Kevin's Watch

Fist and Faith wrote:I'll copy & paste this:

There's a fantasy book, The Kundalini Equation, by Steven Barnes, where one character is doing a lot of searching, questioning, etc, about life, God, etc. During an appearance, a woman in the audience asked, "Mr. Patanjal, how does it feel to know that you are going to burn in hell?" And he answered:

"Madame, the divine force which you believe in and the one in which I believe are obviously two different beings. If in a sincere quest for understanding and knowledge I have erred, I am deeply sorry, and await a sign from the Almighty that will teach me the error of my ways. I simply believe in the virtues of sincere intellectual curiosity. An eagerness to use the mind and feelings that God himself gave me to inquire into mysteries rather than merely accept the explanation othat other men have passed down through the years. If for this I will be cast into fires everlasting, then God is indeed the malign thug of which Mark Twain wrote, and his hell could certainly be no more insufferable than his heaven."

I read this book and remember it pretty vividly. In fact, this is the quote that most closely summed up my beliefs and it has stuck with me ever since.

aliantha wrote:Me too! Me too! Rus, I'd love to hear the specific mistakes of the past that you believe Neopagans are repeating.

My main bone of contention with you -- and this is where the charge against you of arrogance comes in -- is your refusal to consider that anybody who's not Christian might be right. I'm not talking about winning debate points. I'm talking about your repeated assertions that you and the Orthodox Church have the only Truth.

I'll say again that I'm glad you have found a religious tradition that speaks to you. Others have found wisdom in other traditions. You and they are *both* right.

When I joined (warning: shameless intelligence exhibitionism ahead! ) Mensa, I expected that since all of us were certified experts at logical thinking, we would all pretty much agree politically. And we didn't! We were conservatives and liberals, Dems and Republicans and anarchists and disaffecteds. And there was no agreement on religion, either. We had Judeo-Christians of every stripe, devout, lapsed and disaffected; atheists, agnostics, and pagans; and probably some other stuff, too. Here we were, all card-carrying smart people, and yet we disagreed on almost everything.

I suppose you could explain that away with your assertion about the programming we all received via the US education system , but I think that's spurious. Better: Different people are different. Different truths make sense to different people.

I realize, Rus, that the head space you're in right now makes it impossible for you to acknowledge the truth of that. Which is why I've pretty much quit commenting on your posts.

Hi Aliantha,

(Keeping a careful eye on the line between asserting truth and insulting others...)

Again, on the charge of arrogance over being convinced of a single truth rather than multiple truths, all I can do is point out how silly that would be to say to a mathematician regarding a mathematical sum or calculation. There we readily accept that there can be only one answer, even if we are incapable of understanding what it is or how the mathematician arrived at it. And we wouldn't call it arrogance. If there IS one Truth, then someone can really be right and the others wrong, however close to or distant from that Truth, and it wouldn't be (and in fact is not) arrogance to state that. If people in debate on a given topic say they're right, then I do not see that as arrogance at all - it is a challenge, an invitation to fight (in a good sense), but it is by no means necessarily arrogance. Also, I find it self-contradictory to speak of multiple truths and then to refer to

the truth of that

that I should acknowledge. By your own logic, that should work for you, but does not need to apply to me. (Not that I accept your reasoning there, but you certainly should.)

I have spent relatively little time "asserting the truth of the Orthodox Church". Most of my comments here at KW have been aimed at demonstrating how unbelievers have false understandings of Christian history and theology in general, and my references to Orthodoxy have been only insofar as they differ from what many of you have experienced regarding Christianity (ie, how your experiences of it are decidedly not the whole story). But usually I can't even mention Orthodoxy, because first it has to be gotten across that faith is not silly or devoid of reason; iow, there are so many hurdles before one can even begin to discuss "which Christian Church".

If you are not familiar with the background of where my assertions on education come from, you could hardly call them spurious. If you did read all of the references I linked to, including my own writings, I would be curious as to what you actually found to be spurious.

On neopagans - I think TEM pretty well outlines it. The entire of history of paganism until it died out in the civilized world. All of its effort and yes, wisdom, culminating in ancient Rome and dying there (lasting longer in Slavic lands, but without the extent of culture and learning achieved in the West). GKC sums it up (in a postable format!):

Neo-pagans have sometimes forgotten, when they set out to do everything that the old pagans did, that the final thing the old pagans did was to get christened.

(ILN, “The Return of the Pagan Gods,” 3-20-26)

the head space you're in right now

It's OK. I don't mind. We've all cast stones at one point or another. All I can do is ask forgiveness of the times when I have actually cast a stone (rather than merely asserted a truth or denied an error).

As a general response to rdhopeca and others who refer to this:

Fist and Faith wrote:I'll copy & paste this:

There's a fantasy book, The Kundalini Equation, by Steven Barnes, where one character is doing a lot of searching, questioning, etc, about life, God, etc. During an appearance, a woman in the audience asked, "Mr. Patanjal, how does it feel to know that you are going to burn in hell?" And he answered:

"Madame, the divine force which you believe in and the one in which I believe are obviously two different beings. If in a sincere quest for understanding and knowledge I have erred, I am deeply sorry, and await a sign from the Almighty that will teach me the error of my ways. I simply believe in the virtues of sincere intellectual curiosity. An eagerness to use the mind and feelings that God himself gave me to inquire into mysteries rather than merely accept the explanation othat other men have passed down through the years. If for this I will be cast into fires everlasting, then God is indeed the malign thug of which Mark Twain wrote, and his hell could certainly be no more insufferable than his heaven."

