I am trying to do is point to Him.

And that's not dialog or discussion. That's one way; you are trying to point for us, and don't really care what we're saying.

>16 southernbooklady: sbl, if you are not thirsty, then that is your choice. But no, I am not "committed to leading every horse to water,..." I said, "point to" - which is not the same as "lead." Those who thirst, will move on their own to the water that quenches thirst, once they know where the fountain of living waters is.

I am dragging no one. Last time I looked, persons were free to read this thread, and my posts, or not.

And to follow up myself... I'm not really a serious seeker of Truth or even the truth; I'm killing time here instead of studying, and much of what I do study is not deep Truth. From the other direction, I don't really necessarily encourage the untrammeled wanderings in the search for Truth; I feel free to encourage lines I consider productive and roll my eyes at lines I consider silly. If I become a parent, I will firmly and clearly express my beliefs and knowledge of religious facts to my children; they may choose whatever they want, and will be welcome to pursue their own explorations, but I won't stand aside and act as if I was neutral in the matter.

>19 prosfilaes:, 18 - There is a chasm between us. You misunderstand everything I say. I cannot play by your rules, because your rules are futile. They make sense for an interesting exchange of thoughts and opinions about this or that - but for advancing the purpose of life, they are futile.

It is interesting, and sad, the way people respond to a fellow "seeker of truth" when he has found truth! Everyone is friendly as long as everyone is still searching, and no one has found. Everyone is cordial when all that is involved are opinions, thoughts and speculations about truth and life and good and evil - when everyone is equally in the dark.

But when someone says "I am no longer blind - now I can see!" Ah, then the daggers come out. I am no better a man than you - but I have found something better than both of us, a treasure that every man is meant to seek and to find. I do "care what you are saying" - until your words get in your own way, and keep you apart from the truth you need. Do you seek truth? Then listen to what I am saying! Truth awaits you, in the Person Jesus Christ. Listen to Him.

The 1st sentence does not contradict the last.

So you are going for "too dim to understand what you are saying". Because the first sentence Tid quoted is most certainly contradicted by the last sentence Tid quoted. It seems odd that someone who keeps talking about how others are in "darkness" would be as clueless as you are.

But know this: Jesus came, and suffered in innocence, and died so that all men might have life in abundance, in the fullness of truth.

Know this: No, Jesus didn't. Show I'm wrong. The Bible is useless for this purpose.

>21 prosfilaes: Don't kill too much time! It is precious. Many persons on their death beds would wish for the time you are "killing," and the strength you are wasting.

>22 ThomasRichard: But when someone says "I am no longer blind - now I can see!" Ah, then the daggers come out.

but you do not say this. you say "you do not need to be blind -- follow this and you will see"

but I have found something better than both of us

I think, Thomas, that you also have words get in your way. For how are you to judge if this thing you have found is "better than" me?

Do you seek truth? Then listen to what I am saying!

A command. Given to those who prefer to be reasoned with, not ordered. Even when they are seeking truth.

> 1. Are there other modes of communicating the Gospel that balance an adherence to its truth with an openness to the experiences and convictions of others?

Obviously, there's one person contributing to this thread whose answer to your question is a resounding and insistent NO!

Just to be contrary, I'd say that adherence to the truth of the Gospel demands that a person be open to the experiences and convictions of others. To do anything else is to deny the truth of the Gospel.

>10 ThomasRichard:

thomasrichard, i'll take you at your word that you want an answer to this, so: you keep saying that you aren't trying to convince anyone, and maybe you're really not, but on my end it feels like you are when you repeatedly say things like "To everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. All who seek, find. All who ask will receive," (127) "Repent, convert and be saved," (128) "Listen to Him!" (223, among others) - it feels very much like that's what you're trying to do. and it can rub people the wrong way, which means that it can get in the way of having a discussion. the same as the bible references - i can only speak for myself, but i can't even make myself read most of the quotes you post when they're biblical. if you analyzed, theologized, gave context, something, it might advance the conversation, but it's "troubling" (as you wrote) when you reference the bible because all you do is quote it and tell us to Listen! And we'll receive! yours feels like a one-sided discussion, and the quotes you post reinforce that.

>26 jburlinson: - Do you suppose that Jesus fared so poorly with His detractors in His day because He did not get this "openness" thing right? Maybe if He had been more open to the scribes, Pharisees and Herodians, and their convictions concerning religion, they would have all gotten along better? And maybe they could have found a middle ground, to the contentment of all.

I don't think so. Do you?

>27 overlycriticalme: I can't convince anyone of what only God can do, and can give, and can cause, in the soul of a human person. To be "convinced" is the wrong way to even think of what is meant by the radical transformation that Jesus calls men and women into.

Jesus said, to a man well-educated in Judaism, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3:3) The word actually is "begotten" - the male principle. It is necessary to be begotten from above: to have the seed of an entirely new life, placed in the soul of a person. Then, spiritual eyes can be opened, and supernatural realities can be perceived. I could have "analyzed, theologized, gave context, something, it might advance the conversation" - but it could not cause what only God can cause.

When a person comes to know that there is nothing I can do to save myself, but Jesus can - then, the conversation can advance. His words and acts have power, because His words and acts are holy truth. Jesus does not debate, convince and thus convert. Jesus speaks the truth, and the truth convicts, and converts.

> 28. He did not get this "openness" thing right

Actually, he did a pretty good job of openness, being willing to hang around with publicans, tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, romans, samaritans, gentiles, lunatics, the disabled, thieves, and, yes, even Pharisees and scribes.

#22: They make sense for an interesting exchange of thoughts and opinions about this or that - but for advancing the purpose of life, they are futile.

If you're not interested in dialog, then that's not a crime. Stop fussing about it and admit it.

It is interesting, and sad, the way people respond to a fellow "seeker of truth" when he has found truth!

And how do you respond to a fellow "seeker of truth" who has found truth, like the "truth" that the WTC was blown up from the inside, or that the Pope is the Antichrist? Many have found "truth"; it is not at all sad that we should be a little sceptical about which of these competing claims is real.

29

" Turiya is the fourth state. In this state, consciousness is not turned inward nor outward nor both. It is undifferentiated; it is beyond the spheres of cognition and non-cognition. This state cannot be experienced through the senses or known by comparison or inference; it is incomprehensible, unthinkable, and indescribable. This is Pure Consciousness. This is the real Self. It is the cessation of all phenomena; it is tranquil, all-blissful, and one without second. This real Self is to be realised."
(Mandukya Upanisad, verse 7; English edition "Enlightenment Without God" by Sri Swami Rama, 1982, ISBN 0-89389-084-7)

"To be "convinced" is the wrong way to even think of what is meant by the radical transformation..."

Indeed. As you will note from the Upanisad, conviction is nothing; experience is everything.

" It is necessary to be begotten from above: to have the seed of an entirely new life, placed in the soul of a person. Then, spiritual eyes can be opened..."

Indeed. As you can see from even that one verse of the Upanisad, once the truth of One is realised, all illusion is swept away, the eyes are opened, and the truth of existence and the One Self that is everything, brings bliss and knowledge to the Knower.

>30 jburlinson:, Yes, Jesus was open to all men and all kinds of men. But He never "shared opinions" with men as if "openness" to other "truths" had validity. Jesus knew truth, and He came to reveal saving truth to men who were imprisoned in their own opinions and bound to their own sins.

Jesus had the right kind of openness - not the kind of "openness" being sought here, an openness to subjective impressions of truth. Before Christ, such openness could arguably be reasonable: who's to know which ideas about truth were better? After Christ, after light has been revealed to the world, such openness to opinions about truth only postpones the saving and personal encounter with truth, who is Christ.

Paul shows an acceptable openness to the darkness of the world, when he observed the statue to "an unknown god" in Athens. The men there loved to talk with one another! He proclaimed - he did not "share" as if their insights and his were all equivalent - he proclaimed the one crucial truth of the one God that they did not know:

Acts 17:21Now all the Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new.
22Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.

>31 prosfilaes: I am open to dialogue (not debate, not swapping opinions). I have the freedom to communicate what I want in the way that I want, as do you, in a dialogue.

If you were a seeker of truth (instead of what you said of yourself: "I'm not really a serious seeker of Truth or even the truth; I'm killing time here instead of studying, and much of what I do study is not deep Truth") - if you chose to risk the whole-hearted search for truth - then you would commit yourself to the proper task of all men, to find the Truth!

Yes there are many lies out there, and it will get much worse. Many are deceived, and there will be many more. The risk seems high - but what choice do you have, except either to risk it, or hide?

>32 Tid: Comparative religion studies can reveal many startling similarities. That ought not be surprising - but the similarities ought not lead to false conclusions of equivalence. Similarities ought not delay you, but ought to encourage you to more urgency, to find the one Truth in all its purity, and beauty, and completeness.

>35 ThomasRichard: I am open to dialogue (not debate, not swapping opinions). I have the freedom to communicate what I want in the way that I want, as do you, in a dialogue.

And what if the "way I want" to communicate is to swap opinions? It seems to me that you are only "open" to dialogue that does not include dissent. It does not even include difference. It demands absolute agreement.

This is why your "dialogue" arouses hostility. It is why the usual evangelical message -- which you seem to epitomize -- engenders hostility in those it confronts. It does not ask for dialogue, it delivers a message. It demands that you listen, but demands also that you ask nothing.

That ought not be surprising - but the similarities ought not lead to false conclusions of equivalence. Similarities ought not delay you, but ought to encourage you to more urgency, to find the one Truth in all its purity, and beauty, and completeness.

The follower of the Upanishads would agree, and urge you to do so.

>36 southernbooklady: - "And what if the "way I want" to communicate is to swap opinions? "
Then sorry, look for another partner to do it. I spent enough time in the past at the level of opinions. I am concerned about truth.

"..... demands also that you ask nothing."
False. Ask away - only don't reject and insult the answers merely because you don't like them, and because they don't fit the world of relativism. ("Bible thumper" - "Dogmas" - etc.)

"The follower of the Upanishads would agree, and urge you to do so."
Am I talking to such a follower? Is that your choice and decision, for your life? I assume no. If "no" is correct, what are you waiting for? When will you decide your own path? Or will you remain a student of other's paths?

I am open to dialogue (not debate, not swapping opinions). I have the freedom to communicate what I want in the way that I want, as do you, in a dialogue.

The problem is that one of the primary definitions of "dialogue" is "an exchange of ideas and opinions". What you have demonstrated by your actions in this thread is that you don't actually want a dialogue. What you want is to be able to preach and then hear hosannas in response. What you want is a "dialogue" in which you say something and everyone else agrees with you. That's not dialogue.

Comparative religion studies can reveal many startling similarities. That ought not be surprising - but the similarities ought not lead to false conclusions of equivalence. Similarities ought not delay you, but ought to encourage you to more urgency, to find the one Truth in all its purity, and beauty, and completeness.

The irony is heavy here. Your dismissal of the Upanishads is exactly the same as the dismissal of your Gospel verses that others have done here. Perhaps if you were to think about why you dismiss the "Truth" of the Upanishads you might understand why your continued thumping of your Bible hasn't motivated anyone to think your claims to have the "Truth" are anything to take seriously. That would probably be asking too much from you though, since you really don't have any substance behind your mouthed Biblical verses.

>37 ThomasRichard: don't reject and insult the answers merely because you don't like them, and because they don't fit the world of relativism. ("Bible thumper" - "Dogmas" - etc.)

I don't think I've used the term "Bible Thumper" although you do tempt me on occasion. But what is wrong with "dogma"? Is it not an accurate term for your set of beliefs?

Or will you remain a student of other's paths?

I'm a life-long student.

>39 southernbooklady: "I'm a life-long student."

Then we share a love of learning. The question is, student of what? And, student/disciple of whom? "Every disciple, when he is fully taught, will be like his teacher."

"But what is wrong with "dogma"?"

Nothing, on my part, but I was criticized by someone here, I've forgotten by whom.

>38 StormRaven: - "That would probably be asking too much from you though, since you really don't have any substance behind your mouthed Biblical verses."

SR, out of respect for you as a person created in the divine image, and destined for a great and beautiful life, I ought not and will not be an enabler of the lesser character you have for now assumed for yourself. Thus don't expect a response from me, to your disrespectful posts.

Thus don't expect a response from me, to your disrespectful posts.

Translation: You are completely unable to say anything without resorting to parroting empty phrases from your Bible, and as a result, you are going to shriek like a stuck pig and then go sulk in the corner.

This doesn't surprise me. You've been asked multiple times by multiple posters why anyone should take your "Truth" seriously when you do nothing but dismiss anything said by anyone else. You've been asked to explain why you don't believe in Marduk. It has been noted that your dismissal of the "Truth" of the Upanishads is exactly what you have complained about when others do the same to your Bible verses, and you have been asked to explain why you treat them so differently. And you have steadfastly refused to actually respond to such questions. I suspect it is because you simply don't know how to.

Why is it not "disrespectful" for you to dismiss the Upanishads, but it is disrespectful of others to dismiss your claims? I think you are more than a mite hypocritical here, especially since the only person in the conversation on this topic who has been disrespectful has been you, because you pretend to want "dialog", but then refuse to actually listen to anything that anyone else says.

I have met many rude people in my life. You are near the top of the rudeness scale. And that's saying something.

Paul shows an acceptable openness to the darkness of the world, when he observed the statue to "an unknown god" in Athens. The men there loved to talk with one another! He proclaimed - he did not "share" as if their insights and his were all equivalent - he proclaimed the one crucial truth of the one God that they did not know:


Speaking of Paul: Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.

Be careful when you say you have found truth. Paul would not be impressed.

>16 southernbooklady:

this. as always, sbl says what i want to, but better.

>43 Arctic-Stranger: Whoever finds Jesus Christ finds truth, and whoever sincerely seeks truth will, on finding Him, proclaim with joy, "Yes! I have found Truth - finally, finally, finally I have found truth."

Whether Paul or you are impressed is not crucially important. St. Francis of Assisi once said, "I am what I am before God - nothing more and nothing less." He is our judge.

Did you realize that you had to quote someone who was not Jesus to make the point we don't need to listen to people who are not Jesus. You included Paul's letter to the Corinthians in the things we should not care to be overly concerned about. (Did you even know that was where the quote came from?) That is even more strange, except that it proves the point that people do NOT have a biblical theology, they have a biblical pick and chose theology.

> 33. He never "shared opinions" with men as if "openness" to other "truths" had validity. Jesus knew truth, and He came to reveal saving truth to men

Is it possible that you might have misunderstood the "truth" that Jesus revealed? Just a few examples: Jesus never revealed the "truth" that his mother was a virgin. He didn't reveal the "truth" that the Pope of Rome would be able to speak with infallibility. He didn't reveal the "truth" that use of contraceptions is a sin. He didn't reveal the "truth" that a priest must remain celibate, or that a priest can absolve someone of sin, or that a woman couldn't be a priest. He didn't reveal the "truth" that unbaptized infants would go to eternal limbo. There are 1001 other "truths" that Jesus didn't reveal.

What did he reveal?

"Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying: The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand." Mark 1: 14-15.

And where is the Kingdom of God?

"And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come? he answered them, and said: The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21

That is "the Truth" -- according to the Gospels. People will find the Kingdom of God within themselves. It will not be in the external, physical, observable world. It will manifest in internal, subjective experience. And that experience will be as different in the details, if not in the essence, as there are different individual people.

35

"Comparative religion studies can reveal many startling similarities."

But not to experience of truth. Advaita is not a study, it is life itself.

"similarities ought not lead to false conclusions of equivalence."

Absolutely. There is a huge gulf between - for example - Christianity, and Advaita. Christianity is dualistic. In other words Truth = God, Untruth = everything else, the world, "me". Advaita is unity : All is One, Consciousness, there is nothing else. This has to be known. This has to be realised.

" Similarities ought not delay you, but ought to encourage you to more urgency, to find the one Truth in all its purity, and beauty, and completeness. "

Which is Advaita. One. Unity. Your own true self.

> 48. There is a huge gulf between - for example - Christianity, and Advaita.

There needn't be. I've enjoyed a book on this subject called The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta, by Swami Prabhavananda, in which he says: "Vedanta evolved from the Vedas, the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, and teaches that all religions are true inasmuch as they lead to one and the same goal -- God realization."

>47 jburlinson: - politics and religion certainly can make strange bedfellows, jburlinson. But it should not surprise me. Imagine Sadducees, Pharisees, and Herodians finding common cause to attack and silence Jesus.

Jesus did more than speak the truth, and more than preach the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. The Gospel of Christ is more than was recorded in written fashion and accepted as canon by the Church. And the Kingdom is far, far more than what is found "within" individual persons, as precious and treasured is that Gift in the soul of every believer.

God is merciful, forgiving and very patient with us. But the prayer of Jesus is for the perfection of His will: oneness in the one eternal Truth:

Jn 17:19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
Jn 17:20 "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
Jn 17:21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Jn 17:22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
Jn 17:23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

>48 Tid: Is this then your own path - or are you merely placing another opinion on the table? Have you committed your own life to the truth of these beliefs?

> 50. Jn 17:19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
Jn 17:20 "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
Jn 17:21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Jn 17:22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
Jn 17:23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

The odd thing is that you quote this passage without seeming to take on board what it means.

Jesus isn't talking about something he plans to do in the future, but something that has already been accomplished. We have become "perfectly one".

How any individual person happens to experience that oneness at any point in time will vary; that's a consequence of our physical organism, which is in a constant state of flux, so to speak. All that's needful on our part is to love God and love our neighbor, which is the same thing, since we are all one. How one goes about experiencing and expressing that love, once again, will vary.

>37 ThomasRichard:

thomas, i'm really trying not to argue with you, but don't you see how "When will you decide your own path?" could feel offensive to someone who in this case has explicitly stated that she has long since done this? those of us who are not on the same path as you aren't by default lost, in darkness, or in search of that path that works for you, but doesn't necessarily work for everyone else. your path is your truth, and that's fine for you, but can be quite unattractive for other people. and on that note, giving answers that are only direct quotes from a book that is (at least relatively) meaningless to someone are not answers that can be taken all that seriously, as you have proved in how you handle answers about marduk, etc. your "Ask away" is entirely disingenuous when you only answer questions with quotes from the bible, and ignore questions you can't answer this way.

51

That's a straight question. First, it's NOT another opinion. Everything I have set out about Advaita is exactly the teaching of that philosophy.

Second, Advaita (or any other form of Yoga) is not about 'committing your life to a belief'. Talk to any Zen Buddhist, Taoist, or Yoga practitioner. It's about shedding the useless accumulations acquired over the course of a lifetime, that lead to what Gautama Buddha referred to as 'suffering'. It's more about practice than belief.

Third, I have practised meditation for nearly 30 years now, and meditation is regarded as the key practice of Advaita, way above all others.

If you would care to find out more about the Way of Liberation, then you only have to ask. Are you ready?

#34: if you chose to risk the whole-hearted search for truth

Many mathematicians chose not to seek an answer for Fermat's Last Theorem. Many did; some gave up after a fruitless year or decade. All but one of the others have gone mostly unremembered, their lives wasted in pursuit of something they never made a dent in.

you would commit yourself to the proper task of all men, to find the Truth!

Whereas I see humanity as much more multifaceted; what any one person's proper task is hard to say, and they may have a choice of many nigh-optimal ones, but as a whole our differences should form a great symphony, the variety of people's tasks filling all holes.

Moreover, I'm dealing with problems I can analogize to this in class right now; huge problems where a direct full search could take billions of years (or many orders of magnitude longer). A good way to fail is to get hung up in one corner too much. I've looked around Christianity; were I to attack this problem with the full power of my mind, I would have a good distance to study in Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Western paganism, etc. before coming back to this well explored area. I have no reason to think that your objective function, your measurement of how true something is, is well calibrated, but even if I assume it is, you may have hit a local minimum that is vastly higher then the real global minimum.

I'm happy enough on my local minimum. If I should dig for one aspect of the truth, I see my time much better suited for fields I'm good at and which I see actually advancing.

A good way to fail is to get hung up in one corner too much.

There is a warning about this danger in Farid al-Din Attar's The Conference of the Birds. In the Peter Sis adaptation it goes something like this:

The obsessive bird, sifting the earth
through a sieve, says, I’m trying
to find my way, so I must look
everywhere.

And the guide, the Hoopoe, answers:

When you feel empty,
you have to open up your heart and
let the wind sweep through it.

>51 ThomasRichard: - As I use the word, you have chosen to believe in this philosophy - as evidenced by your following it, doing it, living according to it.

Thank you, but no, I have found "the way" I do and will believe in, follow, do, and live according to: Jesus, who is "the way, the truth and the life." If we both persevere in our choices to the end, we can compare notes on Judgment Day. (Perhaps you don't believe that there will be such a Day, but nevertheless - you will when the Day is upon us. I pray you will come to know of it before then.)

>37 ThomasRichard: - Quotes from the Bible that I have chosen DO answer questions, for anyone who read and thought about what the words say. The words therein are not at all meaningless - they say things, answers to crucial questions, for anyone seeking the answers.

I can't answer every question that is asked - I make choices, based on what I judge to be potentially helpful.

It seems that nothing I have said on this forum has been helpful to anyone up to this moment, and perhaps the time is here to move on.

Quotes from the Bible that I have chosen DO answer questions, for anyone who read and thought about what the words say.

No, actually they don't, any more than quotes from a Harry Potter book would.

>58 ThomasRichard:

look, if you want someone who does not believe in the bible to take seriously your talk about jesus, religion, truth, etc, using quotes from the bible is not the best choice, as we've already said again and again that we get a different truth from it than you do. i think most of us would be interested or happy to hear your answers to these questions based on anything other than direct quotes from the bible. if you can't understand why this is, and the distinction therein, i think you're right about all of us wasting our time.

57

"we can compare notes on Judgment Day. (Perhaps you don't believe that there will be such a Day, but nevertheless - you will when the Day is upon us"

You see, this is the difference between duality and unity. I ask you : Who, on the "Day of Judgement", will be doing the judging? I know that you believe the answer to this question is "God". But that is simply inherent within a dualistic religion, a belief that there is a "God" somewhere "out there" who "acts". Whereas a system such as Advaita (and Buddhism, and Taoism, and many others) talks about "One-ness". There is no "God" who will judge "us", because ultimately "we" (as perceived separate egos) are part of the illusion of existence.

The feelings of bliss and fulfilment will not be any different. But the perceived view of Reality could not be more different. You cannot say I am wrong, you can only say "I believe...", and that's enough for both of us.

>60 overlycriticalme: - OK, elisa. I will try to answer your questions. What are they, one at a time, please, beginning with what you consider to be the closest to the place where our paths diverge.

>59 StormRaven:: "No, actually they don't, any more than quotes from a Harry Potter book would."

Can you stop with the false analogies? We all know that you're smart enough to know that this a logical fallacy, yet you keep at it with relentless, shameless verve.

>61 Tid: - ""we" (as perceived separate egos) are part of the illusion of existence."
Tid, can you tell me what you mean by "the illusion of existence", and how you came to believe that this correctly describes "existence," whatever that means to you personally?

63: It's not a false analogy, not matter how much you wish it to be. The Bible is just a fictional book of mythology. Quoting it to prove the "Truth" carries no more weight than quotes from any other fictional book.

>65 StormRaven:: After the Harry Potter books have served continuously as a holy book that has guided the lives of billions of people for more than two thousand years, then we can talk.

The simple fact is that the cultural and historical importance of the Bible, as well as the depth of its ideas and their power to shape humankind, are of so vastly a different scale from the Harry Potter books, that the analogy is well and simply false. It is not logical.

But I'll keep this in mind the next time you're berating a religious believer for committing a logical fallacy, as you've now proved yourself a red-handed hypocrite.

>62 ThomasRichard: I will try to answer your questions. What are they, one at a time, please, beginning with what you consider to be the closest to the place where our paths diverge.

I think you are being slightly disingenuous here, Thomas. Elisa asked you a specific question in >53 overlycriticalme:. You've been asked many specific questions by many people in this thread and you rarely rouse yourself to answer them in a way that does NOT include Biblical citations.

>63 nathanielcampbell: >59 StormRaven:: "No, actually they don't, any more than quotes from a Harry Potter book would."

Can you stop with the false analogies?

This is a version of the "god is like unicorns" position, Nathan, or the Marduk questions that keep coming up, so it isn't false--not to a nonbeliever. The point is, from the perspective of the nonbeliever, the quoting the Bible is not an "argument" or a "defense" because it has no authority or credibility for the nonbeliever. To use it as an defense, you have to first convince your listener why it should have authority and credibility. Thomas doesn't do that. He cites many chapters and verses but offers little in the way of personal interpretation (which seems to be verboten in his universe) or explanation as to why such verses work for him or answer, for him, the questions he is being asked.

He doesn't have to, mind you. It seems to be enough for him to find the verse that sounds like a good answer to all doubters and challengers in his ears. But it is exactly the kind of behavior that so frustrated all the people in that article I posted and that you linked to in the top of this thread.

>66 nathanielcampbell: After the Harry Potter books have served continuously as a holy book that has guided the lives of billions of people for more than two thousand years, then we can talk.

See, now that is something I think might be a false analogy. Or will you give the Iliad the same cachet as the Bible?

The point is, the Bible is only special to the people who think it is special. So is Don Quixote. So is War and Peace. So, for that matter, is Harry Potter.

But if you are talking to a person is isn't among the group of people who doesn't think the Bible is special, then reading them endless passages from it is hardly the way to convince them to give it another look.

>63 nathanielcampbell: - nathaniel - SR, contrary to my repeated correction, insists on reading my answers as if they were attempts to "prove" something. Faith is found, and understood, only by the grace of God - a gift - and not anything achievable by man in himself alone. Faith is not the result of a "proof" - it is light to a believer, and darkness to one who does not believe. SR's fallacy is not his choice of analogies, but his misunderstanding of the subject itself.

I could, probably, if I had ever read a Potter book, find some sentence or two in it that would answer a question I was trying to answer. In the case of Scripture - it is full of answers to every question that man needs to answer. Thus it is a wonderful book to reference and quote: it answers many questions on existence, purpose, meaning, good and evil, and so on. So I use the words of Scripture often in answering questions: the answers of Scripture ARE my answers, because I commit myself to do as Jesus instructs, "Remain in my word."

"Answers" are not "proofs", but SR is (wrongly) fixated in that language, and logical perspective.

>67 southernbooklady: - sbl, no offense intended, but I'll wait for Elisa's response.

>68 southernbooklady:: "Or will you give the Iliad the same cachet as the Bible? "

I came darned close in the Atheism thread yesterday! :-)

Again, the problem here is that there is such a vast difference in the historical and cultural influence, not only socially but intellectually, between the Bible and Harry Potter that the analogy is basically useless. Comparing the Bible to Harry Potter is a debater's sleight-of-hand to avoid having to deal with those real complexities of influence and the construction of social and cultural identity. It's not an intellectually useful comparison -- it's a rhetorical gambit.

At minimum, the atheist should be able to admit that! Or is it that the atheist is only interested in making cheap shots that make them feel good but don't actually contribute to anything like an intellectual conversation?

>68 southernbooklady: - sbl - are you approaching this issue in the same way as SR - asking for "proofs"? You challenge the Bible as being not "special" and therefore a poor source to quote. My question to you is, what difference does the source make, if the answer to the question is offered? If I quote the Bible to you, it is not to "prove" anything, nor is it to overcome your resistance by the sheer power of its "authority"! I know it has no authority to you! I use Scripture in answer to questions because it says so well, so much better than I could with my own words, what I am trying to say.

>71 nathanielcampbell: the problem here is that there is such a vast difference in the historical and cultural influence, not only socially but intellectually, between the Bible and Harry Potter that the analogy is basically useless. Comparing the Bible to Harry Potter is a debater's sleight-of-hand to avoid having to deal with those real complexities of influence and the construction of social and cultural identity. It's not an intellectually useful comparison -- it's a rhetorical gambit.

