Meaninglessness

[rusmeister]

I think Batman said There's a difference between twenty years of experience, and one year of experience twenty times. And there's a difference between trying to be something, and being something. You "tried" to practice tolerance toward homosexuality; accept abortion; and live "in the now", but you could not. And it's not a problem to try something, find it doesn't work for you, and say it's wrong. It is a problem to then claim to know that thing better than those for whom it does work. It's impossible for me to argue that I know something that feels wrong to me, which I must abandon, nearly as well as someone for whom it does work. That person can experience it in ways that are not visible from the outside. If I can't accept Stage 1, and move to the next step, I can hardly claim to understand Step 4 as well as that other person.

But, of course, that's merely arrogant and annoying, brought on by the ignorance of what happens to/within those for whom Stage 1 does work, and who move on to the next step. What's much worse is being actively and intentionally dishonest.

It always seems like something can be said, even when it seems that it is useless to say anything. If everything is arrogance and annoyance, it is indeed useless. I should just be quiet and humbly acknowledge myself to be in the wrong...

It ought to be obvious that you speak of things "working for people" I speak in terms of what IS, regardless of what people enjoy, or like, or pleases them.

Therefore it is inevitable that you should not like what I have to say, for it can not "work" for you. It hardly "works" for me. One of the greatest truths it reveals is the one that I am not what I ought to be. That cannot be something that "works" for people. One cannot be satisfied specifically by being dissatisfied with oneself. And I am not satisfied with that. It works very badly, using your language. But I see it to be true, and true for everybody, not just me.

Anyway, since the paradigm of ideas "working for people" is irrelevant to me, it is useless to complain of my not applying that principle. It seems to me that it ought to be possible to communicate that, at least.

It doesn't matter if you call it "what IS" or saying it "works for me." How did you know homosexuality, abortion, and meaninglessness were not "what IS" when you were trying to accept them? How do you distinguish your method of knowing that they are not "what IS" from "it didn't work for you"? From "it felt wrong, no matter how much I tried to make it feel right"?

When you speak of a "method" of knowing, I would say that it is not about "method". Knowing truth is not a physical science.

At that time, I was operating on general - and largely unthought-out - dogmas that a person ought to be able to do whatever pleased them as long as it doesn't harm others. (Sound familiar?) My own learning process has been gradual, and nothing happened in a day. At first, it was merely an awareness of dissonance between my ideals and my personal feelings. There were many episodes - one in particular on the swinging scene of San Francisco stands out, and of a seven-year-old girl sobbing because she couldn't stop her parents from visiting 'those other people' - I was living in a million-dollar house courtesy of said swinging couple, so got to see some fairly up-close and personal. But it is difficult to try to collect and recollect and synthesize my personal experiences as some kind of 'methodical' proof for you. What I think I CAN say is that upon accepting an authority higher than me - one that I found to be telling the truth - both things that "worked" for me and things that I didn't like - I found that as I began to learn from that authority, what had been vague and unthought-out became clear, even crystal-clear. In my journey, I have learned more thoroughly why the Authority is right, and am still learning it. I wouldn't call it a method, except perhaps the method of listening to voices of authority that know more than I do and themselves bow to the collective authority of the Church.

Since my own position insists that there IS truth and that it CAN be known, then it matters very much that I speak of "what IS" instead of "what works for me" - which is a language which denies that there is truth. I don't wish to argue this point with you - I feel like we've argued enough. I can still hope for more pleasant dialogs with you....

Anyway, I'm extremely serious about your dishonest approach to all of this. You simply will not accept that someone CAN have an opposing view.
-When we will not embrace Orthodoxy, it's not because we disagree with it. Nor because we (I) don't believe it's true. We reject it because if would require major changes to nearly all aspects of our lives, and we don't want to put in the effort.
-When we will not immerse ourselves in Chesterton, it's not because we disagree with him. It's because we know he's right, and we don't want to admit it, so we refuse to read him.

It is entirely possible for people to disagree with your view. To not believe it is good. To not believe it is even accurate. To see a different picture when looking at the uncountable pieces or reality. Dismissing so many people here (all of whom have different, even very different, worldviews) - ignoring the overwhelming number of voices telling you things do not appear to all as they appear to you - and claim that we all say what we say for reasons of laziness and stubbornness reveals that you have a very dishonest worldview.

This is what enables you to dismiss the possibility that transient meaning can play the role in someone's life that transcendent meaning plays in yours. You need not even accept that such a thing can be, much less attempt to understand it. It's much easier to dismiss all opposition as impossible, and ignore what is said. We think the religious system you believe in has flaws. We don't think it's real. We don't think Chesterton was right all that often. Meaning that lasts only while alive - meaning of the moment - is sufficient.

Not sure how it is you think I don't accept that there are opposing views. I KNOW there are opposing views and am dealing with one of them right now. My opinion - and I will stress the word "opinion" - is that it is BOTH that people (in general) do not believe the view that I have accepted to be true AND that an unwillingness to change would be a major disincentive for the overwhelming majority even if they COULD otherwise accept it as true - but not that they can't do it - I just expect that many won't. It's not an easy thing to do, and I believe that we have a huge capacity for self-deception - which is why I think the self makes such a terrible authority.

On Chesterton, I think that many people disagree with him, and think he is wrong - so again, why you should dismiss that I do is mystifying - but I also think it very difficult to argue with Chesterton, because he takes thought to a much deeper level than most of us are used to. It requires a serious mental effort. It is evident to me that this IS a major disincentive for people to read him, especially when they start with the assumption that he is wrong. But right or wrong, he goes deeper and thinks farther than ANYONE here, you and me included. (Or is it impossible to recognize genius in another - an ability that outstrips that of everyone else around?) An impartial examination of the man and his works - if anyone ever conducted it, would reveal that, right or wrong, he remembered (without a photographic memory) the gist of everything he ever read and was able to synthesize the essence of even the most complex ideas and people. His biography of Thomas Aquinas is one blazing example of that - that the admitted scholars in the field themselves admitted that an amateur journalist put their lives' works to shame. But I think people here are VERY partial (myself included, only I am admittedly so, and most here, as it seems to me, pretend to a greater stand of impartiality)

But yes, I admit you think he's wrong - and I admit that he is difficult to read - at first, certainly. I've said a couple of times that I had to read the first books I read of his very slowly, and only with time did I begin to get his drift and be able to follow along more quickly. I also think that for the reasons I have named, it IS difficult to argue with him. To argue with him, you really have to learn what he is talking about. If you don't know who 'the Valois' or Guthrum was, or "Home Rule", what "Pro-Boer" means, or any number of references that require actual erudition, the kind we have so little of today, then reading him IS work - and it is an education in itself. But if we've started from a dogma that the person is wrong, then we will hardly consider any evidence that he may be right. Dogmas are notorious on such points.

I KNOW people disagree. I KNOW that things appear different to different people. What I say to that is that even if you completely exclude me and my views, they cannot all possibly be correct. Perception is not truth. Feeling an elephant's leg is not to understand what an elephant is. Only a person who can see the whole elephant (even if he is mystically lifted up in a helicopter so that he can do so) can begin to do that. So when someone feels the leg and says that the elephant is like a tree, I can say, there is a certain degree of truth in the perception. But it is not a complete and correct summation of what an elephant is. I quite understand the perception. I accept that the other person cannot see what I see. But that they should curse me and call me arrogant when I try to tell them how what they perceive is not a complete and correct view is another matter. I don't think seeing the whole elephant makes me a superior person - just a luckier one, in your terms. Why that should be called dishonesty I don't know. The charge of arrogance I can explain by a dogma that it is impossible for anyone to see the whole elephant. Yet I say that by fortunate chance, or Divine Providence, that I do. Nor do I think that I am completely alone in doing so here.