I quite agree. And everything I have said denies that this is what traditional Christianity - that which has existed continuously for 2,000 years - teaches. These ideas that you object to sprung up over the last few centuries in the wake of the reformation. They are quite recent, relative to the faith as a whole. Those views are primitive and show no understanding of ancient theology - Catholic or Orthodox (the only Churches that existed prior to the Reformation; also allowing that we leave the great Schism alone for now). So you guys (incl. Mark twain and Steven Barnes) are rightly objecting to something that was not at all a part of ancient Christianity. Long discussions could follow on this, on matters of belief as an intellectual exercise vs something that is acted upon, but that's the first fact that has to be gotten straight.

As long as you rage against that, you are right as far as I am concerned. We agree. You have no case against Orthodox Christianity (or perhaps Catholicism as well, but that is much more debatable, imo). You can't point to recent inventions and say they invalidate the faith as a whole (and if it ain't measured in millenia, then it's recent, from that perspective).

rdhopeca wrote: I am willing to concede on a logical level that someone with a great sense of passion and charisma walked this Earth 2000 years ago. I am even willing to concede that he affected enough people that stories and parables and tales of grandeur were told about him for years after the fact. I am NOT willing to concede that this man was the son of God any more than I am that David Koresh was a Messiah to his disciples in Waco.

Hi rd!
(Don't recall having interacted with you before)
I responded to the main part of your post above. The one common thread with this comment on Christ's divinity that I can offer is that there are excellent and weighty arguments that you may not be aware of yet - that you do no doubt rightly object to many things that you do know/have been taught, but may not know of the most compelling ideas that convince serious thinkers to (at least) take the possibility of Christ's divinity seriously (accept it or not).

I personally offered "The Everlasting Man" as a layout of those arguments, and anyone who read it would at least know some of the more serious things to consider - and be more able to refute me if I am wrong. Other ideas, like the trilemma, are not universally compelling (although it works for me) - but if you are not familiar with what that is, then my point stands. (PS - wikipedia is not sufficient help there - you have to be familiar with the content of the Gospels and the myriad of things said and done by Christ to appreciate the argument - and many people today have the fallacious idea that Christ was merely a great teacher without having read and considered (from an adult point of view) all that he actually taught (ie, having attended Sunday School a long time ago doesn't count. )

I'd say that on the basis of what the average person today knows it would probably not be reasonable to accept Christ as divine - but that is primarily due to a lack of knowledge rather than knowledge.

It's easy to object to obvious error and unreason. But again, that's not what historical Christianity really is - just the modern versions you've evidently encountered.

Fist and Faith wrote:

rusmeister wrote:No. What it means is that we ultimately refuse to examine the root of the disagreement. And there is plenty of doubt as to where the truth lies. I deny that it is in between. I'm saying that the discussion is usually terminated when the roots from which beliefs spring are examined, and I described the usual methods of doing so above.

OK, let's examine the roots of my belief. JemCheeta summed up my position nicely:

JemCheeta wrote:-It seems impossible for a causeless universe to exist.
-It seems impossible for a causeless creator to exist.
-I know there is a universe.
-I do not know there is a creator.
-I will believe in a causeless universe.

In what way would you like to examine that? I'm game.

Now, what are the roots of your belief? We can examine them, too. If you give me the roots, I might have some thoughts to share.

But it seems you only want to examine Chesterton. I am not dodging the issue of God, the universe, creation, or religion, I'm just not interested in arguing about Chesterton. Are you seriously telling us that you cannot discuss the root of your belief before we come to some sort of agreement regarding Chesterton? That's extremely difficult to believe. I don't come to the Close to discuss Chesterton; I come here to discuss religion, philosophy, etc. If I think any particular writer from the past says something better than I can, I'll quote him/her. But if you don't think much of, say, Richard Bach, I will not insist that you discuss him with me, and refuse to discuss the topic itself until you do. I'll continue to discuss the topic. I might still throw in a Bach quote, too.

Now, what do you want to discuss: God or Chesterton?

I'm running out of steam, but saved the best for last...

On the roots of your belief:

C'mon, Fist, this is easy! Accepting for a minute your argument about causelessness as an actual reason to not believe, it's clear that the existence of the universe does not make it one whit less mystical for it to be uncaused. That's just confusing what you can sense materially with the question of its origins.
But I doubt that that is actually the basis for your unbelief.

As to Chesterton, I agree with him. Ergo, I believe, more or less, what he believes. What he said then IS what I say now. So I say it now. And because it is already written it is a thousand times shorter to link to it than to ask me to write books and post them, page after page after page after page, here at KW, when it's already been said, by someone who I acknowledge to be smarter than me. So yes I do offer you battle with the best arguments, not merely the best ones that I can come up with on my own. It is the ideas, not the person that says or writes them, that matter. So if it will help any, I will call the arguments my arguments (because they are).

The bases for my beliefs...hmmm... the uniqueness of man - the ways in which he is different from all animals (see TEM) the uniqueness of Christ as radically different from all other religion-starters (see TEM). the Trilemma (see Lewis, Mere Christianity) and of course the Gospels themselves. I was also personally driven by the necessity of meaning and have mentioned the man (or fish) dying in the desert (as evidence of the existence of meaning) often enough here. The universality of moral law - the fact that morals are far more alike across space, time and cultures than the ways in which they differ. From there, Mere Christianity traces the arguments that I accept. Alexander Schmemann and Victor Sokolov and how they died - the way I hope I will be able to die. (the latter was directly involved in my own conversion in 2003)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Schmemann
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sokolov

All of that stuff requires context - which means reading. We are back to

As I said, the approaches used here to avoid said challenging of ideas, however, boil down to
1) a refusal to tackle ideas unless they are original thoughts of the poster ("We want to read what YOU have to say (and not Aristotle, Aquinas, Chesterton, etc...")

2) the necessity of limiting them to a paragraph or two - while this is not an intentional dodge, it is a product of computer use and the general shortening of people's attention spans.