Well, in that case you probably feel the same way about unicorn analogies. I know many Christians do...they feel insulted and belittled when the analogy comes up. But @stormraven was, from an atheist perspective, still making a useful point nonetheless. Citing the Bible as an authority is useless if the person you're talking to doesn't already accept it as an authority.

And I say that as someone who believes not a whit in the Bible as the word of God, and not in God at all, but nevertheless sees the value of it as literature, in the same way I see the value of the Iliad, or, in a different context, of Harry Potter (especially book #3, which was my favorite).

>72 ThomasRichard: I use Scripture in answer to questions because it says so well, so much better than I could with my own words, what I am trying to say.

Thomas, you use scripture the way that American politicians use talking points.

>72 ThomasRichard: You challenge the Bible as being not "special" and therefore a poor source to quote. My question to you is, what difference does the source make, if the answer to the question is offered?

Well, speaking as a person trained in history, I've always found the validity of "the source" to be critical our ability to understand the true nature of any given thing or event.

But it is true people find answers in all sorts of places. The Bible. The Koran. Some yogi in California. Motivational speakers. Wandering alone on hikes through mountains. Walking labyrinths. Meditating. Even reading many many books.

>73 southernbooklady:: "Well, in that case you probably feel the same way about unicorn analogies."

Yes, but not because I'm insulted or belittled -- except perhaps intellectually. I object to the unicorn analogies because they're vapid. Theistic intellectual traditions are extremely rich and deep, and it's the sign of a little mind trying to score cheap points to compare them to My Little Pony.

"And I say that as someone who believes not a whit in the Bible as the word of God, and not in God at all, but nevertheless sees the value of it as literature, in the same way I see the value of the Iliad, or, in a different context, of Harry Potter (especially book #3, which was my favorite)."

But that's clearly not what SR is doing when he makes the comparison. He compares the Bible to Harry Potter because it's a cheap rhetorical trick that gets his jollies off while leaving others offended. Sure, it's a logically vapid and intellectually dishonest trick -- but why should he care about that? It makes him feel superior, and that's all that matters.

>75 nathanielcampbell: But that's clearly not what SR is doing when he makes the comparison.

I think it is. Consider the exchange:

Thomas: Quotes from the Bible that I have chosen DO answer questions, for anyone who read and thought about what the words say.

SR: No, actually they don't, any more than quotes from a Harry Potter book would.

That's the unicorn analogy. And it is interesting that in your dismissal of this analogy you couldn't resist making a reference to "My Little Pony" -- is that not exactly the same "rhetorical" trick you complained of with @StormRaven?

After all the unicorn analogy has a considered logical argument behind it, even if you don't agree with the logic. Is it necessary to counter it with cheap references to contemporary fads?

(I'm teasing you, Nathan.)

>73 southernbooklady: - "Thomas, you use scripture the way that American politicians use talking points."

Perhaps, sbl, that equivalence in more in your own ears. It certainly helps one in your position to reduce complexity in that way.

But no, the truth of God is not "talking points", nor merely an obsessive and blind clinging to ideology. It may look the same to you - but "to a hammer, everything is a nail." (And that ain't Scripture, so you are permitted to consider it.)

>74 southernbooklady: The Bible is first the revelation of truth, then theology, and then history. If you read it as merely history, you are missing the essence of it, and thus are left to a false sense of it.

>77 ThomasRichard: Perhaps, sbl, that equivalence in more in your own ears. It certainly helps one in your position to reduce complexity in that way.

I think the point everyone has been trying to make, Thomas, is that you don't take seriously how people hear you.

It certainly helps one in your position to reduce complexity in that way.

But we have been asking for complexity. for your thoughts, your ideas on the process of how one comes to believe, for your perspective on why being a follower of Jesus Christ is the one and apparently the only true path to God.

It seems to me that you think you are talking to people who know nothing about these things. Including the Bible. But you aren't. You are talking to people who have made their own journeys and come to their own conclusions and had their own sets of revelations--all of which you seem to dismiss as "wrong" because they don't mirror yours.

ETA

>78 ThomasRichard: If you read it as merely history, you are missing the essence of it, and thus are left to a false sense of it.

As I've stated before, not more than several posts ago, I read it as literature.

After the Harry Potter books have served continuously as a holy book that has guided the lives of billions of people for more than two thousand years, then we can talk.

What a worthless comeback. "Since this book has pedigree, it's not just fiction". That's a bullshit argument and you know it.

The simple fact is that the cultural and historical importance of the Bible, as well as the depth of its ideas and their power to shape humankind, are of so vastly a different scale from the Harry Potter books, that the analogy is well and simply false. It is not logical.

The analogy is perfect. Fictional mythologies all stand on the same footing. Pretending that your favored fictional writings are special is the logical fallacy. Acting like comparing your favored fictional book to any other fictional book is "well and simply false" is childish. But then again, I've come to expect childish behavior from you.

Try this: There are hundreds of books about vampires. There is a whole cultural mythology about vampires. These books guide the lives of many people who adopt them as a blueprint for how to live, how to make art, and how to relate to other people. Are these books "Truth" in the same sense that TR has tried to claim when he has thumped his Bible?

But I'll keep this in mind the next time you're berating a religious believer for committing a logical fallacy, as you've now proved yourself a red-handed hypocrite.

On the contrary, you've just proved yourself to be a complete idiot who should never be taken seriously on any topic ever.

Theistic intellectual traditions are extremely rich and deep, and it's the sign of a little mind trying to score cheap points to compare them to My Little Pony.

My Little Pony is of more value to society than your inane "theistic traditions" have ever been. Just because they have been around for a long time doesn't mean they aren't nonsense on stilts.

I've used the 'unicorn analogy' myself because the unicorn is a mythological creature whose existence is attested to in the Bible.
(Job 39:9-12, etc.)

There's exactly as much evidence for the existence of the unicorn as there is for Jehovah. I've yet to meet the Christian who sincerely believes in unicorns on scriptural grounds - yet they don't understand why *I* don't find the scriptural evidence for the existence of Jehovah to be more compelling.

And the opposite is true: IF the Bible is supposed to count as evidence, why is it completely ignored by everyone as evidence for the existence of unicorns?

64

"illusion of existence" is a specifically Eastern philosophy notion. In practical terms, it means that everything we think we are, everything we think the world is, is merely something that is filtered through our mind, our biology, our limited nature as finite three-dimensional creatures, not to mention the ever-changing cosmos, and - as all particle physicists will tell you - the fact that even matter itself is an illusion. If All is One, then 99.99999999% of us don't perceive that, but instead each live in our own separate bubble.

How I came to know this is not only a belief that the Eastern philosophers were onto something, but also confirmed by science in the guise of the theories of Relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, etc. Not to mention that it's blindingly obvious that the same world as perceived by a human being and a bee is so different we would not even for a moment imagine we were inhabiting the same space.

But the biggest filter of all is our own ego which decides on how the world that is decoded by our senses and brain, appears to be in terms dictated by memory, association, emotion, ideas, attitudes, habits, likes and dislikes, etc etc etc. We make our own world, and call it the 'real world'.

78

"The Bible is first the revelation of truth"

Is it only me that finds the riposte "...but only to believers" the obvious retort? It's a circular argument. The Old Testament, for example, is only a part of the Bible because Jesus was a Jew. If he had been the same Jesus, but had no Jewish context, there would be no OT in the Christian Bible, and it would remain a wholly and specifically Jewish set of books. One of the earliest popular movements in Christianity, Gnosticism, had a canon compiled by Marcian that preceded the NT and sought to exclude the OT entirely.

The Bible is only relevant in its historical context. It is not a revelation of truth to anyone who is not Jewish or Christian. Do you personally know ANYONE who converted to Christianity solely through reading the Bible?

>62 ThomasRichard:

thomas, i wasn't specifically referring to a question that i, in particular, have posed to you, as (you might have noticed) i rarely post but instead mostly read. i would suggest, though, that both storm raven and southernbooklady, and a handful of others, have directly asked you many, many questions. to my recollection you've answered close to 100% of them with direct bible quotes and nothing or little else; and you've ignored the rest that you can't quote the bible to answer.

so to answer your question - feel free to answer any of those questions posed by numerous posters in the past. if you need a push, you can start with the questions about marduk.

>69 ThomasRichard:

i'm all about finding passages in books that resonate with me, quoting it, living it, validating something in my life, all that jazz. if someone ever asks me about feeling good in this world where so many bad things can seem overwhelming, i could quote, for example, alice sebold's memoir lucky where she says "I live in a world where the two truths coexist; where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand." to me this is useful specifically because it's general and it doesn't require belief in any system. (and more that i can't seem to articulate no matter how long i sit here.) you don't have to believe the sentiment, but there isn't anything stopping you from agreeing with it. a biblical quote by its nature assumes that you already believe in stories, in people, in certain things as fact. so quoting the bible to people who do not have those assumptions is not helpful in contributing to a dialogue. it's useful for answering questions for yourself, and others who hold your belief system. but when you're in conversation with other people it would be really helpful to put all that aside and come to a discussion with other information. when i talk to people about the things that i know well and hold dear, i don't assume that they come to it with the same information or beliefs, and the conversation is usually fruitful. i don't mean that i "convince" people of things, but we generally understand each other in a way that quoting the bible disallows.

SR, contrary to my repeated correction

Correction? You've never actually corrected anyone in your life. Every single thing you've said in this thread has been useless or vapid.

insists on reading my answers as if they were attempts to "prove" something.

For them to be attempts to "prove" something, they would have to be answers to begin with. You haven't even reached the level of "answers". Thus far, all you've done is masturbate on your Bible in public.

Faith is found, and understood, only by the grace of God - a gift - and not anything achievable by man in himself alone.

Explain the faith that people have in religions not your own. People had deep and intense faith in Marduk. Was God there to guide them to the worship of Thor? Why don't you follow those creeds?

In the case of Scripture - it is full of answers to every question that man needs to answer.

There are almost no actual answers to be found there. As I said before, the Bible is nonsense on stilts.

>85 overlycriticalme:, but addressed to thomas:

ok, i suspect you don't want to answer a question about marduk, so instead of telling me why you don't believe in marduk, tell me why you do believe in jesus as described in the bible, without using biblical quotes or references.

Tid at #84: Do you personally know ANYONE who converted to Christianity solely through reading the Bible?

I know people who have lost their 'Christianity' through reading their Bible.

> 73. you probably feel the same way about unicorn analogies. I know many Christians do...they feel insulted and belittled when the analogy comes up.

Not me. I think the unicorn analogy is a valid and useful one. As I've tried to indicate in past posts and threads, I have considerable respect for the reality of unicorns, which, in their essence, as far as we're concerned, are made of the same stuff as horses and hunting horns. I say this now with some reluctance, because it seems to trigger a near-allergic reaction in some people and I don't wish to exacerbate their condition to dangerous levels.

As support for my contention concerning unicorns, the scientifically inclined might be interested in checking out a brief (13 minute) recording of a segment that appeared on the TED Radio Hour (NPR) this morning:


Can Hacking The Brain Make You Healthier?

A lecture by neurosurgeon Andres Lozano on the effects of deep brain stimulation on human movement, mood, memory and cognition.

We're knocking on the door of the realm where horses, unicorns and Gods live -- along with everything else.

> 83. I am totally in awe of your post.

May I copy and paste it into my own blog and pretend I wrote it?

:っ)

I'm not Tid, but it seems to me that the correct answer is:

Why not? If All is One, then copyright law is also an illusion.

93. Why not? If All is One, then copyright law is also an illusion.

You make a good point, thanks. If All is One, then I did write it.

>88 overlycriticalme: - One place to begin the story is, before I was a Christian I was a "minister" for/to/with a very liberal/progressive group which called itself a "Fellowship", in a university town with mostly university-affiliated members: professors, professionals, grad students, musicians, etc. Personally I was intrigued with, and preached about, "new-age" spiritualities: Eastern teachers and gurus, Eastern meditation, ideas about cosmic consciousness, and so on. I was very attracted to the stories and promise of higher consciousness, spoken of with different names in different religious traditions. I was absolutely certain that traditional Christianity, as I understood it and had experienced it as a child, had absolutely no potential to give what I was seeking - but I did suspect that the Bible might, if properly interpreted, have some useful wisdom as all religions of the world probably did.

All the ministers in that town were called and invited to a talk by a visiting Jesuit priest, on "Learning to Listen to Scripture." Interestingly, as the volunteer who was making the calls told me some months later, she was going down the Yellow Pages, calling church/fellowship offices on the phone, and when she came to my group and my name, she skipped down to the next one in line in the Yellow Pages because she was sure I/we would have no interest. So she dialed the next church in line, and lo and behold I answered the phone, saying "This is the so-and-so fellowship and could I help you?"

She had "accidentally" skipped back up one name in the list, as she traced her finger across the width of the page, and landed on the very number she had tried to skip, and unknowing, dialed my number. When I answered and named the group she had wanted to skip, she was too surprised and embarrassed to do anything but invite me to the talk.

Even more strangely, I was the only minister, of all those called - all in the whole town - who ended up attending a 3-day workshop on the subject, "Listening to Scripture," with this Jesuit Priest. I thought it would be "interesting" - after all, Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit too! And he was into cosmic consciousness, as an evolving phenomenon, and so this was going to be "interesting."

This priest was focused not on any "new age" ideas, but on the Scripture itself. That was OK with me: I still felt I had things to learn from the Bible, if not from Christianity. During that 3-day time of quiet, much time for pondering a few passages in the Bible, walking alone in the woods and reflecting on things, something happened. I won't describe the details of it, but suffice it to say that I began a walk in the woods as a new-age religiously progressive minister, and emerged from it with one certain truth about myself: I was dead, spiritually, and life for me - my life - was with this teacher Jesus Christ. All my "interesting ideas" about consciousness, about religion, about life and death, about everything vaporized into the air as trivia and vanity. I had a choice to make: remain dead, or become a disciple of Jesus: He was - is - life and truth itself, in Person. I chose Jesus.

That was well over thirty years ago - the blink of an eye - and not for one instant ever have I regretted choosing life, and truth. It cost me much, and it cost me nothing. I have received a hundred-fold more, in return. And the journey, and the fellowship with Him and in Him, only gets better and more beautiful.

>94 ThomasRichard:

this is actually really lovely and i'm a big believer in being open to the paths that are before us, which you obviously were.

and i don't mean to brush aside what you've said as it's obviously foundationally important to who you are today. but i was, and still am, looking for an answer that critically explains belief in jesus and the bible. why did you find yourself believing in those passages from the bible that you pondered? (i understand, you were open to it - but that's not the answer i'm looking for, if you have another one.)

>94 ThomasRichard:

Thomas, thank you for that story. As Elisa said, it was a lovely account of a personal life-changing moment and I appreciate both your willingness to share it and how it illustrates the way you came to and live out your beliefs.

Even though I am on a different path than yours, I can respect what the path you are on means to you.

89

Particularly the OT !! I imagine many Jews don't 'own' it either, at least not in its most blood-curdling parts.

91

1. Yes. 2. No - I'd like a credit please :-)

94

Thank you. For me, that's the best reply you've given on these forums, and it's interesting - I was intending to ask you about the 'experience' that brought you to Christianity. But, don't you allow that followers of every religion (and none) have had similar experiences that changed their life completely? I mean, Jesus is the answer for you, but not for - say - Ramakrishna, nor Rumi, nor Kahlil Gibran. On the other hand, he also IS the answer for Bishop Jack Spong whose stand on Christianity and especially the Bible, is the polar opposite of yours.

I will now give you an account of my own. Just over 30 years ago, I spent Good Friday in a silent retreat in a Christian church. I'd wandered in there in search of some peace and quiet. I remember praying (not something I'd done since a child) for some light, some meaning to my life. It didn't seem there was an answer there and then, but a few months later I met up with an old friend. She introduced me to a philosophy school she'd joined a year earlier. That was my first exposure to Advaita, and its meditation practice has changed my life. I also attended Quaker Meetings for many years, and they are probably the only Christian group (apart from the Progressives) I'd now still go along to, mainly because they are completely non-dogmatic (and have a Universalist strain).

You and I seem to have gone down a similar path but in opposite directions. (Just something for you to reflect on, before you again imply that your path is the ONLY one.)

>95 overlycriticalme: - Thank you, and the others also, for your kind acceptance of my story. I do not feel free, however, to go into any more detail. There are things too precious to speak in such a public arena. However, I hope that you and the others can understand why I have insisted from the beginning the value and importance of listening to the word of God - to Holy Scripture - to the revealed truth of Jesus. This word is more than the communication of ideas.

Jesus Himself is called "The Word" (John"s Gospel). Jesus Himself is the "spoken" Word of God - the eternal, spoken Word from the "heart" and "mind" of God the Father, and in this Word - Jesus - is the fulness of God the Father Himself. In this one Word God "ex-presses" Himself, and all who encounter this Word, encounter the eternal God - indeed encounter Him, within Himself. That is, encounter God within God in His interior and trinitarian life, and love.

This is why Scripture is unique, and so very important. Scripture contains the words of the Word, and thus communicate in a human way, the divine. These words contain the potential, the potency, the supernatural power, to engender saving faith in the soul of a human being. This I know not only by faith, but by experience. Through the words, I encountered the Word, and in the Holy and divine Word, I found eternal life.

This is why I urge you all - Listen! (That is no "command", Tid! It is my urging, from my heart, knowing the power that awaits you all there.) "Faith comes through hearing", Paul wrote, "and hearing by the Word of God." I don't expect you to be "impressed" by Paul's authority or the authority of Scripture - I do expect you to hear what I am urging to you, and either try it, or reject it, as you wish. It is true, as my experience and the experience of many others, confirms. "Everyone who seeks, finds" - this is a promise from Jesus, and He is faithful and true.

But I must add - to listen is more than merely to read, as one might read a novel, or a history book, or a cookbook, or a newspaper. To listen is a human action in relationship to another person who has written something of himself, and what he has found, and experienced, and learned. Many can speak; few can listen.

Thank you, and the others also, for your kind acceptance of my story.

It's a pretty story. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually answer any questions. All it says it that you believed in one kind of magic, and then you switched to believing in another pretty much "just because".

Yawn.

>98 ThomasRichard: I do expect you to hear what I am urging to you, and either try it, or reject it, as you wish. It is true, as my experience and the experience of many others, confirms. "Everyone who seeks, finds" - this is a promise from Jesus, and He is faithful and true.

It is also a promise in many other faiths and philosophies. And once again, we are back to a truth that you experience, but your interpretation apparently requires that this truth de-legitimize all other people's experiences and discoveries of truth. There is no cause to think this, no reason to come to this conclusion.

98. Jesus Himself is the "spoken" Word of God - the eternal, spoken Word from the "heart" and "mind" of God the Father, and in this Word - Jesus - is the fulness of God the Father Himself.

What's with the quotation marks around certain words? Is this to indicate that they're not to be taken literally? That God didn't really "speak" Jesus, or that God doesn't really have a "heart" and "mind"? If so, why use them in the first place?

BTW -- is it possible that what you refer to as "Jesus" comes close to what others refer to by different "names"? That "the Word" might go by different "words"?

#57: I have found "the way" I do and will believe in, follow, do, and live according to

So have I.

we can compare notes on Judgment Day.

Funny enough, the Slacktivist pointed me to a Catholic response to that today:

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2013/07/18/is-your-god-a-jerk

>101 jburlinson: - the quotes are meant to suggest " that they're not to be taken literally" in a way that would anthropomorphize God. God the Father is not a man with a heart and a mind and a mouth that pushes air out making words. The words in quotes are useful to men with those physiological attributes, however, helping us look toward the supernatural realities they suggest.

" is it possible that what you refer to as "Jesus" comes close to what others refer to by different "names"?"

Examples, please?

>102 prosfilaes: - "So have I. "

If you are peaceful in your choice, so be it. We have freedom, and thus responsibility.

>100 southernbooklady: - "... your interpretation apparently requires that this truth de-legitimize all other people's experiences and discoveries of truth. There is no cause to think this, no reason to come to this conclusion."

There is one God, and there has been one Incarnation of God as man, Jesus the Christ. This Jesus has said that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Thus there can well be approximations of the one Christ, and human persons who have been given portions of His truth, but there is only one Christ in His authenticity, and only one Gospel in fullness and completeness.

And, of course, there have been and will be counterfeits - false Christs and gospels of deceit.

So no, I do not de-legitimize other beliefs - but the one Gospel is the standard and norm for all experiences and interpretations of religious and moral truth. Some are partially true, some are deadly wrong, one is fully true. Why would anyone want to remain in an approximation, a compromise, a mixture or at worst a counterfeit, when the one God has sent His one Son to reveal the one Truth?

105

You've ignored my own life account. Oh well. Perhaps you just didn't like that someone could have revelations in a completely different tradition.

"There is one God, and there has been one Incarnation of God as man, Jesus the Christ. This Jesus has said that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Thus there can well be approximations of the one Christ, and human persons who have been given portions of His truth, but there is only one Christ in His authenticity, and only one Gospel in fullness and completeness."

We're back to debating dogmatism. What a shame you couldn't stay with the honesty and humility of telling us your own story. What you've just said there is a formulation, a summary if you will, of what Christianity has evolved into. It's very unlikely that what you wrote would do anything but cause raised eyebrows and total incomprehension among the early Christians in Jerusalem, pre-70AD.

As one other person has referred to here, there are interpretations of Christian stories and teachings that are wholly in line with Eastern philosophy (The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta is one such.) Your summary has - since Luther and Calvin in particular - been one of the ways dogma has hardened into certain formulations that people now accept as the only possible interpretation.

We're going round in circles.

>106 Tid: - I didn't ignore your life account, but I did fail to acknowledge it, for which I apologize. I took some time reflecting on it, remembering my own similar journey, up to where I began my account here. I hope that you will continue your search, because I am confident in what the Lord has shown me: there is one truth, and our vocation is to find it and live in it.

Yes, I know well there are many interpretations of the Christian revelation. But again I repeat: there is one truth.

"We're going round in circles."
Until all men point their journeys to the same center, many will continue to travel in circles. There is but one center, though there are many circles.

How many Gods are there?
How many wills, or intentions for man, are there, in God?

>61 Tid: - Tid: "You see, this is the difference between duality and unity. I ask you : Who, on the "Day of Judgement", will be doing the judging? I know that you believe the answer to this question is "God". But that is simply inherent within a dualistic religion, a belief that there is a "God" somewhere "out there" who "acts". Whereas a system such as Advaita (and Buddhism, and Taoism, and many others) talks about "One-ness". There is no "God" who will judge "us", because ultimately "we" (as perceived separate egos) are part of the illusion of existence."

There is an understandable "illusion of existence" when one judges by appearances. This happens in the world of quantum mechanics, by definition. In QM, the closer one looks at something, the fuzzier it appears to be, until it starts to appear to be only vibrations of fields, electrical and magnetic. Hence the illusion of illusion. But the verdict of "illusion" is arrived at under the philosophical assumption that things are only what can be observed or measure about them. In other words, science has the same mind-set as your systems have believe: things are (merely) what they appear to be. Hence also the slide toward subjectivism and relativism in the West today.

The world of philosophy solved this problem a long time ago, using the duality of substance and accident. We observe accidents, but the thing itself is defined by its substance. If one philosophically limits reality to the observable, then I can see how one might fall into such a concept as "the illusion of existence." The trouble that I see with such a conclusion is that it denies the reality of what is observed, and hence also the observer. What then remains of the universe but a dreamer and his dream? That, to me is absurd, leading to despair or passivity, and an abandonment of the true vocation of man: to find truth and to live it.

Things exist; people are born and die, love and beauty are transcendent, reality IS. The "miracle of being" - the realization that something exists when it could have easily not existed - is the beginning of realism, and freedom from the cycle of illusions of illusions, opinions of opinions, dreams of dreams, and the denial of life itself.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" is the beginning of what is plainly obvious to me, and used to be "common sense" in the West.

>98 ThomasRichard:

thomas, i respect you, your story, your beliefs (even though they do no resemble mine in the least), and i appreciate you sharing your story with us, so i hope you understand this in the way that it was intended.

the detail of "why do you believe in jesus" was actually not meant as a personal question in the sense of your journey. there are personal answers, like the one you gave, and they are valuable in a different way. but for our purposes i meant more - how can you explain this belief system with facts or reasoning that would be meaningful to someone else who hasn't had the experience that you have?

Hence also the slide toward subjectivism and relativism in the West today.

Given that you seem to be so frightened of "subjectivism and relativism", it is interesting that you have built everything you've said in this thread using those concepts as a foundation.

>105 ThomasRichard:

thomas, i read a book once that said that jesus was just a man and someone else is god. how do i know which to believe?

>109 overlycriticalme: - elisa, the experience is necessary, not optional. Christianity is not a set of teachings that are a logical extension of an unbeliever's secular worldview, such that all that is needed to convert an unbeliever is a proof that his logic demands.

Please consider this comment from the former Pope, Benedict XVI (the full teaching is reported here - http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-christianity-an-encounter-with-a-person):
+++++++
Christianity is not a new philosophy or new morality. We are Christians only if we encounter Christ. Of course he does not show himself to us in that irresistible, luminous way, as he did with Paul to make him Apostle of the Gentiles," he said. "However, we can also encounter Christ in the reading of sacred Scripture, in prayer, in the liturgical life of the Church.

"We can touch Christ's heart and feel him touch ours. Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we really become Christians. And in this way, our reason opens, the whole of Christ's wisdom opens and all the richness of the truth."
++++++

I explained to you that I would not be more explicit about my own conversion, if that is what you are asking for. But if you want a logical bridge from where you are, over the gulf, to Christianity - the only bridge there is is Jesus Himself, either Personally or spiritually as He dwells in believers.Only Jesus can explain Christianity, and only faith can understand Him and His explanation. As He taught in John's Gospel, "unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

Do you have a question that I can answer in a way that you would want to hear?

>111 overlycriticalme: - elisa, you need to ask the both of them to tell you more.

Mayhap she already has and come up with a perfectly cromulent answer.

> 103. The words in quotes are useful to men with those physiological attributes, however, helping us look toward the supernatural realities they suggest.

They can appear to help us, as you say. Often times, though, they are stumbling blocks to those who take them literally or, even worse, assume that the analogies assist them in "understanding". As you know, Jesus was not big on "understanding."

" is it possible that what you refer to as "Jesus" comes close to what others refer to by different "names"?" Examples, please?

The One. The Way. The All. The Tao.

>115 jburlinson: - They can appear to help us, as you say. Often times, though, they are stumbling blocks to those who take them literally or, even worse, assume that the analogies assist them in "understanding". As you know, Jesus was not big on "understanding."

I find that any statement about God can be misunderstood. What is necessary is a sincere desire to understand.

The One. The Way. The All. The Tao.

Oh - I see what you meant. Yes, God has placed in man a sense that there IS an answer - all these terms can merely mean "there IS an answer." The radical differences appear when we get specific, on what exactly is meant, and what are the consequences of adhering to this particular answer or the other. Even within what is called Christianity, there are different gospels, different christs. Thus John ends his 1st letter with, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

There is one true God; there are many fabrications of man - many idols - many mixtures of truth with error.

Why is there so much resistance, on this forum, to the idea that there is one Truth, one God? Why is there so much insistence that "I'm OK, You're OK" ought to prevail in religious matters? It does seem that way, to me, as one relatively new here. Do you, as a Christian (I think I heard you say you were a Christian), believe that Jesus had an attitude of compromise with all the religions of the world? That most everyone had an acceptable grasp of the Father already, and that their worship was close enough to what the Father was seeking?

108

SO many things to unpick here!

"There is an understandable "illusion of existence" when one judges by appearances. This happens in the world of quantum mechanics, by definition. In QM, the closer one looks at something, the fuzzier it appears to be, until it starts to appear to be only vibrations of fields, electrical and magnetic. Hence the illusion of illusion."

No. QM deals with the virtually UNobservable. The illusion - to our eyes and senses, i.e. our observation - is real enough I grant you. But science is now demonstrating, first through theory, then through confirmation via experimental results, that what we call "reality" is indeed fuzzy. What, you think that the world as presented to your senses is real? And the same as what a bee "sees"? There is indeed a reality - constantly changing, hence the concept of Maya which doesn't mean illusion in the Western sense of 'not really there', but impermanent compared to the One-ness that endures.

