How Real Is Christianity?

Hesher · 06-24-2009, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

if you have no experience with God, you are not qualified to say anything about his existence or non-existence.

There are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns...

Maxwellwebb · 06-24-2009, 03:33 AM

1. The Bible refers to it as a fruit, not an apple.

2. Go to Genesis 5:3, Adam fathered many men and women. Cain's wife was a sister of his, note that this was not illegal as it was in the Mosaic law, man was closer to perfection back then so the ill effects of incestuous childbearing did not affect them.

The story is not a metaphor, if that were true then a whole ton of crap in the Bible would be irrelevant (Jesus could not be the Greater Adam) and the promise of restoration of man's perfection would be false.]

Fire away any questions if you have any more.

Inuzuka Skysword · 06-23-2009, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Platonically, preferably. However you are capable, I suppose. To say unconditionally is redundant. Love him as you love yourself, or love him as you hate him. If I have to define what 'type' of love, I guess I'm thinking of a feeling closely related to empathy that involves identifying with someone for their flaws, in the sense that knowing the dark side of what it is to be human helps us overcome ourselves and keeps us modest.

Love him as you love the younger versions of yourself, even if you see them as immature and see yourself as having overcome them.

This is what I don't understand though. If you love everyone that way then can it really be called "love." I agree with your idea on a fundamental level, and I may be just picky about this, but the term "love" is not how I would describe such a thing. I guess we wold have to look at what it means to "love" in any way and generalize it into a sort of definition that encompasses all types of "love." The way I see it, to love something means to like something more than something else. If you love all humans, there are no humans which you cannot like. I cannot honestly say I know how the brain works, so I will just put this out there. Do we not have a measurement system in our mind which operates between the most minimum form of love that can be offered and the maximum?

What I want to know is what you would say about self-defense. If one loves others the same as himself then what justifies self-defense?

Quote:

of course they're not, they're too busy cashing in on the new wave of pseudo-intellectual atheism to actually be pissed off. but if you're implying that atheists all just sit around and muse about how clever they are, i can guarantee that there have been millions of people with a "nothing is true, everything is permitted" attitude that have committed countless atrocities that haunt us today. the real difference is the religious commit atrocities for some half-thought out semi-coherent reason, whereas the areligious commit atrocities just for the hell of it.

If there was a rep system on this forum I would give you green for that post. I totally agree with it. However, I disagree with this:

Quote:

Still, I think everyone believes in God on a deep enough level, I don't think things could make sense otherwise.

Does one necessarily need to make sense of things such as the origin of creation? One can simply deny the question any merit, could they not? One could basically say that even if there was a god, "How am I to live in order to live in the best way?" Does god really help in answering that question?

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword

This is what I don't understand though. If you love everyone that way then can it really be called "love." I agree with your idea on a fundamental level, and I may be just picky about this, but the term "love" is not how I would describe such a thing. I guess we wold have to look at what it means to "love" in any way and generalize it into a sort of definition that encompasses all types of "love." The way I see it, to love something means to like something more than something else. If you love all humans, there are no humans which you cannot like. I cannot honestly say I know how the brain works, so I will just put this out there. Do we not have a measurement system in our mind which operates between the most minimum form of love that can be offered and the maximum?

What I want to know is what you would say about self-defense. If one loves others the same as himself then what justifies self-defense?

If there was a rep system on this forum I would give you green for that post. I totally agree with it. However, I disagree with this:

Does one necessarily need to make sense of things such as the origin of creation? One can simply deny the question any merit, could they not? One could basically say that even if there was a god, "How am I to live in order to live in the best way?" Does god really help in answering that question?

Basically I can only use philosophy in two ways; I can use it critically to show where others' logic has gaps or show what they're ignoring or glossing over, or to trace out their ideas to show the discomforting conclusions they lead to. This is using philosophy as a tool, and I am completely comfortable with it. However when I use philosophy to actually answer ethical, ontological or metaphysical issues, I betray a personal prejudice that it is not within my ability to trace to its origin, since its origin is the content of the prejudice (circular, but it makes sense, trust me). Hence, to answer the question "does God give you ethical guidance" I have to betray my mystical beliefs which I can't really convince anyone of unless they have had similar experiences to mine. So basically I can answer, but as long as you don't 'peel back the veil of reality,' so to speak, it doesn't really mean much one way or the other. That said, I believe that we all share one soul and repeat the same situations eternally with only the surface details changing. As such, my ethics are basically completely narcissistic, but aim for the survival/growth of the whole, rather than the individual. That also means that I don't really associate with my individual self (hello insanity) because I see it as being mostly arbitrary and the product of chance. Rather I identify with my thought trains, since I see them reflected throughout history in art and philosophy.

