Kevin's Watch

You continue to focus on strict definitions, rus, and don't care about what the words define. Here's a thought... What would be the problem with everybody in the world believing The One, Absolute Truth, but not naming it? Would it matter if it was not named?

And what is the problem with telling us the things you believe, and why you believe them, without insisting that we first make sure everybody is classified correctly?

Why are you so much more concerned with telling others that their beliefs don't match their self identification than with telling what you think is Truth? Why do you concentrate on telling hamako that he doesn't understand Christian teaching, and Zahir that he's not truly an Orthodox, rather than tell us what you believe? Wouldn't it be a good idea to actually tell people what Orthodoxy is, rather than tell us that early Christians would have understood?

Orlion wrote:From my readings of historical documents, the 'Christian' organization has generally always been made up of several competing sects. Paul v. Peter, Philidelphia v. Ephesus, and so forth. According to Eusebius, they didn't even agree on what constituted holy scripture. Eusebius even espouses a view on the Trinity contrary to that of the Nicene Creed which was fabricated a mere few years later. The term 'catholic' was used to mean 'united' and seemed to originally be concerned with 'all who follow Christ' as to 'all who follow Christ according to the teachings of Paul/Timothy/Peter/Gnostics/whatever. Constantine was really the first (and I might dare say, only) person to try and unite all of Christendom under one doctrinal banner. For whatever reason why he would do this, the fact that he set about doing so proves that then, as now, there were several groups of people all professing to be Christians but believing different things.

Orlion, this simply isn't true. Did you read the Belloc quote? The "competing sects" were either rejected altogether or they accepted what the hierarchy determined in council. They did NOT "continue to exist within the organization", and those that continued without it fizzled out. There were no Arians by the eighth century, and so on.
By the 5th century they most certainly DID agree on what constitutes Holy Scripture. And no, "catholic" never meant 'whoever followed whoever made whatever claims'. It appeared specifically as a mark of organization, something which existed long before Constantine, and continued to exist long after him. Sorry, Constantine was ultimately declared a saint, but he is not the pillar and foundation of the truth, nor did he create the Church merely by legalizing it.

I can offer links (though not from this iPad), but I'm not going to carry on argument; only attempt to explain. If explanations go nowhere, I'll just give up.
(Edit) Here's an especially useful one:
www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/englis ... ware_1.htm

Fist and Faith wrote:You continue to focus on strict definitions, rus, and don't care about what the words define. Here's a thought... What would be the problem with everybody in the world believing The One, Absolute Truth, but not naming it? Would it matter if it was not named?

And what is the problem with telling us the things you believe, and why you believe them, without insisting that we first make sure everybody is classified correctly?

Why are you so much more concerned with telling others that their beliefs don't match their self identification than with telling what you think is Truth? Why do you concentrate on telling hamako that he doesn't understand Christian teaching, and Zahir that he's not truly an Orthodox, rather than tell us what you believe? Wouldn't it be a good idea to actually tell people what Orthodoxy is, rather than tell us that early Christians would have understood?

I'm not sure any answer will satisfy you on any level, Fist, and I even have suspicions as to why that might be so. But here I'll say that I want my beliefs to be based as solidly as possible on actual facts, and not on fantasies. So when I call for an actual examination of history, I get asked why I insist on facts (as well as their correct interpretation, but I'll be happy to start with the facts themselves - at least they provide an objective starting point).

I do not speak of naming so much as defining - but the definition is certainly attached to the name. If everyone says "they believe the One Truth" but no one ever defines it, then we hardly know what the 'One Truth' they believe in happens to be.

I think Furl's did a smashing job of expressing what she believed - and yet it did not 'work' for you - I don't think telling you that 'I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...' is going to do anything for you. I don't think examining my psyche, my soul, to be of tremendous value. What I HAVE found to be of tremendous value is beginning to think - about history, for example - to inquire into what actually was, and I am convinced, that like everything else, there is an actual fact of the matter in history - there IS an actual understanding that is true, and contradicting ones therefore false. And that applies to pretty much everything. The truths may be complex, even paradoxical - but not mutually exclusive contradictions.

To me it is self-evident that the Christian faith could only be true if it is historically consistent - if it proclaimed actual truth not in error by divine inspiration, and that at no time have those truths so determined proven to be false. So the Christian - the one who accepts that faith (if we ever trouble to identify it) must, then, accept what the early Christians believed - or he is not a Christian, but something else, going by the name. It is so mind-bogglingly obvious to me that it is painful to say it, that it seems like condescension - if only you had not specifically asked for it. If the faith was not true in the first century, then there is no reason at all to suppose that it "became" true at a later point, considered from the point of view of anyone claiming to accept that faith. One of the chief principles must be that the faith is something that we do not create; that it has gotten along well without us for 2,000 years, and can continue for another 2,000 after we are gone from this planet, so any Christian must start by accepting something that already was there before he 'showed up', and whose truth he is powerless to change.