3) saying that someone is wrong and you won't discuss why (which is the 'we won't agree at the root, so let's not talk about it', only we do still talk about it)

You've gone from number 3 to number one and insist that I limit my presentation of thoughts and arguments to number 2. It is impossible in any serious examination of complex truth to arrive at it via those limitations.

rusmeister wrote:

rdhopeca wrote: I am willing to concede on a logical level that someone with a great sense of passion and charisma walked this Earth 2000 years ago. I am even willing to concede that he affected enough people that stories and parables and tales of grandeur were told about him for years after the fact. I am NOT willing to concede that this man was the son of God any more than I am that David Koresh was a Messiah to his disciples in Waco.

Hi rd!
(Don't recall having interacted with you before)
I responded to the main part of your post above. The one common thread with this comment on Christ's divinity that I can offer is that there are excellent and weighty arguments that you may not be aware of yet - that you do no doubt rightly object to many things that you do know/have been taught, but may not know of the most compelling ideas that convince serious thinkers to (at least) take the possibility of Christ's divinity seriously (accept it or not).

I personally offered "The Everlasting Man" as a layout of those arguments, and anyone who read it would at least know some of the more serious things to consider - and be more able to refute me if I am wrong. Other ideas, like the trilemma, are not universally compelling (although it works for me) - but if you are not familiar with what that is, then my point stands. (PS - wikipedia is not sufficient help there - you have to be familiar with the content of the Gospels and the myriad of things said and done by Christ to appreciate the argument - and many people today have the fallacious idea that Christ was merely a great teacher without having read and considered (from an adult point of view) all that he actually taught (ie, having attended Sunday School a long time ago doesn't count. )

I'd say that on the basis of what the average person today knows it would probably not be reasonable to accept Christ as divine - but that is primarily due to a lack of knowledge rather than knowledge.

It's easy to object to obvious error and unreason. But again, that's not what historical Christianity really is - just the modern versions you've evidently encountered.

My only objection to your statements, which goes back to why I don't believe in God... is simply that. If there is no God, how could he possibly have had a son? Regardless of what you would post or what I would read, there is no God in my truth. Hence the debate of whether or not Jesus was his son is moot.

I don't know why I didn't think of posting this before:
A non-partisan program offering 'dialog" between Lewis and Freud. It offers no final answer, but for the believer offers the more intelligent side of unbelief, and vice-versa.
The only thing I find objectionable is grasping onto modern and primitive religions - like much of modern fundamentalism, and painting the historical Christian faith with that brush; ie, casting religion and faith as products of ignorance and unreason, while knowing next to nothing of the history of the Church, the Church fathers, the splits and schisms and theological differences and their results (which y'all grew up in and formed your views of the faith on) - not that you are necessarily guilty of any of that.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/

The average believer is not generally surprised to find reason behind unbelief. The average unbeliever is often surprised to find reason behind belief.

It seems rus says, there is truth, and I know it. And the response is, there is no truth, and we know that. Or, put in other words, there is truth for everyone. 6 of one, half dozen of the other?

But, I'm not sure how one can be offended that someone thinks their truth is wrong, when they believe that truth is relative? Being offended assumes some universal truth, doesn't it?

Cybrweez wrote:It seems rus says, there is truth, and I know it. And the response is, there is no truth, and we know that. Or, put in other words, there is truth for everyone. 6 of one, half dozen of the other?

But, I'm not sure how one can be offended that someone thinks their truth is wrong, when they believe that truth is relative? Being offended assumes some universal truth, doesn't it?

I've never said I was offended. In fact, it's tough to offend me on this subject.

However, I do think that when Rus says, "you can't make any claim to truth until you are aware of x and y and z", that I am not subject to such a burden of proof. Do I have to read everything ever written about every belief system in order to have my own truth, such as it is? Do I need to be fully versed in Native American legends? The Quran of Islam? In the Maori legends, based on a comet impact that drew "fire from the sky"? In Buddhism? In the Greek pantheon or Roman pantheon of Gods? In the Gods of Ancient Egypt?

My point here is that there have been many, many versions of "truth" in our history as mankind. I feel no burden to read up on just one viewpoint in order to establish the legitimacy of my beliefs, any more than I expect anyone else to be able to quote Native American legends in order to cast them off as nothing more than stories.

No one really knows, even though people have been trying to establish it throughout history. We might die and end up in front of Ra, or Zeus. Or, just as likely, no one.

rdhopeca wrote:

Cybrweez wrote:It seems rus says, there is truth, and I know it. And the response is, there is no truth, and we know that. Or, put in other words, there is truth for everyone. 6 of one, half dozen of the other?

But, I'm not sure how one can be offended that someone thinks their truth is wrong, when they believe that truth is relative? Being offended assumes some universal truth, doesn't it?

I've never said I was offended. In fact, it's tough to offend me on this subject.

However, I do think that when Rus says, "you can't make any claim to truth until you are aware of x and y and z", that I am not subject to such a burden of proof. Do I have to read everything ever written about every belief system in order to have my own truth, such as it is? Do I need to be fully versed in Native American legends? The Quran of Islam? In the Maori legends, based on a comet impact that drew "fire from the sky"? In Buddhism? In the Greek pantheon or Roman pantheon of Gods? In the Gods of Ancient Egypt?

My point here is that there have been many, many versions of "truth" in our history as mankind. I feel no burden to read up on just one viewpoint in order to establish the legitimacy of my beliefs, any more than I expect anyone else to be able to quote Native American legends in order to cast them off as nothing more than stories.

No one really knows, even though people have been trying to establish it throughout history. We might die and end up in front of Ra, or Zeus. Or, just as likely, no one.

Well, rd, it looks like you are saying that a multiplicity of claims means that none of them can be THE Truth, something that logically doesn't follow at all. That the multiplicity makes the search for truth more difficult none will deny - it's almost like looking for a real Swiss watch amid a myriad of counterfeits. But the counterfeits only point up that a real one does exist somewhere, whether you find it or not.