"If one philosophically limits reality to the observable, then I can see how one might fall into such a concept as "the illusion of existence.""

No. Philosophy deals with the UNobservable, all else is dealt with by science which is all about observation. As for Eastern philosophies, they posit a reality that is unchanging, eternal, unmoving, causeless. That is Unity, One-ness. You might call that God, except that you believe in a God who acts and creates and intervenes.

"The trouble that I see with such a conclusion is that it denies the reality of what is observed, and hence also the observer. "

The sharp distinction between observer and observed was true of classical Newtonian physics. Quantum mechanics is beginning to see that sharpness blurred, to see that the observer might influence what is observed and change it. But that doesn't remove the observer and the observed. The external world is real enough, but it is not what you see. It is not what you hear. It is not what you smell, touch, or taste. All those are constructs of your brain.

"What then remains of the universe but a dreamer and his dream? That, to me is absurd, leading to despair or passivity, and an abandonment of the true vocation of man: to find truth and to live it."

The aboriginal culture of Australia held that the world was indeed dreamed into existence. But that never led to either despair or passivity. As for the true vocation of man, let me refer you to a quote from a retired Christian Bishop, one who believes in Jesus, and still calls himself a Christian (John Shelby Spong, since you ask):

"Western religion has traditionally taught us to think of God as external to this world, but who is nonetheless the source of life's meaning. It was the assumption of this theological position that this God can and will invade this world to make things right. That is why the unfair world is so difficult for most people to understand and why we have traditionally invested our hope for fairness, not in this life, but in life after death.
Many things have shaken our confidence in these concepts. This God above the sky seemed far more real when we thought the earth was the center of a three tiered universe. The all-seeing God above the sky was then endowed with record-book-keeping efficiency so that the afterlife would be appropriately be used to reward or punish us based on our deeds and misdeeds. What does one do with these ideas in the light of Copernicus and Galileo and the field of astrophysics that has flowed from them, confronting us with a universe so vast that our minds boggle to embrace it? The universe seems to be empty of this kind of divine presence.
We once defined this God above the sky as a "being," maybe the "Supreme Being," who possessed supernatural power and we expected this God to intervene into history on our behalf to accomplish the divine will or to answer our sometimes very self-centered and immature prayers. The work of Isaac Newton challenged this supernatural world of miracles and magic and left it gasping for life.
We once defined human life as a special creation made in the image of God, endowed with an immortal soul and "just a little lower than the angels." Then came Charles Darwin who defined us instead as "just a little higher than the apes." We began to see ourselves not as fallen angels, but as highly developed animals linked by DNA to everything from the plankton of the sea, to the cabbages, to the chimpanzees. Suddenly we wondered if there was any meaning to life other than the biological processes of being born, maturing, mating, reproducing and dying.
So it is that faith wavers in the modern world and the external supernatural being we once thought of as God might just turn out to be little more than a stage in human development. Certainly the God who is the one who rewards and punishes is little more than the behavior controlling parental deity that immature children seek.
I urge you to turn your attention inward not outward, to go so deeply into your own humanity that you escape its limits and begin to experience that which is transcendent or the divine presence. That is the only doorway that in my experience enables me to contemplate life after death."

116

"Why is there so much resistance, on this forum, to the idea that there is one Truth, one God?"

Because you preach it to us. This is your belief as a result of your own conversion experience, translated for you by a Jesuit. But this universe is vaster than my mind or your mind can even imagine or encompass. The notion that a religion that has held partial sway on this tiny pebble third out from a not particularly significant star on a spiral arm of this not particularly significant galaxy, among billions of galaxies in the universe (or is it multiverse already?) is the ONLY valid truth...

There are many religions in history because on this planet the human species has gone through many different cultures and sought Big Explanations in many different ways. And so it will be repeated on planet after planet, intelligent species after species, on a vast scale.

Why do YOU have so much resistance to this?

Why is there so much resistance, on this forum, to the idea that there is one Truth, one God?

Probably because you haven't given a single reason to believe that there is either "Truth" or "God" at all, let alone your version of either. This, among other things, is what the Marduk question is aimed at.

>112 ThomasRichard:

"Do you have a question that I can answer in a way that you would want to hear?"

no, i guess that i don't and that you can't. i mean, i think i understand you to say that listening to jesus is the answer to why i should listen to jesus. i get that that works for you but i need more than that. so i think we're at an impasse and frankly am kind of at a loss as to why we're having these conversations at all, if that's the answer.

> 116. Do you, as a Christian (I think I heard you say you were a Christian), believe that Jesus had an attitude of compromise with all the religions of the world?

To be honest, I can't find a single instance in the Gospels where Jesus argues with a believer in another religion. His disputes are all with people from his own faith tradition, and even then he makes a point of saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not." Matthew 23: 1-2.

He does take a moment, a little later, to make an important point that I think is relevant to our discussions: "But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter." Matthew 23: 13.

I am one who does not want to shut the Kingdom of Heaven to any person. Those who desire to enter, by whatever door and using whatever password, should be celebrated, not chastized.

I will pray for you all, in sincerity and all good will, that the Lord may give you grace. Only by grace, supernatural light, can one make his way to light. Blessings to you all.

#122: I will pray for you all, in sincerity and all good will, that the Lord may give you grace. Only by grace, supernatural light, can one make his way to light.

If only God can give you grace, then God has no right to judge you for not having grace.

Have you ever read Story of Your Life, Prosfilaes? You might enjoy "Hell is the Absence of God" collected therein.

I read that story out of Year's Best Fantasy 2. It was interesting.

122

And we will hold you in our hearts, and offer up a silent hope that someday you will realise that:

- light and truth are indeed not relative ~
- ~ and yet their interpretation is as wide and various as is human personality and culture
- ~ and yet their embodiments wear many faces (a metaphor: just as there are millions of depictions of Jesus Christ, they are all of the one man).

#98 et al.

We're going round in circles.

Jesus Himself is called "The Word" (John"s Gospel). Jesus Himself is the "spoken" Word of God - the eternal, spoken Word from the "heart" and "mind" of God the Father, and in this Word - Jesus - is the fulness of God the Father Himself. In this one Word God "ex-presses" Himself, and all who encounter this Word, encounter the eternal God - indeed encounter Him, within Himself. That is, encounter God within God in His interior and trinitarian life, and love.

I have been out of the loop for a while, and understanding John's Gospel is where I left off, so going round in a circle is appropriate.

I think someone else commented on all the "quoted" words here and I wanted to add my expression of puzzlement. I still find this language, and that of the Gospel, very hard to understand. As I said elsewhere, these words don't seem to form the necessary patterns and make the necessary connections in my brain for me to be able to understand them. And when I look for explanations, there seem to be as many different opinions as there are explainers. Does one have to have some special circuitry in place, some particular mental acuity, that I am missing?

127

No, I think it's more that Christians have come to a kind of 'mutual consensus' on what those words actually mean. For some they have consented after deliberation, but I suspect that for the vast majority, they have received some form of instruction: Sunday School, the pulpit, casual conversation with other Christians, a multitude of writings on the subject in all shades and varieties, cultural expectations and usage, and so on and so on.

What the writer(s) of John meant by it, and the theological reasoning behind it, is now lost to us. Though do bear in mind that ThomasRichard was giving his own interpretation of John's Gospel (above) and doing very little actual quoting from the Bible .. that is, the Bible that now is a modern English interpretation of 17th Century English, translated from the Latin, which was translated from the Greek, which itself was not the original language used by Jesus and his followers.

No wonder you have difficulty!

>127 rrp: - rrp, I started a group in which the first thread is devoted to the teaching of Jesus about, specifically, His own teaching! If you are interested in pursuing this, "over there", here is the "there":
http://www.librarything.com/groups/thejourneythebridget

>128 Tid: - "the Bible that now is a modern English interpretation of 17th Century English, translated from the Latin, which was translated from the Greek, which itself was not the original language used by Jesus and his followers."

Tid, not true. All good and modern translations are of the primary texts - the oldest and best manuscripts available in the original languages of the Scriptures. This is from the Preface to the New American Bible, for example - an excellent Catholic translation:

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New translations and revision of existing translations are required from time to time for various reasons. For example, it is important to keep pace with the discovery and publication of new and better ancient manuscripts (e.g., the Dead Sea scrolls) so that the best possible textual tradition will be followed, as required by Divino afflante spiritu. There are advances in linguistics of the biblical languages which make possible a better understanding and more accurate translation of the original languages. And there are changes and developments in vocabulary and the cultural background of the receptor language. An obvious example of this is the abandonment in English of the second person singular (use of “thee,” “thou,” “sayest,” “hearest”), which had a major impact on Bible translations. Other changes are less obvious but are nevertheless present. There have been changes in vocabulary; for example, the term “holocaust” is now normally reserved for the sacrilegious attempt to destroy the Jewish people by the Third Reich. Concerns such as these are reflected in what Pope John Paul II spoke of as the “three pillars” of good biblical translation: “A good translation is based on three pillars that must contemporaneously support the entire work. First, there must be a deep knowledge of the language and the cultural world at the point of origin. Next, there must be a good familiarity with the language and cultural context at the point where the work will arrive. Lastly, to crown the work with success, there must be an adequate mastery of the contents and meaning of what one is translating”—and he praised the translation that “utilizes the vocabulary and idioms of everyday speech” (“le parole e le forme della lingua di tutti i giorni”). (From an address to the United Bible Societies, November 26, 2001.)

This new edition is a thorough revision of the already excellent New American Bible Old Testament of 1970. Work on most books of the Old Testament, begun in 1994 and completed in 2001, was done by forty revisers and a board of eight editors. The 1991 revision of the Psalter, the work of thirty revisers and six editors, was further revised by seven revisers and two editors between 2009 and 2010. As suggested in the comments above, the revision aimed at making use of the best manuscript traditions available (see below), translating as accurately as possible, and rendering the result in good contemporary English. In many ways it is a more literal translation than the original NAB and has attempted to be more consistent in rendering Hebrew (or Greek) words and idioms, especially in technical contexts, such as regulations for sacrifices. In translating the Psalter special effort was made to provide a smooth, rhythmic translation for easy singing or recitation, and to retain the concrete imagery of the Hebrew.

Where the Old Testament translation supposes the received text—Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, as the case may be—ordinarily contained in the best-known editions, as the original or the oldest extant form, no additional remarks are necessary. Where the translators have departed from those received texts, e.g., by following the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic text, accepting a reading of what is judged to be a better textual tradition, as from a Qumran manuscript, or by emending a reading apparently corrupted in transmission, such changes are recorded in the revised edition of the Textual Notes on the New American Bible. Additional information on the textual tradition for some books may be found in the introduction to the book in the same Textual Notes.

In particular, important manuscripts from Cave 4 of Qumran, as well as the most useful recensions of the Septuagint, have been consulted in the preparation of 1 and 2 Samuel. Fragments of the lost Book of Tobit in Aramaic and in Hebrew, recovered from Cave 4 of Qumran, are in substantial agreement with the Sinaiticus Greek recension used for the translation of this book. The lost original Hebrew text of 1 Maccabees is replaced by its oldest extant form in Greek. Judith, 2 Maccabees, and parts of Esther are also translated from the Greek. The translation of The Wisdom of Ben Sira is based on the original Hebrew as far as it is preserved, with corrections from the ancient versions; otherwise, the Greek of the Septuagint is followed. In the Book of Baruch the basic text is the Greek of the Septuagint, with some readings derived from an underlying Hebrew form no longer extant. In the deuterocanonical sections of Daniel (3:24–90; 13:1–14:42), the basic text is the Greek text of so-called Theodotion, occasionally revised according to the Greek text of the Septuagint.
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Link:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?src=_intros/preface-revised.htm

>128 Tid:: "What the writer(s) of John meant by it, and the theological reasoning behind it, is now lost to us."

I wouldn't go that far. We have plenty of evidence of the Judaeo-Hellenic philosophical currents within which John was written; and we have writings of second-century Christians (e.g. Justin Martyr) that are within two generations at most of its writer(s) that comment extensively on its meaning.

The Gospels do not exist in a vacuum. Early Christian biblical scholarship does not exist in a vacuum. (Heck, we have more contemporary or near-contemporary interpretive evidence for the Gospels than we do for much of pre-Socratic Greek philosophy.)

130, 131

I am not convinced by these arguments. We know, for example, that The Word was a specific Judaic construct, one of the 'qualities' or 'aspects' of God, but not ever a 'person' in the (now-) Trinitarian sense, which would have been blasphemy to Jews, as it is to Muslims. Nor was Trinitarian dogma realised at the time of John, and nor would it be for ... well, ever, really, as the schism ('filioque') between Orthodox and Roman Christians is still not resolved.

So John appears to be taking a Judaic construct and applying it to Jesus, though not in the Trinitarian sense that it came later to be understood as. But as I said - although we know the context of the times, as you point out, we cannot ever really know what was in the heart and mind of any particular Gospel writer. What, for example, is John - a late Gospel writer - doing by paraphrasing a Vedic verse:
"In the beginning was Brahman, with whom was the Word; and the word was truly the supreme Brahman."
then equating it to a Judaic 'aspect of Yahweh', and suggesting that it all applies to Jesus? What precisely was his purpose in defining something that had never been in early Christian thinking?

A second Century Christian is as relevant to the discussion as Oliver Stone is to knowing what exactly lay behind the assassination of JFK ... and his thesis was only 30 years after the event!

121 To be honest, I can't find a single instance in the Gospels where Jesus argues with a believer in another religion.

Interestingly, I can, if you acknowledge that Samaritanism is distinct from Judaism. And what Jesus does is to affirm that there is a divine unity which is beyond the accepted "truths" of both religions.

"Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem." (John 4:21)

Maybe not Jesus, but Paul? That is about ALL he does!

> 133. And what Jesus does is to affirm that there is a divine unity which is beyond the accepted "truths" of both religions.

Good point. I had thought of this encounter, but didn't think it constituted much of an "argument." As you say, Jesus is really making the point that true worship is not bound by the existing traditions, even his own.

>132 Tid:: " We know, for example, that The Word was a specific Judaic construct"

Yes and no. It was a Judaic-Hellenistic concept that borrowed as much from (mainly Stoic) philosophy as from late hellenistic Judaism (I use "late hellenistic" rather than "late Second Temple" because we're talking more Alexandrian than Jerusalemite ideas.)

#128 Tid

I used the opening of John's Gospel and the many words said about it here and elsewhere as an example of language that flies by me without sticking. I didn't mean to pick on ThomasRichard. Another example would be your post over here. I believe you when you say that for you spiritual is not a synonym for emotional.

I reserve the 'spiritual' for those experiences where there is a deeper connection, but with what I cannot exactly define. I just know it's there in me, but unsure exactly what or where or for what purpose. I don't even know if it's an evolutionary trait, or something else.

I just question whether that evolutionary trait is absent in some, which make its hard for those people to understand language about the "spiritual". To borrow a simile, that language often seems like a disconnected set of metaphors flying in loose formation, with no there there.

> 137. I just question whether that evolutionary trait is absent in some, which make its hard for those people to understand language about the "spiritual".

Your question makes me think of the Scarecrow and the Woodman in The Wizard of Oz, who suffer from the conviction that they lack, respectively, brains and a heart, when it turns out that the one is pretty darn smart and the other is about as loving and compassionate as anyone could be. "Understanding the language" of the spritual could be more a problem of the language than of the person who is trying to understand. Your evolutionary trait may be so highly evolved that it just can't be satisifed by the type of language traditionally used to communicate the experience manifested by your trait.

What troubles me is the suggestion that there's some deficiency or inadequacy about people who don't prattle on about "sprituality". Paradoxically, they may be the most "spiritual" of all.

> 134. Maybe not Jesus, but Paul? That is about ALL he does!

I'm not sure I follow your meaning exactly. Are you saying that Jesus doesn't argue about religion but that Paul does?

If so, this observation tends to support a notion I have about the Bible, which is that it depicts, in a pretty comprehensive manner, (1) how human beings experience the divine, and (2) how human beings misunderstand, misconstrue and distort those experiences in such ways as to utterly subvert and betray the essence of the divine encounter.

Your evolutionary trait may be so highly evolved that it just can't be satisifed by the type of language traditionally used to communicate the experience manifested by your trait.

What troubles me is the suggestion that there's some deficiency or inadequacy about people who don't prattle on about "sprituality". Paradoxically, they may be the most "spiritual" of all.

Highly evolved? Deficient? Inadequate?

137, 138

Yes, I think jb gave a pretty good answer to you rrp. It's not that some people lack the evolutionary trait (if indeed it is), rather that language may be the problem, or a difficulty with comprehension of the way certain kinds of topics are debated. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound insulting).

136

Ok, point taken. But what about the rest of the paragraph? The Vedic origins of John's opener, and the possible motivation for applying it to Jesus for the first time? It all seems lost in time to me. I'm no theologian, but a lot of theology seems to be 'back fill' where the dogma that has evolved over time cannot be unlearned or set aside. How many theologians can put themselves in John's shoes and say "Ah, I see what he's doing..."

141

But I agree that the language is the problem. I am not insulted because I admit I have difficulty with comprehending it. I recognize that others don't seem to have the same difficulty. Now it could be that I am spiritually stupid, or as jburlinson said, I may be out in left field, which may be the best place to be. But I hear all the others over there and they seem to understand one another. I don't think I am, in general, more stupid than your average poster (I have some official looking bits of paper which might suggest that I am maybe on par). But I am not able to comprehend spiritual language. I am open to suggestions on how to learn.

I also think that this inability to comprehend spiritual language, to understand each of the flavors of spiritual language spoken here, is the root cause of every dispute, every misunderstanding, every contentious argument. If we can't share and learn a language that all parties to the conversation can understand, there is no hope for communication.

> 143. or as jburlinson said, I may be out in left field

I don't believe I said that. If I did, I didn't mean it. If I meant it, it was in a good way.

Which puts me even farther in left field than you -- probably in the bleachers with the sun in my eyes.

I think out in left field is a good place to be. I just wish I understood what was going on in the game.

143

I think the difficulty may be because 'spirituality' is such a wide and ill-defined term, that it can mean pretty much anything. One difficulty you're having - and it's led to my mission here! - is that religious believers have co-opted the use of 'spiritual' to mean 'religious', which to my mind, it just doesn't. Well, sometimes, but certainly not exclusively.

Perhaps it would be better to say what it ISN'T :

1. the rational, analytical, and discursive aspects of mind
2. the emotional, hormone-driven and 'reactive' aspects of mind
3. cognition, recognition, and memory
4. sense perceptions
5. instinct

Then there's the faculties that it PROBABLY isn't :

6. gut feelings (aka intuition)
7. creativity (which takes in everything from engineering to music, leadership to painting, etc)

So what are we left with? For me, it would include mystical experience ('timeless moments') which can happen to anyone, whether religious or not. It would also include that sense of 'something greater' which could occur when contemplating the universe, its vastness, origin, laws, etc - or just a glorious sunset. And it would also take in activities like meditation, altruistic acts towards one's fellow beings, an inner desire to become a 'better person' not prompted by external forces like teachers parents friends colleagues.

But even there, it's hard to pin it down. I think it is categorised under religion (grrrr) because that makes it much easier to define, and we so hate the undefinable, don't we? But if you were to put it in a 'hazy set' along with philosophy and metaphysics, I would have no complaints.

>146 Tid: For me, it would include mystical experience ('timeless moments') which can happen to anyone, whether religious or not. It would also include that sense of 'something greater' which could occur when contemplating the universe, its vastness, origin, laws, etc - or just a glorious sunset. And it would also take in activities like meditation, altruistic acts towards one's fellow beings, an inner desire to become a 'better person' not prompted by external forces like teachers parents friends colleagues.

Aren't you just offering yet another definition for this "wide and ill-defined term"? And aren't you in the process creating a distinction of experience that for many people may not be so divided?

After all, things like beauty, epiphany, altruism, personal moral lodestones, even the appreciation for the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" -- these are all things that can be achieved in many ways, usually by engaging the seven things you specifically listed as "not spirituality": rationalist, emotion, cognition and recognition, sense perception, instinct, gut feeling, creativity.

Since I am probably the least spiritual person on the planet, I can only define "spirituality" by what others who claim the word appear to mean:

1) it is an internal state, not an external one.
2) it seems to involved the surrender of self or ego to a wider/greater awareness.
3) it seems to regard existence as a mystery to be experienced, not a mystery to be solved.

I'm less certain of that last, but the "mystery" of it all seems to be an important element.

I think the difficulty may be because 'spirituality' is such a wide and ill-defined term

If we substitute "the divine?"

147

Your 1) 2) 3) are very nice descriptions also. And no, I wasn't seeking a tight definition, only a grasping of what it means to me. I'd now add your 3 things to the mix too.

148

NO!!!!!! That's the whole trouble. The word's been hijacked by religionists.

>149 Tid: Your 1) 2) 3) are very nice descriptions also.

If so, then #3 is a real problem for me.

150

Really, why? A Buddhist would say you get much more from being fully in the present moment ("experiencing existence") than any amount of speculating about it.

Because solving the mystery often leads to solutions and increased understanding.

> 150. If so, then #3 is a real problem for me.

Just to be sure -- this is the number 3 that troubles you, right: 3) it seems to regard existence as a mystery to be experienced, not a mystery to be solved.

Is it the word "mystery"?

I get the sense that people think of the "spiritual" as being that part of themselves that is most essential, most real: purged, or at least refined, of the grosser aspects of self itemized in # 146, 1-6. People talk, for example, of the "real me", who is considered to be not well represented by all the mistakes I make, due to my being drunk, stoned, angry, half-asleep, distracted, out-of-sorts, ignorant, etc. etc.

The "mystery" is how my rarified, pilgrim spirit can be encumbered by all this inadequacy.

152. Because solving the mystery often leads to solutions and increased understanding.

Unless it leads to a more complicated problem that's more baffling than the original mystery.

Yes, because tamed fire, the wheel, modern medical healthcare and the indoor plumbing are such onerous burdens that they should be jettisoned.

If one considers that to be the case, one wonders what you're doing on the internet.

> 156. If one considers that to be the case, one wonders what you're doing on the internet.

Let me see if I understand you. The internet is an unmitigated boon to humankind, the solution to all problems and the soothing balm to all troubled souls. By wielding the bright and shiny internet, we can march resolutely through the valley of despair and up the mountain of true bliss to the realm of enlightenment and ultimate fulfillment.

Have I got it right?

It seems to be a good enough boon that you avail yourself of it.

Then again, whether or not you understand it might be an entirely unrelated question.

> 158. It seems to be a good enough boon that you avail yourself of it.

I wear shoes, too, but they don't solve all my problems.

> 159. Then again, whether or not you understand it might be an entirely unrelated question.

Sounds like we need a new thread for that question. I'm not sure this is the right group for it, but what the hey?

They may not solve all of your problems. You still seem to think they're a net positive. And avail yourselves of them, whilst most probably paying for the ability.

It's not a confusing stance.

Then again, one could very simply enjoy the mystery of being barefoot.

> 162. Then again, one could very simply enjoy the mystery of being barefoot.

Works better for beach volleyball.

BTW: I seem to remember reading somewhere the following -- I wish I could remember where:

"You see, one thing is, I can live with the doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about"

Yes. And the person who made that statement was a scientist (Feymnan, for those following along that have not checked my front-pafe) who did quite a bit to dispel mystery and increasing understanding. You'll note that he did not say "I think there are no answers and so I will not seek them or work to attain greater degrees of certainty."

In fact, you could say that his life was dedicated to increasing understanding.

> 164. You'll note that he did not say "I think there are no answers and so I will not seek them or work to attain greater degrees of certainty."

Who has said that?

It's definitely implied with the idea that "it seems to regard existence as a mystery to be experienced, not a mystery to be solved."

> 167. It's definitely implied with the idea that "it seems to regard existence as a mystery to be experienced, not a mystery to be solved."

Perhaps that's why SBL is so troubled with this statement, which she proposed in # 147.

For myself, I don't really see the problem. I don't see how "experiencing the mystery" keeps someone from wearing shoes or using the internet.

#146,147 etc.

So you switched from "spiritual" to "mystical". Do they mean the same thing to you (both)? I'll accept for now that you might mean something different to the Pope when he says "spiritual", but am happy to try to understand what you mean. (I'd also be happy if someone could also explain to me what the Pope means.)

But I don't understand what you mean. I accept that "it's hard to pin it down" and that the language used can sometimes get in the way. But I don't recall having "a sense of 'something greater' when contemplating the universe, its vastness, origin, laws, etc"; greater than what? Or when contemplating a glorious sunset. Yes, it's pretty and interesting. I have never been able to meditate. I try to act altruistically towards my fellow beings, but that doesn't seem to need a special category; it's just what I do.

Mysteries, I agree with SBL and jesse, are there to be solved, where possible. There are certainly paradoxes, which will never be solved, and they may be very important. But recognizing them as paradoxes and examining their structure removes the mystery.

Poetry is a mystery to me however. Does that count?

#153

I get the sense that people think of the "spiritual" as being that part of themselves that is most essential, most real: purged, or at least refined, of the grosser aspects of self itemized in # 146, 1-6. People talk, for example, of the "real me", who is considered to be not well represented by all the mistakes I make, due to my being drunk, stoned, angry, half-asleep, distracted, out-of-sorts, ignorant, etc. etc.

The "mystery" is how my rarified, pilgrim spirit can be encumbered by all this inadequacy.

No there you have me confused. I don't know if I could recognize anything that is "me" that isn't part of Tid's 1 to 7. The bits that are 1 to 7 are the real me, as far as I can tell. Perhaps you recognize something additional in you; if so, how do find it?

> 169. recognizing them as paradoxes and examining their structure removes the mystery.

So the solution to some mysteries is to label them paradoxes and declare victory?

Nice.

What troubles me about the idea that existence is a mystery to be experienced, rather than one to be understood, is the implication that there comes a point when it is useless to keep asking "why?" or "how?"

When we stop asking these questions, when we regard our lives as something to be endured rather than discovered or enjoyed, then we basically enslave ourselves.

Now I am not positive that "mystery" is indeed an element of the spiritual, but it does seem to me that many spiritual systems,and certainly many religious ones, are systems of "revelations" of a series of hidden or proscribed knowledge that are only granted under carefully controlled circumstances, and that somewhere in this labyrinth of knowledge is some ultimate truth or state of knowing that can never be attained but only forever desired and denied.

I share @Tid's suspicion of "religion" --that organized institution which seems to me to smother the questing, discovering impulse that is the human race's great gift and great curse. And I am very very suspicious of spiritual constructs that fetishize things like knowledge, revelation, wisdom, and understanding.

I am also, I admit, rather impatient with some of my "spiritual" friends who treasure crystals but eschew geology, who will go on about "chi" but find no beauty in physics, or who have their meditation tapes of ocean waves breaking but haven't the slightest desire to go swimming.

ETA: I think on some level I just rebel against the notion that existence is fundamentally "unknowable."

#171 Which mysteries would you rather see not resolved?

#172 But surely there is a point at which asking why and how has to end, not least when the marginal utility is negative, when any answer is no longer worth the effort.

And surely such a point should be determined by oneself, no one else.

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for the ones who defy authority in order to look and to ask. Prometheus, stealing fire. Pandora, opening the box. Eve, tasting the apple. Thomas demanding to see the holes from the nails for himself.

Yes, and rrp believes that that point should fall well short of evolution, if a person decides.

#175

If they are asking using tax payers' money, we all should have a say when to stop.

Funny. I was talking about spirituality. You seem to be talking about politics. When in doubt, deflect.

Yes, politics because all conversations about spirituality take place in a group. Otherwise you can never be sure that what you mean b spirituality means what they mean by spirituality. Which seems to be the case anyway.

179: No, it's a diversion.