I believe what I find to be true. And the truth that seems to you to be "narrow" I find as broad as the world, and it makes the multifarium of ideas that seems so broad to you to be incredibly narrow. And I find that the truth I believe in to make sense of all of the disconnected facts of the world. And so I see, when I look at history, that history supports what I have come to accept as surely as any of you believes that it supports what you believe - yet when I ask for a historical examination, I get (from some) a curious evasion, something that only confirms for me what I have long suspected - that we know far less history than we think we do, and much of what we think we know is false, though it is based on certain select facts.

What's this? Round 1,342 in our exchanges? But something in me has now changed, and I won't argue. If you cannot see one germ of truth in anything I say, then you have the multifarium of an entire Watch, where I am largely staying out of. You need not hear my nonsense at all. That you seek it out suggests that you do not see all of it to be nonsense, though.

Interesting. So, is this a commonly adopted approach to the OC faith? i.e., does the typical OC lay person cite the entire history, alongside with GKC and Lewis for good measure, or have you become a bit of a scholar-specialist?
I'm not asking to be a jerk -- just trying to generate some perspective for myself. I don't know any OC's IRL - and it would be very easy to make generalizations based on my experiences here on the Watch... Now I love interacting with you guys, but I'm aware that reading Donaldson and then getting onto the Net to post about him pretty much guarantees that we live in one corner or another of the great bell curves of life...

dw

rusmeister wrote:What's this? Round 1,342 in our exchanges?

Indeed. And you still won't tell us what it is you believe!

rusmeister wrote:But something in me has now changed, and I won't argue.

And I'm trying very hard to find a way to get you to post in non-combative ways. There's no need to argue. We can talk about what we believe, and why we believe it, without arguing. If only you would talk about what you believe. But, beyond 'I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...', you refuse.

rusmeister wrote:But here I'll say that I want my beliefs to be based as solidly as possible on actual facts, and not on fantasies.

And what are those beliefs?

rusmeister wrote:So when I call for an actual examination of history, I get asked why I nsist on facts (as well as their correct interpretation, but I'll be happy to start with the facts themselves - at least they provide an objective starting point).

I'm not asking why you insist on basing your beliefs on facts; I'm asking what your beliefs are.

rusmeister wrote:I do not speak of naming so much as defining - but the definition is certainly attached to the name. If everyone says "they believe the One Truth" but no one ever defines it, then we hardly know what the 'One Truth' they believe in happens to be.

You won't define it.

rusmeister wrote:I think Furl's did a smashing job of expressing what she believed - and yet it did not 'work' for you - I don't think telling you that 'I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...' is going to do anything for you.

NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with anything "working" for me. It has to do with you sharing your beliefs with us. That's why we're all here.

rusmeister wrote:I don't think examining my psyche, my soul, to be of tremendous value. What I HAVE found to be of tremendous value is beginning to think - about history, for example - to inquire into what actually was, and I am convinced, that like everything else, there is an actual fact of the matter in history - there IS an actual understanding that is true, and contradicting ones therefore false.

Perhaps. But you aren't saying much of anything about the facts of history, either, except to say that it supports your beliefs. Which, of course, you are unwilling to share.

rusmeister wrote:To me it is self-evident that the Christian faith could only be true if it is historically consistent - if it proclaimed actual truth not in error by divine inspiration, and that at no time have those truths so determined proven to be false.

Well, it's surely possible for falsehoods to be historically consistent. But if you don't tell us what you think these truths are, we'll never be able to decide whether to agree with you or not.

Which is not our goal, of course. I'm not aware of anyone here, other than you, whose goal is to convince others that they are the only one speaking truths. It's certainly not the purpose that the general consensus of posters have given the Close.

rusmeister wrote:So the Christian - the one who accepts that faith (if we ever trouble to identify it) must, then, accept what the early Christians believed - or he is not a Christian, but something else, going by the name. It is so mind-bogglingly obvious to me that it is painful to say it, that it seems like condescension - if only you had not specifically asked for it.