Also, I made no claim that you need a thorough familiarity with all faiths in order to discover truth. You might get lucky the first time around and accidentally brought up to believe what really is THE Truth. Or you might spend your entire life searching. But you certainly need familiarity with a faith in order to be able to refute it. What I find here is a massive ignorance of any Christianity beyond what people see at their local church - ie, the history of the Christian Church and theology of the broad spectrum of Christianity over its history - and yet people refute the whole tamale because they, perhaps rightly, reject what they DO know. They judge the whole kit and kaboodle by the little piece in their neighborhood.

The thing that makes traditional Christianity different is that people do not invent their own truths, but discover the truths of a world that they did not make and can get along fine without them. IOW, there is no such thing as "your own truth" - only incomplete/incorrect understandings that cannot be filled through our own wisdom and knowledge, but by Authority. The desirable thing is to find that Authority.

rusmeister wrote:

rdhopeca wrote:

Cybrweez wrote:It seems rus says, there is truth, and I know it. And the response is, there is no truth, and we know that. Or, put in other words, there is truth for everyone. 6 of one, half dozen of the other?

But, I'm not sure how one can be offended that someone thinks their truth is wrong, when they believe that truth is relative? Being offended assumes some universal truth, doesn't it?

I've never said I was offended. In fact, it's tough to offend me on this subject.

However, I do think that when Rus says, "you can't make any claim to truth until you are aware of x and y and z", that I am not subject to such a burden of proof. Do I have to read everything ever written about every belief system in order to have my own truth, such as it is? Do I need to be fully versed in Native American legends? The Quran of Islam? In the Maori legends, based on a comet impact that drew "fire from the sky"? In Buddhism? In the Greek pantheon or Roman pantheon of Gods? In the Gods of Ancient Egypt?

My point here is that there have been many, many versions of "truth" in our history as mankind. I feel no burden to read up on just one viewpoint in order to establish the legitimacy of my beliefs, any more than I expect anyone else to be able to quote Native American legends in order to cast them off as nothing more than stories.

No one really knows, even though people have been trying to establish it throughout history. We might die and end up in front of Ra, or Zeus. Or, just as likely, no one.

Well, rd, it looks like you are saying that a multiplicity of claims means that none of them can be THE Truth, something that logically doesn't follow at all. That the multiplicity makes the search for truth more difficult none will deny - it's almost like looking for a real Swiss watch amid a myriad of counterfeits. But the counterfeits only point up that a real one does exist somewhere, whether you find it or not.

A real one does exist. Mine.

Also, I made no claim that you need a thorough familiarity with all faiths in order to discover truth. You might get lucky the first time around and accidentally brought up to believe what really is THE Truth. Or you might spend your entire life searching. But you certainly need familiarity with a faith in order to be able to refute it. What I find here is a massive ignorance of any Christianity beyond what people see at their local church - ie, the history of the Christian Church and theology of the broad spectrum of Christianity over its history - and yet people refute the whole tamale because they, perhaps rightly, reject what they DO know. They judge the whole kit and kaboodle by the little piece in their neighborhood.

The thing that makes traditional Christianity different is that people do not invent their own truths, but discover the truths of a world that they did not make and can get along fine without them. IOW, there is no such thing as "your own truth" - only incomplete/incorrect understandings that cannot be filled through our own wisdom and knowledge, but by Authority. The desirable thing is to find that Authority.

I go to Church every Sunday, and am as familiar as anyone else with what Christianity means and what it is intended to mean. However, my conviction in my own beliefs is what is truly important to me.

Further, I find no historical difference in the acts of Christianity than I do any other belief system. In some form or another, whether by means of violence or psychology, they have forced themselves upon the peoples of the world in an effort to stamp out any "truth" that does not match their own.

My sister is a Muslim convert. In speaking with her at length, I can tell you that this statement:

people do not invent their own truths, but discover the truths of a world that they did not make and can get along fine without them.

applies to the Islamic world equally as well, perhaps even more so, as traditional Islam has fought adapting to modern principles and societal mores much more than Christianity.

In any event, my original statement was merely to point out that with all of the various belief systems in existence, everyone will believe that their personal one is correct, or the "truth", and everyone has an equal chance of being right. There is no more or less reason to believe that the Quran is any more or less valid than the Bible. Both have an equal chance of being correct....or being a work of fiction.

rusmeister wrote:Again, on the charge of arrogance over being convinced of a single truth rather than multiple truths, all I can do is point out how silly that would be to say to a mathematician regarding a mathematical sum or calculation.

But, again -- mathematical truths can be proven. The only way for any of us to prove whether there is a God, or whether there is an afterlife, or whether the Christian church has it right, is by dying and moving on to the next world (assuming there is one). You can assert that there is one Truth -- and in fact, you do! But unlike with a mathematical proof, logical people, using logical reasoning, don't all arrive at the same answer regarding religion. In math, there are underlying definitions that we all agree on; in religion, there are no such definitions -- we are told that we must take those things on faith. That's why your analogy doesn't work here.

rusmeister wrote:Also, I find it self-contradictory to speak of multiple truths and then to refer to

the truth of that

that I should acknowledge. By your own logic, that should work for you, but does not need to apply to me. (Not that I accept your reasoning there, but you certainly should.)

I don't think it's contradictory at all to talk about the truth (not Truth, mind you ) that there are multiple truths. I accept that there are multiple truths, and I accept that that doesn't work for you. I said so in the last sentence of my post. You seem to crave certainty; you're not in a mental or emotional place where you could be comfortable with there being more than one path to the Divine.

rusmeister wrote:On neopagans... GKC sums it up (in a postable format!):

Neo-pagans have sometimes forgotten, when they set out to do everything that the old pagans did, that the final thing the old pagans did was to get christened.