In the end, probably the biggest problem is communication with people that we don't know and have no physical experience of via electronic text. The general problem of misunderstanding - which comes most sharply to light when people disagree - is a constant danger to us all.

[Avatar]

The word "conceive" is odd...

Well, that is sorta the direction I was looking in. Perhaps Rus and I use the words of the quote differently.

...I am not 'bigoted" against abortion. And so on.

I don't think I would ever think of calling you "bigoted," for a start, it's not a word I use or think of in relation to anybody anyway. There are probably other words I would think better.

However, you did post the quote, which is what brought it to mind.

See, taking your example above, I wonder if you can actually conceive that abortion might not be wrong?

And if you claim to be able to, how do you define conceive?

--A

[aliantha]

I wouldn't say that understanding GKC requires "actual erudition" so much as it requires that you have a sense of current events during his era. Home Rule and the Boer War were happening more or less as Chesterton wrote about them, weren't they? What you're suggesting is that a reader 100 years from now would require "actual erudition" in order to understand a column by George F. Will -- or one of Rush Limbaugh's radio shows -- when for us today, all it takes is 10 minutes with <insert your news source of choice here>.

That's not to say that I consider Will or Limbaugh Christian apologists. Far from it! (In fact, I think Limbaugh owes *us* an apology, just on general principles. But I digress. ) What I'm saying is that Chesterton used current events as shorthand to help contemporaneous readers grasp his points more quickly. Ironically, that's one of the things that makes him so hard to read today.

(I'll leave it to Fist to point out, rus, that just because you *think* you see the whole of the elephant, it doesn't mean you do. )

[rusmeister]

I wouldn't say that understanding GKC requires "actual erudition" so much as it requires that you have a sense of current events during his era. Home Rule and the Boer War were happening more or less as Chesterton wrote about them, weren't they? What you're suggesting is that a reader 100 years from now would require "actual erudition" in order to understand a column by George F. Will -- or one of Rush Limbaugh's radio shows -- when for us today, all it takes is 10 minutes with <insert your news source of choice here>.

That's not to say that I consider Will or Limbaugh Christian apologists. Far from it! (In fact, I think Limbaugh owes *us* an apology, just on general principles. But I digress. ) What I'm saying is that Chesterton used current events as shorthand to help contemporaneous readers grasp his points more quickly. Ironically, that's one of the things that makes him so hard to read today.

(I'll leave it to Fist to point out, rus, that just because you *think* you see the whole of the elephant, it doesn't mean you do. )

I can understand your last point - that's why it is an assertion.

And I probably should have included a thousand things that GKC knew and referred to that were not specifically of his time (as some might, without actual knowledge, wish to paint him). I've read hardly half his works (and have really been slowed up this past year) but reading William Cobbett www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/William_Cobbett.txt , or other biographical and literary works, or his numerable expositions on the Middle Ages, and certainly his predictions of what would happen if divorce became socially acceptable, if eugenics were actually put into practice, and on and on definitely place him solidly outside of his own time - he was certainly no prisoner of it as many a person reading Limbaugh and Will actually are (and I would probably include Limbaugh, but am not so sure about Will - I don't know enough about them). So those names can be dismissed as limiting comparisons and not at all what I meant. GKC spoke about his time, certainly, but decidedly in the light of previous times. It was his biography of Browning, I think, that struck me the most forcefully - that here was a man who understood the true purpose and aim of biography- that what matters most about a man (or woman) is what he believed, what was important to him; what he held as true, and that a biography should at least examine the time that shaped him as much as (or perhaps more than) the facts and details of the man's life so common to the biography as we know it; that he was born in x to an x family in the town of x is less important than that (for example) romanticism and anti-Anglicanism was the dominating fashion among the people of his (or his father's) class; that there was widespread skepticism towards a clergy that had become quite apostate, etc. That's a digression, but the points of having demonstrably deep and extensive knowledge, and being able to touch on the heart of matters, is not.

[rusmeister]

The word "conceive" is odd...

Well, that is sorta the direction I was looking in. Perhaps Rus and I use the words of the quote differently.

...I am not 'bigoted" against abortion. And so on.

I don't think I would ever think of calling you "bigoted," for a start, it's not a word I use or think of in relation to anybody anyway. There are probably other words I would think better.

However, you did post the quote, which is what brought it to mind.

See, taking your example above, I wonder if you can actually conceive that abortion might not be wrong?

And if you claim to be able to, how do you define conceive?

--A

I can conceive the idea that abortion is not wrong. I can grasp it, and its arguments. I know them to be false.
Conceive - grasp, understand, grok, comprehend, even comprehensively. Can I grasp the Prussian idea of the German master race? Absolutely. Can I understand it thoroughly? Of course. Does that mean I must acknowledge that they MAY be right? Of course not.

[Avatar]

So you can't conceive that it might be right?

You don't know them to be false. If anybody could know that, then there would be no argument. You believe them to be false, just as I believe them to be true.

(Well, you know them to be false for you. But that doesn't make them objectively false.)

--A

[Fist and Faith]

It always seems like something can be said, even when it seems that it is useless to say anything. If everything is arrogance and annoyance, it is indeed useless. I should just be quiet and humbly acknowledge myself to be in the wrong...

It ought to be obvious that you speak of things "working for people" I speak in terms of what IS, regardless of what people enjoy, or like, or pleases them.

Therefore it is inevitable that you should not like what I have to say, for it can not "work" for you. It hardly "works" for me. One of the greatest truths it reveals is the one that I am not what I ought to be. That cannot be something that "works" for people. One cannot be satisfied specifically by being dissatisfied with oneself. And I am not satisfied with that. It works very badly, using your language. But I see it to be true, and true for everybody, not just me.

Anyway, since the paradigm of ideas "working for people" is irrelevant to me, it is useless to complain of my not applying that principle. It seems to me that it ought to be possible to communicate that, at least.

It doesn't matter if you call it "what IS" or saying it "works for me." How did you know homosexuality, abortion, and meaninglessness were not "what IS" when you were trying to accept them? How do you distinguish your method of knowing that they are not "what IS" from "it didn't work for you"? From "it felt wrong, no matter how much I tried to make it feel right"?

When you speak of a "method" of knowing, I would say that it is not about "method". Knowing truth is not a physical science.

At that time, I was operating on general - and largely unthought-out - dogmas that a person ought to be able to do whatever pleased them as long as it doesn't harm others. (Sound familiar?) My own learning process has been gradual, and nothing happened in a day. At first, it was merely an awareness of dissonance between my ideals and my personal feelings. There were many episodes - one in particular on the swinging scene of San Francisco stands out, and of a seven-year-old girl sobbing because she couldn't stop her parents from visiting 'those other people' - I was living in a million-dollar house courtesy of said swinging couple, so got to see some fairly up-close and personal. But it is difficult to try to collect and recollect and synthesize my personal experiences as some kind of 'methodical' proof for you. What I think I CAN say is that upon accepting an authority higher than me - one that I found to be telling the truth - both things that "worked" for me and things that I didn't like - I found that as I began to learn from that authority, what had been vague and unthought-out became clear, even crystal-clear. In my journey, I have learned more thoroughly why the Authority is right, and am still learning it. I wouldn't call it a method, except perhaps the method of listening to voices of authority that know more than I do and themselves bow to the collective authority of the Church.

Since my own position insists that there IS truth and that it CAN be known, then it matters very much that I speak of "what IS" instead of "what works for me" - which is a language which denies that there is truth. I don't wish to argue this point with you - I feel like we've argued enough. I can still hope for more pleasant dialogs with you....