As soon as someone betrays certain mystical prejudices, people tend to take them less seriously as philosophers. However, most of the argumentation I do on the boards assume a certain degree of ontological uncertainty and aim more for logical coherence. This ties in to why I believe that without God, there is no purpose, hence no meaning, hence no ground for ethics or aesthetics, and nothing could really make much sense on any level.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

I have experience with "God " as a concept, and that's the only way I know of "God"

So I can safely say through my expereince that no two "Gods" or groups of "Gods" are the same within the construct of religion. Therefore I can safely deduce that at least all but one are wrong.

Knowing this I feel comfortable saying that they are all wrong or at the very least they don't know if they are right.

There is nothing I can find hypocritical, contradictory or illogicla about that reasoning.

And I read your posts several times and still rarely fully understand them. Communication is a two way street CA.

And that is precisely the problem, you only know God insofar as it is a word, which is to say not at all. Maybe if you had had an experience of God, you would realize all religions are talking about the same thing, but that since it's something that can't be spoken of they just speak around it in erratic circles. Also, there are priests and there are mystics. Priests basically play telephone (and monopoly) with the ecstatic babble that mystics emit after taking the magic mushroom.

I apologize for that comment, my posts tend to be pretty dense because I know I would just end up going in circles and losing people if I developed every point as much as thinkers in the past have.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

Basically I can only use philosophy in two ways; I can use it critically to show where others' logic has gaps or show what they're ignoring or glossing over, or to trace out their ideas to show the discomforting conclusions they lead to. This is using philosophy as a tool, and I am completely comfortable with it. However when I use philosophy to actually answer ethical, ontological or metaphysical issues, I betray a personal prejudice that it is not within my ability to trace to its origin, since its origin is the content of the prejudice (circular, but it makes sense, trust me). Hence, to answer the question "does God give you ethical guidance" I have to betray my mystical beliefs which I can't really convince anyone of unless they have had similar experiences to mine. So basically I can answer, but as long as you don't 'peel back the veil of reality,' so to speak, it doesn't really mean much one way or the other. That said, I believe that we all share one soul and repeat the same situations eternally with only the surface details changing. As such, my ethics are basically completely narcissistic, but aim for the survival/growth of the whole, rather than the individual. That also means that I don't really associate with my individual self (hello insanity) because I see it as being mostly arbitrary and the product of chance. Rather I identify with my thought trains, since I see them reflected throughout history in art and philosophy.

As soon as someone betrays certain mystical prejudices, people tend to take them less seriously as philosophers. However, most of the argumentation I do on the boards assume a certain degree of ontological uncertainty and aim more for logical coherence. This ties in to why I believe that without God, there is no purpose, hence no meaning, hence no ground for ethics or aesthetics, and nothing could really make much sense on any level.

And that is precisely the problem, you only know God insofar as it is a word, which is to say not at all. Maybe if you had had an experience of God, you would realize all religions are talking about the same thing, but that since it's something that can't be spoken of they just speak around it in erratic circles. Also, there are priests and there are mystics. Priests basically play telephone (and monopoly) with the ecstatic babble that mystics emit after taking the magic mushroom.

I apologize for that comment, my posts tend to be pretty dense because I know I would just end up going in circles and losing people if I developed every point as much as thinkers in the past have.

No need to apologize, I wouldn't read and respond if I didn't find the deciphering worth the work.

Your point, an eloquent extremley thoughtful one. is very well taken and my only defense is that to me "God" is just a word. I have no experience with it in any other form nor do I feel anyone who says they have is sincere so I have no reason to think of it as anything but. So I feel more then qualified to assert I feeling of absolute doubt without proof. It's really no more ridiculous then believing in the first place.

I don't care for the flying spaghetti+ monster argument but I think the spirit of it applies here. Does the absence of disproof equal proof. Obviously I don't think so.

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

No need to apologize, I wouldn't read and respond if I didn't find the deciphering worth the work.

Your point, an eloquent extremley thoughtful one. is very well taken and my only defense is that to me "God" is just a word. I have no experience with it in any other form nor do I feel anyone who says they have is sincere so I have no reason to think of it as anything but. So I feel more then qualified to assert I feeling of absolute doubt without proof. It's really no more ridiculous then believing in the first place.