(ILN, “The Return of the Pagan Gods,” 3-20-26)

Ah! Finally, an argument worth having! Christened they may have been, but converted? Not so much.

Much of the peasantry practiced both Christianity and the old ways. This has been a constant problem for the Church. From Wikipedia (admittedly not the most definitive of sources, but the most accessible -- and I have seen these assertions in printed texts as well):

As various Slavic populations were christianised between the 7th and 12th centuries, Christianity was introduced as a religion of the elite, flourishing mostly in cities and amongst the nobility. Amongst the rural majority of the medieval Slavic population, old myths remained strong. Christian priests and monks in Slavic countries, particularly in Russia, for centuries fought against the phenomenon called dvoeverie (double faith). On the one hand, peasants and farmers eagerly performed ancient rites and worshipped old pagan cults, even when the ancient deities and myths on which those were based were completely forgotten; yet on the other hand, they still stubbornly persisted at baptism, masses, and the new Christian holidays.

This was because, from a perspective of a Slavic peasant, Christianity was not seen as the replacement of old Slavic mythology, but rather an addition to it. Christianity may have offered a hope of salvation, and of blissful afterlife in the next world, but for survival in this world, for yearly harvest and protection of cattle, the old religious system with its fertility rites, its protective deities, and its household spirits was taken to be necessary. This was a problem the Christian church never really solved; at best, it could offer a Christian saint or martyr to replace the pagan deity of a certain cult, but the cult itself thrived, as did the mythological view of the world through which natural phenomena were explained.

For example, Perun, the Slavic thunder god (who might or might not have been the Slav's major deity), was conflated with St. Elijah the Thunderer. Kupalo, the summer solstice festival, became associated with John the Baptist (Ivan Kupala).

(Same deal with Native Americans, btw. I recall reading somewhere -- maybe Vin Deloria wrote it? -- that when presented with the Christian's tripartite Godhead, they equated it with their own gods, practiced both Christianity and their own religion, and didn't understand why the missionaries were upset. )

Stepping away from the Slavs, Dec. 25 was originally the birthday of Mithras, the son of the Persian sun god; the Christian church co-opted the date for the birth of their own Son of God (Jesus' actual birth having been in either the spring or the fall, depending on who you talk to, but it pretty much definitely wasn't in the winter). Also, popular Easter symbology -- eggs and bunnies -- are pagan, hearkening back to the holiday's roots as a fertility festival.

Half the fun of reinventing Paganism is going through the old legends and stripping out the Christianization that's been overlaid on them, to find the original religious practices underneath. Members of Ar nDraiocht Fein are putting effort into using comparative mythology to reconstruct the various pantheons and belief systems.

Most Neopagans today, I think, are honest enough to have moved away from the claims that we're resurrecting the Old Religion. Too much time has passed, and too much of the source material has been destroyed and/or hopelessly conflated with Christianity. The best we can do is reconstruct what we can, and honor the gods in our own ways.

rusmeister wrote:C'mon, Fist, this is easy! Accepting for a minute your argument about causelessness as an actual reason to not believe, it's clear that the existence of the universe does not make it one whit less mystical for it to be uncaused. That's just confusing what you can sense materially with the question of its origins.

I don't have a problem with using the word "mystical" for this. I use the words "holy" and "sacred" at times. I don't mean them in the same way you do, but I think they apply, nonetheless. I think marriage is holy. And I have a few quotes at the end of this post that use holy and sacred in ways that I use them.

However, calling it mystical, or anything else we might choose to call it, doesn't make a difference. No, the existence of the universe does not make it one whit less mystical for it to be uncaused. As you pointed out to me, of the two choices - uncaused universe or uncaused creator - we have no way of judging which is more mystical, or more likely.

One thing, though. My unbelief is not caused by or confused with thoughts of causelessness. I believe in what is a verifiable fact, and I don't believe in what cannot be verified in any way. I believe in what is right in front of me. How it got there is another matter entirely. I have not mentioned how the universe came to be. I don't need to know. It is not important to me. The universe is. *shrug*

I only discuss the uncaused idea because of the belief some have that the universe must be caused. But that belief is no more than speculation. We don't know enough about this universe's beginning, and we know nothing whatsoever about any other universes' beginnings, to know that it could not exist uncaused. If there was reason to believe it must be caused, and that that cause must be a sentient being who wants, expects, or demands certain things from me, I'd surely be looking into the origin.

rusmeister wrote:But I doubt that that is actually the basis for your unbelief.

True enough, the causelessness is not. I don't believe in what is not there.

rusmeister wrote:As to Chesterton, I agree with him. Ergo, I believe, more or less, what he believes. What he said then IS what I say now. So I say it now. And because it is already written it is a thousand times shorter to link to it than to ask me to write books and post them, page after page after page after page, here at KW, when it's already been said, by someone who I acknowledge to be smarter than me. So yes I do offer you battle with the best arguments, not merely the best ones that I can come up with on my own. It is the ideas, not the person that says or writes them, that matter. So if it will help any, I will call the arguments my arguments (because they are).

