Saturday, November 28, 2009

Answering Bill Walker's Version of Optimism

Bill Walker is a long time blog reader and someone who often likes to make comments both here and on Atheist Watch. His comments run the spectrum form intelligent and well put to blathering insulting ridicule, depending upon how badly I've insulted him that week ;-)

This is pretty nice I feel it deserves an answer. Here's the comment as a whole:



Joe, I am,as an optimist feel sure that you will, one day cast off that yoke of Xian dogma, & join us in the joyous freedom of dis-belief of ALL those man-made holy books, all those man-made religions, all those man-made gods.Join us on the ExChristian.net site. We are many hundreds of former Xans of many 'different stripes'. Main line, fundamentalist, evangelical people of all ages & former strongly held beliefs. This includes former preachers, with PHDs in religion. You are welcome to post any & all thoughts-even Xian ones. We all share the right to state our thoughts & all can share in responding to all posts. You may find it helpful in requiring thought, logic, common-sense & reason. Give it a shot, Joe. There is a book that I think may help you. "When God Becomes a Drug.By Bart Aikins. Please vdon't feel that this is a criticism of you. You are a victim- one of countless millions. I am rooting for you.

My overall answer: Fat chance. You have no idea what I've been through, so you have no idea to what extent I have found God to be the answer for my life. But that being the case, I will never abandon what I know to be true. I know God is real and I know it totally and securely right down to the bottom of my little heart. Ok so let's break down the statment as there are many things it prompts:

Joe, I am,as an optimist feel sure that you will, one day cast off that yoke of Xian dogma, & join us in the joyous freedom of dis-belief of ALL those man-made holy books,
This is an absurd statement, especially a long time reading, it becuase he has not been reading closely. He assumes my belief is nothing more than "dogma" or something I just adopted for some stupid reason like my parents told me to. He should know I was an atheist. I pride myself on what a good fine intellectual atheist I was. I came to believe because the power of God was made real to me in my life. Here atheist like play little games, if it was an experience it must be that I was emotionalistic and delusion so it can't be trusted. If it was ideas then it must be that I'm just accepting groundless dogma and either way I can't think properly. I can think better than most atheists I meet on the net. But yea I had an experience and that proved ot me That God is real. Atheist games not impress me. That experience was more than just one experience, it was the culmination of years of searching. It really was the capstone to a year of searching that involved both ideas and experiences, and that year was the culmination of a whole youth of searching.

What's really absurd is his contrast of dry groundless dogma with "joyus freedom" of atheism. It's really depressed insanity. I have 300 scientific empirical studies (I just finished writing a whole book about them). They prove that religious people are much happier and much better off and much less depressed than are atheists. At least that is religious people who have the kinds of experiences I'm talking about. These studies show that people who have such experiences are much happier, better adjusted, better able to cope and less depressed than those who do not. My conversion (see link above) involved such experiences.

Here are some of the quotations about that, comparing happiness and depression levels in the two groups. These are from the various studies and they are listed on my pages about the studies on my site Doxa. They are also found in God argument no 4 or 5 on religious instinct.


Religious belief indicative of good mental health


a)Religous Pepole are More Self Actualized


Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:


"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."



Gagenback


Quote:

In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)



b) Christian Repentance Promotes Healthy Mindedness


william James
Gilford lectures


Quote:


"Within the Christian body, for which repentance of sins has from the beginning been the critical religious act, healthy-mindedness has always come forward with its milder interpretation. Repentance according to such healthy-minded Christians means getting away from the sin, not groaning and writhing over its commission. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution is in one of its aspects little more than a systematic method of keeping healthy-mindedness on top. By it a man's accounts with evil are periodically squared and audited, so that he may start the clean page with no old debts inscribed. Any Catholicwill tell us how clean and fresh and free he feels after the purging operation. Martin Luther by no means belonged to the healthy-minded type in the radical sense in which we have discussed it, and be repudiated priestly absolution for sin. Yet in this matter of repentance he had some very healthy-minded ideas, due in the main to the largeness of his conception of God. -..."



c) Believers:less depression, mental illness, Divorce rate, ect.


J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090


Quote:


"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."



[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]


3) Shrinks assume religious experience Normative.

Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

[ http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]

a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul


"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."



b. psychotheraputic discipline re-evalutes Frued's criticism of religion


Quote:

Amaro--

"Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12), .... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts, ..."



[sources sited by Amaro BION, W. R. Aten��o e interpreta��o (Attention and interpretation). Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1973.