What troubles me about the idea that existence is a mystery to be experienced, rather than one to be understood, is the implication that there comes a point when it is useless to keep asking "why?" or "how?"

But since it is never clear when that point comes, don't stop asking the questions. The problems come when you think you have the answer, and so stop asking the questions. (Or when you spend so much time asking the questions that you don't notice the unexpected answers that you might be getting.)

>180 MyopicBookworm: But since it is never clear when that point comes, don't stop asking the questions. The problems come when you think you have the answer, and so stop asking the questions.

Amen to that.

155

Without the irony, those things are self-evidently useful. I'm not sure what they have to do with the subject under discussion though?

167

"It's definitely implied with the idea that "it seems to regard existence as a mystery to be experienced, not a mystery to be solved."

Yes, I agree that it is. But it's not talking about all those things which can be eventually 'solved' or 'explained'. That's the realm of science and all power to its elbow, I say. However, for now at any rate, science makes no pretence to be interested in answering the kinds of question that have always been the ultimate in philosophy, such as "Why life?", "What's the meaning - if any - to existence?", "Where do *I* fit into it all?", "What's reality?"

What Eastern philosophies do point to however, is a way of living that enhances our "experience of existence" without necessarily being able to explain it. And what's wrong with that?

169

"So you switched from "spiritual" to "mystical". Do they mean the same thing to you (both)? I'll accept for now that you might mean something different to the Pope when he says "spiritual", but am happy to try to understand what you mean. (I'd also be happy if someone could also explain to me what the Pope means.)"

Well no, I didn't switch. I simply placed the "mystical" into the basket I call "spiritual". As for the Pope, I have absolutely no idea what he means - I've never been a Catholic so that's all a bit of a mystery to me.

"Poetry is a mystery to me however. Does that count?"

Maybe, just maybe, it's a clue? To really "get" poetry, you have to switch from one mode of thinking into another. From what has been called "left brain" into "right brain". From thinking literally and analytically about something that's said - in language - to accepting that words can express a beauty simply from their form, shape, arrangement, rhythm, sound, that can be appreciated first and foremost without thinking too closely about the semantic meaning. Not jettisoning the meaning altogether, but putting other aspects to the forefront. And maybe searching for meaning within simile, metaphor, allegory, etc.

"Mystery" is a term distinctly oversupplied with meaning in any religious context. In antiquity (including its translations in Christian scripture), its cognates referred to an organized religious body, with a membership defined by ceremonial initiation, as well as the teachings and experiences peculiar to and secret among those members.

There is a fascinating overview of the philology of mysterion in J.Z. Smith's Drudgery Divine. Among other things, he footnotes the ancient Greek pun attributed by Athenaios to Dionysos Tyrannos: mysterion = mus terein, "mouseholes!" (p. 56)

In the medieval period, the word came to refer to the body of technique communicated through a craft guild, and thus when Freemasonry was created in the early modern era, it designated itself as a "mystery," and did not hesitate to connect the medieval meaning with the ancient one.

The meaning of a mere puzzle or enigma to solve or "resolve" has come to dominate the interpretation of the term only in relatively late stages, and can be an entire red herring when trying to understand traditional usage.

172

Yes, I think I see what you're saying. And I agree that we need to keep on asking the questions, that's who and what we are, after all.

"when we regard our lives as something to be endured rather than discovered or enjoyed, then we basically enslave ourselves."

I think that's what we all do, from the moment of birth onwards. It's where I think the Eastern philosophies - properly understood - score. They don't say "Life must be endured", they say "Realise you have enslaved yourself all your life, and then work to liberate yourself. Ultimately you will be happy and free, but just take one step at a time."

""religion" --that organized institution which seems to me to smother the questing, discovering impulse that is the human race's great gift and great curse."

Hear, hear.

"I am also, I admit, rather impatient with some of my "spiritual" friends who treasure crystals but eschew geology, who will go on about "chi" but find no beauty in physics, or who have their meditation tapes of ocean waves breaking but haven't the slightest desire to go swimming."

ditto

181

">180 MyopicBookworm: But since it is never clear when that point comes, don't stop asking the questions. The problems come when you think you have the answer, and so stop asking the questions.

Amen to that."

Amen amen.

>182 Tid: However, for now at any rate, science makes no pretence to be interested in answering the kinds of question that have always been the ultimate in philosophy, such as "Why life?", "What's the meaning - if any - to existence?", "Where do *I* fit into it all?", "What's reality?"

A materialist approach to existence doesn't ask "why?" but it does ask "how?" and the two questions are often confused and sometimes considered interchangeable. It may also be that answering "how" for some people renders "why?" unnecessary.

What Eastern philosophies do point to however, is a way of living that enhances our "experience of existence" without necessarily being able to explain it. And what's wrong with that?

Nothing. Although I've noticed that explanations often enhance our experience of existence beyond all expectations--they jump start our imagination, you could say. Over in another thread right now (http://www.librarything.com/topic/157901) someone posted a link to the deep space field discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. Basically, some scientists decided to point the telescope at a patch of completely black space. They found thousands of galaxies. So where a Buddhist might look at a black space and contemplate the nature of the dark, the scientist looks at the dark and wonders if it is really dark. And guess who finds the light?

It is one aspect about so called "western" ideas about scientific discovery that I do think is sometimes given short shrift or even devalued in an "eastern" framework--that this drive and desire to look, to see, to understand is not a distraction from "the eternal" (whatever that means) but a quest in its own right. What Joseph Campbell called in a phrase that is a bit of a personal mantra for me, "joyful participation in the sorrows of the world."

>184 paradoxosalpha: The meaning of a mere puzzle or enigma to solve or "resolve" has come to dominate the interpretation of the term only in relatively late stages, and can be an entire red herring when trying to understand traditional usage.

Well, in a religious context (and perhaps a spiritual one) I don't think of the term as a "mere puzzle." It isn't so much knowledge hidden as knowledge forever denied. Ei--you can't know Eden because mankind is "fallen."

184

"he footnotes the ancient Greek pun attributed by Athenaios to Dionysos Tyrannos: mysterion = mus terein, "mouseholes!""

Unfortunately - great pun though that is - it puts me in mind of Christian fundamentalists' organised distrust of mysticism - their pun is "I in mist leads to schism."

187

"It is one aspect about so called "western" ideas about scientific discovery that I do think is sometimes given short shrift or even devalued in an "eastern" framework--that this drive and desire to look, to see, to understand is not a distraction from "the eternal" (whatever that means) but a quest in its own right."

IF that is a factor in Eastern philosophy - and I'm not convinced that it is - then East and West need to become unified. In other words, 'looking outwards' and 'looking inwards' are both necessary journeys towards our understanding and completeness.

>184 paradoxosalpha:: It should be noted that in Christian Latin, at least, that more fuzzy "religious" meaning of "mystery" that you are careful to distinguish from mysterium was denoted by the related but distinct adjective, mysticus.

#180 MyopicBookworm

No, it's a diversion.

Well maybe in the sense that most of the discussion of spiritual and mystical experience lately has been of an exclusively personal nature. But a large part of what the Pope might have to say about it (I am guessing) is primarily of a shared, communal nature. I'd echo the Tid's questions in #182, but change the personal pronouns to the plural; "what is the meaning of all human existence?", "where do we fit into it all?", "what should we, collectively, do about it?". But those seem to me more mundane, practical questions to be the source of all things spiritual and mystical.

Asking questions is fine, but at some point we have to stop and decide what to do about it. To get on with our lives, collectively.

# 183 Tid

Well no, I didn't switch. I simply placed the "mystical" into the basket I call "spiritual". As for the Pope, I have absolutely no idea what he means - I've never been a Catholic so that's all a bit of a mystery to me.

So is not knowing what the Pope means is a mystery and hence mystical and thus in the basket you call spiritual? Not knowing what the Pope means is spiritual? I am more confused.

"Poetry is a mystery to me however. Does that count?"

To really "get" poetry, you have to switch from one mode of thinking into another.

Leaving aside the "left brain", "right brain" stuff, of which I am entirely skeptical, I'll accept that a different mode of thinking is needed to understand poetry. I also recognize that some are better at it than others (and that I am particularly bad at it). One can understand poetry by understanding its structure, form, rhythm, rhyme, metaphors, and similes, yet still not understand it in the way others understand it. I am suggesting that the same applies to understanding of religion, one can understand the dogma, yet be completely unable to extract understanding from the spiritual and mystical aspects.

#187 southernbooklady

A materialist approach to existence doesn't ask "why?" but it does ask "how?" and the two questions are often confused and sometimes considered interchangeable. It may also be that answering "how" for some people renders "why?" unnecessary.

But doesn't the "how" question limited itself to the past. The "why" question is concerned with the future. "How should I act tomorrow?" is a "how" question about the future, but needs an answer supported by reasons that only "why" questions can answer.

> 187. A materialist approach to existence doesn't ask "why?" but it does ask "how?" and the two questions are often confused and sometimes considered interchangeable. It may also be that answering "how" for some people renders "why?" unnecessary.

Any person who says "Amen" to the statement, "But since it is never clear when that point comes, don't stop asking the questions.", might feel a little uncomfortable suggesting that people stop asking certain kinds of questions.

> 191

I don't find the varied religious meanings "fuzzy" at all. The fuzziness comes from people using the word without clarifying their intent or context, and often in ways that haphazardly scoop up multiple meanings for rhetorical impact.

>194 paradoxosalpha:: Sorry, poor choice of words. You were trying to distinguish modern uses of "mystery" to apply to religion in ways that are foreign to ancient notions of corporate bodies of estoeric knowledge and practice, right? In which case, the more "modern" uses that you were distinguishing were more closely covered by the concept of mysticus, as distinct but related to mysterium.

> 187. Basically, some scientists decided to point the telescope at a patch of completely black space. They found thousands of galaxies. So where a Buddhist might look at a black space and contemplate the nature of the dark, the scientist looks at the dark and wonders if it is really dark. And guess who finds the light?

People have done a marvellous job of extending their sensory equipment through the use of technology and mathematics. Telescopes and microscopes enable us to see things enormously vast and incredibly teeny tiny. Using mathematics, we can even see things that we can't "see" but can calculate to a degree of certainty that we find satisfactory.

But the question is, "is there anything that we can't do"? In other words, is there something that is absolutely inaccessible to us, due to the type of organism that we are -- time bound, sense bound, logic driven, etc.?

People who answer this question with a resounding "no" are making what seems to me to be an unjustified faith claim, just as much, if not more, than someone who is certain the answer is "yes." In fact, answering "I don't know" is basically the same as answering "yes."

>193 jburlinson:

I was just trying to point out that "why?" has a material as well as a metaphysical answer, and thus a material answer might be more satisfying than the alternative:

Why was the city of New Orleans almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina?

Material answer: Because it was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground. Let's not do that again.

Metaphysical answer (American): Because God decided to punish it for its licentiousness and the harboring of sodomites.

Metaphysical answer (Everyone else): Because all things are ephemeral and come to dust.

> 197. I was just trying to point out that "why?" has a material as well as a metaphysical answer

Fair enough, but the metaphysical answer "Because all things are ephemeral and come to dust" is hardly the same answer as the material answer "Because it was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground. Let's not do that again." (The other "metaphysical" answer about God's punishment wouldn't be made by anybody who has so far participated in this thread.)

The same person could be satisfied (in different ways, perhaps) by both the material and the metaphysical answer. There are different kinds of satisfaction, after all. Surely you wouldn't want to deny someone as much satisfaction as they can eke out?

ETA -- Actually, the more I think of it, the answer "Because all things are ephemeral and come to dust" is really another material answer, not really a metaphysical one. So one could give two different (though not opposed) material answers and be somewhat satisfied with both.

I'll have to think for a while longer to come up with a metaphysical answer. Any other suggestions?

>196 jburlinson: But the question is, "is there anything that we can't do"? In other words, is there something that is absolutely inaccessible to us, due to the type of organism that we are -- time bound, sense bound, logic driven, etc.?

Even when the answer appears to be "yes there are things we can't do or know" -- we keep trying to do them, to know them.

Human beings can't fly. But we're in the sky. We've been to the moon! In person! We're running robot cars on Mars and at the bottom of the ocean.

Human beings die when their heart stops. We can now put another heart in there.

Human beings can't creating stuff out of thin air. We now have 3-D "printers" that can make everything from a wrench to replacement jaw bones.

(And, in the other direction, we now have bombs big enough and powerful enough to turn cities into glass, guns that shot 90 rounds a minute, and super bugs immune to all our vaccines.)

Does anyone feel confident enough to say absolutely that humans won't solve cancer? Or consciousness? or time travel? Or factor pi? (Stretching, there, I know)

So it isn't really that people don't acknowledge the possibility of limitations, or make "unjustified faith claims," is it? It's really that, Heisenberg not withstanding, you can't prove a problem is insoluble, so people keep trying to solve it.

Now you can call this attitude an "unjustified faith" if you like, but it is also an expression of curiosity and an affinity for discovery. So while you say "I don't know=Yes," there are ultimate limits; another might say "I don't know= Not yet" and if there are limits we haven't hit them yet.

>198 jburlinson: Actually, the more I think of it, the answer "Because all things are ephemeral and come to dust" is really another material answer, not really a metaphysical one. So one could give two different (though not opposed) material answers and be somewhat satisfied with both.

Well not being the kind of person who thinks that there is some kind of meaning or purpose to existence, it is a little hard for me to extrapolate, but insofar as metaphysics is a search for meaning, then I would think the endless cycle of creation and dissolution is the Eternal "blooming," so to speak, in a hundred thousand different forms, which are all manifestations the One, viewed through the splintered filters of our own hundred thousand limited perspectives.

> 199. if there are limits we haven't hit them yet.

There are certainly limits and we hit them every day, all day. We are time-bound, biological organisms. Constituted as we are now, we cannot now and never will cease being limited by our time-bound, biological imperatives. Every single one of the achievements you listed in #199, remarkable as they all are, occurred within the context of our limited experience and perception of reality. (BTW -- 3-d printers use a little more than "thin air" to do their thing.) At present, the rat in its maze conceives of everything in terms of its little four-legged self padding around inside its walls and corners. If, and when, it evolves to effect space travel, time travel and consciousness expansion it will be just a little larger self in a somewhat larger maze.

> 200. Don't be naughty.

>201 jburlinson: There are certainly limits and we hit them every day, all day. We are time-bound, biological organisms.

I'm not arguing that, J. I'm just pointing out that we continue to strive against and overcome the limitations we are confronted with. As a species we aren't inclined to "acquiesce."

> 203. I'm just pointing out that we continue to strive against and overcome the limitations we are confronted with. As a species we aren't inclined to "acquiesce."

And yet, with respect, I get the sense that you might be urging a certain kind of acquiescence to anyone who might be speculating about the existence of something beyond us, inaccessible to us. By no means am I saying that we should stop trying to "be all that we can be." What I chafe against is the suggestion that there's no way to "be all we can't be" because there's nothing beyond what we are.

>204 jburlinson: I get the sense that you might be urging a certain kind of acquiescence to anyone who might be speculating about the existence of something beyond us, inaccessible to us.

I don't know. As I said, I tend to kick at the traces when people try to impose their limits on me. I suppose viewed from another perspective that could look like an imposition on others.

It's possible that this is just another version of the conflict that occurs between relative vs. absolutist philosophy. I don't know if the two are, in the final analysis, incompatible, but it seems so.

> 205. the conflict that occurs between relative vs. absolutist philosophy. I don't know if the two are, in the final analysis, incompatible, but it seems so.

Perhaps they are compatible, in that many relativists claim their relativism absolutely. It's a little hard for me to think of something as relatively relative.

180 But since it is never clear when that point comes, don't stop asking the questions. The problems come when you think you have the answer, and so stop asking the questions. (Or when you spend so much time asking the questions that you don't notice the unexpected answers that you might be getting.)

I am in basic agreement with this, but since we have been talking about mysticism and spirituality, I have to throw another two cents in.

First, as was said, mysticism is a form of Christianity, and one that ranges from pseudo-Dionysus to Julian of Norwich to Evelyn Underhill. I highly recommend Underhill's Mysticism, although it is a bit outdated. Better still is Andrew Louth's The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys.

Asking questions is obviously one way to spiritual growth. That is what I have against the fundamentalists. They become static in their development, both as a movement and as individuals. However, like most tools, questions serve a few purposes well, but others not so well.

For example, when learning a foreign language, you can go crazy asking "Why does "cough" not rhyme with "bough" and never rhymes with "though." Perhaps a linguist could provide the answers, but that would not help you predict how to pronounce "tough."

When learning German I had to put my questions aside, and get out and speak the language. Had I kept asking "why" or even "how" I would have been very slow learner. I just had to get out and practice. And in the practice, I started to become fluent. That same is somewhat true of understanding a faith. Sometimes you just have to get out and practice it, see how it is "spoken" and learn the grammar, not in books, but in usage.

This, I realize, is a faulty metaphor, because someone from Hanover is going to hear your Schwabish accent and tell you that you are not speaking proper German. A person who speaks Kolsch (a dialect of Cologne) cannot understand a person who speaks Bunsch (the dialect of Bonn, twenty miles down the road). And to be honest, if I ran into someone who learned the faith from a fundamentalist church I might say, "That is NOT how the faith is spoken."

Add to this the fact that there are experiences that just leave one silent. I have three of these, and while I might could describe what kind of happened, I cannot describe the experience itself. To quote C.S. Lewis at the end of Til We Have Faces:

“I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”

I just had to get out and practice. And in the practice, I started to become fluent. That same is somewhat true of understanding a faith. Sometimes you just have to get out and practice it, see how it is "spoken" and learn the grammar, not in books, but in usage.

But how does that analogy fit with those atheists who were brought up in a faith and later rejected it? They learned German, they spoke the language, then decided that German was not the right language to speak. I am sure there are many who attend church services, learn the communal language of worship, yet fail to pick up an experience of faith. What do they and the ex-theist atheists lack?

192

"So is not knowing what the Pope means is a mystery and hence mystical and thus in the basket you call spiritual? Not knowing what the Pope means is spiritual? I am more confused."

Sorry, I inadvertently caused that by using the word 'mystery' in its ordinary everyday sense of "puzzling" "opaque" "unexplained" - nothing to do with mysticism.

"One can understand poetry by understanding its structure, form, rhythm, rhyme, metaphors, and similes, yet still not understand it in the way others understand it. I am suggesting that the same applies to understanding of religion, one can understand the dogma, yet be completely unable to extract understanding from the spiritual and mystical aspects."

I understand what you're saying. It's possible to understand something on one level - e.g. the theoretical - but not at all on the experiential or intuitive. Some people are very literal-minded, some are quite so, and some aren't at all. We all understand in different ways, is all. There's no 'right way' or 'wrong way' (though I personally would place a higher premium on experience than on belief or theory. Others wouldn't.)

197

While I like your answer about Hurricane Katriona, I'm not sure that's a good example to illustrate what we're discussing - I would say that particular question has no real metaphysical aspect and that your 'material' reply is out on its own as the best.

200

"I would think the endless cycle of creation and dissolution is the Eternal "blooming," so to speak, in a hundred thousand different forms, which are all manifestations the One, viewed through the splintered filters of our own hundred thousand limited perspectives."

That's a beautiful summation of Indian philosophies, but I'm not sure you actually believe it - or am I doing you an injustice there?

>200 southernbooklady: I'm not sure you actually believe it - or am I doing you an injustice there?

No, you are correct. I don't "believe" it -- I was just trying to give a possible metaphysical answer to the question of "why Katrina destroyed New Orleans" from what I understand of such philosophies. I may be off base, I'm not very familiar with the subject.

But I wasn't being facetious, just academic. Or maybe Socratic.

Discussions of "the One" of which all things are manifestations tend to turn me around and upside down. Mostly because while it makes sense on some levels--metaphorically, even materially in that we are all the stuff of the stuff of the universe, it never really makes sense to me to seek to abandon or subsume ego...that which makes us who and what we are.

One of the reasons I do not consider myself a spiritual person.

I just had to get out and practice. And in the practice, I started to become fluent. That same is somewhat true of understanding a faith. Sometimes you just have to get out and practice it, see how it is "spoken" and learn the grammar, not in books, but in usage.

But how does that analogy fit with those atheists who were brought up in a faith and later rejected it? They learned German, they spoke the language, then decided that German was not the right language to speak. I am sure there are many who attend church services, learn the communal language of worship, yet fail to pick up an experience of faith. What do they and the ex-theist atheists lack?

Actually it might work better than I thought. I ran into countless foreigners who lived in Germany, as I did. In order to live there, some of them gave up their old language. They did not forget it totally, and you could hear Anglicisms in their speech but for the most part they were not German speakers. Some of them became quite fluent, others never really made the adjustment.

Take the atheist who just walks away. They do not rail against religion, they just don't do it anymore, don't talk about it anymore, and don't think about it anymore. That is like the auslander who comes to Germany, learns German, and assimilates in the new culture.

Now take the newly minted atheist who feels he or she needs to preach atheism, who act as if it were their new religion, and who see the need to spread it. They are speaking "atheist" but with a decided accent.

It would be nice, would it not, Mr. AS, if all atheists would just STFU or walk away. That way your mouthings would be the only game in town. What a beautiful dream.

Apparently we are not going to do that. And by we I mean millions of us.

Oh, well. But god must want it this way, otherwise how could it be? Ponder that, genius.

>211 Arctic-Stranger: Take the atheist who just walks away. They do not rail against religion, they just don't do it anymore, don't talk about it anymore, and don't think about it anymore. That is like the auslander who comes to Germany, learns German, and assimilates in the new culture.

Now take the newly minted atheist who feels he or she needs to preach atheism, who act as if it were their new religion, and who see the need to spread it. They are speaking "atheist" but with a decided accent.

I might have lost the thread of the metaphor here, but this does not strike me as an illustration of an atheism story or a belief/loss of belief story. It strikes me as a generic "conversion" story--the two poles in the range of reactions we all go through when we take hold of, or lose, a significant idea.

210

"it never really makes sense to me to seek to abandon or subsume ego...that which makes us who and what we are."

Yeah, that's the $64,000 issue. I feel exactly the same which is why - though I DO consider myself a spiritual person, or at least 'would-be' - I'm not very good at it. The ego gets in the way too much, and despite being told "When you're 'fully realised' you don't lose a thing, but you gain everything", I nod enthusiastically but nothing moves and nothing changes. Oh well, perhaps the next lifetime...

> 210 ego...that which makes us who and what we are

Well, no. Ego makes "mine" what "I am." Ego isn't character or even identity; it's just a sense of possession.

ETA: Not that I think ego is "bad." But it's hardly the keystone of the arch!

>215 paradoxosalpha: Well, no. Ego makes "mine" what "I am." Ego isn't character or even identity; it's just a sense of possession.

Well I am not a philosopher. Perhaps I was using the term inaccurately. I used "ego" to mean "I" -- My sense of self.

#209 Tid

We all understand in different ways, is all. There's no 'right way' or 'wrong way'

This does not seem to be the opinion of many who post here. The consensus seems to be that there is only one way to understand an issue (religion) and that there is a 'right way' and a 'wrong way'. The 'right way' camp seems to be dominated by atheists (not exclusively mind you), which is curious.

Oh, and I agree with your opinion about SBL's question "Why was the city of New Orleans almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina?". Her material answer was "Because it was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground." which leaves the question "Why was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground?" and several others, which ultimately do not have material answers.

# 211 AS

I am still not getting this "speaking German" analogy. I think you intend the analogy to be "understanding German" = "understanding the spiritual language of religion". And "to understand German you have to practice speaking German" = "to understand the spiritual language of religion you have to practice religion" (or maybe "practice speaking the spiritual language of religion" ??).

For the analogy to be exact, an atheist who learns to speak German, doesn't just walk away and not speak it any more. They would have to not understand it any more.

>217 rrp: Her material answer was "Because it was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground." which leaves the question "Why was built at or below sea level, on unstable ground?" and several others, which ultimately do not have material answers.

A possible material answer for that: Because it was a convenient port for trade despite the fact it was on low ground. As for why we needed a port at all, well because we needed a place to land our ship, etc, etc.

"material" answers tend to lead from one to the next to the next because we view the world through the lens of cause and effect.

But as for "why" we were even out on the ocean in a rickety boat in the first place? Well I'm with Mallory and Petrarch on that question: why do men climb mountains? Because they are there.

> 216 I used "ego" to mean "I" -- My sense of self.

Fair enough, but that's not what you wrote in #210. Somewhat ironically, a "sense of self" is not peculiar to anyone, while what makes it distinctive is the perception of its not being shared. One might metaphorically invoke Proudhon's Property is theft. The ego appropriates, it has no substance from which to create.

Some of the most curious modifications to my sense of ego many years back came from reading Bateson's Sacred Unity, where some of the essays led me to consider that "my mind" is usually located outside of "my" physical body.

A better basis than the ego for individual character is memory, which concatenates personal experience and knowledge. But we live in an anti-mnemonic culture, where good memories are considered freakish, the process of memorization is derided, and machines are increasingly tasked to "remember it for you wholesale."

#218

"material" answers tend to lead from one to the next to the next because we view the world through the lens of cause and effect

Sure, but if at some point in the chain they involve decisions by humans, then an element of the metaphysical will bound to creep in. Because they are there is a metaphysical answer.

219

It's a whole fascinating ball game, this one (the ego). In Vedic philosophy, the ego is called "ahankara" which is formed from "aham" (consciousness) + "kara" (a creature, but in the wider sense of 'anything created'). In other words the ego appropriates, as you say.

But the whole being (personality) is contained within the "anthakarana" (mental body) which consists of ahankara , citta (memory), manas (mind and perception), and buddhi (intellect, discriminator and analyser). The combined state of each of those separate parts is what gives rise to the overall personality, they say.

> 218. "material" answers tend to lead from one to the next to the next because we view the world through the lens of cause and effect.

Is there another way to view the world? I only ask because you seem to be implying that it's possible to view the world in a different way, but I'm not sure I'm reading you rightly.

Does quantum physics use a cause and effect model?

#223 It does, within a certain probability.

>222 jburlinson: - quoting 218: "material" answers tend to lead from one to the next to the next because we view the world through the lens of cause and effect. - Is there another way to view the world?

I would say the "lens of cause and effect" cannot sanely be avoided. The statement that anything is "because of" anything else is an illustration of a belief in cause and effect. That we view this way or that way instead of the other way "because of" this belief or that belief and not the other belief, presumes cause and effect. Our language is permeated with why and how questions and "because" answers "because" we believe in cause and effect. Why do we believe it? Simply because "cause and effect" exists - because it is real.

This does not mean we can even in theory know all causes and all effects, not does it negate the real existence of mystery. There exist limits to our perceptions and to our knowledge and to our understanding.

Nor does this mean that everyone will admit to a belief in the principle of cause and effect. Some will acknowledge only being imprisoned in a culture that has created a language that wrongly presumes it - but they (though few) know better. I have heard of a contrary theory (contrary to cause and effect) that sees only simultaneity, not causality. Thus, the rock passes through the window merely simultaneous with the window breaking - not "causing" it. Thus "why" questions are denied any value or relevance, and "how" questions are replaced with "when" and a list of other events in the same or nearby place-time coordinates.

"Why" such mental gymnastics? I think in an attempt to "move beyond" realism and to enable atheism. But then, such "why" questions are disallowed anyway, having no place in the new ways of thinking.

"Why" such mental gymnastics? I think in an attempt to "move beyond" realism and to enable atheism.

Why would you think one would need such "mental gymnastics" to enable atheism?

226

Yes, having maintained an interest in reading 225, I too was suddenly brought up sharp by that one.

>226 StormRaven:, 227: Because realism + cause-effect => God. re: T. Aquinas.

And once again, we are back to unicorns.

Realism + cause/effect => no god.

Neither statement can be "proved" only "accepted."

228: Aquinas' arguments are worthless for a number of reasons.

First, his "first cause" argument is simply a special pleading, which is a logical fallacy. Pretending that his arguments amount to some sort of logical proof when they have a logical fallacy smack dab in the middle of them is ridiculous.