I didn't ask for it. I asked for your beliefs. You want this to be about telling people that they must accept certain beliefs if they want to be called "Christian" (as well as informing the rest of us that we're way off ). But you'll never accomplish your mission if you don't tell us what your beliefs are.

rusmeister wrote:If the faith was not true in the first century, then there is no reason at all to suppose that it "became" true at a later point, considered from the point of view of anyone claiming to accept that faith. One of the chief principles must be that the faith is something that we do not create; that it has gotten along well without us for 2,000 years, and can continue for another 2,000 after we are gone from this planet, so any Christian must start by accepting something that already was there before he 'showed up', and whose truth he is powerless to change.

And what is this faith that was there in the first century, and has gotten along well without us for 2,000 years?

rusmeister wrote:I believe what I find to be true. And the truth that seems to you to be "narrow" I find as broad as the world, and it makes the multifarium of ideas that seems so broad to you to be incredibly narrow.

And what is it you have found to be true? I couldn't care less if you think mine narrow and I think yours narrow. I'm not going to so much as mention such a thing before you start telling others that they are wrong. But expressing your beliefs is not telling others that theirs are wrong.

rusmeister wrote:And I find that the truth I believe in to make sense of all of the disconnected facts of the world.

I know how you feel. That's exactly how I feel about the truth I believe in.

rusmeister wrote:And so I see, when I look at history, that history supports what I have come to accept as surely as any of you believes that it supports what you believe - yet when I ask for a historical examination, I get (from some) a curious evasion, something that only confirms for me what I have long suspected - that we know far less history than we think we do, and much of what we think we know is false, though it is based on certain select facts.

The difficulty you have interacting here is that, as this clearly expresses, your goal is to correct everyone else on their beliefs. Few, if any, are here to be shown the Truth. We are mainly here to share ideas and beliefs. If yours contain things of wisdom or beauty, I'll be better off for knowing them.

And it's possible that someone or other will hear more truth in your words than the rest hear, and will ask you for more information. You may, indeed, now and then, set someone onto what you consider to be the one true path.

rusmeister wrote:If you cannot see one germ of truth in anything I say, then you have the multifarium of an entire Watch, where I am largely staying out of. You need not hear my nonsense at all. That you seek it out suggests that you do not see all of it to be nonsense, though.

If you start telling us what your beliefs are, I'll know if I see one germ of truth in them. I have no doubt I will find some true germs.

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:Interesting. So, is this a commonly adopted approach to the OC faith? i.e., does the typical OC lay person cite the entire history, alongside with GKC and Lewis for good measure, or have you become a bit of a scholar-specialist?
I'm not asking to be a jerk -- just trying to generate some perspective for myself. I don't know any OC's IRL - and it would be very easy to make generalizations based on my experiences here on the Watch... Now I love interacting with you guys, but I'm aware that reading Donaldson and then getting onto the Net to post about him pretty much guarantees that we live in one corner or another of the great bell curves of life...

dw

You know, dw, I don't think so. My experience is that most people tend to come to faith when something happens to make them realize that in the end, they are not in control, not self-sufficient. I mean, as long as we are, we don't need God.
The ones who are drawn by reason as such as well seem to be a definite minority - less than 10%, IMO. Oh yeah, I agree about the bell curve thing.
With the history thing I am dealing with apologetics - something that a majority of believers don't get far into. It's of interest to the more intellectually inclined, and it is about rational defense of faith.

MHO is that the majority of opinions are shown to be rubbish when held up to actual history in-depth. If the Christian faith is to be taken seriously apt all, it must be consistent and continuous right back to it's beginnings - so the historical test is a huge challenge for a lot of Christians. It becomes really obvious really quickly that only two claimants (3 if you pay attention to what schism happened when) really have history on their side - recorded history, primary sources, as opposed to mere history books, which can say anything anyone wants them to say - the OC and RCC. I think the RCC went off the tracks. It makes a good deal greater sense that the eastern collegial model - which was how the ecumenical councils operated - had one Church center (Rome) breaking away from the others than to say that all the others broke with Rome.
Protestants have the tremendous problem of a general lack of history, generally cherry-picking a small number of Church fathers and claiming them as their own, and acting as if they were not part of an organized Church. Their own histories (for good reason) start at the Reformation. But they are what we in the Anglo-world see the most because of our history, mainly due to England's protestantization, so we see a mass of confusion of denominations today and don't see them in their historical context.
I'm not looking to pick fights or arguments; only to try to illustrate why self-identification as the criteria of what a thing is doesn't really work. It can be conceived by people today, by people outside of the Christian faith altogether, it can be conceived by people who have accepted one part of the ancient faith - the book - and have thrown out everything else; it was never conceived for most of Christian history, and most people who call themselves Christians, while sincerely trying to follow Christ (as they understand Him), really are broken off from the major part of Christian history, and so share very little in terms of common understanding with how Christians prior to the Reformation in both the East and the West understood what the Church and the Faith was. Sure, you can impose the modern understandings, but only by failing to understand what 1,500 years of Christians understood.