MELLO FRANCO, O. de. Religious experience and psychoanalysis: from man-as-god to man-with-god. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis (1998) 79,]

c) This relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline in psychology; transactionalism

Neilson on Maslow

Quote:

"One outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."

"The influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."



4) Religion is positive factor in physical health.


"Doctrors find Power of faith hard to ignore
By Usha Lee McFarling
Knight Ridder News Service (Dec. 23, 1998) Http://www.tennessean.com/health/stories/98/trends1223.htm Quote:


"Some suspect that the benefits of faith and churchgoing largely boil down to having social support � a factor that, by itself, has been shown to improve health. But the health effects of religion can't wholly be explained by social support. If, for example, you compare people who aren't religious with people who gather regularly for more secular reasons, the religious group is healthier. In Israel, studies comparing religious with secular kibbutzim showed the religious communes were healthier."Is this all a social effect you could get from going to the bridge club? It doesn't seem that way," said Koenig, who directs Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health .Another popular explanation for the link between religion and health is sin avoidance."

"The religious might be healthier because they are less likely to smoke, drink and engage in risky sex and more likely to wear seat belts.But when studies control for those factors, say by comparing religious nonsmokers with nonreligious nonsmokers, the religious factors still stand out. Compare smokers who are religious with those who are not and the churchgoing smokers have blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson, who conducted the smoking study."



see also: he Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993 For data on a many studies which support this conclusion.


5) Religion is the most powerful Factor in well being.


Poloma and Pendelton The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3290.

Quote:


"The authors found that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predicter of existential well being. The degree to which an individual felt close to God was the most important factor in terms of existential well-being. While frequency of prayer contributed to general life satisfaction and personal happiness. As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combindation of religious items, including prayer, religionship with God, and other measures of religious experince to begin to adequately clearlify the associations of religious committment with general well-being."



(5) Greater happiness

Religion and Happiness


by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD


Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness
br>

Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Nielsen, M. E. (1998). An assessment of religious conflicts and their resolutions. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 181-190.


Nielsen again:


In the days before research boards reviewed research proposals before the studies were conducted, Pahnke devised an experiment to induce people to have a religious experience. On a Good Friday, when they were to meditate in a chapel for 2.5 hours, twenty theology students were given either psilocybin or a placebo. The students who were given the psilocybin reported intense religious experiences, as you might imagine. Their levels of happiness also were significantly greater than the control group reported. But what is especially interesting is that these effects remained 6 months after the experiment, as the psilocybin group reported more "persistent and positive changes" in their attitudes to life than did the placebo group.


Pahnke, W. H. (1966). Drugs and mysticism. International Journal of Parapsychology, 8, 295-314.




Page 2 (the arguement on Doxa)


Let's look at more of What Bill says:

dis-belief of ALL those man-made holy books, all those man-made religions, all those man-made gods
If he had been reading closely he would understand that my views on inspiration of he Bible include the fact that they written by men, which in fact no Christian theologian ever denies not even the inerrentists. No one says God actually wrotet anytin but the 10 commandments. I am not an inerrantist. This is not a problem because I see that God is working thorugh human experience as described above, and in this way God works in all cultures.

We are many hundreds of former Xans of many 'different stripes'. Main line, fundamentalist, evangelical people of all ages & former strongly held beliefs. This includes former preachers, with PHDs in religion. You are welcome to post any & all thoughts-even Xian ones.
Notice he does not say they have liberals. He says many stipes but he mentions "main line" and fundie. What is meant by main line? He probably means two shades of fundie. But more importantly how many of them had mystical experiences? I've seen that board before it is not great shakes. They are all suffering from cognitive dissonance and are totally unwilling to listen a reasoned discussion. The didn't strike me as having anything different than your average atheist hate group board. Their discussions read like Infidel guy or atheism.net In other words stupidity! When he says they have Ph.D.'s is he speaking of Hecotor Avelos? If so I am not impressed.


You are welcome to post any & all thoughts-even Xian ones. We all share the right to state our thoughts & all can share in responding to all posts. You may find it helpful in requiring thought, logic, common-sense & reason. Give it a shot, Joe. There is a book that I think may help you. "When God Becomes a Drug.By Bart Aikins. Please vdon't feel that this is a criticism of you. You are a victim- one of countless millions. I am rooting for you.
I'm a victim of happiness. How kind that you wish to liberate me from being happy and having a good life. It is really such a burden not to be depressed as I was when I was an atheist. I really mis feeling life is meaningless and absurd. I just can't stand the idea that the creator of the universe loves me and that I feel happy any time I want to because I have meaning and purpose I really need to be helped out of that terrible fix of having a good life.