Second, even if one accepts that there is some sort of first cause, that doesn't prove "God" in any way shape or form. Things are caused by things that exist. Unless you first establish that "God" is a thing that exists, then you can't fill "God" in as a cause for anything. All Aquinas' arguments do is (somewhat fallaciously) establish that there might be a first cause. But leaping from that to "God" is unwarranted.

Third, Aquinas' argument requires the existence of time to function. But time is a function of space, and space is the result of the Big Bang, an event for which we have ample evidence. But without the Big Bang, there is no time, and all of Aquinas' causation claims simply fall apart. Without time, "cause and effect" is a meaningless statement.

Fourth, Aquinas' arguments also require the universe to not be infinite. We don't know that it is not. We know that the universe in its present form came into being at the time of the Big Bang, but prior to that event, we have no information. For all we know, the universe in some form may have existed forever, which would invalidate everything about Aquinas' arguments.

You don't need to do away with cause and effect in the universe to "enable atheism". The arguments in favor of God are horribly flawed all on their own.

I have yet to read a scientist who says the universe in infinite. Who have I missed? (And granted, I don't read a lot of science writing.)

I have yet to read a scientist who says the universe in infinite.

Infinite in what sense? Temporally? Spatially?

>229 southernbooklady: I had an unstated assumption: human reason. Sorry, I should have know that that assumption is questioned along with everything else.

I had an unstated assumption: human reason.

Yet again you demonstrate that you haven't a clue what people are saying. sbl's post didn't question human reason at all. The problem you need to confront is that human reason plus realism plus cause and effect doesn't lead to the conclusion of "God" at all.

Infinite in the sense you were talking about.

>230 StormRaven:
First - Is Newton's 2nd Law also "special pleading? F=ma; and if F=0 then a=0 and there is no change in motion?
Second, if you say "Things are caused by things that exist," then you tell me what is the first cause.
Third, time is not a function of space; time and space are independent coordinates; and what is the "Things are caused by things that exist," thing that caused the Big Bang?
Fourth, What caused the Big Bang? What "banged" to cause the Bang to be history?

235: Infinite in terms of time? There are a number of papers that have speculated on it, but since no information from before the Big Bang carries forward, we simply don't know (with the caveat that time shows up after the Big Bang, so asking what happened "before" the Big Bang is kind of a flawed question). If you ask a physicist about what came before the Big Bang, the answer you will likely get will be (1) there is no "before" so the question is incoherent and, (2) to the extent that it isn't incoherent, we don't know.

>234 StormRaven: - "you haven't a clue what people are saying." Sorry, I forgot I was ignoring you. Thanks for reminding me why.

First - Is Newton's 2nd Law also "special pleading? F=ma; and if F=0 then a=0 and there is no change in motion?

No, it isn't, because it doesn't try to claim that there is uncaused motion. Aquinas' special pleading is to say that everything needs a cause except the first cause. I think you don't understand either Aquinas or Newton.

Second, if you say "Things are caused by things that exist," then you tell me what is the first cause.

It's not up to me to demonstrate what the alleged first case is. It is up to you to demonstrate that the alleged first cause is "God". Unless you can do that, then realism and cause and effect supports a godless universe quite nicely.

Third, time is not a function of space; time and space are independent coordinates; and what is the "Things are caused by things that exist," thing that caused the Big Bang?

No, they aren't. Without space you cannot have time. Learn some cosmology before you make ignorant statements like "time is not a function of space". If there is no time, and for the Big Bang, there was no time (because time comes into existence as a result of the Big Bang) then your notions of cause and effect are meaningless. Your question "what caused the Big Bang" is incoherent.

Fourth, What caused the Big Bang? What "banged" to cause the Bang to be history?

It is unknown. But you cannot leap from "unknown" to "God" simply because that's how you want it to be. There is no reason why the Big Bang could not have simply happened as the result of quantum fluctuations in something akin to a preexisting quantum vacuum or any number of other explanations. But we cannot, at the time (and possibly will never be able to) demonstrate which, if any, are correct. We simply don't know.

238: The real problem is that you are entirely ignorant of the issues you are trying to argue, and you blame your failings on those you are in a conversation with. That seems a fairly hubristic and unChristian attitude.

Of course, you also dodge the issue, which was that you didn't understand what sbl wrote, and continue to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of anything that anyone else in this thread has said.

For all we know, the universe in some form may have existed forever, which would invalidate everything about Aquinas' arguments.

You use this to invalidate Aquinas's argument, and I had never hear this from any modern scientists. I was just wondering where you got it, cause I would like to read more.

241: Look up the cyclic model, there are a couple of different formulations.

>241 Arctic-Stranger: as soon as a scientist speculates about any pre-(theoretical) big bang, he is going beyond science and hence is no longer speaking as a scientist.

243: Not necessarily. Categorical statements like yours are often wrong.

> 237. the answer you will likely get will be (1) there is no "before" so the question is incoherent and, (2) to the extent that it isn't incoherent, we don't know.

Is this an attempt at humor?

245: Why would it be?

236

"Third, time is not a function of space; time and space are independent coordinates"

Absolutely untrue. Einstein proved that with relativity. The space-time continuum is not the invention of sci-fi writers.

>233 ThomasRichard: I had an unstated assumption: human reason. Sorry, I should have know that that assumption is questioned along with everything else.

I'm not sure I understand you here. As SR said, I was not questioning human reason, just pointing out that human reason leads to different conclusions based on starting assumptions, of which "there is a god" and "there is not a god" are both examples.

> 245. Why would it be?

Because it takes the form: (1) I didn't do it, and (2) If I did, I didn't mean to.

249: No, it doesn't. It just highlights the inherent difficulty in talking about cosmology.

Because time shows up as part of the Big Bang, there isn't really a "before" that existed prior to the Big Bang in the same sense that we discuss "before". As a result, asking "what happened before the Big Bang" is something of an incoherent question, because there wasn't a "before" in the way that we understand the term. Our normal notions of time break down completely.

Think about a black hole. At the singularity, we describe the black hole as having infinite density compacted into a point of nonexistent space. But how do you actually describe something that is infinitely dense and occupies no space at all? Our normal notions of what objects are break down at that point. But physicists still try to talk about such objects, although they have to use language that is poorly suited to the task.

The same is true of "before" the Big Bang. Time as we know it doesn't exist prior to the Big Bang, and so asking what happened then is a question our language is not suited to answer. But some physicists still speculate about the pre-Big Bang universe, although they all acknowledge that everything they discuss is purely speculative, and we don't know what the universe looked like "prior to" the Big Bang, noting that using the term "prior to" is inaccurate but the best we can do when describing it.

> 250. But how do you actually describe something that is infinitely dense and occupies no space at all? Our normal notions of what objects are break down at that point. But physicists still try to talk about such objects, although they have to use language that is poorly suited to the task... asking what happened then is a question our language is not suited to answer. But some physicists still speculate about the pre-Big Bang universe, although they all acknowledge that everything they discuss is purely speculative ... using the term "prior to" is inaccurate but the best we can do when describing it.

This all sounds very much like what some theists are trying to do when they talk about God. Although, of course, when theists do it, it's just bullshit.

251: The primary difference is that when a physicist comes to a point where they don't know the answer, they say they don't know the answer and then try to figure it out. As TR has shown, when a theist doesn't know the answer, they are likely to fill in the blank with "God" and claim to know the answer.

Also, physicists generally differentiate between speculation and evidence, and usually only make claims about things for which they have evidence. Theists make claims that are entirely unsupported by evidence, which is what makes their claims bullshit.

> 252. when a theist doesn't know the answer, they are likely to fill in the blank with "God" and claim to know the answer.

This is simply not true. It does not take into account the long, long tradition of negative theology, sometimes called apophatic theology, in all kinds of religions, including Christianity, especially Eastern Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam.

>253 jburlinson: This is simply not true. It does not take into account the long, long tradition of negative theology

That may be, but it is not noticeably the kind of theology that has been discussed here.

> 254. it is not noticeably the kind of theology that has been discussed here.

That's odd. I had thought to have been contributing to the discussion.

Also, I seem to recollect that johnthefireman occasionally speaks up on behalf of apophaticism.

This is simply not true.

I note that you left out "as TR has shown", because he has done that repeatedly in this very thread. Whether or not some theists somewhere engage in negative theology is entirely beside the point, because we have an example in this very conversation of a theist doing what I said theists tend to do, and the fact remains that most theists are likely to follow TR's lead. A handful of counterexamples doesn't invalidate my point at all, and the fact that you somehow think it does is very telling.

At this point, you are just being disingenuous in your responses, which is something that most theists also seem to end up doing.

> 256. I note that you left out "as TR has shown", because he has done that repeatedly in this very thread.

If you're trying to say that TR is a theist, I suppose you're correct. If you're trying to say that all theists are like TR, you're committing a logical fallacy. If you're trying to say that TR is representative of all theists, that's bullshit.

you are just being disingenuous in your responses, which is something that most theists also seem to end up doing.

More bullshit. (You know, a person could get to enjoy using your style of rhetoric. The problem is that it doesn't get anybody very far.)

Edited to correct italics. Also to add that in no way am I attempting to insult or disparage TR. He's doing a pretty good job of presenting his message.

You know, a person could get to enjoy using your style of rhetoric.

That's just bullshit.

>255 jburlinson: That's odd. I had thought to have been contributing to the discussion.

Hmm. Perhaps I should have qualified it: not the kind of theology predominantly under discussion here, especially as a response to post #225. From what I understand of Thomas's arguments, for example, he is concerned with what God is, not what God is not.

Also, I seem to recollect that johnthefireman occasionally speaks up on behalf of apophaticism.

John and I are, -- at least from what I can tell based on Internet forum chat -- two people who come from polar opposite starting points but arrive at a place where we agree on many things. Philosophically we often disagree, but when it comes to action in the real world, we seem to find much common ground.

Which is probably what really counts, in the end. We each believe what we believe, but it is our actions, not our thoughts, that make a difference in the world.

> 259. not the kind of theology predominantly under discussion here

I hear what you're saying, but have a bit of a problem limiting this group and even this thread to what is "predominantly under discussion here." If we just confine ourselves to bashing Pentacostals or Roman Catholics, we aren't really talking about "how we communicate religious truth".

>247 Tid: - Are you trying to say that time and position measurements of some object differ in two different inertial systems having a velocity relative to one another? And that "space and time" are in that sense dependent on the observer and whether he has some velocity relative to another observer? And that the situation is even more complex for reference systems having a relative acceleration? That is not what I was talking about. SR's circular statement implied, to me, that time was a consequence of space (SR: "But time is a function of space, and space is the result of the Big Bang, an event for which we have ample evidence. But without the Big Bang, there is no time,…")

Maybe what he said made sense to you.

261: The problem here is that you are attempting to discuss Big Bang cosmology without even a basic understanding of what it says. The key thing to understand is that as you work backwards towards the Big Bang itself, at a certain point time drops out of the equations - and up to that point time simply doesn't exist. Most cosmologists seem to be convinced that without space existing you cannot have time.

The salient point here is that at the point of the Big Bang, time did not exist. Time did not, and likely cannot, exist without space. But if time does not exist, you cannot have causation as Aquinas understood it, and all of his arguments break down.

I loved the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five that exist outside of time. When they capture Billy Pilgrim they try to explain what it is like to be stuck in time, and can only say it is like looking at all of reality down a thin little tube.

Anything outside of space (which is a headscratcher) would exist in eternity.

#236: What is the first cause? There are a lot of hypotheses: that the Big Crunch creates the next Big Bang, or that the way phantom particles pop into existence and disappear as long as it's quick enough to not matter, the universe popped into existence and will disappear on a time scale quick enough to not matter in the supra-universal matrix.

If you demand that there be a sentient first cause, I've had a story that has stuck with me for years: a engineer lured a journalist back to his lab and tried to impress her by creating our universe, an attempt that failed; like all the other nights, he will be going home alone this one. I don't know what it would take for him to notice us in the relative vastness of the universe, but we are far from being able to create a signal and there's not much he could do if he noticed us. (And, yes, this is a real story that I've really carried with me for many years.)

That goes to my general annoyance with first cause arguments. Unless they're extraordinarily baroque, they usually seem like bait-and-switch games; "there is a first cause; let's call him God. Since we've proved that God exists, why haven't you accepted Jesus into your heart?" If you want a first cause, I can come up with a dozen more stories (though none as dear to me as the one above) of Creators for whom the title God would be an uncomfortable fit.

There may be a multi-universe - most likely there is - and there may be ways to detect the other universes.

Some of youse guys have really fallen behind in your reading of the latest cosmological science.

Put your bibles down and expand your reading, then maybe youse guys will be able to keep up in discussions of science.

>264 prosfilaes: - classical metaphysics, as adopted and adapted by Aquinas, presumes human reason and observation. The conclusion that there is and must be a God, a Personal God, an intelligent and good God, is now obvious to me. In the past I was in denial of this, as many are today. Reflecting upon my own history, and the current state of the world (radically confused), I find more and more light - that is, wisdom that enlightens my experience and my observations, in Scripture and in the teachings of the Catholic Church.

One such "illumination" I will paraphrase, since direct quotes from Scripture are anathema here: men find, discover and believe that which they want to find, discover and believe.

>265 JGL53: - you mean "discussions of the latest speculations du jour". Not "science."

>268 southernbooklady: Did you really just dismiss an entire field of scientific inquiry as "not science"? Can I dismiss your take on the Bible as "not Christianity"?

classical metaphysics, as adopted and adapted by Aquinas, presumes human reason and observation.

And yet, by dogmatically adhering to his arguments, you ignore more recent human observations.

>268 southernbooklady: - When you hear me indulging in speculation, going beyond authentic theology, then please categorize what you hear appropriately: speculation, not theology. When you hear corresponding speculations of either scientists or arm-chair scientists, please do the same. Science got its (good) reputation because of a firm commitment to careful and verifiable conclusions. The reputation of science has been hurt by the wild quasi-theological or quasi-philosophical speculations of some of its leading (or not) characters. But it does sell magazines, and titillate fans.

I think, Thomas, that you should revisit the original post you made in the previous thread where Francis called for humility and dialog, and give the same consideration to his words that you asked us to when you first posted it.

Just because you don't understand the most recent theoretical models, or the math they are predicated on, or the observational data used to create the theory, or the current experimental work going on to find evidence for it (those guys at the LHC aren't just smashing atoms for the hell of it), doesn't make all that work "not science" and therefore "not real." It just makes you not cognizant of the field.

But it does sell magazines, and titillate fans.

Science has nothing on religion when it comes to titillating the fans.

"men find, discover and believe that which they want to find, discover and believe"

That statement of fideism does rather remove the supports of any notion of rational intellectual or spiritual enquiry. Theists believe in God because they want to believe in God; atheists disbelieve because they want to disbelieve. The question of What Is becomes entirely unreachable behind a mist of projected human desires. Perhaps one needs to stick Aquinas in the bin and reach for Kierkegaard.

It also discounts subjective experiences such as those of C.S. Lewis (who found himself obliged to believe in God against his overt wish) or of many agnostics (who find themselves obliged to doubt the whole religious enterprise even though they rather wish it were true). Such positions must be interpreted in terms such as "Well, you may think that's what you want, but what you really want is..."

>262 StormRaven:: "But if time does not exist, you cannot have causation as Aquinas understood it, and all of his arguments break down."

This is where you seem to have misunderstood not only Aquinas but all of Christian metaphysics, which are predicated upon the idea that God's eternity is not just "all time" but also "outside of time". That is, Aquinas understood perfectly well--indeed, he assumed it to be axiomatic--that God as First Cause exists/-ed outside of time, i.e. in a state in which time does not exist.

>272 MyopicBookworm: - I think you misunderstand fideism (Webster's: " reliance on faith rather than reason in pursuit of religious truth"), which is a rejection of reason in favor of faith having no foundation. The Catholic (and Biblical) faith I speak of brings together faith and reason - it is reason enlightened by faith.

Truth is found not by blind faith darkened against reason, nor reason blindly prejudiced against faith. The search for truth begins in the heart: the desire for truth is essential. This is not fideism, it is the fact of man in a darkness of sin. Scripture and the Church teach that saving faith begins not in man, but in God. Faith is a gift, enabled/empowered by His grace, which is gift. The search for truth, in sincerity, begins because of God whose unseen work has begun first.

273: No, I have not misunderstood it. I have simply noted that despite all claims to the contrary, no one has ever given an example of causation that does not require time. Every argument that Aquinas ever made concerning causation requires time. The last time we did this, I asked you to provide an example of causation that doesn't require time, and you were completely unable to do so. Why do you now think that your argument will carry any weight when you failed so miserably the last time?

> 270 authentic theology

ROTFLMAO. Just the phrase! And the implication that people here (or generally) could agree on what might make a given theological claim "authentic." (ETA: For my own critereon, see chapters 56 and 81 of the Tao Te Ching.)

> 271 Science has nothing on religion when it comes to titillating the fans.

Worthy of quotation, I say as one who takes his tittilation where he can get it!

261

SR made perfect sense - since "time" only came into existence (in this particular universe) with the Big Bang, then it is not possible to speak about "before" the Big Bang. What's difficult to understand about that?

266

"classical metaphysics, as adopted and adapted by Aquinas, presumes human reason and observation. The conclusion that there is and must be a God, a Personal God, an intelligent and good God, is now obvious to me. In the past I was in denial of this, as many are today. Reflecting upon my own history, and the current state of the world (radically confused), I find more and more light - that is, wisdom that enlightens my experience and my observations, in Scripture and in the teachings of the Catholic Church."

The same Catholic Church that interpreted and 'explained' your religious experience?

On a separate tack, do you really not see the patronising and somewhat arrogant tone of some of your pronouncements? Don't you re-read your own posts, take a sharp intake of breath, and say "Oops, I can't say that."? To take the first two sentences of the above : are you seriously trying to suggest that human reason and observation only function if they lead to the conclusion that the Christian God exists?

274

" This is not fideism, it is the fact of man in a darkness of sin. Scripture and the Church teach that saving faith begins not in man, but in God."

I've referred you to John Shelby Spong before, to utter silence from you. Once again: he is a Christian, in fact the retired Bishop of Newark. He too has seen 'the light', which has led him to reject all forms of homophobia in and outside the Church, to embrace science and all its evidence-based conclusions about the universe, including evolution, and to research theologically and account for the entire guilt-ridden, sin-focused views of Christian dogma and how far it has taken Christians away from Jesus and what he taught. So, what makes "your light" the right light, and Spong's "light" the wrong light (from your point of view)?

#222 jburlinson

Sorry to drag you back to the post that seems to have started all this speculation about time and causality, but I didn't really understand your question.

Is there another way to view the world ("through the lens of cause and effect")? I only ask because you seem to be implying that it's possible to view the world in a different way, but I'm not sure I'm reading you rightly.

Of, course there are different ways of viewing the world, if that's the answer you were looking for.

#277

SR made perfect sense - since "time" only came into existence (in this particular universe) with the Big Bang, then it is not possible to speak about "before" the Big Bang. What's difficult to understand about that?

It is actually very difficult to understand. I think you have to be very careful about how you phrase this (and SR, to his credit, was actually more careful in previous posts.) Current models of cosmology are both consistent with observational data and with mathematical theories whose solutions collapse to a singularity as they are run backward in time. Such singularities are not accommodated by current theories of physics and we have no and can probably never have any observations of matter anywhere near those conditions. So what actually happens is, as TR correctly states, speculations on behalf of the cosmologists. Informed speculations maybe, but speculations all the same. The correct answer is "we don't know". Or maybe "your guess is as good as mine".

279

Envisage a universe where nothing actually happens. Where everything is in a kind of 'suspended state'. Could you speak of time in relation to that universe? Time is not just a function of space, it's also a function of change, i.e. motion (since all change is caused by some form of motion).

In a multiverse, as opposed to a single universe, it is entirely feasible to speak of "before the Big Bang" as at least one theory of the origin of our universe is that it emerged from a singularity in another universe. So viewing time as a multiversal function, that's feasible.

Cosmologically, yes it's all speculation, but cannot be anything else in the absence of answers to these questions. But that makes the existence of a God to explain it all, equally speculative, not the certainty that TR wants us to embrace.

I don't know. The multiverse sounds much like "Turtles, all the way down."

> 281

Not to me it doesn't. The turtles are a chain of supports. The multiverse is just a dilation of context.

My favorite multiverse story is Asimov's The Gods Themselves.

A circular chain? That makes sense, I guess. I don't have a problem with multiverses, but so say that our universe arose from another universe...that sounds like turtles all the way down.

And did you mean dilation?

> 284 And did you mean dilation?

Yeah, typo. Now corrected.

281

The multiverse is no more fantastical than the universe, especially when you start to consider origins. As for the origins of time, Stephen Hawking has a lot to say:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

If the universe is considered to have begun as a singularity, and as we consider that singularities are to be found at the heart of a black hole, then is it so fanciful to say that some or all black holes in our own universe, nurtures a proto-universe?

There are a lot a books of speculative discussions on the origin of the the universe and the nature of time. Two recent ones that I enjoyed were Why Does the World Exist by Jim Holt and About time : cosmology and culture at the twilight of the big bang by Adam Frank (Couldn't get the touchstones to work, may come back.)

Touchstones have been funky lately.

I read a fascinating article in Scientific American many moon ago about multiverses. But I still have the same question; if it is singularity, where did that come from? And so on...Turtles. All the way down.

I would add "From Eternity to Here:The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time" by Sean Carroll.

> 275. no one has ever given an example of causation that does not require time.

An interesting article that redefines this issue is "Causation as Simultaneous and Continuous", by Michael Huemer and Ben Kovitz. The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 213 (Oct., 2003), pp. 556-565.

Excerpt:

In many everyday cases and in many laws of physics, causes and effects seem to occur at the same time. The simultaneous theory of causation holds that
causes always occur simultaneously with their immediate effects. This coheres with the view that causal laws typically take the form

Temporally extended action e occurs simultaneously with temporally extended cause.

...
The simultaneous conception of causation presupposes a different structure of time and change. In the simultaneous conception, time and the
processes that occupy time are understood as having the mathematical structure of the continuum. There are no smallest events: any tempor-
ally extended event has temporally extended parts. Nor does there exist a next instant of time following any other instant: for any two points
in time, there are other points between them. On this understanding of time and change, temporally extended events are not conceived as being
'built up' from some smallest units. Rather, every event is already a temporally extended whole, which can be divided into indefinitely many parts, each of which is itself a temporally extended event.

> 278. Of, course there are different ways of viewing the world, if that's the answer you were looking for.

I asked the question because # 218 had said: "material" answers tend to lead from one to the next to the next because we view the world through the lens of cause and effect.

I was wondering if a "materialist", for lack of a better word in this context, could view the world in a way other than an asymmetric, one-direction, "cause → effect" manner. At that time, in the course of this thread, distinctions were being made between "material" and "metaphysical" explanations for things & events, and the point # 218 seemed to be making was that "material" explanations required "cause-effect" thinking. I just wanted to be sure that was what she intended.

>291 jburlinson: the point # 218 seemed to be making was that "material" explanations required "cause-effect" thinking. I just wanted to be sure that was what she intended.

The reason I qualified the statement ("material answers tend to lead from one to the next") was because I know there are ways of looking at the universe scientifically where cause and effect break down, because time and space break down. We've been discussing some of that here when we talk about multiverses, big bang moments, singularities and the attempt to unify the theory of general relativity with the theory of the quantum universe under a single descriptive principle.

I don't know if you would call such pursuits "material" or not--I would, because they are attempts to explain the material universe as we know it. But on the other hand much of the discussion is still in the realm of the theoretical (which, I hasten to point out, is not the equivalent of the speculative.)

Does that answer your question?

> 292. Does that answer your question?

Absolutely. I had figured as much, but if there's one thing I've learned through the discussions of this group it's that it's way too easy to make mistaken assumptions about what other people mean. So I thought I'd ask, even at the risk of appearing obtuse.

>277 Tid: "So, what makes "your light" the right light, and Spong's "light" the wrong light (from your point of view)?"

The truth is found in God, not in man's speculations, and certainly not in his "innovations" (concerning which, when it comes to error, there is nothing new under the sun). There is one and only one God, and He sent one and only one Son as the Anointed One, the Christ, to come among men and to suffer innocently - with perfect love - the consequences of man's sin. This one and only one Son formed and sent one and only one Church, and sent into that Church His Holy Spirit to lead and guide her into all the truth.

The light that is fully and completely true is that in accord with the Church sent by Jesus Christ.

There are many forms of Christianity, many forms of theism, many forms of spirituality and of religion that have mixtures of divine light with human additions, truth mixed with errors, revelation mixed with human thought and invention. But the fullness of truth remains with the one true Church.

>276 paradoxosalpha: - "ROTFLMAO." The above can explain the reference point for "authentic theology," in case you can get yourself up from the floor long enough to consider it. And I hope your losses of body parts are not permanent.

The truth is found in God, not in man's speculations, and certainly not in his "innovations"

How can you be sure that your claims aren't merely "man's speculations" and the truths you hold dear are not merely "innovations"? Why are his not divine truth?

290: You might want to read that more carefully. The causal events described require time.

The religionists here are thinking as hard as they can, obviously, but all that their efforts have produced is the smell of burning rubber, and the whine of the hamster wheels in their heads flying off their axles, spinning into the infinite.

Just how in hell does anybody know what the limits of science are? If someone does not make it a point of keeping up with latest findings of science, then where do they get the narcissitic nerve to pronounce on what extant science is or is not - or can or cannot produce - regarding an empirical based understanding of reality (not the imagined reality of religious goofballs but actual reality)?

E.g., regarding cosmology:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Science/article1261602.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2326869/Is-universe-merely-billio...

http://www.skepticink.com/nocrossnocrescent/2013/06/17/have-physicists-finally-f...

http://phys.org/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-universes.html

Most of you religionists do not have any real scientific education to speak of and all of the above will be above your pay grade. lol. See if you can't find a relative, friend or neighbor who has at least a B.S. degree to dumb it down for you so you might get an inkling of how the other half lives (intellectually-speaking).

>295 StormRaven: - SR, it is good to hear a reasonable question, asked in a reasonable and respectful way. My answer is this: The authentic teaching of His Church is the norm, the standard - it is the rule by which all examples, all theologies, all religions must be judged. There IS only one God, and He sent only one "authorized" and perfect "spokesman," God the Son.

> 298

BS.

>299 JGL53: - "BS?" - is that your resume in application for the person you say that so many of us need:
>297 JGL53: - "See if you can't find a relative, friend or neighbor who has at least a B.S. to dumb it down for you so you might get an inkling of how the other half lives (intellectually-speaking)."

> 294 The above can explain the reference point for "authentic theology," in case you can get yourself up from the floor long enough to consider it.

I don't suppose you've considered chapter 56 or chapter 81?

>301 paradoxosalpha: I gave up the Tao Te Ching - and the many other approximations - when I found Jesus Christ, over 30 years ago. Man was made to seek and to find perfection - the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field such that a man sold all that he had, to buy that field.

> 300

BS in # 297 = Bachelor of Science.

BS in # 299 = BULL SHIT.

Any other questions I can help you with?

> 302

You have the world's biggest ego.

That's nice.

What else do you have to offer, if anything?

>303 JGL53: - I guess my sense of humor went undetected.

> 305

- Like a particular virtual particle in another universe.

>304 JGL53: - you keep missing the message, entirely, instead wanting to judge me! Why would you waste your time measuring my ego, when my words could point you to the greatest treasure a man could ever find in his life? Seek to meet Jesus! Strive to encounter Him, to come face-to-face with Him - the One who made you, and who seeks to call you back to your own true meaning and purpose in this life!

> 294, 310, 302

When you found Jesus Christ, you lost your need for consideration.

It's abundantly clear.

> 296. You might want to read that more carefully. The causal events described require time.

You might want to read more carefully -- I never said they didn't.

294

You STILL haven't responded to my references to John Shelby Spong. Does he scare you so much that you revert to centuries old dogma in order to eliminate the (perceived) threat?