You support my thinking entirely. I'm not talking about a method. I didn't expect you would describe one. You described what I was sure you would: "At first, it was merely an awareness of dissonance between my ideals and my personal feelings." It was the "feeling" that it was wrong. It didn't work for you. That you found other people, even a long-standing tradition, for whom such things don't feel right does not make it anything other than "it doesn't feel right. That's how you know it's wrong.

And it's the same way I know right from wrong. That you disagree, and that there is a long-standing tradition that disagrees, with me does not make it anything more than a disagreement about what feels right and wrong to each of us. You do not have any claim to an objective sense of right and wrong. You and I just disagree on what's right and wrong in many cases.

I will, of course, argue with aspects of your feeling and experiences. For example, it isn't swinging that's the problem. The seven-year-old daughter didn't ever have to know what her parents were doing with "those other people." The girl would have been sobbing if her parents left her the same amount of times to go to the movies with those same people.

Another part of the problem in this case is that I don't think parents' sex lives, no matter what kind of sex life it is, should be an open book to children that young.

Also, my worldview is not "largely unthought-out." After thinking about it deeper, you may have thought it didn't work. But I think and feel otherwise. It feels right (to me, anyway) to eat lots of chocolate cake and icecream. If I didn't think it out, my kids and I would eat nothing else every day. What could be better?? But I did think it out, so we eat a variety of things. And many things that, on first thought or experience, feel right in the worldview sense may not be. Deeper thought is need. But you do not think we could have thought out anything that does not agree with all of your ideas. Disagreeing with you is not evidence of not having thought things through, nor of incorrect thought processes. No more than your disagreeing with me is evidence that you haven't thought things out, or did it correctly. It all just means we disagree. You can think yourself right and me wrong, and I'll think the opposite.

Anyway, I'm extremely serious about your dishonest approach to all of this. You simply will not accept that someone CAN have an opposing view.
-When we will not embrace Orthodoxy, it's not because we disagree with it. Nor because we (I) don't believe it's true. We reject it because if would require major changes to nearly all aspects of our lives, and we don't want to put in the effort.
-When we will not immerse ourselves in Chesterton, it's not because we disagree with him. It's because we know he's right, and we don't want to admit it, so we refuse to read him.

It is entirely possible for people to disagree with your view. To not believe it is good. To not believe it is even accurate. To see a different picture when looking at the uncountable pieces or reality. Dismissing so many people here (all of whom have different, even very different, worldviews) - ignoring the overwhelming number of voices telling you things do not appear to all as they appear to you - and claim that we all say what we say for reasons of laziness and stubbornness reveals that you have a very dishonest worldview.

This is what enables you to dismiss the possibility that transient meaning can play the role in someone's life that transcendent meaning plays in yours. You need not even accept that such a thing can be, much less attempt to understand it. It's much easier to dismiss all opposition as impossible, and ignore what is said. We think the religious system you believe in has flaws. We don't think it's real. We don't think Chesterton was right all that often. Meaning that lasts only while alive - meaning of the moment - is sufficient.

Not sure how it is you think I don't accept that there are opposing views. I KNOW there are opposing views and am dealing with one of them right now. My opinion - and I will stress the word "opinion" - is that it is BOTH that people (in general) do not believe the view that I have accepted to be true AND that an unwillingness to change would be a major disincentive for the overwhelming majority even if they COULD otherwise accept it as true - but not that they can't do it - I just expect that many won't. It's not an easy thing to do, and I believe that we have a huge capacity for self-deception - which is why I think the self makes such a terrible authority.

You're just paying lip-service. You do not think it would be possible for me (or anyone) to disagree with your worldview if I read and listen to as many podcasts about Orthodoxy, Chesterton, Lewis, etc, as you think I should. And you think the reason I won't read and listen to that much is because I already know I could not believe other than you do, and I don't want to change my life to the degree that such belief would require.

On Chesterton, I think that many people disagree with him, and think he is wrong - so again, why you should dismiss that I do is mystifying - but I also think it very difficult to argue with Chesterton, because he takes thought to a much deeper level than most of us are used to. It requires a serious mental effort. It is evident to me that this IS a major disincentive for people to read him, especially when they start with the assumption that he is wrong. But right or wrong, he goes deeper and thinks farther than ANYONE here, you and me included. (Or is it impossible to recognize genius in another - an ability that outstrips that of everyone else around?) An impartial examination of the man and his works - if anyone ever conducted it, would reveal that, right or wrong, he remembered (without a photographic memory) the gist of everything he ever read and was able to synthesize the essence of even the most complex ideas and people. His biography of Thomas Aquinas is one blazing example of that - that the admitted scholars in the field themselves admitted that an amateur journalist put their lives' works to shame. But I think people here are VERY partial (myself included, only I am admittedly so, and most here, as it seems to me, pretend to a greater stand of impartiality)

But yes, I admit you think he's wrong - and I admit that he is difficult to read - at first, certainly. I've said a couple of times that I had to read the first books I read of his very slowly, and only with time did I begin to get his drift and be able to follow along more quickly. I also think that for the reasons I have named, it IS difficult to argue with him. To argue with him, you really have to learn what he is talking about. If you don't know who 'the Valois' or Guthrum was, or "Home Rule", what "Pro-Boer" means, or any number of references that require actual erudition, the kind we have so little of today, then reading him IS work - and it is an education in itself. But if we've started from a dogma that the person is wrong, then we will hardly consider any evidence that he may be right. Dogmas are notorious on such points.

I certainly didn't start with any "dogma" about Chesterton. I bought TEM at your recommendation, excited at the possibility of having learned of another deeply religious author who would be exciting, wise, and all the other things I've found in various other deeply religious authors. But it didn't work out that way. It's simply that he has been wrong about nearly everything I've read so far. Did you disagree with him on point after point after having reading as much of him as I have (many quotes you've posted here, more from some of your links, and four chapters of TEM), and decide you should read the rest of him anyway? No, you did not. You agreed with him on point after point, and, so, even though it was difficult reading, you continued. If you did not agree with him about nearly all of the first couple dozen things you read, you would have not bothered going on. I'm sure you have not bothered reading huge amounts of other authors when you did not agree with the first many things. So why is it that that can't be the reason I don't immerse myself in Chesterton? Why is it "intellectual cowardice" when I don't read him? Why is it that I know I can't win, so won't try?

I KNOW people disagree. I KNOW that things appear different to different people. What I say to that is that even if you completely exclude me and my views, they cannot all possibly be correct. Perception is not truth. Feeling an elephant's leg is not to understand what an elephant is. Only a person who can see the whole elephant (even if he is mystically lifted up in a helicopter so that he can do so) can begin to do that. So when someone feels the leg and says that the elephant is like a tree, I can say, there is a certain degree of truth in the perception. But it is not a complete and correct summation of what an elephant is. I quite understand the perception. I accept that the other person cannot see what I see. But that they should curse me and call me arrogant when I try to tell them how what they perceive is not a complete and correct view is another matter. I don't think seeing the whole elephant makes me a superior person - just a luckier one, in your terms. Why that should be called dishonesty I don't know. The charge of arrogance I can explain by a dogma that it is impossible for anyone to see the whole elephant. Yet I say that by fortunate chance, or Divine Providence, that I do. Nor do I think that I am completely alone in doing so here.

In the end, probably the biggest problem is communication with people that we don't know and have no physical experience of via electronic text. The general problem of misunderstanding - which comes most sharply to light when people disagree - is a constant danger to us all.

The problem isn't in saying I don't see the whole elephant. You think you see it all, and I only see a part. I don't think either of us could possibly see the whole thing, and it's arrogant to imagine you do.

But the real problem is that you're feeling the leg, and I'm feeling the trunk. And when I tell you what the trunk is like, you tell me I don't know what I'm feeling. That's a whole different level of arrogance, and insulting to boot. Yeah, you touched the trunk when you were walking past it earlier. But only with one hand. You didn't like it. It felt wrong. So you moved on. You found a leg, and it felt better to you. Thicker, stronger. Great! That's what you needed. Just stop telling me the trunk isn't strong; isn't moving like a snake; isn't lifting me off the ground - just because that wasn't your experience with the trunk.