And yeah, people like me are the 'nerds of the faith' for thinking about those things. We're definitely in the minority.

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:Interesting. So, is this a commonly adopted approach to the OC faith? i.e., does the typical OC lay person cite the entire history, alongside with GKC and Lewis for good measure, or have you become a bit of a scholar-specialist?

This touches on something that I've been wondering about for awhile...

Does the OC have traditions about "how evangelism is done"?
(Dare I bring up that word?)
I mean, I think some of the versions we see in North America can be described as high-anxiety, low-long-term-heart-investment, and they have a whole lot of other unattractive features... and that has people turned off. (believers and non-believers alike!)
Yet "evangelism" is supposed to mean "sharing the good news."

Even if the Orthodox church has an assumption that "people will come to us" because of the place it's held in its historical contexts; that's still a tradition; and hospitality is no bad thing. I'm curious!

dw wrote:Now I love interacting with you guys, but I'm aware that reading Donaldson and then getting onto the Net to post about him pretty much guarantees that we live in one corner or another of the great bell curves of life...

Ahahahaa!

rusmeister wrote:And yeah, people like me are the 'nerds of the faith' for thinking about those things. We're definitely in the minority.

Well, at least you admit to it.

But seriously, I think I understand the angle that you are coming from. I'm just having difficulty finding a practical application of this understanding to our little social bubble here. I understand that there is a historical specificity and depth to the term 'Christian', that the modern person identifying himself as Christian likely does not know or appreciate. In modern usage, the word Christian has expanded to become a much larger category than it ever was historically, although I'm certain many specific denominations would decry the usage of the term to describe any one other than their own, as one group's minutiae are another's sacred articles of faith.
I have been able to recite the Nicene Creed from memory since I was about 9yrs old. I began to actually pay attention to what it meant when I was in high school (after my confirmation). Now, I have difficulty saying "we believe in one, holy catholic and apostolic church" with conviction, because I know the import, and I doubt the veracity of the statement. I am not in communion with the catholic church, and I know it. However, I am also not terribly troubled by this knowledge. I also live in Indiana, and don't really care about the Pacers or the Colts.
Long story short, I have become one of the dreaded 'Christmas Catholics'. And at least for now, that's fine by me.

So, in the mean time, and as always, I have a great deal of admiration for those of strong faith...without really trusting them to carry on a good conversation. More accurately, I trust them to keep attempting quite meaningful (to them) conversations that I am unfortunately only politely interested in.

I'm more plugged into politics at the moment, but only relatively speaking. I *am* confident that religion and politics do not mix well.

dw

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:

rusmeister wrote:And yeah, people like me are the 'nerds of the faith' for thinking about those things. We're definitely in the minority.

Well, at least you admit to it.

But seriously, I think I understand the angle that you are coming from. I'm just having difficulty finding a practical application of this understanding to our little social bubble here. I understand that there is a historical specificity and depth to the term 'Christian', that the modern person identifying himself as Christian likely does not know or appreciate. In modern usage, the word Christian has expanded to become a much larger category than it ever was historically, although I'm certain many specific denominations would decry the usage of the term to describe any one other than their own, as one group's minutiae are another's sacred articles of faith.
I have been able to recite the Nicene Creed from memory since I was about 9yrs old. I began to actually pay attention to what it meant when I was in high school (after my confirmation). Now, I have difficulty saying "we believe in one, holy catholic and apostolic church" with conviction, because I know the import, and I doubt the veracity of the statement. I am not in communion with the catholic church, and I know it. However, I am also not terribly troubled by this knowledge. I also live in Indiana, and don't really care about the Pacers or the Colts.
Long story short, I have become one of the dreaded 'Christmas Catholics'. And at least for now, that's fine by me.

So, in the mean time, and as always, I have a great deal of admiration for those of strong faith...without really trusting them to carry on a good conversation. More accurately, I trust them to keep attempting quite meaningful (to them) conversations that I am unfortunately only politely interested in.

I'm more plugged into politics at the moment, but only relatively speaking. I *am* confident that religion and politics do not mix well.

dw

Well, I think it's good that you have difficulty saying something that you do not believe - no vice there! But belief IS a choice - one that can be made at any moment - even the very last - although such a delay (if such a decision were made) would be accompanied by intense regret that it were not made much earlier. (If we do decide something is true, we wish we would have aligned ourselves to it much earlier.) But you can decide and say, "What the hey - I believe!"