298

More dogma.

302

"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao". You obviously never found it.

307

Dogma, dogma, dogma. You can recite fundamentalist formulae until the (theoretical) cows come home, but it doesn't make them any more real to your readers. Sri Ramakrishna found Jesus through his own tradition, without resorting to those formulae. Henri Le Saux established a Christian ashram in Nepal, unifying the principles of Christianity and Hinduism, also without resorting to dogma. John Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan (among many others) reject all dogmas but still are able to call themselves Christian. As George Fox did centuries earlier. You don't see it, because you just don't want to see it.

#284: It's either turtles all the way down or something causeless starting the chain; I don't see a huge difference reason-wise. I don't accept the logic that says the universe must have had a creator and that creator must not have had a creator; either the universe had no creator or an endless string of creation seem the most elegant, whereas the universe's creator's creator's creator's creator's creator had no cause (for some length of chain) seems one of those inelegant things that might be true but humans would never accept unless we were forced to.

> 311
Logically the human mind can only conceive of an original causeless cause from whence all else is caused.

Let us hypothesize that that is correct.

So, there is no good reason to assume that that causeless cause must be a god, or anything even similar to a god.

Thus the first cause argument for god is stupid.

Why do religionists keep bringing it up? Is it because they are stupid? Or just programmed robots?

#266: men find, discover and believe that which they want to find, discover and believe.

(1) And you aren't man? As I've said before, my question is "how do we know what is true?", and all you offer is "what I know is true", which is a claim that many make.

(2) And what I want to believe is that we can escape that limitation, because there's surely no hope if we can't. Which is why science is so tempting; it tells me that through careful building, step upon step, we can find truth, even truth contrary to our preconceptions and desires. You don't seem to have recognized that. The fact is that unlike science, competing religious ideas seem to be able to hold their own indefinitely, and that apostates seem born of every religion even among the educated in that religion. Bearing that in mind, and the fact I quoted, tell me how to investigate your claim without serious risk of false positives? The tests you propose don't seem to have any connection to the truth of the subject; feelings of enlightenment have come to many of many religions, and others have tried the same thing and come away unimpressed.

> 312

Let's use the modifying phrase "beyond all reasonable doubt" as regards the truth that science uncovers.

That way we avoid the stupid charge that we are being absolutist.

Plus, we can point out that superstitious/religious claims seem utterly unsubstantiated, not to mention stupid beyond all reasonable doubt. lol.

#297

Contrast JGL53's "an empirical based understanding of reality" with these quotes from the cited articles.

"at this time it remains hypothetical"

"some scientists remain sceptical about the theory of other universes"

"the scientists acknowledge that it is rather easy to find a variety of statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the CMB"

"the researchers emphasize that more work is needed to confirm this claim"

An all-knowing all-powerful all-existing personal god created the universe out of nothing. And Jesus is lord. And christianity is the one true religion:


"at this time all of the above remains hypothetical" - among preachers, priests and other religionists.

"some preachers, priests and religionists remain skeptical about the theory of god"

"preachers, priests and religionists acknowledge that it is rather easy to find a variety of statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the universe"

"preachers, priests and religionists emphasize that more work is needed to confirm the claim of the existence of god"

Yep - religion and science - just two sides of the same coin, two peas in a pod, clones, six of one half a dozen of the other, mirror images.

Of course, there are also some who reject the whole idea of cause-and-effect as a fiction. The Greeks started it. Hume had something to say. Russell wrote something interesting ("On the Notion of Cause") and there are recent examples too ("Causation as Folk Science")

Logically the human mind can only conceive of an original causeless cause from whence all else is caused.

Let us hypothesize that that is correct.

So, there is no good reason to assume that that causeless cause must be a god, or anything even similar to a god.

Thus the first cause argument for god is stupid.

Why do religionists keep bringing it up? Is it because they are stupid? Or just programmed robots?

#316 Not sure what your point was there.

"some preachers, priests and religionists remain skeptical about the theory of god"

This one's true.

"preachers, priests and religionists acknowledge that it is rather easy to find a variety of statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the universe"

This one's true true.

Sometimes, it's hard to follow where you are going.

> 319. Sometimes, it's hard to follow where you are going.

Count yourself lucky.

>310 Tid: - What I wrote to you was in response to your question, and it was/is personal. It is REAL to me, and to MANY, if not to the insiders of this Group. You don't get something important about truth: Truth is not some "outside" authority that you distance from yourself with the (shudder) word "dogma". Truth is an interior, very personal and core foundation of life. I write what I believe to be true. You are free to listen or (as you have done so far) push it away as impersonal "dogma". That is your circular file, I suppose, for all the noise that does not integrate into your own very closed belief system. It has the label "dogma" and hence is of no account in your "that which cannot be spoken", non-dualistic, non-absolutist system, which is very selective and rigid in its own poetic way. "No absolute truth allowed, absolutely!"

You are right: what you describe I do not want to taste again. I was there for too many years, and I found it empty and wanting. But maybe you hear "emptiness" as a virtue! "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao?" God was spoken, the Word that was with God, and was God, was spoken into human flesh and blood in the womb of the virgin Mary. Once that Word is heard, even silence can only echo Him.

> 321. Truth is an interior, very personal and core foundation of life.

Then is it even possible for another person, with a different interior world, to experience truth exactly as you experience it?

> 321

You don't for a moment "get" what I "get" about truth. I haven't given it to you, and I have no ambition to do so.

Your arrogance is breathtaking: You've decided that my "very personal and core foundation of life" is "emptiness" because it doesn't match yours. Your attempted summary of Taoism, let alone your assumptions about my relationship to it (limited to admiring a few texts, by the way), is itself wanting.

I realize that the one-size-fits all offered by conventional Christian teaching has a flip-side, whereby all opponents and dissenters are confused and identified with one another. You assume that my views must be in accord with whatever new age nonsense you left behind for your current state of evangelical glory. Well, you're very welcome to your narcissistic perch, but for all that you tout its vistas, I'm not the only one with other places to be.

>313 prosfilaes: - "Which is why science is so tempting; it tells me that through careful building, step upon step, we can find truth, even truth contrary to our preconceptions and desires. You don't seem to have recognized that. The fact is that unlike science, competing religious ideas seem to be able to hold their own indefinitely, and that apostates seem born of every religion even among the educated in that religion. Bearing that in mind, and the fact I quoted, tell me how to investigate your claim without serious risk of false positives?"

Very interesting. Science was very tempting to me too! I know exactly what you are saying. I turned my back on religion, and turned to science, in my early adulthood precisely because I felt at that time that religion was nothing but opinions, and science was all about truth! And I wanted truth. I wanted to know what was true; what was the truth. What I found in science - in physics - were the boundaries that nature set on our very limited minds. At some point in investigating the very small, and at some point in investigating the very old and the very large, we are very limited.

Data stops being direct and immediate, and becomes very indirect. Probabilities and probability densities, uncertainties caused by the very act of observation, conjecture and theories upon theories of theories to explain theories separate us from reality, until reality itself is forgotten in favor of virtual beings, and theories "proved" by probabilities balanced against calculated uncertainties and errors.

Do such limitations humble man? One would think so. I find instead much very defensive arrogance in the pseudo-religion of scientism. True scientists are humble - but these days, probably not funded.

But to your important question, how do you know what is true? You don't, until you find what is true. Until you find what is true, you are very vulnerable to "false positives" - and false prophets, and false gods. What can save you from that is a sincere desire - no, more than a mere desire - a deep persisting and unwavering hunger for truth that will not be satisfied with mere appearances and pretenses. One must want truth more than anything. One must hate falseness, and superficiality, and ceremony for the sake of ceremony, and the praise and approval of men, and religious pretense and all that is fraudulent.

If you want the truth, you will find it and when you find it you will know it. You cannot judge the truth because the truth will judge you - and you will know this. You cannot measure the truth - it is greater than you. Truth will measure you, and you will be grateful. Truth will give you life, and you will know that you have life.

Yes there are many counterfeits! Everything of value is counterfeited. In the presence of the real, counterfeits look very poor indeed. Seek - search for truth! - and you will find truth.

Have we gotten to the point where, if someone believes something firmly, they must be arrogant and narcissistic?

I certainly don't' share TR's views on many things, but is he any different from his detractors, who also believe (or do NOT believe) with the same voracity and lack of underpinning that he does?

>325 Arctic-Stranger: Have we gotten to the point where, if someone believes something firmly, they must be arrogant and narcissistic?

I think the accusations of arrogance are not a response to the firmness of ones own belief, but one's persistence in telling others that their own beliefs are misguided, deformed, or wrong --without, of course, justifying this judgement with any reason except that of "but of course I am right, therefore others are not."

> 325 if someone believes something firmly, they must be arrogant and narcissistic?

No, but it clearly doesn't preserve them from being arrogant and narcissistic. I don't know how firmly Thomas believes that I have staked my life on "emptiness" on the basis of a few 'net conversations, but that's where I see his arrogance. That, and he's the proudest excuse for a "Christian" I ever "met." Thirty years of walking with God, and we'd better know it.

The narcissism also comes out in his paranoid gesturing toward "the insiders of this Group" (#321).

#325: Have we gotten to the point where, if someone believes something firmly, they must be arrogant and narcissistic?

#324 says, basically, that anyone who doesn't believe as TR does, didn't want truth enough. It says that TR knows the truth because TR knows he knows the truth, and all the other people who know they know the truth are deluded by "falseness, and superficiality, and ceremony for the sake of ceremony, and the praise and approval of men, and religious pretense".

Yes, believing something firmly and arguing for it on the grounds that you know the truth and all those who disagree with you are blind fools is arrogant. Always has been.

#324: when you find it you will know it.

Nope. If I feel something is true and you claim that it's not, we've established that my feeling that something is true is not sufficient to judge its truth. Does it feel more true then anything I've ever felt before? A well-known failure of the human mind is its bias towards the intensity of current experience and against previous experience.

In the presence of the real, counterfeits look very poor indeed.

It's hard to find truths that don't fit what we're looking for. Not infrequently the counterfeit is better then the original; on better paper, on better ink, fewer typos, missing signs of the ravages of time. Sometimes the differences are minute and hard to detect. Sometimes the differences are relevant only to someone trying to boost the value of an "original" like a genuine diamond. Sometimes the differences are because no one would believe the original would look as poor as it does.

One of my roleplaying books discussing the gods in a roleplaying game context proffered the idea of a priestess writing deeply complex moral writings in the name of a god who couldn't find his ass with both hands. If that is the truth, that our creator is an immature child or a moral weakling, how would you find that? I know what you'll answer, that that's not the truth, which just shows that you're not interested in search for truths that challenge your preconceptions.

The authentic teaching of His Church is the norm, the standard - it is the rule by which all examples, all theologies, all religions must be judged.

So, your answer is that the correct answer is that which is popular.

321

Perhaps my language was too strong. It has caused you to react instead of respond. I agree with your statement "Truth is an interior, very personal and core foundation of life" when applied to spiritual (i.e. non-scientific) matters. It is precisely because I believe that, that I simply do not have, cannot have, a "very closed belief system".

So, let me try you with a story.


A boy lived on the edge of a dark forest. One day he decided to explore the forest even though he was afraid of the dark. As he blundered through, all he could see was one tree or one bush ahead of him.

Eventually he came to a path. He followed it slowly and carefully, and after a long time, he came to hut in a clearing, where a wise man lived. He knocked on the door and the wise man invited him in.

"Why have you come here?" asked the wise man.

"I wanted to explore the forest, even though I am afraid of the dark" replied the boy.

"How did you find your way here, through the dark?"

"There was just enough light that I could see one tree ahead of me at a time, and then I found the beginning of this path"

"And where was this light - above you, behind you, to the left, to the right?"

The boy thought.

"It was wherever I was."

The wise man smiled. His face and his eyes were kind.

"You see, that was YOUR light. It goes where you go, and you can always see something even if it's only a little at a time"

The boy thought again.

"Do you have a light too?"

"EVERYONE has a light. Some seem to have a stronger light than others, but it's in everyone. You can find your way home with yours. You can find your way anywhere."

The boy was silent for a time, then he looked up and smiled.

"Thank you", he said simply, and turned and left.

On his way home, it seemed to the boy that the light was stronger. He could see two trees at a time, or two bushes, and in no time he was back home again. Yet things were different now - he could see corners and into shadows where he couldn't see before.
He carried on his life, but now he saw the light in everyone. And just as the wise man had said, it seemed to be brighter in some than in others. And those in whom it was brighter seemed kinder, and had more time for him, and smiled a lot.

The years passed, but the boy never forgot going into the forest and meeting the wise man. He often wondered if the wise man was still there, was still alive, and if so, what he was doing now.