[rusmeister]

So you can't conceive that it might be right?

You don't know them to be false. If anybody could know that, then there would be no argument. You believe them to be false, just as I believe them to be true.

(Well, you know them to be false for you. But that doesn't make them objectively false.)

--A

You can't conceive that 2+2 might really be 5 and not 4? Must be a defect on your part, I guess.

If I am RIGHT, Av, then they ARE objectively false. That is Logic 101. So the argument is about who's right. Your idea that everyone must admit that they 'might be wrong' is irrelevant to someone who is actually right, even if it be only the humble mathematician with an absolute certainty of basic mathematical truths, certain enough to send someone who would insist that he admit that he might be wrong packing.

I dunno, Av - I'm just trying to think how to communicate to you the view of someone who sees something as TRUE. It must be possible. There must be things that you hold to be unquestionably true; that you cannot be wrong on.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I dunno, Av - I'm just trying to think how to communicate to you the view of someone who sees something as TRUE. It must be possible. There must be things that you hold to be unquestionably true; that you cannot be wrong on.

No matter how objectively determinate you think 'T'ruth is, it is your Truth, not our Truth. Just because your worldview is convinced that all are beholden to this Truth doesn't actually make it so for the rest of us - as in all matters of faith, there is just a tiny bit of convincing necessary before all will agree to share the same monolith of values. It amounts to a 'moral solipsism'.

One who accepts as Fact that all cats are divine will generally be regarded as a fool, but will likely be allowed to persist in this notion to his heart's content... until he tries to write the laws of the land to require everyone to bow down to Mr. Vittles. He will eventually be opposed, once people understand that they must take him seriously. And this is true no matter how practical, useful, and widely accepted his rules on feline nutrition might be. Just because most agree that he is right on some things does not mean he gets to determine what is Right in *all* things... because some of us like dogs way more than cats, and we're right to do so. Cats suck, because they make terrible dogs.

[aliantha]

Cats suck, because they make terrible dogs.

Oh, no. You must have misunderstood, or not looked into the subject of cats deeply enough. Here, I have a few thousand pages you need to read on the subject, so you will come around to the right way of thinking.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

[rdhopeca]

Cats suck, because they make terrible dogs.

Oh, no. You must have misunderstood, or not looked into the subject of cats deeply enough. Here, I have a few thousand pages you need to read on the subject, so you will come around to the right way of thinking.

As any cat owner will tell you, cats are the center of the universe, and they know it.

[rusmeister]

I dunno, Av - I'm just trying to think how to communicate to you the view of someone who sees something as TRUE. It must be possible. There must be things that you hold to be unquestionably true; that you cannot be wrong on.

No matter how objectively determinate you think 'T'ruth is, it is your Truth, not our Truth.

No, Dukkha - the question is which of our views - if any - actually is THE truth - the real understanding of the objective reality you open your eyes on that you did not create. You did not ask to be born, nor do you have the option of not leaving this life. The whole idea of that objective reality being purely personal - that is, being purely subjective - that there is no objective reality - is complete and utter nonsense.

But since there IS objective reality - otherwise why do people keep asking for "objective" truth? - then obviously there must be objective truth about how and why we appeared, came to think and to imagine our thinking to be valid, and what our purpose and nature is, whether we correctly apprehend it or not.

[rusmeister]

Cats suck, because they make terrible dogs.

Oh, no. You must have misunderstood, or not looked into the subject of cats deeply enough. Here, I have a few thousand pages you need to read on the subject, so you will come around to the right way of thinking.

As any cat owner will tell you, cats are the center of the universe, and they know it.

True, dat.

[rusmeister]

It doesn't matter if you call it "what IS" or saying it "works for me." How did you know homosexuality, abortion, and meaninglessness were not "what IS" when you were trying to accept them? How do you distinguish your method of knowing that they are not "what IS" from "it didn't work for you"? From "it felt wrong, no matter how much I tried to make it feel right"?

When you speak of a "method" of knowing, I would say that it is not about "method". Knowing truth is not a physical science.

At that time, I was operating on general - and largely unthought-out - dogmas that a person ought to be able to do whatever pleased them as long as it doesn't harm others. (Sound familiar?) My own learning process has been gradual, and nothing happened in a day. At first, it was merely an awareness of dissonance between my ideals and my personal feelings. There were many episodes - one in particular on the swinging scene of San Francisco stands out, and of a seven-year-old girl sobbing because she couldn't stop her parents from visiting 'those other people' - I was living in a million-dollar house courtesy of said swinging couple, so got to see some fairly up-close and personal. But it is difficult to try to collect and recollect and synthesize my personal experiences as some kind of 'methodical' proof for you. What I think I CAN say is that upon accepting an authority higher than me - one that I found to be telling the truth - both things that "worked" for me and things that I didn't like - I found that as I began to learn from that authority, what had been vague and unthought-out became clear, even crystal-clear. In my journey, I have learned more thoroughly why the Authority is right, and am still learning it. I wouldn't call it a method, except perhaps the method of listening to voices of authority that know more than I do and themselves bow to the collective authority of the Church.

Since my own position insists that there IS truth and that it CAN be known, then it matters very much that I speak of "what IS" instead of "what works for me" - which is a language which denies that there is truth. I don't wish to argue this point with you - I feel like we've argued enough. I can still hope for more pleasant dialogs with you....

You support my thinking entirely. I'm not talking about a method. I didn't expect you would describe one. You described what I was sure you would: "At first, it was merely an awareness of dissonance between my ideals and my personal feelings." It was the "feeling" that it was wrong. It didn't work for you. That you found other people, even a long-standing tradition, for whom such things don't feel right does not make it anything other than "it doesn't feel right. That's how you know it's wrong.

And it's the same way I know right from wrong. That you disagree, and that there is a long-standing tradition that disagrees, with me does not make it anything more than a disagreement about what feels right and wrong to each of us. You do not have any claim to an objective sense of right and wrong. You and I just disagree on what's right and wrong in many cases.

I will, of course, argue with aspects of your feeling and experiences. For example, it isn't swinging that's the problem. The seven-year-old daughter didn't ever have to know what her parents were doing with "those other people." The girl would have been sobbing if her parents left her the same amount of times to go to the movies with those same people.

Another part of the problem in this case is that I don't think parents' sex lives, no matter what kind of sex life it is, should be an open book to children that young.

Also, my worldview is not "largely unthought-out." After thinking about it deeper, you may have thought it didn't work. But I think and feel otherwise. It feels right (to me, anyway) to eat lots of chocolate cake and icecream. If I didn't think it out, my kids and I would eat nothing else every day. What could be better?? But I did think it out, so we eat a variety of things. And many things that, on first thought or experience, feel right in the worldview sense may not be. Deeper thought is need. But you do not think we could have thought out anything that does not agree with all of your ideas. Disagreeing with you is not evidence of not having thought things through, nor of incorrect thought processes. No more than your disagreeing with me is evidence that you haven't thought things out, or did it correctly. It all just means we disagree. You can think yourself right and me wrong, and I'll think the opposite.

Anyway, I'm extremely serious about your dishonest approach to all of this. You simply will not accept that someone CAN have an opposing view.
-When we will not embrace Orthodoxy, it's not because we disagree with it. Nor because we (I) don't believe it's true. We reject it because if would require major changes to nearly all aspects of our lives, and we don't want to put in the effort.
-When we will not immerse ourselves in Chesterton, it's not because we disagree with him. It's because we know he's right, and we don't want to admit it, so we refuse to read him.