Yes, I completely agree with all that. But we're not here to tell each other what books to read. Yes, we do often end up reading things someone else has suggested. But that's not the point of these discussions. Mainly, we're here to exchange ideas. We may also be here to have a rip-roarin' debate! But "Read this book" is not an exchange of ideas, nor a debating tool. If, in the course of a discussion, our ideas (Which can, and likely are, restatements/distillations or other people's ideas. How many original ideas do humans have at this point?) impress each other enough, we might say, "I think I'll read one or two of the books you've mentioned." But that's not the beginning point. That's after one of us has given the other reason to think there's anything of value in that book. These threads work better in baby-steps. Let's take things one step at a time. As we have in each of our last posts. I said my basic premise. You responded, and not with thousands of quoted words. I just tried to clarify, because you're not quite understanding it (In regards to "uncaused leads to my unbelief." Again, the existence of something leads me to believe in it.) And now I'll get to your basic premise.

rusmeister wrote:The bases for my beliefs...hmmm... the uniqueness of man - the ways in which he is different from all animals (see TEM) the uniqueness of Christ as radically different from all other religion-starters (see TEM). the Trilemma (see Lewis, Mere Christianity) and of course the Gospels themselves. I was also personally driven by the necessity of meaning and have mentioned the man (or fish) dying in the desert (as evidence of the existence of meaning) often enough here. The universality of moral law - the fact that morals are far more alike across space, time and cultures than the ways in which they differ. From there, Mere Christianity traces the arguments that I accept. Alexander Schmemann and Victor Sokolov and how they died - the way I hope I will be able to die. (the latter was directly involved in my own conversion in 2003)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Schmemann
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sokolov

All of that stuff requires context - which means reading.

It should not require reading here in the Close. That's not what this format is all about. If you're going to champion a cause/idea/belief, you should be able to give a basic rundown of it. You're in a discussion thread. Don't answer, "What do you believe?" with "Read ___ by ___, ___ by ___, and ___ by ___." That's not a discussion; that's a list of favorite books.

As for your points...

Regarding Lewis's ideas of morality, as I said in the thread I started about Mere Christianity, I disagree with him. Basically, he says all people feel an innate morality, then discusses why he thinks so many people act in opposition to that morality. I say there is no evidence that all people feel that morality. Indeed, the evidence is that many different people act in very different ways:
-Many of them only to benefit others at a cost to themselves.
-Many of them to benefit themselves as long as it doesn't hurt others.
-Many of them to benefit themselves without giving a thought to whether or not it hurts or benefits others.
-Many of them to benefit themselves, intentionally harming others in the process.
-Many intentionally harming others without giving a though to whether or not there is any benefit to themselves.

What is it about all of that that gives him, or you, the idea that all people feel a certain morality? We only have actions to base our belief on, and the actions are not anywhere near uniform.


Regarding "the uniqueness of Christ as radically different from all other religion-starters," can you explain what you mean?


Regarding the search for meaning. As I've said, different people have found very different answers to that search that have completely satisfied them. And we have not the slightest reason to assume they were not completely satisfied, or that plenty of them were not tested as severely as those who embrace your answers.




__________________________________________________________

Just for fun, here's the quotes that show what I mean when I use the words "holy" and "sacred."
From Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior:

One time I finished my best-ever pommel horse routine and walked over happily to take the tape off my wrists. Soc beckoned me and said, “The routine looked satisfactory, but you did a very sloppy job taking the tape off. Remember, every-moment satori.”

From Conversations with God. The Third Commandment:

Neale Donald Walsch (of maybe God? Heh.) wrote:You shall remember to keep a day for Me, and you shall call it holy. This, so that you do not long stay in your illusion, but cause yourself to remember who and what you are. And then shall you soon call every day the Sabbath, and every moment holy.

To which Avatar replied:

Either all days are holy, or none are.

From Magister Ludi, by Hermann Hesse:

I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.

From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Phaedrus attempted to climb a mountain, but failed:

He never reached the mountain. After the third day he gave up, exhausted, and the pilgrimage went on without him. He said he had the physical strength but that physical strength wasn’t enough. He had the intellectual motivation but that wasn’t enough either. He didn’t think he had been arrogant but thought that he was undertaking the pilgrimage to broaden his experience, to gain understanding for himself. He was trying to use the mountain for his own purposes and the pilgrimage too. He regarded himself as the fixed entity, not the pilgrimage or the mountain, and thus wasn’t ready for it. He speculated that the other pilgrims, the ones who reached the mountain, probably sensed the holiness of the mountain so intensely that each footstep was an act of devotion, an act of submission to this holiness. The holiness of the mountain infused into their own spirits enabled them to endure far more than anything he, with his greater physical strength, could take. To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be ‘here’. What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it is all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.

A conversation from Star Trek: The Next Generation:

LAKANTA
"What's sacred to you, Wesley?"

(That definitely catches Wesley off-guard.)

WESLEY
"To me? Uh... well, I consider a lot of things... important... I respect a lot of things... but I don't know if I consider anything sacred."

LAKANTA
"Look around us. What do you think would be sacred to us here?"

(Wesley looks around for a moment... he hesitates.)

WESLEY
"Well... maybe some of the designs on the walls... the necklace you're wearing... ?"

LAKANTA
"Everything is sacred to us. The buildings... the food... the sky... the dirt under your feet... and you. Whether you believe in your own spirit or not... we believe in it. So you are a sacred person here, Wesley."

(Wesley smiles after a beat... a little embarrassed, but intrigued just the same.)

WESLEY
"I think that's the first time anyone's used that particular word to describe me."

LAKANTA
"So if you're sacred... then you have to treat yourself with respect... to do otherwise is to desecrate something holy."

rusmeister wrote:As a general response to rdhopeca and others who refer to this:

Fist and Faith wrote:I'll copy & paste this:

There's a fantasy book, The Kundalini Equation, by Steven Barnes, where one character is doing a lot of searching, questioning, etc, about life, God, etc. During an appearance, a woman in the audience asked, "Mr. Patanjal, how does it feel to know that you are going to burn in hell?" And he answered:

"Madame, the divine force which you believe in and the one in which I believe are obviously two different beings. If in a sincere quest for understanding and knowledge I have erred, I am deeply sorry, and await a sign from the Almighty that will teach me the error of my ways. I simply believe in the virtues of sincere intellectual curiosity. An eagerness to use the mind and feelings that God himself gave me to inquire into mysteries rather than merely accept the explanation othat other men have passed down through the years. If for this I will be cast into fires everlasting, then God is indeed the malign thug of which Mark Twain wrote, and his hell could certainly be no more insufferable than his heaven."