'Neo' Anderson wrote:I believe because I choose to.

Or from the Gospels, the desperate father who doubted and cried "I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!!!"
We doubt. But we still choose on which side to take our stand.

I have found politics to be the dead end; the meaningless thing that is vain in the end. (No, not Vain, just vain.) I do agree that for the materialist, it logically must be the most important thing (although I think that some steps in logic, like ultimate meaninglessness, are not thought through and faced). But the thing that liberates one even from that is the realization that we really have almost no power whatsoever - and that even elected officials mostly don't have it. Once one realizes that politics really WON'T change the world, then dropping it is easy - though the realization- disillusionment - itself might be quite unpleasant.
My time in the 'Tank' was the most wasted, and even then it was "If I were king" and a wasted attempt to persuade others of the validity of my politics, such as they are, for one cannot exclude one's worldview from one's politics. For the person for whom religion is truth - is the whole 'kit-and-kaboodle' - asking them to 'exclude their religion is like asking them to exclude their oxygen.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDR4XoU3KTs (the first 90 seconds - the second part is an entertaining poem aimed at a don that insulted his friend, Chesterton)

The first part is a re-enactment of an actual event. People liked his honesty and straight-forwardness so much that he carried the election. But he himself met disillusionment when he was given what he had imagined to be political power. Really, politicians are widely despised for good reason. Either they accept the system and use it to benefit themselves, or they work to try to change the system and find their efforts ineffectual and/or themselves excluded.

Linna Heartlistener wrote:

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:Interesting. So, is this a commonly adopted approach to the OC faith? i.e., does the typical OC lay person cite the entire history, alongside with GKC and Lewis for good measure, or have you become a bit of a scholar-specialist?

This touches on something that I've been wondering about for awhile...

Does the OC have traditions about "how evangelism is done"?
(Dare I bring up that word?)
I mean, I think some of the versions we see in North America can be described as high-anxiety, low-long-term-heart-investment, and they have a whole lot of other unattractive features... and that has people turned off. (believers and non-believers alike!)
Yet "evangelism" is supposed to mean "sharing the good news."

Even if the Orthodox church has an assumption that "people will come to us" because of the place it's held in its historical contexts; that's still a tradition; and hospitality is no bad thing. I'm curious!

dw wrote:Now I love interacting with you guys, but I'm aware that reading Donaldson and then getting onto the Net to post about him pretty much guarantees that we live in one corner or another of the great bell curves of life...

Ahahahaa!

Well, yes, we do have an evangelical tradition. Although for centuries the RCC effectively kept the eastern Church out of the western world.
St Nicholas of Japan brought the Orthodox faith there, St Herman of Alaska brought it to America. The main thing is how we share the news. The western - and mainly American - concept of 'door-to-door evangelism', aka "soulwinning" is absent. We find standing on a hilltop preaching to be largely ineffective - relationship has everything to do with evangelism, so it is just as much how we live as what we say.

Here is a discussion on the Orthodox sub-forum at Christian Forums:
www.christianforums.com/t7523651/
(It's a pleasant place that constantly gets praise from visitors from other sections of CF for its relative hospitality and civility. Great place to lurk.)

Holy cow! I think this is the full Chariots of Fire on youtube!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=evj7aYqCUCQ&feature=fvsr
And it happens to contain a quote that goes along with one of the very few things you and I agree on, rus:

rusmeister wrote:My time in the 'Tank' was the most wasted, and even then it was "If I were king" and a wasted attempt to persuade others of the validity of my politics, such as they are, for one cannot exclude one's worldview from one's politics. For the person for whom religion is truth - is the whole 'kit-and-kaboodle' - asking them to 'exclude their religion is like asking them to exclude their oxygen.

It's a very short conversation that begins at 1:31:45, after the main issue of the scene has been resolved.


As for this:

rusmeister wrote:But belief IS a choice - one that can be made at any moment - even the very last - although such a delay (if such a decision were made) would be accompanied by intense regret that it were not made much earlier. (If we do decide something is true, we wish we would have aligned ourselves to it much earlier.) But you can decide and say, "What the hey - I believe!"