It is entirely possible for people to disagree with your view. To not believe it is good. To not believe it is even accurate. To see a different picture when looking at the uncountable pieces or reality. Dismissing so many people here (all of whom have different, even very different, worldviews) - ignoring the overwhelming number of voices telling you things do not appear to all as they appear to you - and claim that we all say what we say for reasons of laziness and stubbornness reveals that you have a very dishonest worldview.

This is what enables you to dismiss the possibility that transient meaning can play the role in someone's life that transcendent meaning plays in yours. You need not even accept that such a thing can be, much less attempt to understand it. It's much easier to dismiss all opposition as impossible, and ignore what is said. We think the religious system you believe in has flaws. We don't think it's real. We don't think Chesterton was right all that often. Meaning that lasts only while alive - meaning of the moment - is sufficient.

Not sure how it is you think I don't accept that there are opposing views. I KNOW there are opposing views and am dealing with one of them right now. My opinion - and I will stress the word "opinion" - is that it is BOTH that people (in general) do not believe the view that I have accepted to be true AND that an unwillingness to change would be a major disincentive for the overwhelming majority even if they COULD otherwise accept it as true - but not that they can't do it - I just expect that many won't. It's not an easy thing to do, and I believe that we have a huge capacity for self-deception - which is why I think the self makes such a terrible authority.

You're just paying lip-service. You do not think it would be possible for me (or anyone) to disagree with your worldview if I read and listen to as many podcasts about Orthodoxy, Chesterton, Lewis, etc, as you think I should. And you think the reason I won't read and listen to that much is because I already know I could not believe other than you do, and I don't want to change my life to the degree that such belief would require.

On Chesterton, I think that many people disagree with him, and think he is wrong - so again, why you should dismiss that I do is mystifying - but I also think it very difficult to argue with Chesterton, because he takes thought to a much deeper level than most of us are used to. It requires a serious mental effort. It is evident to me that this IS a major disincentive for people to read him, especially when they start with the assumption that he is wrong. But right or wrong, he goes deeper and thinks farther than ANYONE here, you and me included. (Or is it impossible to recognize genius in another - an ability that outstrips that of everyone else around?) An impartial examination of the man and his works - if anyone ever conducted it, would reveal that, right or wrong, he remembered (without a photographic memory) the gist of everything he ever read and was able to synthesize the essence of even the most complex ideas and people. His biography of Thomas Aquinas is one blazing example of that - that the admitted scholars in the field themselves admitted that an amateur journalist put their lives' works to shame. But I think people here are VERY partial (myself included, only I am admittedly so, and most here, as it seems to me, pretend to a greater stand of impartiality)

But yes, I admit you think he's wrong - and I admit that he is difficult to read - at first, certainly. I've said a couple of times that I had to read the first books I read of his very slowly, and only with time did I begin to get his drift and be able to follow along more quickly. I also think that for the reasons I have named, it IS difficult to argue with him. To argue with him, you really have to learn what he is talking about. If you don't know who 'the Valois' or Guthrum was, or "Home Rule", what "Pro-Boer" means, or any number of references that require actual erudition, the kind we have so little of today, then reading him IS work - and it is an education in itself. But if we've started from a dogma that the person is wrong, then we will hardly consider any evidence that he may be right. Dogmas are notorious on such points.

I certainly didn't start with any "dogma" about Chesterton. I bought TEM at your recommendation, excited at the possibility of having learned of another deeply religious author who would be exciting, wise, and all the other things I've found in various other deeply religious authors. But it didn't work out that way. It's simply that he has been wrong about nearly everything I've read so far. Did you disagree with him on point after point after having reading as much of him as I have (many quotes you've posted here, more from some of your links, and four chapters of TEM), and decide you should read the rest of him anyway? No, you did not. You agreed with him on point after point, and, so, even though it was difficult reading, you continued. If you did not agree with him about nearly all of the first couple dozen things you read, you would have not bothered going on. I'm sure you have not bothered reading huge amounts of other authors when you did not agree with the first many things. So why is it that that can't be the reason I don't immerse myself in Chesterton? Why is it "intellectual cowardice" when I don't read him? Why is it that I know I can't win, so won't try?

I KNOW people disagree. I KNOW that things appear different to different people. What I say to that is that even if you completely exclude me and my views, they cannot all possibly be correct. Perception is not truth. Feeling an elephant's leg is not to understand what an elephant is. Only a person who can see the whole elephant (even if he is mystically lifted up in a helicopter so that he can do so) can begin to do that. So when someone feels the leg and says that the elephant is like a tree, I can say, there is a certain degree of truth in the perception. But it is not a complete and correct summation of what an elephant is. I quite understand the perception. I accept that the other person cannot see what I see. But that they should curse me and call me arrogant when I try to tell them how what they perceive is not a complete and correct view is another matter. I don't think seeing the whole elephant makes me a superior person - just a luckier one, in your terms. Why that should be called dishonesty I don't know. The charge of arrogance I can explain by a dogma that it is impossible for anyone to see the whole elephant. Yet I say that by fortunate chance, or Divine Providence, that I do. Nor do I think that I am completely alone in doing so here.

In the end, probably the biggest problem is communication with people that we don't know and have no physical experience of via electronic text. The general problem of misunderstanding - which comes most sharply to light when people disagree - is a constant danger to us all.

The problem isn't in saying I don't see the whole elephant. You think you see it all, and I only see a part. I don't think either of us could possibly see the whole thing, and it's arrogant to imagine you do.

But the real problem is that you're feeling the leg, and I'm feeling the trunk. And when I tell you what the trunk is like, you tell me I don't know what I'm feeling. That's a whole different level of arrogance, and insulting to boot. Yeah, you touched the trunk when you were walking past it earlier. But only with one hand. You didn't like it. It felt wrong. So you moved on. You found a leg, and it felt better to you. Thicker, stronger. Great! That's what you needed. Just stop telling me the trunk isn't strong; isn't moving like a snake; isn't lifting me off the ground - just because that wasn't your experience with the trunk.

Like I said, "What's the use?"
You took my example of the girl with swinging parents and read something into the fact that she was sobbing - and assumed it to be like any other case of a child sobbing. You weren't there. I was. I know that she KNEW what her parents were doing and that it.was.wrong - even though I was not then thoroughly convinced of that - or at least committed to "not judging" it. In her meltdown in front of me and her grandparents, and their own helpless rage at their adult children, she screamed "I CAN'T STOP THEM FROM GOING THERE!!!", something a seven-year old does not shout when their parents go to the cinema, although you could argue that if they were addicted to something and did it every night, she might - and I would agree, and point out that it was an addiction that is wrong.

If you can be wrong in assumptions of things I admit to be personal experience, that I can hardly use as "proof" to you of anything, how much more assumptions about things that I do believe to be objective and common? I think it's partly a general problem of communication (and that it is not one-sided on my part) and partly that the fog of the Dark Side really does cover all.

I DO think that people can disagree with the best I have to offer. I also think them wrong through faulty use of reason and/or illogic. So, no, it's not lip service.

On GKC again, it is that you have refused to bring up even the first point on which you think he is actually wrong when he makes a claim that something is objectively true in history, for example. You refuse to discuss the idea - ones that (most of which) I think are true. Since I think them true, too, you are avoiding me as much as Chesterton.

The problem isn't in saying I don't see the whole elephant. You think you see it all, and I only see a part. I don't think either of us could possibly see the whole thing, and it's arrogant to imagine you do.

Precisely. This is what I said, and this is where we disagree. That's why you keep saying "arrogance" - and you don't seem to be able to see that a person who actually believes he sees the whole elephant is not, from within that view, arrogant at all. You even seem to have a different understanding of arrogance than I do. I think it to be a quality of assumption of personal superiority - of seeing oneself as better and more worthy than others. You seem to think it means someone saying that you are wrong.