I quite agree. And everything I have said denies that this is what traditional Christianity - that which has existed continuously for 2,000 years - teaches. These ideas that you object to sprung up over the last few centuries in the wake of the reformation. They are quite recent, relative to the faith as a whole. Those views are primitive and show no understanding of ancient theology - Catholic or Orthodox (the only Churches that existed prior to the Reformation; also allowing that we leave the great Schism alone for now). So you guys (incl. Mark twain and Steven Barnes) are rightly objecting to something that was not at all a part of ancient Christianity. Long discussions could follow on this, on matters of belief as an intellectual exercise vs something that is acted upon, but that's the first fact that has to be gotten straight.

As long as you rage against that, you are right as far as I am concerned. We agree. You have no case against Orthodox Christianity (or perhaps Catholicism as well, but that is much more debatable, imo). You can't point to recent inventions and say they invalidate the faith as a whole (and if it ain't measured in millenia, then it's recent, from that perspective).

Yes, by and large, we are speaking in this thread about things other than what I quoted from that book. And I should have explained that. It was not my intention to give the impression that I was using that quote to put down your beliefs and/or what I consider to be good Christianity, or that I was giving evidence that shows the unlikelihood of either. rdhopeca had just given an example of what I feel is a dispicable rule that many believe is one of God's laws. The quote I gave showed another idea that I find dispicable, and that I think many believe is also God's attitude. And the quote gave a response that answers both: "If for this I will be cast into fires everlasting, then God is indeed the malign thug of which Mark Twain wrote, and his hell could certainly be no more insufferable than his heaven."

rdhopeca wrote: I go to Church every Sunday, and am as familiar as anyone else with what Christianity means and what it is intended to mean. However, my conviction in my own beliefs is what is truly important to me.

Further, I find no historical difference in the acts of Christianity than I do any other belief system. In some form or another, whether by means of violence or psychology, they have forced themselves upon the peoples of the world in an effort to stamp out any "truth" that does not match their own.

This kind of makes my point. "As familiar as anyone else". That's what I'm saying. That very few people have any serious familiarity with the history of the Christian Church. A general problem that protestants/evangelicals (the type of Christian faith SRD grew up with and what most here most likely see as Christianity) have is in describing any history between the book of Acts and the reformation. What do you know about Ignatius? Or Arius? Or the Councils that determined both which books are part of the Scriptural canon you probably accept and the Creed that defined the faith you claim?

Also, I would describe as a difference, at least in wording, possibly in attitude as well, in the reference to "my own beliefs". What I have found to be desirable is to find, not my own beliefs, but the truth - something that I did not make, something that exists with or without me, and that I must adapt myself to, rather than adapt it to suit me.


Your use of language to say "stamp out any truth that does not match their own" can be equally applied to the Apostle Paul (and the other epistle-writers), who, with a context of love, sought to stamp out falsehood in the existing churches - and again, he didn't see the truth as "his" but as "the truth".

Interesting, how in English, with its articles (a, an, the) we say "the truth" but "a lie".

rdhopeca wrote:My sister is a Muslim convert. In speaking with her at length, I can tell you that this statement:

people do not invent their own truths, but discover the truths of a world that they did not make and can get along fine without them.

applies to the Islamic world equally as well, perhaps even more so, as traditional Islam has fought adapting to modern principles and societal mores much more than Christianity.

Here I agree, and it is something we do share with Muslims - although clarifying what is "we" and "what is Christianity" will take a book. This is the essential problem of communicating with each other - using similar terminology to mean quite different things. You would find that Orthodox Christianity, even more than Catholicism, resists change - but that is precisely because it has already defined the direction that progress needs to go, and to go in other directions is to progress the wrong way. Thus (paradoxically, but true), it is the most progressive thing on the planet.

rdhopeca wrote:In any event, my original statement was merely to point out that with all of the various belief systems in existence, everyone will believe that their personal one is correct, or the "truth", and everyone has an equal chance of being right. There is no more or less reason to believe that the Quran is any more or less valid than the Bible. Both have an equal chance of being correct....or being a work of fiction.

This, applied to a mathematical question, would be shown to be nonsense. The one thing I will say here is that this shows no knowledge at all of scholarship surrounding the Bible and the Koran.[/b]

rusmeister wrote:

rdhopeca wrote:In any event, my original statement was merely to point out that with all of the various belief systems in existence, everyone will believe that their personal one is correct, or the "truth", and everyone has an equal chance of being right. There is no more or less reason to believe that the Quran is any more or less valid than the Bible. Both have an equal chance of being correct....or being a work of fiction.

This, applied to a mathematical question, would be shown to be nonsense. The one thing I will say here is that this shows no knowledge at all of scholarship surrounding the Bible and the Koran.[/b]

Your contined comparison of mathematics to faith completely undermines your credibility, IMO. As has been pointed out in this thread, mathematics can be proven. Faith cannot. Applying mathematics to this discussion is meaningless.

In addition, you are unaware of my knowledge of both the Bible and the Quran, and any study thereof, and are making some assumptions about it. But that's fine. As I've said, I'm completely at ease with my worldview in this regard.

I'm feeling in general that I'm falling sucker to trying to defend a position in impossible conditions that I already outlined. Before I drop out, I'll try to make clear why that's a problem. I probably shouldn't have even tried to respond to your post, rd (the only one I had time for before rushing out the door this morning). But since I did...
If there was a factual event in which a real universe was created, then there is one definite truth about that creation, whether or not we ever find it. That being the case, it is possible that everyone may be wrong, but it is not possible that everyone is right. It is also not possible for contradictory positions (as opposed to merely paradoxical ones) to be mutually correct, as they mutually exclude each other. therefore, not all ideas have an equal chance of being right.
We acknowledge that without question in the sciences, but have to fight to establish that among faiths/beliefs. It holds true regardless of the discipline. I just picked mathematics for an analogy because it gets the point across the quickest. It cuts to the chase.