One morning, many years later, he looked in his mirror, and saw the wise man looking back at him.

~~~~~

Love is the key.

>328 prosfilaes: You misjudge me. This, from you, is false: "It says that TR knows the truth because TR knows he knows the truth..." False.

TR found authentic Christianity - that is TR found Jesus Christ, who IS truth. TR has not come to know all truths, but he has found and come to know the One who is all truth. I fail to see arrogance in asserting that I have found something wonderful! Is a man who finds a gold mine "arrogant" in shouting from the roof tops that he has found a great fortune? Is being a fortunate man "arrogance" because he is not impressed by other's judgments and misjudgments concerning the fortune he found?

>329 prosfilaes: - Perhaps you overlooked what I wrote to you before: "Until you find what is true, you are very vulnerable to "false positives" - and false prophets, and false gods."

I'll expand. Until you find what actually IS truth, you will be vulnerable and can be swayed toward ideologies that are nearly truth, or partially truth, but not fully and completely the truth. God will give you light to keep searching if the desire for the truth is guarded and protected in your own heart. In other words, you will find what you seek. If you want compromise, you can find compromise. If you want a god of your own making, such is easily found. If you want to avoid God, He can be avoided. If you want "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!" then God will lead you until you find Him.

>330 StormRaven: That is certainly not my answer. Please be direct.

>331 Tid: Yes, love is the key, and always has been.

Love has finally now been revealed, in perfection, in Jesus Christ.

>323 paradoxosalpha: - paradoxosalpha - you are clearly upset with me, but I am confused about your reason. You wrote this:
++++++++
> 321

You don't for a moment "get" what I "get" about truth. I haven't given it to you, and I have no ambition to do so.

Your arrogance is breathtaking: You've decided that my "very personal and core foundation of life" is "emptiness" because it doesn't match yours. Your attempted summary of Taoism, let alone your assumptions about my relationship to it (limited to admiring a few texts, by the way), is itself wanting.

I realize that the one-size-fits all offered by conventional Christian teaching has a flip-side, whereby all opponents and dissenters are confused and identified with one another. You assume that my views must be in accord with whatever new age nonsense you left behind for your current state of evangelical glory. Well, you're very welcome to your narcissistic perch, but for all that you tout its vistas, I'm not the only one with other places to be.
++++++++++

All of the above was in response to my post #321, which was to Tid - not you. Yet you launched into a direct attack on me personally for attacking you personally. But please note I did not attack you personally. I did not even respond to you - certainly not in #321, anyway.

Did you write the wrong post # for reference? Did you misread something from me? Are you actually responding to another post in which I DID so attack you?

Please clarify.

> 336

Eh, the continued reference to the Tao Te Ching, after my introducing it (in #276 and #301), made me think that it was continuing dialogue with me; I missed the number reference to Tid's post. Consequently, I walk back and apologize for those recent points in which I accuse you of having judged me in posts that weren't about me at all.

>322 jburlinson: jburlington, you have probed for awhile for some opening in me for the allowance of other's subjective awareness of the one true God, under other names perhaps, but the same truth. Let me post here a Catholic Catechism statement on the issue in general, which will help me respond to you.
++++++++
Catechism 843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”
++++++++

Truth can be found in men anywhere, by the grace of God - in other organized religions, Christian or non-Christian, in the souls of individual men estranged and isolated from all civilization, in the hearts and minds of men confused in the noise and clutter of the "modern West" - anywhere. All truth has one Source, the one God who creates and who loves all men, and is calling them to Himself.

All truth has its origin and its proper destiny in the one Source of all truths, the One who is Truth itself. In other words, although any man can have in himself a certain share in God's truth, still, God desires all men to come into the fullness of truth - God the Son - Jesus Christ. All men deserve to hear the true Gospel, and to receive the opportunity to drink of the fullness of the Living Waters of Life, the Lord.

Thus inter-religious dialogue is good - but not as an opportunity for syncretism. All religions are not equivalent. All understandings of divine truth are not equally precise, or accurate, or complete. There is only one God, and He has revealed Himself completely in Jesus Christ. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”

I hope I have clearly explained my thoughts on the matter to you, and I hope you can understand them. I think that only "equivalence of all subjective religious beliefs" will be acceptable to some here - but that would deny Christian revelation, and the need and meaning of the Cross.

>337 paradoxosalpha: - Thank you. I was really confused by your responses.

334: That is what you said. You think the correct answer is the answer that is "orthodox", or, alternatively, the answer that is most popular. If you meant something else, then you should have said something else.

More specifically, the only difference between what you believe and Spong is that your version is more popular. How do you know your version is right and Spong's is not - after all, Spong believes that his version is the message sent by God via his son, just as you believe that of yours.

>340 StormRaven: - No, what I said is what you quoted. What you said that I said is very different. Your post is pasted below:
+++++++++beginquote
#330 - quoted from TR: - The authentic teaching of His Church is the norm, the standard - it is the rule by which all examples, all theologies, all religions must be judged.

response of SR: So, your answer is that the correct answer is that which is popular.
++++++++++endquote

Please apply my actual answer to Spong's beliefs, and see if you find the difference.

>326 southernbooklady:: "I think the accusations of arrogance are not a response to the firmness of ones own belief, but one's persistence in telling others that their own beliefs are misguided, deformed, or wrong --without, of course, justifying this judgement with any reason except that of "but of course I am right, therefore others are not."

Yet isn't that precisely what some here do when they declare that any belief in God is delusional/stupid/foolish because they themselves don't understand the reasons others give for their belief?

If you don't accept the reasons other people have for believing in God as sufficient for yourself to believe in God, that's fine. It's when you* start telling the people who believe in God that because you don't accept their reasons, therefore they shouldn't either, that you cross the line to "arrogance", right?

-------------
*This is a generic "you" rather than a specific pronoun referring to SBL. Indeed, I think she rarely crosses this line, while some other parties here have permanently encamped miles beyond it, deep in arrogance territory.

>342 nathanielcampbell: Yet isn't that precisely what some here do when they declare that any belief in God is delusional/stupid/foolish because they themselves don't understand the reasons others give for their belief?

It's interesting that the fundamentalist is given a pass for his/her beliefs because they are "beliefs" but the uncompromising atheist is called out for being rude and arrogant.

>338 ThomasRichard: Thus inter-religious dialogue is good - but not as an opportunity for syncretism. All religions are not equivalent. All understandings of divine truth are not equally precise, or accurate, or complete. There is only one God, and He has revealed Himself completely in Jesus Christ.

See, this is where I, the benighted atheist who relies on rationality to make sense of the world, run up against a thorny hedge of paradoxes and inexplicable conclusions when attempting to understand the beliefs of the faithful when it comes to these "this is the only way to truth" religions. It's this constant conflict between the specifics of the religion and the supposed universality of its message.

Because if, as Thomas keeps insisting, your religion is the only "authentic" one, the only "authentic" way to God, then not only is there no room for other interpretations, there is no room to accept that others have found their own paths to truth. In Thomas's world, the Dalai Llama is a very good man, but ultimately one whose "truth" is deformed and flawed.

And even if you are not a fundamentalist as Thomas is, I don't really understand how you can be, say, a Catholic -- that is, someone who believes that Jesus Christ was the divine son of a divine father who died to rescue a fallen humanity from its state of sin -- and not run up against a kind of profound disconnect when confronted with holy people who think instead that Krishna is the path to truth, or Buddha, or the Great Spirit.

Is it that the trappings of the rituals or the specifics of the catechism aren't what's fundamentally important? Are the saints of the Catholic church ultimately just metaphors--tools to use to bring yourself closer to God? Somehow, I don't think so. I've seen my grandmother praying to Mary to intercede with heaven and watch out for her grandchildren, and I don't think that's in any sense a "metaphorical" prayer.

As a nonbeliever, the depth of commitment a faithful person gives to their religion troubles me on this level, not because I think they are "irrational" so much as because I don't understand how such a commitment does not also require a kind of rejection of all other faiths, and by extension, the followers of those faiths.

My materialistic approach to life, at least, does not have this conundrum to constantly solve (it does have others, I know). The laws of physics operate the same whether you are in a Catholic country or a Muslim one, Whether you are Chinese or Cherokee. And mathematics is the closest thing we have to a universal language.

>343 southernbooklady: - Your hearing: "See, this is where I, the benighted atheist who relies on rationality to make sense of the world, run up against a thorny hedge of paradoxes and inexplicable conclusions when attempting to understand the beliefs of the faithful when it comes to these "this is the only way to truth" religions. It's this constant conflict between the specifics of the religion and the supposed universality of its message.

Because if, as Thomas keeps insisting, your religion is the only "authentic" one, the only "authentic" way to God, then not only is there no room for other interpretations, there is no room to accept that others have found their own paths to truth. In Thomas's world, the Dalai Llama is a very good man, but ultimately one whose "truth" is deformed and flawed."

What I said: "Truth can be found in men anywhere, by the grace of God - in other organized religions, Christian or non-Christian, in the souls of individual men estranged and isolated from all civilization, in the hearts and minds of men confused in the noise and clutter of the "modern West" - anywhere. All truth has one Source, the one God who creates and who loves all men, and is calling them to Himself.

All truth has its origin and its proper destiny in the one Source of all truths, the One who is Truth itself. In other words, although any man can have in himself a certain share in God's truth, still, God desires all men to come into the fullness of truth - God the Son - Jesus Christ. All men deserve to hear the true Gospel, and to receive the opportunity to drink of the fullness of the Living Waters of Life, the Lord.

Thus inter-religious dialogue is good - but not as an opportunity for syncretism. All religions are not equivalent. All understandings of divine truth are not equally precise, or accurate, or complete."

Please compare your hearing with my writing, and see if you can hear this:
NOT ""this is the only way to truth".
BUT INSTEAD: "this is the only way to the fullness of truth, the complete revealed truth, the perfection of truth."

To interpret truth correctly, there must be a reliable norm, or rule, or standard. All of us have flawed, imperfect minds and hearts. We need a norm, and God sent us one. He sent us ONE. Can you believe at least that it is possible that, assuming that God is good and loving, it is reasonable that He would send us a trustworthy standard by which to judge what is true and what is not?

Frankly, Thomas' trite dismissal of syncretism flies in the face of the actual history of the Christian faith, which has been happy to borrow from other faith traditions since its earliest centuries. Indeed, the fundamental development of most of Christian orthodoxy in the first five centuries owed incredible amounts of its intellectual heft to the adaptation of Greco-Roman philosophical traditions to the revelation of Christ in the Incarnation (and not only the neo-platonic strains that were highly influential on folks like Origen and Augustine, but also Stoicism, which gave Justin Martyr the philosophical framework for his second-century apologetic exposition of the nature of Christ as Word). And of course, Thomas Aquinas drew quite heavily on that pagan philosopher, Aristotle (not to mention several Islamic philosophers who midwifed the Aristotelian tradition to the Latin Middle Ages, such as Avicenna and Averroes).

Indeed, Christianity has always recognized that, because God created the entire world and humankind in his own image and likeness, all peoples everywhere have at least some access, some intuition, to the truths of God as their Creator. This is why Christianity has always been happy to adapt other traditions: it recognizes that they have, in however limited a way, also recognized God's presence in the world and in themselves.

So I would caution Thomas against his overly-rigid dismissal of "inter-religious dialogue" and syncretism, as the saints of the Church have long overruled his objections.

>344 ThomasRichard: To interpret truth correctly, there must be a reliable norm, or rule, or standard.

Well, in a relative universe even the standards are relative.

All of us have flawed, imperfect minds and hearts. We need a norm, and God sent us one. He sent us ONE.

Even supposing this is true, it does not therefore follow that the standard you follow is the "one" he sent. But I don't see why you think this is true. Why one model when there could be a galaxy of models?

Can you believe at least that it is possible that, assuming that God is good and loving, it is reasonable that He would send us a trustworthy standard by which to judge what is true and what is not?

Isn't that what free will is supposed to be about?

>344 ThomasRichard: Please compare your hearing with my writing, and see if you can hear this:
NOT ""this is the only way to truth".
BUT INSTEAD: "this is the only way to the fullness of truth, the complete revealed truth, the perfection of truth."

Sooo...there is "truth" and there is "TRUTH"? Do you not see how this hierarchy of truth is exclusionary?

And Thomas, the reason I used the term "deformed" is because you did at the start of this entire conversation. It is your description of other faiths.

Please apply my actual answer to Spong's beliefs, and see if you find the difference.

I did. There's no difference between your beliefs and Spong's beliefs except their relative popularity among believers.

A Catholic priest wrote this on the “Science of Theology.”
There is a science which has for its object only incomprehensible things. Unlike all others, it occupies itself but with things unseen. Hobbes calls it "the kingdom of darkness." In this land all obey laws opposed to those which men acknowledge in the world they inhabit. In this marvelous region light is but darkness, evidence becomes doubtful or false, the impossible becomes credible, reason is an unfaithful guide, and common sense changed into delirium. This science is named Theology, and this Theology is a continual insult to human reason.

Meslier, Jean (2012-05-17). Superstition In All Ages (1732) Common Sense (p. 3). . Kindle Edition.

335

I gave you a story. You ignored it. There was a moral to it. You've picked out the moral alone, and twisted it to apply exclusively to Christianity. You know very well that was not the point of my story.

And you still have not responded about John Shelby Spong. I recommend you read him. In particular, note where he says to "love wastefully".

345

Apart from your in however limited a way, I would say "hear, hear".

>345 nathanielcampbell: - No, nathaniel, your analysis is incorrect. First, the bulk of your analysis concerned not religion but philosophy and metaphysics. The Church has, indeed, used, borrowed, adapted philosophical approaches, methods and language to understand the unique revelation of divine truth that came to mankind in Jesus Christ. This has nothing at all to do with syncretism of matters of faith.

I would caution you against your inclination to over-rigid interpretation of (it seems) whatever I say.

"This is why Christianity has always been happy to adapt other traditions" - Oh - I forgot to add: please give me examples of any religious syncretism that you know of, on the part of the Catholic Church.

>346 southernbooklady: - sbl - I asked, "Can you believe at least that it is possible that, assuming that God is good and loving, it is reasonable that He would send us a trustworthy standard by which to judge what is true and what is not?"

You answered, "Isn't that what free will is supposed to be about?"

Please explain your answer, in the context of my question. Surely you are not suggesting that "free will" means the freedom to define what is true and what is false. Are you?

> 348. "There's no difference between your beliefs and Spong's beliefs except their relative popularity among believers."

Could it be the content, the matter of the beliefs that also differ - and that perhaps affect the "popularity" of them? Investigate further, and see if you can find differences in what is actually believed.

> 352 please give me examples of any religious syncretism that you know of, on the part of the Catholic Church.

Uh, Christmas? (Syncretizes Saturnalia and solistice celebrations, in the absence of any prior traditions about the date of Jesus' birth.)

The enthronement of bishops? (Precedents are ample in Hellenistic mystery cults, but absent in the Bible and/or Hebrew tradition.)

Also: Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?

>355 paradoxosalpha: Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Does any other religion celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, such that we "adapted that"?
The "enthronment" of bishops is a ceremony. Ceremonies are common to man - this is hardly religious syncretism. Please.

>353 ThomasRichard: Please explain your answer, in the context of my question. Surely you are not suggesting that "free will" means the freedom to define what is true and what is false. Are you?

Ah, and here we are again, standing at the abyss between the relative and the absolute view of reality.

Suppose I answer: "it is the freedom to decide whether something is true or false"

In your view, if I reject your truth I'm apostate, possibly even evil. I'm willfully rejecting truth.

In my view, I am simply not accepting that what you say is true, really is.

In your reality, one either accepts truth or one doesn't. In mine, one tries to find truth, and has only oneself to rely on to determine when or not one has.

So..do we have the freedom to determine what is true and what is false? We have no other option.

Here is a longer discussion on the question of religious syncretism, by a Catholic priest:

Why not integrate teachings of other religions with Catholic spirituality?

December 1, 2011 by Fr. John Bartunek, LC
Filed under Centering Prayer, Church Teaching, Fr. Bartunek, Prayer, PsuedoSpirituality

Q: Dear Father John, The Church has clearly taught that there is truth and good in other religions – so why then is it a problem to integrate the truths found in prayer traditions outside of Christianity with Christian prayer methods?

This is a great question, especially for today’s world, in which religious tolerance is spoken about by so many different groups (though not all) as a universal value. Sometimes we can confuse openness and respect for believers in other religious with the sin of religious indifference Religious indifference can consist either in ignoring the authentic demands of religion, or in believing that all religions are the same. This question is also a good one because it shows the connection between doctrine and practice. What we believe about God, ourselves, and the world affects how we behave and the choices we make. So let’s start by clarifying the doctrine a bit, and then finish with some comments on the practical side.

Starting with Some Doctrine

Here is what the Catechism actually says about the “truth and goodness” found in non-Christian religions (#843):

The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.

In other words, human nature is the same for all people, and so all people experience, even in this fallen world, a yearning to reconnect with God, to live in communion with God. And this is why all people also experience the difficulty, the challenge, the obstacles involved in that search: our common human nature is fallen, and we need a savior. These are common elements in every religion. This is why different religions have so many things in common, and why many aspects of non-Christian religious are in harmony with Christianity.

In the very next paragraph, the Catechism makes a clarifying statement (#844):

In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: quoting the Second Vatican Council and referencing St Paul’s Letter to the Romans “Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.

In other words, although our common, fallen human nature universally searches for the way back to God, that same wounded nature creates a tendency for us to get lost and take dangerous and dead-end paths.

The Christian Difference

This is precisely why God himself intervened. His love and mercy moved him to come to our aid, to lead us along a sure path of return to communion with him and the happiness that we were created for. He did this through what is called revelation: God’s own explanation of himself, the world, and how we can attain salvation. Revelation culminated in the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. Christ’s work and teaching differs essentially from every other religion. It is God’s effort to reach out to man, not just man’s effort to reach up to God.

Getting Practical

Consequently, the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church is unique, qualitatively different from those of other religions. Jesus is our standard, our sure standard, by which we judge the truth, goodness, and utility of all other doctrines and traditions. The spiritual life, in other words, is not a smorgasbord. If we just pick and choose whichever practices we happen to like, we have no guarantee that we will avoid dangerous pitfalls (the “limits and errors” referenced by the Catechism).

Prayer traditions from other religions, therefore, may be able to harmonize with Christianity, but in order to do so they need to be purified and appropriately grafted into the authentic spiritual vine, Christ himself. That can only happen with the guidance of the Holy Spirit through his chosen instrument, the Church.

A final observation. It is often frustrating to find Catholics searching energetically for exciting new spiritual practices, but searching everywhere except within the incredibly rich and abundant traditions of their own Catholic Church. This is one reason we started this website, to make at least a small effort to expose some of our Catholic treasures to modern Catholics who feel spurred on to a deeper spiritual life, but don’t know where to find tools that can help them respond.

Read more: http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2011/12/01/why-not-integrate-teachings-of-o...

> 356

Those are syncretizing practices. They adopt elements external to those demonstrated in primitive Christian letters, but clearly available from neighboring, non-Christian sources. In #345 Nathaniel provided several very specific examples of syncretizing doctrines.

If these don't qualify by your lights, I can't imagine what you think that syncretism is.

Could it be the content, the matter of the beliefs that also differ - and that perhaps affect the "popularity" of them?

Sure, there are content differences, but that's beside the point. Both have equally unsupported content. There is no reason to prefer one over the other that their relative popularity. Essentially, you've defended your choice of belief by pointing to one and saying "more people believe this so it must be correct".

>357 southernbooklady: - "In mine, one tries to find truth, and has only oneself to rely on to determine when or not one has. So..do we have the freedom to determine what is true and what is false? We have no other option."

You do have another option. You are demonstrating the option here and now: you are listening to what other people think and have to say about the matter. Yes, only you can accept or reject what you hear from them, but you are listening. You are not shutting yourself off from others, and you are not defining truth in isolation from others. This is in accord with God's plan for us: we are to search and to listen to what others have to say.

This is why God sent Jesus, the Son, and why Jesus sent His Church: to bear witness to what they saw and hear from Jesus, God the Son Incarnate. He sent His Church to preach and to teach what they learned from him, and they have done so for almost 2000 years now, and they will continue to do so until He comes again.

You have a choice: ignore them, the witnesses sent by God, and make it up as you go along listening to other voices - or - you could listen to these witness, and see what happens.

352

"please give me examples of any religious syncretism that you know of, on the part of the Catholic Church"

- The concept of "Messiah", from Judaism
- the concept of resurrection, from the Pharisees
- the concept of a Day of Judgement, from Judaism
- the concept of the fall of Adam, from Judaism
- the concepts of "heaven" and "hell" as afterlife locations, from Hellenism
- the festivals of Easter and Christmas, from paganism

and so it goes, on and on.

And you've ignored my posts in reply to yours.

Again.

>361 ThomasRichard: but you are listening.

Sigh. But you are not.

You seem to have missed the whole dilemma that occurs when a person who thinks there is an absolute truth is confronted with a person who thinks there isn't.

Thus, when it comes right down to it, my only option when confronted with the fundamentalist is to make sure that they way they live their life does not overly impact or endanger the way I live mine. There is some room in my world for you to be as you are Thomas, even though there is not room in your world for me to be as I am.

>359 paradoxosalpha: - No, syncretism was practiced by some in ancient Israel, for example, in worshiping the golden calf when Moses went up on the mountain to meet with God. And when some of Israel bowed down to the gods of the pagan nations, to be acceptable to their neighbors.

>360 StormRaven: - read what I wrote, and stay close to the words I chose. When you replace my words with yours, you end up with your beliefs and not mine.

>362 Tid: - Syncronism is not the correct word for the roots of Christianity which are in Judaism! Jesus was born into Judaism because the Messiah is the Messiah, the Christ. Christianity is the completion of Judaism. Our Bible has an Old Testament and a New Testament. Is this news to you?

Easter and Christmas are uniquely Christian celebrations. You completely misunderstand syncretism.

read what I wrote, and stay close to the words I chose.

Given that I am quoting you I think I'm staying pretty close to what you wrote. I think the problem is that you don't understand what you are saying. That's a problem that results when your arguments are all ones that you only know via rote memorization, as yours appear to be.

Why are you right and Spong wrong? You can't point to popularity as a reason, because that's not actually a reason. Give an actual reason why your interpretation of what "God" wants is right and Spong's is wrong. Understand that Spong believe just as fervently as you that his beliefs are derived from the teachings of Jesus.

Unless you actually come to grips with the Spong question, which has been put to you multiple times, I'm going to have to conclude that you don't understand Spong, and you are too poorly educated on the issue to be able to respond.

>363 southernbooklady: How have I sought to move you out of the world? I would be very happy to hear that you have found truth - absolute truth - is that a bad thing for you?

>368 ThomasRichard: How have I sought to move you out of the world?

Thomas, your particular set of beliefs actually rejects who I am. But that doesn't bother me, as long as it doesn't disenfranchise me or actually repress me.

I would be very happy to hear that you have found truth - absolute truth

It's a good thing you qualified that statement. But you're off the hook--I don't think there is such a thing as absolute truth. We must continue to live on opposite sides of the street, only meeting occasionally in the middle to possibly share a cup of coffee.

The boy continued walking through the woods, illumined by the light what the older man has said was love.

One day he bumped into younger boy, who was also wondering through the woods. The boy had a very bright light.

"Why is your light so bright?" he asked.

"This is a flashlight, you idiot," said the younger boy. "Why don't you have one?"

"I just walk by the light of love that emanates from me," said the confused, and somewhat insulted boy.

"How quaint," said the younger boy. "Love."

"Yes, love provides the light that guides me to explore this forest."

"Love is bullshit," was the only reply. As he spoke the light of the older boy began to fade. "See," said the younger boy. "It doesn't even exist. Who told you that love was a light?"

"The older man I met in here."

"Yeah, he was probably a pedophile priest. I have those before." He shone his light directly in the other boy's eyes. "This is all that counts. Other lights are a delusion."

"But I was able to walk by the light of love. I explored the forest with it."

"With what?" was the reply, as the younger boy shone his light in the eyes of the older boy. "I don't see any light." He hefted his flashlight. "This is the only light there is. Your 'light' is bullshit."

"No, I know my light is real. It got me this far."

"Idiot. You have probably been traveling in circles. There is no inner light. You are a delusional idiot."

And then he belted the other boy with his flashlight.

"So long, sucker," he said, shining his light into the forest. He saw a deer, shot and ate it. "I bet the poor bastard doesn't even have a gun," he said to himself, as he dressed the deer.

366

"Easter and Christmas are uniquely Christian celebrations. You completely misunderstand syncretism."

No, they are NOT. If you misunderstand such a basic point as this, how can there be any dialogue between you and anyone else?

"Christmas" is a Christian name, I will grant you that. But its relocation from early January to late December was the work of the Roman emperor Constantine, a worshipper in the cult of Sol Invictus (the Sun). He moved the Christian festival back to the period of the Saturnalia, which is the celebration of the rebirth of the sun each year (and Yuletide in other pagan celebrations). It makes me laugh when people moan that "Christmas is just too much eating and drinking and having fun - they've taken the religion out of it". No, Christians put religion INTO the pagan festival, and 'syncretised' them, made them one.

"Easter" is a completely pagan name. Look it up. The pre-Christian festivals celebrated the flowering of seeds, a new springtime season, the visible signs of a new crop on the way. Even within Christianity, the timing of Easter depends on the phases of the moon. You know this perfectly well. (If it were not so, then Easter would coincide with the Jewish Passover).

>367 StormRaven: - SR - I have not read Spong, and I have no plan to do so. If he is in accord with the "norm" I already described, then we are in communion with one another. If he is not in accord with that norm, we are not. It is as simple as that.

You yourself correctly quoted me in my statement of that norm: "The authentic teaching of His Church is the norm, the standard - it is the rule by which all examples, all theologies, all religions must be judged."

"You can do the math," as they say.

370

LOL. I'd feel vaguely insulted, except that I do see the point of what you say!

372

"I have not read Spong, and I have no plan to do so."

QED.

>369 southernbooklady: sbl, you completely misunderstand me! My beliefs affirm you - they do not reject you! My Lord and teacher, Jesus Christ, died for you that you might have life! That you might have truth! That you might come into the intention of God for you from the beginning, when He created you out of nothing, with gifts and talents and potencies needed by the Church and by the world, that all might have life abundant. He created you in love, and for love. And that is beautiful. How is that a rejection of you?

> 370

The younger boy was obviously a republican.

"Have you read any books by Aleister Crowley?" asked the university student.
"No," answered the Wiccan guest lecturer gravely, "And I recommend that you don't either."

(True story, even if blatantly paradigmatic.)

> 374

Religious ideologues do not read books that they know are in contradiction to their rock-headed superstitious/narcissistic ideology. They know it would be a waste of time, plus anything in opposition to their ideology ipso facto comes from Satan.

I read through the bible twice and have read tons of religious literature of all types, not to mention sitting and listening quite attentively to a couple thousand hours of religious teaching and preaching over the years.

QED.

>371 Tid: - you are taking adaptions of convenience as matters of substance. That is not the syncretism that concerns me, if you must call such "syncretism." Actual syncretism that is of substance is, for example, the unauthorized chanting of the names of Hindu gods in "Catholic" prayer groups. Or morally, Catholics adapting and living the secular morals of our day: contraception, abortion, sex-change operations, homosexual equivalency, and so on.

I have not read Spong, and I have no plan to do so.

So, you admit to being uneducated, and you are happy to remain so. And you wonder why people call you both ignorant and arrogant.

If he is in accord with the "norm" I already described, then we are in communion with one another. If he is not in accord with that norm, we are not. It is as simple as that.

So, whatever is the popular opinion is right, because the popular opinion is right. That's not a particularly convincing argument, and actually demonstrates that you are almost certainly wrong, because you're clearly terrified of learning anything new that might rock your boat.

>352 ThomasRichard:: "First, the bulk of your analysis concerned not religion but philosophy and metaphysics"

The ancient Greeks and Romans did not draw so hard a boundary between the two.

"please give me examples of any religious syncretism that you know of, on the part of the Catholic Church"

For one, paradoxosalpha's indications on Christmas are right: whether you want to accept it or not, the celebrations of Christmas do in fact adapt pre-Christian traditions in light of the fact that Christ chose to be born at the darkest time of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere). Similarly, Easter also fits into other ancient traditions of celebrating rebirth at the spring solstice. That is, Christ intentionally fit the events of his life to conform to cosmic patterns that had been perceived by many cultures before and without him.

And you don't have to take my word for it: Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict) said the same thing in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy.

Finally, I would suggest you learn a bit more about early Christian art, which syncretically adapted all kinds of features from Greek and Roman art. For example, many of the earliest (3rd cen.) examples of Christian art in sarcophagus carvings and catacomb paintings adapted the pagan myth of Endymion to display the story of Jonah (for images, see here).

Then there are adaptations of the Roman "tropaeum", or "trophy", which was where a victorious general would set up his standards and have the people he conquered walk beneath them, into the form of the Cross combined with the Chi-Rho, as in the following example, from an early 5th-cen. piece known as the "Passion Sarcophagus" (the "trophy" here is recognized by the victor's laurel wreath that hangs from it, surrounding the Chi-Rho, and the "conquered" Roman soldiers kneeling beneath it; as well as the laurel wreaths hanging from the architectonic frames in the images to each side, signifying Christ's victory over the entire passion sequence, which from left to right shows the Via Crucis, the crowning with thorns, the Tropaeum-Cross, the calling of Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross, and Judas being paid):



Or there's the adaptation of Roman portrayals of emperors, philosophers, teachers, and law-givers to portrayals of Christ, such as this 5th-cen. ivory pyxis:



or more famously, something like the early 5th-century apse mosaic at Santa Pudenziana in Rome:



Or we could pull out all the stops and bring out the famous third-century mosaic in the tomb of the Julii in the Vatican Grottoes, which depicts Christ as the Greco-Roman Sun God Helios, with his sun-beam crown, driving the chariot of the sun:

>374 Tid: - Tid - Have you read and commented on #358 yet?
QED?

>380 StormRaven:
Sigh.

373

No need to feel insulted. I was not intended to be so. I actually liked the story, but felt it needed a more realistic sequel.

Love is a wonderful guide, and I wish that a) we actually knew what it meant to love someone and b) it becomes the first and last tool we take out of the box.

But it is not, and when love is the primary tool you use, you really can expect to be belted by people with flashlights.

Oh as for the deer part, remember I live in Alaska, where we kill and eat animals on regular basis. (Just had some really good moose last weekend.) I realize after I posted it that some might take that part negatively. If you go out in the woods in Alaska, you better take a gun!

>381 nathanielcampbell: - If you insist on such a broad understanding of syncretism (which I do not) then the word approaches irrelevance. It certainly is no argument for religious indifferentism, or religious equivalence, which I believe was the start of this digression.

383: You do realize that if you weren't so proudly ignorant on so many subjects, people would take you more seriously. As it is now, you're a complete joke.

>384 Arctic-Stranger: "I wish that a) we actually knew what it meant to love someone..."

Jesus went to the Cross for you, because of love. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (Jesus)

#372:I have not read Spong, and I have no plan to do so. If he is in accord with the "norm" I already described, then we are in communion with one another. If he is not in accord with that norm, we are not. It is as simple as that.

The story is told of the capture of the Library at Alexandria by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas:

Amr writes to his caliph Omar for instructions, and Omar replies: "If the books agree with the Koran, they are not necessary. If they disagree, they are not desired. Therefore, destroy them."

Jesus was god and could not die. So it was all a staged drama, based on the time-honored blood sacrifice or scape-goating story that always enthralls the ignorant and the superstitious.

But it is all myth and metaphor so no harm, no foul. To take a myth or metaphorical tale as literal history is N.U.T.S.

> 385

The definition of syncretism Nathaniel is using is the one current among academics. It's not irrelevant at all; it's very useful for studying the actual historical development of religious practices and doctrines. (ETA: Not, I imagine, that "absolute truth" is capable of change, so you would exempt what you take for your religion.)

You seem to have an idiosyncratic definition, informed--I would suppose--by the latest developments in Catholic apologetics.

> 388

I think christians may have had some input over the centuries in destroying the Alexandrian Library - I don't think the muslims are totally to blame.

I think the problem was that the library was established by pagans. Well, eff, THERE's your problem.

>390 paradoxosalpha: - you are probably right, given the current move toward a blending of all "truths" (since they are, as currently believed, merely subjective anyway). Under the thinking of our times, truth is of the same weight and substance as ritual, as costume, as cultural traditions, as personal inclination. So "syncretism" is a good and healthy unification of all that is otherwise divisive trivia.

>375 ThomasRichard: My beliefs affirm you - they do not reject you!

Thomas, I'm gay. Your beliefs do not affirm me.

>381 nathanielcampbell: in light of the fact that Christ chose to be born at the darkest time of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere).

At one point I think there was some suggestion -- based on astronomical data -- that Jesus was born in June. That's assuming that the "Christmas Star" was actually the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter).

382

"Consequently, the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church is unique, qualitatively different from those of other religions. Jesus is our standard, our sure standard, by which we judge the truth, goodness, and utility of all other doctrines and traditions. The spiritual life, in other words, is not a smorgasbord. If we just pick and choose whichever practices we happen to like, we have no guarantee that we will avoid dangerous pitfalls (the “limits and errors” referenced by the Catechism).

Prayer traditions from other religions, therefore, may be able to harmonize with Christianity, but in order to do so they need to be purified and appropriately grafted into the authentic spiritual vine, Christ himself. That can only happen with the guidance of the Holy Spirit through his chosen instrument, the Church."

I've now read it. It is the work of an organisation stating, via a belief statement, why their truth is right and that of other beliefs is either wrong, or only partial. Of itself, it is only convincing to those who believe it. It's a circular argument. It leaves the rest of us scratching our heads at its logical fallacies.

384

No, I wasn't actually insulted - I did get the point!! And I saw too that it wasn't really directed at me.

I will admit to only reading a little Spong and will probably never read him again. He is an idiot.

For example, in one of the passages I read, Spong supposes that Jesus was probably married. His evidence? Jesus attended the wedding at Cana with his mother, and the only time Spong attended a wedding with his mother was his own wedding, so that proves that the wedding Jesus attended with his mother was Jesus' own wedding.

To quote SR, BS.

Spong seems totally unaware of first century Jewish wedding practices, where the whole village attends the wedding. Sigh.

Spong steals from 19th century German theologians and NT scholars, adds his own (misinformed) twists to it, then tries to palm it off as "original and shockingly modern."

On the other hand, Bart Ehrman, who I also disagree with many things, is very reputable, as is Marcus Borg, to name a few. For a more conservative, but very academic view, I recommend N.T. Wright.

Spong is to religion what Geraldo Rivera is to journalism.

393

"At one point I think there was some suggestion -- based on astronomical data -- that Jesus was born in June"

It's fair to say that no-one knows. But Christians came to agree on a Christmas date of January 6th which not only held good for centuries until Constantine, but is actually still celebrated, I believe by Orthodox Christians? The 12 Days of Christmas actually do no more than take Western (Roman) Christians from their Christmas to the Eastern Orthodox Christmas.

>397 Tid:: Not exactly. Since it became a widely-celebrated feast in about the fifth century (if I recall correctly), Christmas has always been on Dec. 25. (One theory posits that the date is based on a Jewish tradition that prophets die on the same day they were conceived; the calculations suggested that the actual day of the crucifixion was March 25, making that then the Annunication to Mary / conception of Jesus, and nine months thereafter puts you to Dec. 25. But that's just one theory.)

Jan. 6, twelve days thereafter, is the Feast of the Epiphany, when, according the exegetical tradition that developed, the Magi showed up.

The reason Eastern Orthodox Christmas is usually a week or two after Western Christmas, i.e. sometime in early January, is that they still use the old Julian calendar, rather than the western "modern" Gregorian calendar. That is, they celebrate Christmas on what their calendar says is Dec. 25 -- but that date usually corresponds to early January in the Gregorian calendar used in the modern west.

>385 ThomasRichard:: "If you insist on such a broad understanding of syncretism (which I do not) then the word approaches irrelevance. "