No, that's not how it works. I cannot choose to believe. You cannot choose to not believe. I won't argue your beliefs. You believe God created the universe; Jesus was both God and the Son of God; Jesus died and arose for us; etc. I'll never argue that those things are not facts, even though I don't have reason to believe they are. But I'll argue against this kind of thing. You can't make it true just by saying it is true over and over. It's not. You have nothing on which to base this idea. Even if you did choose to believe, it doesn't mean everyone else can. It doesn't mean any particular percentage of people can. I cannot choose to believe something that I see in the same light as you and I both see Odin or Zeus. You only believe this because you cannot figure out a way to convince many of us that we are wrong and you are right, and believing it's our own stubbornness is the only explanation for your failure.

rusmeister wrote:(although I think that some steps in logic, like ultimate meaninglessness, are not thought through and faced)

Another thing you repeat again and again that is not true. Your chain of thoughts that leads you to believe this is flawed. There's no reason to believe the many people who say otherwise have not "thought through and faced" it. You could not follow it through without despair, assumed nobody else could, and developed a chain of thoughts designed to have that assumption come out to be the necessary outcome. At least that's what your words over the years have lead me to believe is the explanation for your insistence on this idea that has no verification, and is contradicted by many people whom there is no reason to doubt other than your idea.

Fist and Faith wrote:Holy cow! I think this is the full Chariots of Fire on youtube!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=evj7aYqCUCQ&feature=fvsr
And it happens to contain a quote that goes along with one of the very few things you and I agree on, rus:

rusmeister wrote:My time in the 'Tank' was the most wasted, and even then it was "If I were king" and a wasted attempt to persuade others of the validity of my politics, such as they are, for one cannot exclude one's worldview from one's politics. For the person for whom religion is truth - is the whole 'kit-and-kaboodle' - asking them to 'exclude their religion is like asking them to exclude their oxygen.

It's a very short conversation that begins at 1:31:45, after the main issue of the scene has been resolved.


As for this:

rusmeister wrote:But belief IS a choice - one that can be made at any moment - even the very last - although such a delay (if such a decision were made) would be accompanied by intense regret that it were not made much earlier. (If we do decide something is true, we wish we would have aligned ourselves to it much earlier.) But you can decide and say, "What the hey - I believe!"

No, that's not how it works. I cannot choose to believe. You cannot choose to not believe. I won't argue your beliefs. You believe God created the universe; Jesus was both God and the Son of God; Jesus died and arose for us; etc. I'll never argue that those things are not facts, even though I don't have reason to believe they are. But I'll argue against this kind of thing. You can't make it true just by saying it is true over and over. It's not. You have nothing on which to base this idea. Even if you did choose to believe, it doesn't mean everyone else can. It doesn't mean any particular percentage of people can. I cannot choose to believe something that I see in the same light as you and I both see Odin or Zeus. You only believe this because you cannot figure out a way to convince many of us that we are wrong and you are right, and believing it's our own stubbornness is the only explanation for your failure.

rusmeister wrote:(although I think that some steps in logic, like ultimate meaninglessness, are not thought through and faced)

Another thing you repeat again and again that is not true. Your chain of thoughts that leads you to believe this is flawed. There's no reason to believe the many people who say otherwise have not "thought through and faced" it. You could not follow it through without despair, assumed nobody else could, and developed a chain of thoughts designed to have that assumption come out to be the necessary outcome. At least that's what your words over the years have lead me to believe is the explanation for your insistence on this idea that has no verification, and is contradicted by many people whom there is no reason to doubt other than your idea.

The link looks good - I'm getting it and saving it - thank you very much!!!


I see explanations for my "failure" - which I never had great hopes of succeeding on - far beyond the ones you propose, and they include all kinds of genuine experience and sincere belief/unbelief. I think the challenges to faith today eclipse those of the ancient world - the modern world has the burden of thinking it already knows the Gospel and so 'is tired of hearing what it has never heard'.

Uh, yes I CAN choose to not believe. I CAN say "Screw this" and walk away. I'll still be left with all the prob;ems that lead to my conversion - but I AM free - to choose which side to be on; to accept or reject. And yes, you CAN choose to believe. You have the power, at any time, to say what the father in the Gospel said: "I believe, Lord, Help my unbelief!" regardless of your inclinations, feelings. All that you lack is a sense that you need to believe. If that ever comes, then yes, you CAN press "the belief button". As long as you don't sense such a need, it's a moot point. It is when disaster looms over us, a possibly final catastrophe, that illusions about our self-sufficiency are swept away, and the sane part of us is them ready to cry out for help, for salvation, and if we really thought Odin just might be possible, then we would be willing to cry out even to him for help. It is only a dead - and I do mean dead - certainty that he is not that prevents us. But yes, you might choose the dogmas you have accepted over such possibilities of salvation in such a minute, and that would be a form of faith - negative faith, it is true, but nevertheless faith in them, just as I do. Mine seems, in the long run, the run of eternity to be far more optimistic than yours. In yours, all good things must come to an end. In mine, not only must they come to an end, but they (the good things) will also be resurrected to exist forever - and that is far more cheerful than the embrace and praise of their final and complete ending. That IS the Paschal joy and the true meaning of Christmas, and why we have something to celebrate.