Here's my question, do you know the difference in a drug induced high and real happiness? I don't think you do. If you did you wouldn't be foolish enough to think that atheist depression counts as real happiness and religious people happiness, which cleinically is proved to have less depression is analogus to drugs.

I will go over there and challenge that guy becuase I am not afarid to argue with a guy with a Ph.D. even in a field I know nothing about, but I should have a Ph.D. the only reason I don't is because it was stolen from me as I was on the door step of receiving it. He knows nothing about my field so we are even.

Now let me tell you about my life, just a little bit. I had a 4.0 in doctoral work for five years. All professors liked me and I had a bright future as an academic and everyone who knew me just assumed I would make it. Then my parents got sick and I had to take care of them. I had other family members who were mkaing it really hard to take of them, I spent all my time doing it. I didn't give up on my doctorate I still worked on my Ph.D. while running my own little nursing home and giving my parents 24 hour round the clock care, with two other relatives works against me all the time. My father was dead for several minutes having been hospitalized for big heart attack. Then in the night he had a worse heart attack, he died in the ICU on the table as they worked on him. They got his heart going again. He was dead for maybe eleven minutes. That in itself is not a miracle, but there are some amazing things about it. What really meant a lot to the doctor was that he came back so strong (He was 89) his heart was weakened by the attack and very arrhythmical and he came back with a strong, steady, rhythmical beat like a much younger man. I did not know about any of that, I was at home having been in the hospital 48 hours already. I prayed with the Pope's midnight mass and because of that I can time it and find that it was during that time when he was actually dead. I dreamed that the Pope brought him to me and he said he would be alright. What I knew going to bed was that he had had a worse attack and they didn't expect him to live through the night. I woke expecting to find him dead but then the dream came back to me. Then I went to the hospital and the nurses were saying "Have you heard about the miracle?" I asked the doctor if he would call it that he said "I have never used that word in my practice but I use it now, this is a miracle!" That's exactly what he said.

Now this comes after 20 years of the kind of thin on a regular basis that you find in the testimony I liked to above. So I was already living the kind of life style that an experienced Charismatic lives. My live was already full of miracles and testimonies and things God has done. As I cared for my parents we had more. On occasion we called the ER guys, we called on a regular basis. As they hooked him to up to their gadgets they watched his heart attack symptoms change and go to normal as we prayed for him. They were all saying "wow this isn't suppose to happen!" I gave up everything in my life for them. There were several such incidents. I cared for them (my parents) full time round the clock for three years, and still tried to finish my Ph.D. that's when I discovered message boards and CARM as well.

Eventually of course my parents died, this time for keeps. I went back to school full time and worked as a teaching assistant. But then I went through a year long process of losing the house. It was stolen by a gang of criminals disguised as a mortgage company! So my brother and I were out on the street. We slept in our car in front of my friend's house for a bit and they let our dog run in their back yard. I could not find a job and I began to shout at God. I would drive around they city shouting at the top of my lungs "You liar!" "you lied to me!" I just openly mock "I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begin for bread, well lookie here liar! I'm beging for bread, why don't you help me!??" That homeless period did not last long but we had to take a real crummy apartment. It was full of Hispanic low riders and dug dealers. A knife broke out in front of our door not long after we moved in.

I was convinced my life was over and ready to die. That last year in the old house was ridiculous. Every single day I tired to fight the motgage company. We were in the aucion, the house begin sold out from under us, for a year. Every month we were in it and it never sold. People didn't know why it didn't sell, it was a good proeprty and they said real estate agents were after it, people wanted it, but somehow when it came time for the auction somehting hapepned and it just didn't sell. I was prayihg of course. When we did finally have to leave I got resentful and that's why I would shouting and saying "you are not helping," that and not being able to find a job. A real estate guy told me that our house was being talked about real estate seminars all over this part of Texas becuase it was so amazing that we kept dodging the bullet. I wasn't really doing anything special. Twice we sold it, signed papers and all and they went back and backed out. I didn't play that but it got us out of auctions a coupe of times. we had no air conditioning, the place filthy because I didn't care any more I wasn't trying to keep it clean. It was infested with flies.

We got out and into this dump surrounded by drug dealers, I felt that my life was over. I had planned to go back to our old house, which was standing empty, this was at the height of the mortage crisis (which is not over yet) and I was going to put the car in the garage late at night and just keep the motor running. But I decided to do it in the day time because I was real upset about something. There was a cop sitting in front of the house for no apparent reason and I decided to take it as a sign. I went home and said "I am still alive, thank you God for that." I began to thank God every morning, "thank you that I am at least still alive." One day my sister came over to pray for me. She said "God please show Joe that his life is not over, you will still use him and have things for him to do." I thought, yea sure! Next day we went to a toaco place and were in life waiting order. this guy I had never seen before cam up and gave me 10$ and said "get some food." I was embarrassed but I took it becuase we only had enough to split a combo.