Again, as paradoxos pointed out, I'm actually using the standard defintion of syncretism. Heck, the first time I ever learned the term was in an undergraduate course on medieval art, in connection to several of the art objects I discussed today.

You seem to be laboring under the false assumption that syncretism is somehow opposed to the truth of Christianity, that it seeks to undermine the faith -- but that truth is exactly the opposite of that. The syncretic coherence of Christianity to other religious traditions is a confirmation that Christ came for all humans and all cultures and all traditions, not just an esoteric band of first-century Jews.

If, as Christianity holds, ALL humans are made in the image and likeness of God; and if, as Christianity holds, ALL humans are redeemed by the Word-made-flesh; then it only makes sense that ALL human traditions would look to those truths, even if they are buried under other accretions.

Indeed, if Christianity DIDN'T match in so many details and cosmic pictures with so many other faith traditions, it would be a pretty good indication that Christianity was in fact false, the invention of a few individual humans rather than the revelation of the true nature of the world itself.

398

"Since it became a widely-celebrated feast in about the fifth century (if I recall correctly), Christmas has always been on Dec. 25"

In other words, post-Constantine?

>400 Tid:: I believe so, but don't hold me to it -- it's been a long time since I studied this stuff, and I don't have the proper references at hand to look it up.

What I should clarify is that the tradition probably draws on early Christianity, but the celebration of Christmas as big deal didn't start until late antiquity. For the first few centuries, the focus was the events of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, and the commemoration of the Resurrection's promise of new life every Sunday.

401

I'm not sure either where I originally read it, but there was a strong theory that Constantine wanted Christianity to celebrate at the same time as the Sun's rebirth (solstice). So rather than synchronising Xmas with the Saturnalia, he could be the one who more or less invented it?

>402 Tid:: Actually, I remembered that I do have a book at hand that discusses this -- and I was wrong on the dating, it's fourth, not fifth century. From Theodor Klauser's A Short History of the Western Liturgy (2nd ed., 1979), p. 87:

In the fourth century, side by side with the Easter festival and its weekly repetition, i.e. Sunday, a new kind of feast of Our Lord was introduced which was no longer concerned with the end of Jesus's redeeming activity, but with its beginning at the Incarnation. This was the feast of the Nativity. Its purpose was to put right out of Christians' minds a major heathern festival, which was celebrated on the same day, namely the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun God', the principal deity in the imperial religion of late antiquity.* Similar considerations caused the Eastern churches to institute, somewhat earlier, a Christian festival in opposition to the popular pagan 'Feast of the Epiphany' (of the Sun God, Aion-Osiris) which was kept on 6 January and which was intended to honour the 'Epiphany' of the Son of God, i.e. his manifestation to the world. Although both of these festivals (the Eastern one on 6 January and the Roman on 25 December) were closely related, during this same fourth century the Roman Church incorporated into its calendar in addition the festival of 6 January, though it is true that the meaning of this feast was slightly altered.** At Rome it was made to refer concretely to the first historical revelations of the divinity of Christ, closely associated as these were with the coming of the Magi, the baptism in the Jordan, and the marriage feast at Cana.

---------------------
*This needs to be nuanced a bit. Some third-century emperors made Sol Invictus the principal deity of the imperial religion; and Julian the Apostate's brief reign saw this return with a bit of a vengeance. But we give Constantine too much credit to insist that replacing the festival with Christmas was his idea. Rather, its roots lie with the bishops, both western and eastern.
**Later, the influence would go back the other way, as both East and West adopted both festivals. Again, as I said above, the modern discrepancy in when they are celebrated has to do with the differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars.

Yeah, and that Klauser is about as staid and sympathetic a source as any Christian could want.

> 358. “Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair. In other words, although our common, fallen human nature universally searches for the way back to God, that same wounded nature creates a tendency for us to get lost and take dangerous and dead-end paths. the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church is unique, qualitatively different from those of other religions. Jesus is our standard, our sure standard, by which we judge the truth, goodness, and utility of all other doctrines and traditions.

379. Actual syncretism that is of substance is, for example, the unauthorized chanting of the names of Hindu gods in "Catholic" prayer groups. Or morally, Catholics adapting and living the secular morals of our day: contraception, abortion, sex-change operations, homosexual equivalency, and so on.

So is the authorized chanting of the names of Hindu gods in catholic prayer groups not syncretism? It would seem to me that the more "authorized" it was, the more syncretic it would be.

BTW -- was it syncretism when Catholic priests adopted ceremonial pederasty from the fifth dynasty Egyptians (and others)? Was it syncretism when the Church adopted Jihad during the time of the crusades? How about the adoption of flagellation from the practices at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia? Or the concept of virgin birth adopted from the Hellenistic religions? Or the use of torture for religious purposes adapted from the Achaemenid Empire?

All of these were practices of the Catholic Church -- ample evidence of a "wounded nature {that} creates a tendency for us to get lost and take dangerous and dead-end paths."

403

Thanks, that's informative.

Of course, Constantine was 4thC too. There's still much we don't know, apart from his raising Christianity to be an official State religion, endowing its bishops with palaces, and resolving its doctrinal differences.

- were Sol Invictus and Christianity both side by side official religions, before Christianity became the supreme one?
- how sincere a Christian was Constantine - or was much of his action political? (It must be difficult to stop being an "emperor")
- did he follow both religions, seeing them both as very similar?
- when did he REALLY convert to Christianity?
- when did the Christian Sabbath become "Sun"-day?
- was Christianity a net gainer or loser by being swept into the Imperial domain?

These are merely questions. We may never get the answers.

>393 southernbooklady: I am not trying to open up this into another issue on this thread - but since you brought it up and stated something not true, I need to clarify.

My personal beliefs - which are the beliefs of traditional Christianity, and the beliefs of the Catholic Church, do affirm you. You are a child of God, as I am, created by God to seek and find and live Truth. Christ died for you, as He did for me. God loves us both, enough to die for each and for both of us.

God loves and calls to Himself human persons who are sinners. God loves persons, but not all that we do. God loves persons: He does not love sin. Sexual activity between persons of the same gender is not an appropriate act. Sexual intimacy is reserved for married persons as God created and defines marriage. Any sexual intimacy outside of authentic marriage - between a man and a woman - is gravely wrong. This is the case for adultery, for fornication, for sex with a prostitute, etc. and etc. and including sexual activity between persons of the same gender.

Here is the "official" Catechism position of the Church concerning persons having same-sex attraction:

+++++beginquote
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,{Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10} tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
++++++endquote

You and I are not merely what we do, nor all that we want to do. We are more than our desires; we are more than we know. Sinful desires of any kind, in any person, with the grace of Christ, can be overcome. The overcoming is part of the Christian walk, for any person. The Church is our help and our true companion in Christ, on this journey.

>394 Tid: - And I read your story. Was it supposed to be convincing? Was it supposed to be a logical silver bullet? Why do you presume that I am trying to prove something? You sound like SR, whom I still have not convinced otherwise.

I did not post the priest's comments to convince anyone of anything! I merely want you to understand the teaching, and I thought perhaps his explanation was better than mine.

>399 nathanielcampbell: - Ah! A possible breakthrough! You write, "The syncretic coherence of Christianity to other religious traditions is a confirmation that Christ came for all humans and all cultures and all traditions, not just an esoteric band of first-century Jews."

You are referring to what the Church calls "inculturation" - not syncretism!

Here is a document that discusses inculturation: It is on the Vatican website -
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_1988...

Feel free to read it. And note in #14 of the document, it clearly distinguishes inculturation from syncretism:

14 - "........
Inculturation which borrows the way of dialogue between religions cannot in any way pledge itself to syncretism."

I'm sorry I did not make the connection earlier. I was too busy defending against syncretism to see that at least some of you were talking about inculturation and calling it syncretism.

>405 jburlinson: - see my #409. Maybe that will help.

No, no chanting of Hindu gods is authorized in a Catholic prayer meeting, but it has been found in unauthorized "Catholic" prayer meetings.

>409 ThomasRichard:: "You are referring to what the Church calls "inculturation" - not syncretism!"

The terms are practically synonymous. That is, academics don't actually distinguish between "inculturation" and "syncretism". For us, they are the same process -- and we tend to use "syncretism" to describe it.

So I'm not sure what the document you cited means by "syncretism", since its description of "inculturation" is essentially what academics mean by "syncretism".

If, however, all of the examples that have been offered thus far of syncretism do somehow fall under the Vatican's current definition of it, then I call foul, because many of the Vatican's most cherished traditions owe their roots to syncretism. After all, the Roman Church looks a lot more Roman than it does Jewish.

> 409

The distinction between inculturation and syncretism is unique to Catholic apologetics, as far as I can tell. From what you've supplied here, the sole difference appears to be whether or not the religious elements being co-opted or hybridized have the sanction of ecclesiastical authority.

> 410. I'm afraid you may have missed my point in # 405.

In # 358 you said: the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church is unique, qualitatively different from those of other religions. Jesus is our standard, our sure standard, by which we judge the truth, goodness, and utility of all other doctrines and traditions.

When measured by the standard of Jesus, the Catholic Church is unique in having failed abysmally in matching its doctrines and traditions to that standard.

>411 nathanielcampbell: - Christianity was never meant to be Judaism. New wine needs new wineskins. There is a meeting point: the Christ event. There, the "old" covenant issues forth the new.

#332: I fail to see arrogance in asserting that I have found something wonderful!

You fail to see the arrogance in asserting that you have bought the one true Mona Lisa and all others are fakes, and that you don't need to submit that claim to any standard.

#333: Until you find what actually IS truth, you will be vulnerable and can be swayed toward ideologies that are nearly truth, or partially truth, but not fully and completely the truth.

Again, going back to the class I was taking in discrete optimization, it's easy to find a good solution to a Travelling Salesman Problem. It's challenging to find a great solution to a decent sized TSP problem. With enough work, you can often find the optimal solution using various techniques. Proving that you have found the best possible answer is quite a bit harder then just finding it.

Repeating over and over that you've found the truth doesn't make it so. You tell me you've found the truth and thus you know it, but you don't provide a single reason why you couldn't have been fooled by a partial truth.

If you want a god of your own making, such is easily found.

As you have done. You've found a god that supports your biases, your cultural assumptions, your need for a black and white world.

>412 paradoxosalpha: - some things can be adapted to a given culture - for example music, dress, architecture, language.... Some things cannot - for example, dogma, the Gospel, the Sacraments, the Scripture, the central act of worship: the Cross of Christ....

Inculturation of the Gospel into a culture recognizes, and elevates and ennobles all that is good and truly human in a culture - but must correct and heal what is broken or disordered because of sin.

Even though I'm an atheist I've started chanting to the Hindu gods every evening. I don't think it can hurt.

> 413 - "When measured by the standard of Jesus, the Catholic Church is unique in having failed abysmally in matching its doctrines and traditions to that standard."

Does your reading of Jesus lead you to conclude that the church today must be a carbon copy of the church that He led to the time of the Cross?

The Church has been led by the promised Holy Spirit since the beginning - and that beginning began a development that was promised, and expected, and Spirit-led as Jesus promised:
Jn 16:12 “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
13 But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.

There were things to be coming. The Church was from the beginning meant to be alive in and because of the Presence of the Spirit of the Father and of Jesus. Hence Jesus could say,
Mt 28: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

408

No, my story was not supposed to be a "logical" anything. It came to me in meditation this morning : I was angry with you and your stubborn refusal to recognise any other point of view than your own, and that story just popped into my head. So I posted it at the earliest opportunity. I didn't expect it to transform your attitude, but nor did I expect to be treated with contempt.

But as far as you are concerned, I should be used to that by now.

You are a wonderful missionary. I'm sure that through your efforts, there are now more atheists on these forums than there were before.

>415 prosfilaes: - "you don't provide a single reason why you couldn't have been fooled by a partial truth."

Is that risk enough to make a cynic out of you?

"Proving that you have found the best possible answer is quite a bit harder than just finding it."

Then why do you look for proofs, instead of the solution?

>419 Tid: - Maybe an honest atheist is better than a sincere idolater.

> 421

Why, thank you. Aren't you just the sweetest thing.

419

Son, I am beginning to wish you were not on my team.

423

Wrong gender!

Was I on your team?

(Or, to quote Ross in Friends, to Rachel : "You're ... over me? When were you UNDER me?")

>407 ThomasRichard: I am not trying to open up this into another issue on this thread

No, I agree. The issue of the Church's position on homosexuality and homosexuals has been gone over in depth on many other threads and I wasn't looking to start it all over again here. I debated with myself on whether to bring it up at all, but on the other hand neither can I let statements of the total Christian affirmation and acceptance pass unchallenged when it is patently, demonstrably not true. (and no, your rationalization of the Church's position is not sufficient). But I do not reject the Church because of its stance on homosexuality. I don't go to church because I don't believe in God, the existence or not of which, and the nature of which, is the topic that has been the overriding subject of discussion here.

And in so far as that has been the subject under discussion, it seems to me that you are well supplied with faith, but do not consider empathy as one of the useful tools for making your position understood by others. And in fact the phrase "I understand" is a rare one to hear from you. Still, as you have said, you are not interested in "swapping opinions" -- only stating the truth you perceive. Your steadfast claims to the inerrancy of your belief, and the by default lesser validity of the beliefs or philosophies of others has made people -- has made me -- frustrated as each attempt to communicate is rebuffed.

But such is life. There are probably always two people in any given forum who disagree utterly and I think that is where you and I find ourselves.

I suspect, actually, that we could have a conversation about almost anything else BUT the existence of God to some good effect. Cooking, perhaps. Or Gardening. The readability of Milton.

But on philosophy and theology we are destined to stare at each other across the divide of our own fundamental principles. Each of us wondering how the other can be happy in such a wasteland as they appear to inhabit. :)

>416 ThomasRichard:: "some things can be adapted to a given culture - for example music, dress, architecture, language.... Some things cannot - for example, dogma, the Gospel, the Sacraments, the Scripture, the central act of worship: the Cross of Christ...."

Except that some of those things do in fact owe their orthodox fomulations to the cultural syncretism of Christianity with the Greco-Roman world. For example: the homoousios / homoiousios distinction made concerning the relationship between the Father and the Son, and encapsulated in the Nicene Creed, only makes sense when you take Scripture and wring it through 2nd, 3rd, and 4th century philosophy.

For another example: our whole notion of how the Sacraments work owes itself, first, to Augustine's meditations on the relationship between signs and things in On Teaching Christianity, which again is rooted in his pagan, Roman philosophical education; and second, with particular respect to the Eucharist, to the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident as articulated by thirteenth-century scholastics.

The adoption of Aristotle is a paradigmatic example of syncretism; and the Church's "dogmatic" language on the Eucharist presupposes it.

ETA: The failure to recognize the historical forces that shaped Christianity was precisely one of the problems that provoked the Second Vatican Council. The regressive Church of "the long nineteenth century" (as John W. O'Malley termed it in his excellent and readable history What Happened at Vatican II) had lost its way precisely because it came naively to think of all theology and all dogma as this crystalline, ahistorical structure. The ressourcement of the Tradition in its actual historical roots was one of the Council's great gifts.

So I would encourage you, Thomas, not to fall into that same trap. Don't be blinded to the historical realities of the evolution of Christianity, nor to its deep rootedness in the late antique world that set it on its course.

#421: Maybe an honest atheist is better than a sincere idolater.

Agreed.

> 427

Now that I think about it he seems to be saying that such is "better" in the sense that atheists will be sent to a higher (i.e., somewhat cooler?) ring of hell at death than will, uh, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Bahias and such?

Well, that's nice.

>426 nathanielcampbell: - again, syncretism has nothing to do with explanations of faith - it does have to do with the content of faith. The authentic faith of the Church is from revelation received. Talking about the faith, describing it, explaining it, and so on is theology - having the goal of precision, and is sensitive to language and culture of the disciples. Tools adapted to allow precision and clarity are gladly chosen as prudence suggests. The content of the faith is of God, and is not in itself matter to mold in order to please an audience or win over a crowd.

Inculturation (a good thing) is not syncretism (a bad thing).

>428 JGL53: - You may be interested to learn that the Catholic Church has never named a single individual human person as being in hell. God said to not judge, and the Church does not judge persons. God will judge us all. The Church does and must judge actions, to point out to men the way that God would have us live.

>429 ThomasRichard:: "Inculturation (a good thing) is not syncretism (a bad thing)."

You still have yet to explain what the difference between the two is.

>425 southernbooklady: - Please know that I am doing more than staring across the divide - I am praying for you, to the God you do not believe in, through the intercession of the mother of Jesus, Mary, whom the Church teaches is our spiritual mother in Christ. God is pleased when persons pray for others - our vocation is to care about one another deeply, as brothers and sisters ought to care for one another. And we are all brothers and sisters, children by blood of the first couple, children of God by creation.

I have had people get angry (angrier) to learn they were being "prayed for." They communicated that it was arrogant (a term commonly thrown at me here already, so that would be no surprise) and condescending (another familiar term of recent unhappy memory). But I don't think you will be offended. I do want you to know that God wants us to pray for others - all others - especially those who do not understand. He wants you to return to Him, to His hands that first formed you in the womb of your natural mother. He wants you to come home.

>429 ThomasRichard:: "again, syncretism has nothing to do with explanations of faith - it does have to do with the content of faith. The authentic faith of the Church is from revelation received"

And again, the line between those two is not nearly as clear as you seem to think it is.

To return to a previous example: the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity is nowhere specified in Scripture. Indeed, Scripture makes a muddle of it. That's why the first few centuries of Christianity were so contentious concerning the relationship, for example, between the Father and the Son.

Is the Son equal to the Father? Co-eternal? Of the same substance (homoousios) as "the image of the invisible God"? Or is he "the first-born of all creation" (Col. 1:15), like God but not identical with him (homoiousios)?

The determination of orthodox vs. heterodox Trinitarian theology by the Councils of the fourth and fifth centuries had to do with both the content of faith and the explanation of that content. The two were inextricably linked, and became inextricably linked to the language of late antique philosophy.

If you got up in Church and started explaining how God is indivisibly One, and that the Son is the first-born of creation, not God himself, but like God -- for to say that there are three "persons" in God is to lapse into polytheism -- you'd be declared a heretic (whether an Arian, and Adoptionist, or any other several options would be up to a theological court). And you'd be declared a heretic, not because you had contravened Scripture, but because you had contravened philosophically-influenced explanations of that Scripture.

>432 ThomasRichard: But I don't think you will be offended.

Nope. Not offended, merely apathetic.

I only become offended when you in the pursuit of your truth impede or interfere with me in the pursuit of mine.

> 432. I have had people get angry (angrier) to learn they were being "prayed for." They communicated that it was arrogant (a term commonly thrown at me here already, so that would be no surprise) and condescending (another familiar term of recent unhappy memory).

Let me ask you a question about this habit of yours. You may be aware that Mormons believe that an essential requirement for achieving the highest level of the celestial kingdom in the Mormon afterlife is baptism into the Mormon church. Since many people, for one reason or another, were never baptized into the Mormon church during their lifetimes, Mormons baptize these people by proxy. For example, John F. Kennedy was baptized a Mormon almost immediately after his assassination. You might be familiar with the controversy surrounding baptisms for Holocaust victims.

In the fullness of time, Mormons are committed to baptizing every person who has ever lived into the Mormon church, including you. When you are baptized a Mormon, will you be happy about it, or might you consider it to be a bit arrogant and condescending?

I can assure you that Mormons are every bit as convinced that they know the "truth" as you are. If you doubt that, call them up and ask for a couple of missionaries to come talk to you. (Word of caution: once they start, they never stop.)

>433 nathanielcampbell: - Are you a non-Catholic? It seems that you may be, and thus are having a hard time understanding Catholic teachings and language. You seem to be putting the cart (theology) before the horse (divine revelation), or even presuming an interdependence of the two that does not rightly recognize the action of God in the Church. The Faith - the content of our belief - is not the work of man, that could be studied and understood as mere history and human politics.

Here are two examples of the word syncronism in two Vatican documents, that may add a little to what has alredy been described or explained here.

** (Pope Paul VI:)
88. But the danger remains. Indeed, the worker in the apostolate is under constant fire. The desire to come together as brothers must not lead to a watering down or whittling away of truth. Our dialogue must not weaken our attachment to our faith. Our apostolate must not make vague compromises concerning the principles which regulate and govern the profession of the Christian faith both in theory and in practice.
An immoderate desire to make peace and sink differences at all costs (irenism and syncretism) is ultimately nothing more than skepticism about the power and content of the Word of God which we desire to preach. The effective apostle is the man who is completely faithful to Christ's teaching. He alone can remain unaffected by the errors of the world around him, the man who lives his Christian life to the full.
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_06081964_ecclesiam_en.html)

** (THE WORD OF GOD IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH)
When considering the Bible in relation to the sacred texts of other religions, due care is required so as not to fall prey to syncretism, superficial approaches or a distortion of the truth, because of various conceptions about the inspiration of such sacred texts. Particular attention is given to the many sects at work in different continents, who take up the Bible in an improper manner and apply methods at odds with the Church.
The Bible is not exclusively for Christians; it is a treasure for all humanity. Through fraternal and personal contact, it can become the source of inspiration for those who do not believe in Christ.
(http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20080511_instrlabor-xii-assembly_en.html)

-- Perhaps context can help explain the sense of the word in Catholic thought.

>435 jburlinson: - thanks for your thoughts, but I think it is worth the risk - at least some of the time.

231>
"I have yet to read a scientist who says the universe in infinite. Who have I missed? (And granted, I don't read a lot of science writing.)"

Freeman Dyson, Infinite In All Directions, though he's been pretty much superseded by more recent cosmology, as has interest in the question by more recent bickering.

#420: You've sat here and railed against partial solutions and stopping looking for answers unless you have the Truth. Suddenly all this concern goes away?

I'm not a cynic. I have my hands on an answer; part of the reason why I'm happy with that and not interested in devoting my time to digging deeper is that I believe there are interesting things out there, that humans do a score of brilliant interesting things, and that most of them are out of the field of religion. (To try and focus this, I will say that no one discipline holds a majority, the discussion on the exact role of religion in society perhaps to be held for another day.) I cannot believe in a world where all that matters about us is religion, a world where most of us don't have other things to better worry about then technical theology.

>439 prosfilaes: It's about finding the sure foundation for one's life - the one that can endure thought the storms and tragedies and trials of this broken world. Some build their whole lives on sand. Beachfront property is nice - until the storms come ashore, and wash it all away. Some cannot rest until they find the rock that is sure, on which to build their house.

A successful and brilliant student, with a career and bright future ahead of him, who also loved parties, was persistently asked (by his more serious fellow student Ignatius), "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit his soul?" Francis finally heard his friend deep - deep in his heart - and it moved him to a transformation of his whole life. Now known as "St. Francis Xavier", his life became a light and a force for true good, for many others.

>440 ThomasRichard: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit his soul?

Now there is a message that is found in one form or another in almost every philosophical discipline. It's hardly unique to Xavier or even to Christianity. As guiding principles go it is a good one, but not a particularly Christian one.

432

You have the right to pray for whomsoever you want, whether they want you to, or not. But to quote Patti Smith: "Jesus died for someone's sins, but not for mine".

I don't know how you view what your religion describes as "The Second Coming"? Whether you take it literally about lightning flashes, clouds of glory, and a blast on a trumpet?

Personally, I was always moved by The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky. How would you know if Jesus had quietly arrived back on Earth and was going about as before?

Beware! Jesus may already be here. She may be a black, gay, woman. And if she encountered you and your dogmatic insistence on the rules of your faith, would she not regard you as the modern equivalent of a Pharisee? Have a look in the mirror. Look hard. Look long. What do you see?

>436 ThomasRichard:: "Are you a non-Catholic? It seems that you may be, and thus are having a hard time understanding Catholic teachings and language. You seem to be putting the cart (theology) before the horse (divine revelation), or even presuming an interdependence of the two that does not rightly recognize the action of God in the Church."

That sounds rather presumptuous, but I'll persevere. I am not a practicing Roman Catholic, but I am a trained historical theologian in the Catholic tradition.

I perfectly well understand the relationship between dogma and doctrine, revelation and theology -- it's one of the reasons I so strenuously object to the concept of papal infallibility, which Vatican I somehow magically decreed was a part of revealed dogma, despite the fact that it took more than a millennium for any Christian to think that Matthew 16 gave such power to the pope.

This is where you seem to be falling down: you are ignoring the actual historical relationship between dogma and doctrine, revelation and theology, by positing an invented notion of their relationship that the history of the Church shows blatantly not always to have been the case.

As an example, let us turn again to the question of the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. Both sides of the debate in the fourth century--roughly those corresponding to the Arians and advocating for homoiousios, "of similar substance"; and the position advocated most strenuously by Athanasius and adopted by the various Councils, advocating for homoousios, "of the same substance. Both sides grounded their arguments deeply in Scripture -- indeed, significant swathes of Christians, including many bishops, thought that Arius' view was the better reading of Scripture, as it made sense of the many Gospel passages (as well as that phrase from Colossians 1:15, "the first-born of all creation") that seemed to indicate that Christ was, in fact, in some way subservient or inferior or posterior to the Father; and it better preserved the consistent emphasis of the Hebrew Scriptures that God is ultimately and singularly One. To many, this idea of a Trinity smacks of pagan polytheism.

Ultimately, the Councils prevailed on the other side of the issue, and stated that the proper dogma is that the Son is "begotten not created" (natum non creatum), despite the fact that Paul said quite clearly that he was both born and created (as per the aforecited Col. 1:15).

You seem to have claimed that the Nicene Creed, as an "explanation", is merely doctrine rather than a statement of dogma. In that you are entirely mistaken, and I would suggest you check the Catechism or whatever other documents you count as infallible statements on this, as they will back me up on this. The Creeds are statements of dogma; and they are statements of dogma that rely on Greek philosophical terms to make sense of something (the relationship between Father and Son) that simply is not clear in Scripture itself. This is, indeed, what makes you a Catholic rather than a Protestant: you believe that Tradition has its own dogmatic authority in coherence with Scripture.

Finally, re: syncretism vs. inculturation: you keep trotting out quotes from Vatican documents that don't actually tell me what "syncretism" means. All they do is tell me that syncretism is bad -- but that doesn't do me much good until I actually know what this "syncretism" is that's so wicked.

Again, as several of us have pointed out, what you call "inculturation" is pretty much exactly what the academic use of the term "syncretism" means -- so the distinction between the two isn't clear to us. Could you actually clarify the difference?

443 > "Could you actually clarify the difference?"

I have tried to, but clearly not to the precision that you rightfully desire. I recommend that you search the sources yourself. My own (imprecise) sense of it is sufficient for my purposes, at least at this time. But let me know what you find.

>442 Tid: - No, when Jesus comes again no one will miss it. There will be much surprise - but no one will miss it.

443> Ah. Here is one source - not a precise set of definitions, but both words in context - not from the hierarchy, but from one well-respected (among conservatives) Catholic teacher and priest, Fr. Hardon:

+++BeginQuote

Evangelization as Inculturation

As Christ founded the Church, He intended her to be both one and universal. Already in the Acts of the Apostles we read that the local churches were formed within the one universal Church. Thus a distinction appears between the universal Church entrusted to the apostles under the guidance of Peter, and the local churches with their own pastors.

By the beginning of the second century, the Church had spread throughout the Mediterranean world. As the people were evangelized, they retained their ethnic culture. But when they became Christians, there was an inculturation in two ways. Evangelization took place “not only through its adaptation to the cultural expressions of the various people, but also through a vital integration of the Gospel into their thought, values, customs, and prayer.”

In context, the Pope is speaking of the missionary task of the local churches. He knows only too well the dangers of syncretism, about which he warns the faithful. Syncretism has come to refer to the misguided claims that religious unity can be achieved by ignoring the differences between faiths on the assumption that all creeds are essentially one and the same. This would be just another form of the “anonymous Christianity,” which has been so harmful to evangelization.

Assuming that the Gospel should be preached to people while respecting their cultural heritage, the main question is how should this be done. Once again, the Vicar of Christ provides an answer to what is surely one of the most delicate areas of evangelization:

The Gospel message, in its essence as the revelation of God through the life and teaching of Christ, should be presented to different cultures by fostering the development of the seeds, longings, expectations--it could be said, almost the presentiments of Gospel values--already present within them. Consequently a transformation can take place which does not result in the loss of peoples’ cultural identity. On the contrary, precisely because this is a message of divine origin, it tends to enhance the local culture, stimulating it and encouraging it to yield new fruits at the highest level to which Christ’s presence brings it, with the grace of the Holy Spirit and the light of the Gospel.

These directives for combining evangelization and inculturation are not easy to put into practice. More than that, an erroneous understanding of their combination has become a major obstacle to the Church’s missionary enterprise.

People are naturally attached to their own culture. In fact the culture of a nation is almost a definition of its personality. Pope John Paul urges us to deeply respect the culture of a society, even as we strive to Christianize that society. It takes more than natural ingenuity, we could say it requires supernatural enlightenment to remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ while adapting the culture of a nation to the Gospel. The key issue is priority. The integrity of the Gospel truth must remain the foundation for adapting this truth to the traditions of a people.

Nor is this all. The Vicar of Christ is more than sympathetic with the cultural distinctiveness of the various peoples in the human family. He knows that there has been, what we call a primitive revelation to the human race. Every nation under the sun has inherited elements of truth and richness of insight that go back to the dawn of human history. Moreover every nation is composed of people who have the capacity for using their reason. All of this should be kept in mind as the Gospel is proclaimed to an almost infinite variety of peoples throughout the world.

What those who evangelize may not forget is that their apostolate must be “a valid and fruitful missionary task.” What norm must be observed? Pope John Paul II tells us, “The criterion everyone must follow is that in every culture it is possible to find and to discern authentic values, but in none is there absolute truth nor an infallible rule of life or prayer”(June 14, 1995).

The two words “absolute” and “infallible” are at the heart of evangelizing while sincerely inculturating. Only the Incarnate God can teach the world what it needs to know with absolute certainty in order to be saved. Only Jesus Christ can provide the infallible norms of morality and worship for reaching our eternal destiny.
+++EndQuote

A Catholic priest called Fr. Hardon - you couldn't make it up!!! :D

> 443. you keep trotting out quotes from Vatican documents that don't actually tell me what "syncretism" means. All they do is tell me that syncretism is bad -- but that doesn't do me much good until I actually know what this "syncretism" is that's so wicked.

Since TR seems unwilling or unable to supply a definition of syncretism that clarifies its unacceptability, let me suggest the following from Harvie M. Conn's Eternal Word and Changing Worlds:

Syncretism occurs "when critical and BASIC ELEMENTS of the Gospel are lost in the process of contextualization and are replaced by religious elements from the receiving culture, there is a synthesis with this partial Gospel". Conn also refers to a theological declaration which calls syncretism an "uncritical affirmative
approach to the evaluation of eastern religions and cultures," and "the unjustifiable fusion of irreconcilable tenets and practices".

In contrast, inculturation would be the relatively benign adaptation of the Gospel into a given culture, without sacrificing a single essential element of the Gospel message.

I wonder if TR would agree with this distinction.

>448 jburlinson: - Thanks, it sounds good to me. But it is not authoritative, which is what I would really want to provide for nathaniel, if I could find such a source. It leaves undefined what is basic, what is uncritical, what is unjustified, etc. Those terms could be denomination-dependent.

> 449. It leaves undefined what is basic, what is uncritical, what is unjustified, etc.

Let me ask you then, would you consider the following to be "basic"?

And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them, And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:2-4.

#440: It's about finding the sure foundation for one's life ... Some build their whole lives on sand. Beachfront property is nice - until the storms come ashore, and wash it all away.

There's two problems with this: it's hard to find any place in the world where natural disasters can't destroy all you built. Build on the solid rock of the mountains, and an avalanche may wipe all you worked to build. Build on the plains and a tornado may destroy it all. Hurricanes will drive far inland; earthquakes will hit where you least expect them.

Secondly, what does sand look like? How do we know when something's safe? I'm comfortable with the safety of what I'm standing on.

What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit his soul?

In With a Tangled Skein, a character answers that with "what's the value of gaining your soul and letting the whole world burn?" The metaphysics of her world are somewhat different, but you're implicitly balancing the world against your soul. I also thought it was a Gnostic heresy to dismiss the world as evil. It's one that annoys me. We are members of a global tribe; it is an aspect of our humanity that we should reach out to save another of our tribe. Let us choose that as humans. Let us explore, create as creatures of the world. What profits us if we lose our world, everything we are, in exchange for vague promises of a future?

>450 jburlinson: every word of Scripture is "basic".

>451 prosfilaes: - according to the Bible, the whole world will burn, no matter what we do. The question is, how will I - how will you - live the days that we have been given?

2Pe 3:3 First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own passions
2Pe 3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation."
2Pe 3:5 They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water,
2Pe 3:6 through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
2Pe 3:7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
2Pe 3:8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire!
2Pe 3:13 But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC6UrMTC73A

A great Catholic scholar has written this on changing one's mind in the face of compelling evidence:

"It is always difficult to be objective about the life of the founder of a great religion. His personality is blurred by an aura of the miraculous, enhanced inevitably by the needs of the believers to, above all, believe. The earliest biographers, those closest to the time of his life, are preoccupied not with historical facts, but with glorifying in every way the memory of one they believe to have been a Messenger of God or even God himself. The result is a rich accretion of myth and miracle, mysterious portents and heavenly signs, of residues from other religions and religious traditions. These early biographies cannot pass as history; only the propaganda of an expanding faith.

It is the task of the historian to locate and explicate the truth that lies behind the myth, to reconstruct the events of a real, as distinct from a symbolic, life. At the root of the effort rests the historians faith that the task can be accomplished at all.

This book is the result of more than thirty years of study and writing about the world of antiquity, a world that changed markedly with the coming of Jesus Christ. I cannot say with any exactitude just when it was that I began to realize that some of the religious beliefs which heretofore I had associated with my own Catholic faith bore a remarkable similarity to those developed by Egyptian theologians more than two millennia before Jesus appeared on the stage of history. Or when I first became aware of the remarkable intellectual integration with which Egyptian priests thought and wrote about such subjects as creation, the soul, resurrection, judgment beyond the grave, and eternal life.

Egyptian thinking on these subjects appeared to me to be theologically indistinguishable from the beliefs that formed the core of my own religious faith, a faith that held that Christianity was a singular historical event without human precedent."

Richard Gabriel (2005-04-12). Jesus the Egyptian: the Origins of Christianity and the Psychology of Christ (Kindle Locations 76-89). iUniverse. Kindle Edition.

>446 ThomasRichard:: Syncretism has come to refer to the misguided claims that religious unity can be achieved by ignoring the differences between faiths on the assumption that all creeds are essentially one and the same.

So basically, the definition that you and Fr. Hardon use has nothing to do with the way that academics--including historians, religious scholars, and art historians--use the term. Check.

>405 jburlinson:
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How did Catholic priests learn the sex habits of 5th dynasty Egyptians?

according to the Bible, the whole world will burn, no matter what we do.

Sure, several billion years from now. Worrying about that right now is silly.