Like I said, what's the use?

[Fist and Faith]

Like I said, "What's the use?"
You took my example of the girl with swinging parents and read something into the fact that she was sobbing - and assumed it to be like any other case of a child sobbing. You weren't there. I was. I know that she KNEW what her parents were doing and that it.was.wrong - even though I was not then thoroughly convinced of that - or at least committed to "not judging" it. In her meltdown in front of me and her grandparents, and their own helpless rage at their adult children, she screamed "I CAN'T STOP THEM FROM GOING THERE!!!", something a seven-year old does not shout when their parents go to the cinema, although you could argue that if they were addicted to something and did it every night, she might - and I would agree, and point out that it was an addiction that is wrong.

If you can be wrong in assumptions of things I admit to be personal experience, that I can hardly use as "proof" to you of anything, how much more assumptions about things that I do believe to be objective and common? I think it's partly a general problem of communication (and that it is not one-sided on my part) and partly that the fog of the Dark Side really does cover all.

Well, I was only throwing ideas out in regards to a situation that I know nothing about other than what you posted. Not having been there, I can't really say anything specific.

At the same time, not having been there, I'm certainly not going to take your word for it. You interpret things as differently as I do as anyone possibly could. I think you intepret things in wrong ways. So I'll not discuss this incident any longer.

I DO think that people can disagree with the best I have to offer. I also think them wrong through faulty use of reason and/or illogic. So, no, it's not lip service.

And yet, you say:
if I introduce an argument by a dead person that I think is speaking the truth, that dismissing it because they are not living is avoidance of argument, and I think that very often the reason is because the person attempting to argue with these guys can't win - I admit they have a better chance against me - in short, that it is intellectual cowardice, especially when I post digestible bites here.
So which is it: Intellectual cowardice because I know I can't win; or I disagree because of faulty reason/logic?

On GKC again, it is that you have refused to bring up even the first point on which you think he is actually wrong when he makes a claim that something is objectively true in history, for example. You refuse to discuss the idea - ones that (most of which) I think are true. Since I think them true, too, you are avoiding me as much as Chesterton.

No, I'm not. I've posted disagreement with him in response to some of your quotes and links. If you want to discuss a particular point, go ahead. If you think quoting Chesterton helps you, go ahead. (Obviously, we all think you should use people's quotes to help get your idea across, but we've often enough responded when you simply quote Chesterton.) Maybe I'll agree with it, may I won't. But I'm not ever going to get involved in a debate about the glory of Chesterton. Discuss the ideas, not the man. What did he say that you want us to understand? An example is when you used his thoughts about the importance of the traditional family to support the dangers of homosexuality. You posted what he said about the family and society. I said there's no reason to believe that traditional-family-only societies are the only kind of human societies that can exist. See? We don't need to go over TEM point by point. We can discuss an idea. Which thing that is objectively true in history do you have in mind?

The problem isn't in saying I don't see the whole elephant. You think you see it all, and I only see a part. I don't think either of us could possibly see the whole thing, and it's arrogant to imagine you do.

Precisely. This is what I said, and this is where we disagree. That's why you keep saying "arrogance" - and you don't seem to be able to see that a person who actually believes he sees the whole elephant is not, from within that view, arrogant at all. You even seem to have a different understanding of arrogance than I do. I think it to be a quality of assumption of personal superiority - of seeing oneself as better and more worthy than others. You seem to think it means someone saying that you are wrong.

You do say I am wrong. You say all of us are wrong. You say it all the time. About things that you do not have as much experience with, or as great an understanding of, as the person you are telling is wrong. The arrogance is in declaring all opposing ideas, no matter how many people hold them, because they oppose your ideas. That's not a test of truth or accuracy. The reasonable thing to do is accept that many people hold a certain idea. Not say, "No, you don't. You can't. It's not possible." It is possible. The fact that many people hold that idea is proof that many people hold that idea.

[rusmeister]

At the same time, not having been there, I'm certainly not going to take your word for it. You interpret things as differently as I do as anyone possibly could. I think you intepret things in wrong ways. So I'll not discuss this incident any longer.

That's a "what's the use?" situation. If you won't take my word on a reporting of facts - why should I bother trying? It was one of a number of formative episodes that convinced me that the life I had been living was wrong. I mean objectively wrong, not merely "wrong for me". I watched other people living it and it was obvious to me that it is wrong for EVERYBODY. That's not obvious to you, so you speak about things 'working' or 'not working'. A great many things can work that are wrong. Clearly, the swinging relationship I witnessed "worked" for its four (AFAIK) participants for an extended period of time, yet I saw that a little girl clearly knew better than they did, without being preached at, what was right and what was wrong. The moral compass you deny was in full operation, and had, to a certain degree, anyway, ceased to be perceived by the parents. My own conclusion is that they strangled that perception for the sake of what they WANTED. Thus, "what works" is an invalid paradigm. Of course, "things work". We are pleased or satisfied by them, or not. That does not make them right or good. Evil actions and philosophies "work" for wicked people. That's why I say that they "work" until they don't work - unless/until something transformative happens to enable them to see this, and that they need to seek not "what works" but what is "true" - whether it pleases them or not.

I DO think that people can disagree with the best I have to offer. I also think them wrong through faulty use of reason and/or illogic. So, no, it's not lip service.

And yet, you say:
if I introduce an argument by a dead person that I think is speaking the truth, that dismissing it because they are not living is avoidance of argument, and I think that very often the reason is because the person attempting to argue with these guys can't win - I admit they have a better chance against me - in short, that it is intellectual cowardice, especially when I post digestible bites here.
So which is it: Intellectual cowardice because I know I can't win; or I disagree because of faulty reason/logic?

I'm covered here. I said "very often".
Seriously, I am deeply suspicious about why you refuse to pull out TEM: the intro, and say what your problem with it is. I could certainly agree with subjective observations that they ARE subjective, and not proof in themselves of anything. But I think we CAN discuss the objective things; I think Chesterton strikes at the heart of where modern unbelief goes wrong, and when no one discusses it, that STRONGLY suggests that they are unable to - either because they don't understand it or are unwilling to counter it. Now I also think that if you are solidly dogmatic against anything he says - or I say - before we say it, then it is completely useless. It is right not to discuss it - with Mr Chesterton (dead though he be to us) or with myself. But neither then should the honest intellectual pretend that he has engaged anything but dogma. I think the parts related to reason CAN be discussed.

On GKC again, it is that you have refused to bring up even the first point on which you think he is actually wrong when he makes a claim that something is objectively true in history, for example. You refuse to discuss the idea - ones that (most of which) I think are true. Since I think them true, too, you are avoiding me as much as Chesterton.

No, I'm not. I've posted disagreement with him in response to some of your quotes and links. If you want to discuss a particular point, go ahead. If you think quoting Chesterton helps you, go ahead. (Obviously, we all think you should use people's quotes to help get your idea across, but we've often enough responded when you simply quote Chesterton.) Maybe I'll agree with it, may I won't. But I'm not ever going to get involved in a debate about the glory of Chesterton. Discuss the ideas, not the man. What did he say that you want us to understand? An example is when you used his thoughts about the importance of the traditional family to support the dangers of homosexuality. You posted what he said about the family and society. I said there's no reason to believe that traditional-family-only societies are the only kind of human societies that can exist. See? We don't need to go over TEM point by point. We can discuss an idea. Which thing that is objectively true in history do you have in mind?