I don't claim to know you or what you believe - especially if you don't state it. I can only go with what you've said.

It's purely a personal statement that I don't intend to try to prove, but I think that, in general, to really learn the history of the Christian Church is to cease to be Protestant. But you've said you don't believe in God at all, although you go to Church on Sundays. Would you care to elaborate? (FTR, I spent two years taking my wife to church in the US to help her feel comfortable there even though I didn't believe - although I did eventually convert.)

rusmeister wrote:I'm feeling in general that I'm falling sucker to trying to defend a position in impossible conditions that I already outlined. Before I drop out, I'll try to make clear why that's a problem. I probably shouldn't have even tried to respond to your post, rd (the only one I had time for before rushing out the door this morning). But since I did...
If there was a factual event in which a real universe was created, then there is one definite truth about that creation, whether or not we ever find it. That being the case, it is possible that everyone may be wrong, but it is not possible that everyone is right. It is also not possible for contradictory positions (as opposed to merely paradoxical ones) to be mutually correct, as they mutually exclude each other. therefore, not all ideas have an equal chance of being right.
We acknowledge that without question in the sciences, but have to fight to establish that among faiths/beliefs. It holds true regardless of the discipline. I just picked mathematics for an analogy because it gets the point across the quickest. It cuts to the chase.

I don't claim to know you or what you believe - especially if you don't state it. I can only go with what you've said.

It's purely a personal statement that I don't intend to try to prove, but I think that, in general, to really learn the history of the Christian Church is to cease to be Protestant. But you've said you don't believe in God at all, although you go to Church on Sundays. Would you care to elaborate? (FTR, I spent two years taking my wife to church in the US to help her feel comfortable there even though I didn't believe - although I did eventually convert.)

I outlined my beliefs quite clearly in a previous post when we were asked to state our beliefs:

My beliefs go something like this, which can basically be categorized as secular humanistic:

I have never had any experience, emotional, logical, or otherwise, that would lead me to believe in a Creator or God. There has been no "a ha" moment, no speaking to me, on any level that I can remember. I believe that all people are generally good inside and want to do well and treat each other well, and love and be loved, and don't require a Bible to tell them how to do it, or a God to protect themselves from themselves so that they will do it.

Most of my contact with people in my past who are heavily religious basically revolved around being told that if we did not confrom, we were all going to hell. I refuse to believe in any system whereby someone can commit murder and go to heaven while someone who harmed no one gets banished to hell, simply because the murderer "believed" and the innocent did not.

But I am not prejudiced against belief systems in general; my wife is Catholic and my son will be raised Catholic until such time as he can make his own decisions. I think we are each entitled to our own personal truths.

I am willing to concede on a logical level that someone with a great sense of passion and charisma walked this Earth 2000 years ago. I am even willing to concede that he affected enough people that stories and parables and tales of grandeur were told about him for years after the fact. I am NOT willing to concede that this man was the son of God any more than I am that David Koresh was a Messiah to his disciples in Waco.

If, after living my life based upon the same basic set of humanitarian principles that Christians do, and I pass on, and there is a heaven, and a Ted Bundy walks by on the way in simply because he repented and believed, and I am not allowed in because I did not, I will simply mutter an obscenity, be grateful that I stuck to my principles more than Mr. Bundy did, and accept my punishment. If there is a God and he is a God that Christians speak of, he will forgive my ignorance and see the worth of my life and allow me entrance, should that be appropriate.

However, that's not going to happen, so I feel relatively safe in that regard, in both cases.

And since my wife is Catholic, I accompany her to Church every Sunday in support of her beliefs. But I've made it quite clear that I am in no way ever converting or changing my mind on what I believe.

As to your point about their having to be "one truth", I agree. There is one out there. I just don't believe that anyone truly knows what it is. Humanity has spent a lifetime trying to define its origins in any number of various ways (ie the Maori legends where their gods spring from a comet impact) that help them to understand the world around them, and interpret what they perceive, but it not the "one truth". Until such time as someone proves the "one truth", we all stand an equal chance of our thoughts or interpretations being correct. The only difference between my belief system and the one you believe in is the number of people who agree with you, and the formal implementation of that belief system through worship, monetary backing, and philosophical requirements. That difference does not give your belief system any more credibility than mine, IMO. It just means you have more money and power and the ability to attract worshipers.

IMO, the Bible (and other books of that nature) is nothing more than a biography of a powerfully charismatic leader 2000 years ago. I won't even deny that he existed. I will only say that he was as much divine as the Egyptian pharoahs, who were also reputed to be "gods", yet were not really gods. And of course, back then, the world was reputed to be flat as well, and at times in history floated on the back of a giant turtle. At that time, that was the "one truth". Why should give any more credence to the stories that were told 2000 years ago, versus the stories that were told 5000 years ago, versus the stories of L.Ron Hubbard in the last century? It's all just people trying to make sense of what's around them and explain the unexplainable.

I see rob how that sounds logical. I just think it breaks down somewhere. Some things aren't on equal footing. For instance, if a belief system said the world sat on a turtle, then we found out it didn't, that belief system is called into question. I guess, some truths can be determined to be false. Others can't be determined to be false, or true. Those 2 distinctions are not on equal ground.

Exactly right, Cyberweez. (Not sure I've ever agreed with anything you've said before. ) That's why I don't say, "There is no God." I can't know such a thing. That requires knowledge that I don't have. I only say "Since there's no evidence supporting God's existence, I don't believe he exists."