(I realize that is of little help to you; as an additional thought, I have been reading the sample from Lewis's collected letters, which includes his period of atheistic unbelief and the period of his conversion - both the stolid statements I see here from people all the time and something beginning to question those ideas, to begin to doubt them. I'd recommend them to you - I got what I have through the iTunes store, and it was only the free sample of the book - the one I got is called "Yours, Jack". www.amazon.com/Yours-Jack-Spiritual-Dir ... 0061240591 )

rusmeister wrote:Uh, yes I CAN choose to not believe. I CAN say "Screw this" and walk away.

No, you can't. And you won't. You say you choose not to. But you can't choose to. No more than, say, Gödel could choose to not understand math. No, it's not an analogy. It's different things entirely. But your feeling that something is out there is as strongly hardwired in you as Gödel's natural strength in math was in him. Because the belief system you first learned opposed some aspects of your feelings, you tried to reject it entirely, for years. But it was undeniable. Unconsciously, you understood that you needed to live it, and eventually, were fortunate enough to find a belief system that satisfies all aspects of your feelings. Now your learning matches your feeling, and you can no more choose to not believe than you can choose to forget English.

rusmeister wrote:And yes, you CAN choose to believe.

No, I can't. I may come to learn of some reason to believe. But if I have a reason, it's not a choice. I didn't choose to believe that light travels faster than sound, and I can't choose to not believe it. There's darned good reasons to believe it, including personal experience.

rusmeister wrote:You have the power, at any time, to say what the father in the Gospel said: "I believe, Lord, Help my unbelief!" regardless of your inclinations, feelings.

Is it not obvious what's wrong with comparing me to him? He's talking to the Lord! He already believes. He's just doing what you were doing for a long time; trying to reconcile things.

rusmeister wrote:All that you lack is a sense that you need to believe. If that ever comes, then yes, you CAN press "the belief button". As long as you don't sense such a need, it's a moot point. It is when disaster looms over us, a possibly final catastrophe, that illusions about our self-sufficiency are swept away, and the sane part of us is them ready to cry out for help, for salvation, and if we really thought Odin just might be possible, then we would be willing to cry out even to him for help. It is only a dead - and I do mean dead - certainty that he is not that prevents us. But yes, you might choose the dogmas you have accepted over such possibilities of salvation in such a minute, and that would be a form of faith - negative faith, it is true, but nevertheless faith in them, just as I do. Mine seems, in the long run, the run of eternity to be far more optimistic than yours. In yours, all good things must come to an end. In mine, not only must they come to an end, but they (the good things) will also be resurrected to exist forever - and that is far more cheerful than the embrace and praise of their final and complete ending. That IS the Paschal joy and the true meaning of Christmas, and why we have something to celebrate.

Wishing things were different is not the same as believing they are. It's not even the slightest bit of evidence that they are. There are atheists in foxholes. The saying to the contrary is a groundless, smug bit of wishful thinking on those who will not see what is going on around them. It's also an insult to those who haven't turned believer in those moments of crisis.

rusmeister wrote:(I realize that is of little help to you; as an additional thought, I have been reading the sample from Lewis's collected letters, which includes his period of atheistic unbelief and the period of his conversion - both the stolid statements I see here from people all the time and something beginning to question those ideas, to begin to doubt them. I'd recommend them to you - I got what I have through the iTunes store, and it was only the free sample of the book - the one I got is called "Yours, Jack". www.amazon.com/Yours-Jack-Spiritual-Dir ... 0061240591 )

I'll see if this is at the Borders that's closing tomorrow. I don't need help thinking that there is no supernatural. I bought Dawkins' God Delusion, but ended up donating it to the local used bookstore without reading it. I won't learn any new attitudes there, even if I might learn some new facts or line of thinking. And don't need to nod in agreement. But Yours, Jack is from a way of thinking that's foreign to me, and, so, intriguing. Which is why I bought Anthony Flew's There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind and TEM, and why I read Conversations With God completely (1st book, that is).