I see that as evasion. But we can start with the intro to TEM. The central thesis is that the modern western intellectual is too far away from traditional Christianity to understand it, yet (living in its shadow)too near it to judge it impartially as he does, say, eastern religions. He doesn't understand it, yet he judges it - without genuine understanding. That is the thesis, and let's pull it apart bit by bit. I see it as completely true; I frequently see it on this site, among otherwise intelligent and educated posters. My own journey has revealed it fully to me. As one tiny example - every joke about Christianity in the humor thread shows its shallowness - its lack of understanding to anyone who IS educated on the inside of faith - who has accepted faith and not surrendered their reason.

I can only hope to explain and to get people to see that I AM reasonable (even though wrong, of course :wry grin:) and have NOT checked my mind at the door of the Church.

The problem isn't in saying I don't see the whole elephant. You think you see it all, and I only see a part. I don't think either of us could possibly see the whole thing, and it's arrogant to imagine you do.

Precisely. This is what I said, and this is where we disagree. That's why you keep saying "arrogance" - and you don't seem to be able to see that a person who actually believes he sees the whole elephant is not, from within that view, arrogant at all. You even seem to have a different understanding of arrogance than I do. I think it to be a quality of assumption of personal superiority - of seeing oneself as better and more worthy than others. You seem to think it means someone saying that you are wrong.

You do say I am wrong. You say all of us are wrong. You say it all the time. About things that you do not have as much experience with, or as great an understanding of, as the person you are telling is wrong. The arrogance is in declaring all opposing ideas, no matter how many people hold them, because they oppose your ideas. That's not a test of truth or accuracy. The reasonable thing to do is accept that many people hold a certain idea. Not say, "No, you don't. You can't. It's not possible." It is possible. The fact that many people hold that idea is proof that many people hold that idea.

I accept that EVERYONE on KW holds those views if you say so, Fist. I have no difficulty recognizing that fact. That, in embracing this or that worldview and denying that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God risen from the dead, they ARE wrong in no way contradicts my recognition that they do indeed reject it. It is merely the very suggestion that one could be wrong that elicits the reaction of shock, disbelief, and arrogance. It is that assertion, that someone may actually be wrong, that is the sin against the holy ghost of pluralism, and that causes people to faint, or react in shock and anger. To a true debater who thinks he DOES know what is true, such assertions should only fire the blood in a cheerful way - "Hey, I know something that is actually true, so kicking this guy's butt should be easy". The difference being, of course, that the stakes are high. But we should nevertheless be neither shocked nor surprised that the other person denies what we see to be true. We should set about to proving that what we see IS objective - or prepared, if we cannot defend our own views, to admit that the other side has better thought.

[Fist and Faith]

I DO think that people can disagree with the best I have to offer. I also think them wrong through faulty use of reason and/or illogic. So, no, it's not lip service.

And yet, you say:
if I introduce an argument by a dead person that I think is speaking the truth, that dismissing it because they are not living is avoidance of argument, and I think that very often the reason is because the person attempting to argue with these guys can't win - I admit they have a better chance against me - in short, that it is intellectual cowardice, especially when I post digestible bites here.
So which is it: Intellectual cowardice because I know I can't win; or I disagree because of faulty reason/logic?

I'm covered here. I said "very often".

Who's your audience? Is it ok if I start knocking Christianity because of things that are specific to Jehovah's Witnesses? Or Phelps? Or the KKK? Of course it's not. No Christian here is in any of those groups, or supports the things specific to any of those groups. Don't sling crap like "very often the reason is because..." if it doesn't apply to the people you're talking to/debating with.

Seriously, I am deeply suspicious about why you refuse to pull out TEM: the intro, and say what your problem with it is.

How is it suspicious? I think he's wrong about most of his (and your) first beliefs/starting points. I find his writing style extremely and needlessly difficult. And I don't think much of his attitude. Why is it suspicious that I don't want to deal with him?

I could certainly agree with subjective observations that they ARE subjective, and not proof in themselves of anything. But I think we CAN discuss the objective things; I think Chesterton strikes at the heart of where modern unbelief goes wrong, and when no one discusses it, that STRONGLY suggests that they are unable to - either because they don't understand it or are unwilling to counter it.

I'd love to hear your definition of "modern unbelief", and how it differs from "unbelief of the past."

As for my unbelief, it has not gone wrong. It is just not satisfactory to you. It "goes wrong" when it does not address the "unnaturalness" of death. And when it says a person cannot accept that the meaning of life is transient. But death is not unnatural, and my life's meaning can be and is transient. You and Chesterton say my unbelief has failed because those answers are not acceptable. But they are acceptable, and my worldview has not gone wrong.

Now I also think that if you are solidly dogmatic against anything he says - or I say - before we say it, then it is completely useless. It is right not to discuss it - with Mr Chesterton (dead though he be to us) or with myself. But neither then should the honest intellectual pretend that he has engaged anything but dogma. I think the parts related to reason CAN be discussed.

I guess it depends on what the thing is you're saying. If it's based on one of your first-beliefs that I do disagree with, then it stands to reason that I will be against it. Doesn't it? If I disagree with your belief that only traditional families can support a human society (or if I at least don't accept that assertion as a fact), then it stands to reason that I disagree with your belief that homosexuality will help cause the downfall of society simply because homosexual relationships are not traditional families.

On GKC again, it is that you have refused to bring up even the first point on which you think he is actually wrong when he makes a claim that something is objectively true in history, for example. You refuse to discuss the idea - ones that (most of which) I think are true. Since I think them true, too, you are avoiding me as much as Chesterton.

No, I'm not. I've posted disagreement with him in response to some of your quotes and links. If you want to discuss a particular point, go ahead. If you think quoting Chesterton helps you, go ahead. (Obviously, we all think you should use people's quotes to help get your idea across, but we've often enough responded when you simply quote Chesterton.) Maybe I'll agree with it, may I won't. But I'm not ever going to get involved in a debate about the glory of Chesterton. Discuss the ideas, not the man. What did he say that you want us to understand? An example is when you used his thoughts about the importance of the traditional family to support the dangers of homosexuality. You posted what he said about the family and society. I said there's no reason to believe that traditional-family-only societies are the only kind of human societies that can exist. See? We don't need to go over TEM point by point. We can discuss an idea. Which thing that is objectively true in history do you have in mind?

I see that as evasion.

It is only an evasion of your attempts to get me to accept Chesterton as one of the greatest writers in English history. And "refusal" is a better word than "evasion."

But we can start with the intro to TEM. The central thesis is that the modern western intellectual is too far away from traditional Christianity to understand it,

Who can understand traditional Christianity other than traditional Christians? Seriously. Do the Buddhists? The "Modern Christians"? Jehovah's Witnesses, Anglicans, or Methodists? Did Tracey? You do not believe anybody who does not embrace your beliefs understands them.

yet (living in its shadow)too near it to judge it impartially as he does, say, eastern religions. He doesn't understand it, yet he judges it - without genuine understanding.

Do those who are not adherents of eastern religions have genuine understanding of them when they judge them?

That is the thesis, and let's pull it apart bit by bit. I see it as completely true; I frequently see it on this site, among otherwise intelligent and educated posters. My own journey has revealed it fully to me. As one tiny example - every joke about Christianity in the humor thread shows its shallowness - its lack of understanding to anyone who IS educated on the inside of faith - who has accepted faith and not surrendered their reason.

I can only hope to explain and to get people to see that I AM reasonable (even though wrong, of course :wry grin:) and have NOT checked my mind at the door of the Church.

First of all, jokes are jokes. Mel Brooks showed the world that we can joke about the most serious things in our lives, yet still take those things seriously. It's a joke. Laughing at it doesn't mean the laugher doesn't know it's just a shallow joke; that the issue is much deeper than the joke.

As for my judgement of Christianity... I think the worldview in Conversations With God is brilliant. Logical and beautiful. It makes sense of so many things about Christianity (even though it incorporates other worldviews) that I didn't like. But I still don't believe it's real. Perhaps your brand of Christianity takes care of some of the thinkgs I don't like, too. Doesn't matter. I still don't have reason to believe it's real.