I don't care for the flying spaghetti+ monster argument but I think the spirit of it applies here. Does the absence of disproof equal proof. Obviously I don't think so.

I completely empathize with your viewpoint because it used to be my own, and I can remember being on your side of the argument in similar environments. That means I also know that I can express certain aspects of my beliefs to you, and they probably wouldn't mean much, if anything, but at the same time I see great value in the two of us understanding each other since that is the only basis on which meaningful personal relations can be established. As such, I'll say that I think that you, just by trying to understand my arguments, are participating in God, because you are developing your own thoughts which are simply part of the universe, so you are helping to develop the universe. As such, I see this as investing us all with an enormous responsibility to help encourage the sort of reality we would like to see develop. On a more abstract level, just by trying to take one of my thoughts and trying to make it your own, our consciousnesses are merging on a level beyond the words themselves, and this process is simply that of two becoming one, which is the life affirmative drive toward unity.

phew.

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 07:06 PM

i think that every living being experiences two drives, self-affirmation and self-destruction. i think both of these drives express themselves through everything we create, be it art, religion, economics, politics, etc. i don't think there's much hope of getting rid of either one.

on a more mystical level, i think the self-affirmative drive is a pull towards God, to become whole and embrace life and death, bliss and suffering. the self-destructive drive on the other hand denies bliss and focuses on suffering, and pulls us towards the abyss. i see the logic of christianity as an attempt to ignore the balance of good and evil, and essentially unbalance the universe towards self-affirmation, which i see as a metaphysical mistake that many other religions have managed to avoid. at the same time, though, by giving us a christ figure who basically embodies self-affirmation, Christianity gives us a very sound and stable moral template. however, with every christ comes an anti-christ... so it goes.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

i think that every living being experiences two drives, self-affirmation and self-destruction. I think both of these drives express themselves through everything we create, be it art, religion, economics, politics, etc. I don't think there's much hope of getting rid of either one.

On a more mystical level, i think the self-affirmative drive is a pull towards god, to become whole and embrace life and death, bliss and suffering. The self-destructive drive on the other hand denies bliss and focuses on suffering, and pulls us towards the abyss. I see the logic of christianity as an attempt to ignore the balance of good and evil, and essentially unbalance the universe towards self-affirmation, which i see as a metaphysical mistake that many other religions have managed to avoid. At the same time, though, by giving us a christ figure who basically embodies self-affirmation, christianity gives us a very sound and stable moral template. However, with every christ comes an anti-christ... So it goes.

a+

I bet you did well in class. Not sure I agree, but that's irrelevant, wonderful execution.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 08:16 PM

...I love you too?

Why did your viewpoint change?

Did you have an experience with "God"?

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

...I love you too?

Why did your viewpoint change?

Did you have an experience with "God"?

I had the cliche "life is a dream" moment, which seems so clear when you're in it and so hazy when you're out of it.

06-24-2009, 03:33 AM	#2 (permalink)
Maxwellwebb Groupie Join Date: May 2008 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 21	Well This is Easy 1. The Bible refers to it as a fruit, not an apple. 2. Go to Genesis 5:3, Adam fathered many men and women. Cain's wife was a sister of his, note that this was not illegal as it was in the Mosaic law, man was closer to perfection back then so the ill effects of incestuous childbearing did not affect them. The story is not a metaphor, if that were true then a whole ton of crap in the Bible would be irrelevant (Jesus could not be the Greater Adam) and the promise of restoration of man's perfection would be false.] Fire away any questions if you have any more.

06-23-2009, 07:06 PM	#7 (permalink)
cardboard adolescent ;) Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: CA Posts: 3,503	i think that every living being experiences two drives, self-affirmation and self-destruction. i think both of these drives express themselves through everything we create, be it art, religion, economics, politics, etc. i don't think there's much hope of getting rid of either one. on a more mystical level, i think the self-affirmative drive is a pull towards God, to become whole and embrace life and death, bliss and suffering. the self-destructive drive on the other hand denies bliss and focuses on suffering, and pulls us towards the abyss. i see the logic of christianity as an attempt to ignore the balance of good and evil, and essentially unbalance the universe towards self-affirmation, which i see as a metaphysical mistake that many other religions have managed to avoid. at the same time, though, by giving us a christ figure who basically embodies self-affirmation, Christianity gives us a very sound and stable moral template. however, with every christ comes an anti-christ... so it goes. Last edited by cardboard adolescent; 06-23-2009 at 07:13 PM.