Fist, unless I misunderstand your thinking, I'm gonna have to side with Rus on this one point.
You certainly can choose to believe. That is what faith is. If you mean choose to believe in the opposition of 'facts' that point otherwise, then you may be talking about a suspect or foolish belief. But you can still choose to believe, just as you can choose not to believe. Belief doesn't always have to align with the facts - it just helps a lot when it does. There may not be any objectively provable facts to align with -- that's why it's called faith, and not math, or science, etc.

I don't want to take anyone's faith away from them, whether it is faith in Something, or faith in Nothing.

Either way, I don't think faith can be understood entirely within the brain, without at least consulting the heart to some degree. However, I would also caution against using the brain to over-rationalize something felt in the heart, because the heart, just like the brain, can be misled. This is why I stop short of calling any fundamentalist religion 'reasonable' -- they certainly do have reasons for their actions, many of which are Good reasons -- but there will always ultimately be a submission of will to that higher power, which manifests itself locally as a Church -- and that submission of will (also called obedience) can easily be mistaken for (or become!) an abdication of personal responsibility...or conversely the assumption of *too much* responsibility when it comes to dictating others' behaviors for them.

dw

dw, I think Fist's point is that rus, personally, cannot choose not to believe. I almost made the same point in a response earlier today, but bailed out of it.

I think some people have an innate need to believe that there's Something Out There. Whether it's hardwired by nature or nurture (a point that can -- and has! -- been debated), if you're primed for it, you can't just say "screw this!" and walk away an atheist. There will always be something nagging at you that your atheistic worldview is not quite right. Eventually, if you're true to yourself, you will come back to religion.

Fist apparently doesn't have that internal nag hardwired in. Or he does, and that's why he keeps up the search for a religion that resonates with him, if any there be.

Rus did, in fact, say "screw this!" and walk away once -- but his hardwiring drew him back eventually, albeit to a different faith than the one he grew up in.

I think some people have an innate need to believe that there's Something Out There. Whether it's hardwired by nature or nurture (a point that can -- and has! -- been debated), if you're primed for it, you can't just say "screw this!" and walk away an atheist. There will always be something nagging at you that your atheistic worldview is not quite right. Eventually, if you're true to yourself, you will come back to religion.

I am not sure I entirely agree with this. There is Something Out There for atheists. They are the four fundamental forces. You might say, "but they are not conscious forces!" Well, in gnosticism, IIRC, or at least some variants, the higher power beyond the lower gods of "good" and "evil" warring over mankind are

I am Jewish. I believe in God. I am also a nontheist as well as being a theist. I believe that, in accordance with the fact that Abraham argued with god to save good men in a city of evil, it is our place to challenge god, fate, or whatever rules over us. I DO believe that the nature of god has changed between the past and the present, and that the four fundamental forces of physics more accurately express why things occur than the idea of a god actually conscious of our actions, interested in our daily going-ons, etc.

Moreover, I believe that theism and atheism are compatible. Now, I am not trying to do any of you any more damage than I have done already in destroying your beliefs, which ARE important in how we act in the real world and interact with other human beings. So I am not going to bother airing such a destructive argument again. Of course, I already conceived of it, and do they not say something regarding Satan sinning against god the moment he conceived of it in christianity, or at least in Paradise Lost, the moment he thought of the sin rather than when he acted it out?

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:
Either way, I don't think faith can be understood entirely within the brain, without at least consulting the heart to some degree. However, I would also caution against using the brain to over-rationalize something felt in the heart, because the heart, just like the brain, can be misled.

Your heart only pumps blood. Everything romantically referring to the heart derives purely from the brain.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:Your heart only pumps blood. Everything romantically referring to the heart derives purely from the brain.

Thank you, Mr. Obvious. I was attempting to draw a distinction between the rational/analytical side of human behavior and the emotional/creative side of it, both of which are sourced in the brain, but are generally and non-scientifically described as the distinction between 'mind' and 'heart'.


dw

Your heart only pumps blood. Everything romantically referring to the heart derives purely from the brain.

Eh. The blood streams to the brain and supplies it with air. "Derive purely" my ass. Also I have felt my brain and heart burn - in a good way - together with passion, so there must be something in the heart. Perhaps the heart is the brain's outlet when the brain is handling too much.

Holsety wrote:

Your heart only pumps blood. Everything romantically referring to the heart derives purely from the brain.

Eh. The blood streams to the brain and supplies it with air. "Derive purely" my ass. Also I have felt my brain and heart burn - in a good way - together with passion, so there must be something in the heart. Perhaps the heart is the brain's outlet when the brain is handling too much.

Unfortunately science is laughing at you.
Those with artificial hearts still feel love and passion.
It's all a chemical reaction in the brain.
As is any idea about the soul or faith.