Also, you operate under a mis... something or other. You think that my interpretation of, for example, Job is wrong. It's not. It just isn't the same as your interpretation. It doesn't matter that I don't understand anything about a particular tradition that interprets it another way. It can still be viewed the way I view it. You do not have any claim on how the Bible, or anything else in the world, is viewed. You only have a claim on how you view it, and you can surely tell me a lot about how Orthodoxy views it. But that's not the same as how it must be viewed. Sola scriptura is a legitimate method of understanding these things. It's just not your method.

Precisely. This is what I said, and this is where we disagree. That's why you keep saying "arrogance" - and you don't seem to be able to see that a person who actually believes he sees the whole elephant is not, from within that view, arrogant at all. You even seem to have a different understanding of arrogance than I do. I think it to be a quality of assumption of personal superiority - of seeing oneself as better and more worthy than others. You seem to think it means someone saying that you are wrong.

You do say I am wrong. You say all of us are wrong. You say it all the time. About things that you do not have as much experience with, or as great an understanding of, as the person you are telling is wrong. The arrogance is in declaring all opposing ideas, no matter how many people hold them, because they oppose your ideas. That's not a test of truth or accuracy. The reasonable thing to do is accept that many people hold a certain idea. Not say, "No, you don't. You can't. It's not possible." It is possible. The fact that many people hold that idea is proof that many people hold that idea.

I accept that EVERYONE on KW holds those views if you say so, Fist. I have no difficulty recognizing that fact. That, in embracing this or that worldview and denying that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God risen from the dead, they ARE wrong in no way contradicts my recognition that they do indeed reject it. It is merely the very suggestion that one could be wrong that elicits the reaction of shock, disbelief, and arrogance. It is that assertion, that someone may actually be wrong, that is the sin against the holy ghost of pluralism, and that causes people to faint, or react in shock and anger. To a true debater who thinks he DOES know what is true, such assertions should only fire the blood in a cheerful way - "Hey, I know something that is actually true, so kicking this guy's butt should be easy". The difference being, of course, that the stakes are high. But we should nevertheless be neither shocked nor surprised that the other person denies what we see to be true. We should set about to proving that what we see IS objective - or prepared, if we cannot defend our own views, to admit that the other side has better thought.

We're talking about two different things. (Well, three, but I'm not discussing your social skills any longer. You've heard it enough.) You do not accept that anyone holds the view I'm talking about. You say it is impossible to hold that view. You say it is impossible to accept that life's meaning is transient. You say you understand that stance better than I, and all the others in the world who hold it, do. That's not at all the same thing as accepting that I do hold that view, but I am wrong. Of course you would think it's wrong. You think the meaning of our lives is given to us by God (although I don't know what that meaning is), and will last eternally. Obviously, you should think I'm wrong to accept transient meaning. But you don't think I accept it. You think I can't accept it.

But I do.

[aliantha]

But we can start with the intro to TEM. The central thesis is that the modern western intellectual is too far away from traditional Christianity to understand it, yet (living in its shadow)too near it to judge it impartially as he does, say, eastern religions. He doesn't understand it, yet he judges it - without genuine understanding. That is the thesis, and let's pull it apart bit by bit. I see it as completely true...

You seriously don't see the irony here, do you? You -- and GKC -- both confidently judge any and every religion that's not your own, despite holding only a shallow understanding of it. In GKC's case, it's a sort of "everybody knows that X religion believes..." sort of thing. But that's okay! Because that's all he really needs to know in order to judge that his own beliefs are superior -- that they are, in fact, The Truth.

In short, he -- and *you*, sir -- are giving other religions exactly the same level of scrutiny as you complain about other Watchers giving to Orthodoxy.

This, btw (now that you've refreshed my memory ), is one of the things I bookmarked in my now-lost copy of TEM. GKC is very nearly proud of the fact that he has learned just enough about other religions to reject them. There is no evidence (at least in this work) that he is any sort of student of religion at all. (Which he wasn't, as I understand it; he was a journalist. Which, as I know firsthand, is a profession that requires only that you know enough about a topic so you don't sound like an idiot when you write about it. ) GKC's job here is to promote Christianity, and so he has learned just enough about the rest of the world's religions to write them off.

[rusmeister]

But we can start with the intro to TEM. The central thesis is that the modern western intellectual is too far away from traditional Christianity to understand it, yet (living in its shadow)too near it to judge it impartially as he does, say, eastern religions. He doesn't understand it, yet he judges it - without genuine understanding. That is the thesis, and let's pull it apart bit by bit. I see it as completely true...

You seriously don't see the irony here, do you? You -- and GKC -- both confidently judge any and every religion that's not your own, despite holding only a shallow understanding of it. In GKC's case, it's a sort of "everybody knows that X religion believes..." sort of thing. But that's okay! Because that's all he really needs to know in order to judge that his own beliefs are superior -- that they are, in fact, The Truth.

In short, he -- and *you*, sir -- are giving other religions exactly the same level of scrutiny as you complain about other Watchers giving to Orthodoxy.

This, btw (now that you've refreshed my memory ), is one of the things I bookmarked in my now-lost copy of TEM. GKC is very nearly proud of the fact that he has learned just enough about other religions to reject them. There is no evidence (at least in this work) that he is any sort of student of religion at all. (Which he wasn't, as I understand it; he was a journalist. Which, as I know firsthand, is a profession that requires only that you know enough about a topic so you don't sound like an idiot when you write about it. ) GKC's job here is to promote Christianity, and so he has learned just enough about the rest of the world's religions to write them off.

This seems reasonable.
There is one aspect in which I do think you are right. It is that the primary form of objection - even GKC's objections - to, say, Buddhism, is that it is based on a general philosophical understanding based on the most commonly known teachings and versions. So if, for example, you introduce a form of Buddhism that teaches preservation of the individual, that Nirvana does not mean the effacement of the unique individuality of the person (something not widespread in Buddhism to the best of my knowledge), then a prime objection to THAT form of Buddhism must be withdrawn and it must be considered without that argument. If there is a form of paganism that does NOT lead down the roads of hedonism or stoicism, then that argument may not be used against it. And so on. But the observable and known ones do - and did. My own observations of the pagan scene on the Left Coast (that my best friend dunked me into) lead me to conclude that the general tendency has been towards hedonism - not surprising in a culture where pursuit of pleasure and entertainment is of prime importance.

Only I don't see anyone advancing a form of Buddhism, paganism, etc that really IS an exception to the general arguments. Heck, maybe your version really IS - but you've sure kept quiet about it. And Fist has not revealed anything to me that contradicts the general understandings of materialists or makes his own, completely personal worldview, an exception to them. But in Christianity there really IS an exception to nearly all of the general arguments raised against it. There really IS a faith that doesn't go door-to-door in the evangelical style, that doesn't accept the idea of sin as crime and punishment (the juridical view) that dominates the Western world - including the Catholic one, that I otherwise have great respect for. There really IS an exception to the common legitimate objections, and so I am vocal about it. To the people who would and do say, "A God that creates people to save a few and then punish most of the rest with eternal damnation because they made a wrong choice - because they were unlucky, is not a God worthy of worship" - I agree - and say that I don't worship such a God. When they publish jokes about it, I don't laugh - because I know that they use that understanding to reject my understanding. And so on. Orthodoxy is a general exception to certainly most of the objections people have to Christianity. It does NOT bash the gay, it does NOT praise acquisitiveness and wealth (Here I mean the kind that sees material prosperity as a sign of God's favor, and its logical inverse), it does not claim to know who is "going to hell", etc.

So irony? No. There's nothing wrong in condemning a bad rule. If there's a good exception, it has to be dealt with
and considered differently.