I noticed the guy was still jus standing there. I said "is there something else?" He was acting really embarrassed and he said "I don't this kind of thign all the time but God wants me to tell you something." I thought "O yea sure, Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life." He spit back word for word exactly what my sister said. i know what you are thinking, she prayed general positive stuff and he said general positive stuff. This was the exact next day, how many times does this happen to you? It was word for word. Not just general stuff but exactly what she payed including the reference to writing books and doing acacemic stuff who would think of that? No one would think at that point where I looked homeless that I was an academic.

I began thanking God for everything. I prayed every day and thanked for God for everything and started feeling God's presence again and began to be happy again. i begn to feel that I was re-building my life one piece at a time. I have no stopped feeling good. The only time I feel bad is when atheists are ragging on me. But that doesn't last long because when I stop posting on their boards I feel good again. Over the months we got into a wonderful house, a beautiful house which is the only one in all of North Dallas that is affordable to us given our incomes. We got this house because a little voice told me to go see about it and we went and the woman was coming out the door.

Now land lords in Dallas since 9/11 have been very peranoid and it's really hard to rent anything in Dallas. We were rejected by several apartments because my brother was arrested and our credit is bad and it said "foreclosure" on it so that in itself is an impassable barrier and it had just been a year and a half or two years since that happened. My credit sux, we don't make near enough to rent a house let alone a nice one, and this voice told me to go to this door and I did and the women was just coming out from having been observing the re modeling. She just happened to be the one Land Lady in North Dallas who understood the problems we have been facing and was caring enough to rent to us.

this kind of thing happens in my life on a regular basis. It happens beause I continue to thank Gdo for everything and pray every day and I love God. I believe what he says. I have been totally happy since living here. Why should I give any of this up? At this piont It's 30 years of knowing Jesus and that means 30 years of the kind of things I talk about happening all the time. It's a regular way of life and it works.

You know what? I really do resent atheists assuming that I'm unhappy because they were. I resent atheists assuming my beliefs arent' deep or sincere just because their's werent. I really resent atheists assuming that I'm depressed and need to be somehow liberated froma faith that was never real to them and that did not mean as much to them as it means to me.


The reasons people quite Christianity are many, but one that is most common is the legatlistic absuive group. I was raised in a group like that. I know what that is. It does feel freeing for a moment utnil you realize you have nothing to replace it with. What is a thousand times better is finding God for real and realizing that God doesnt' want you to be in the abusive grouip either. you can find good grouips that are not oike that.

It's not about grouip it's about a relationship to being.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Paul's Sruggle Against the Gnostics part 2

Photobucket
Jesus shows Thomas His Wounds




II.Paul's Jewish Background.



A. Resurrection is Flesh and Blood.



In speaking about Jewish concepts, N.T. Wright tells us "within this spectrum two points need to be made very clear: first, though there was a range of belief about live after death the word 'resurrection' was only used to describe reembodiment, not the state of disembodied bliss. Resurrection was not a general word for 'life after death' or 'going to be with God' in some general sense. It was the word for what happened when God created newly embodied human beings after whatever intermediate state there might be." (N.T. Wright The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus was and is," Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter varsity Press, 1999, p. 134)


B. Flesh and Blood Messiah



The Jews expected a flesh and blood Messiah! They never looked forward to a mere ethereal being. Gnosticism did originate in Judaism but not as "Christian Gnosticism" which developed in the second century (with forrunnigs in the first).


C. When Did Paul Become a Gnostic?



The theological background for a Gnostic redeemer myth existed among Jewish sources, but Paul was not a Gnostic.

Paul was a Pharisee, a student of great Rabbi (Gamaliel) he was very proud of his tradition. He could not be further removed form gnosticism. There is no point in assigning to him a Gnostic ethereal theory of the universe when plainly he did not hold to such clap trap. there is simply no reason to think that he believed this.


III. Paul Battles the Gnostics


A. Doherty's assumptions of secret teachings in Paul


Piece No. 3: REVEALING THE SECRET OF CHRIST


Doherty says:

Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in terms of a spiritual, heavenly figure; they never identify this entity called "Christ Jesus" (literally, "Anointed Savior" or "Savior Messiah") as a man who had lived and died in recent history. Instead, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, God has revealed the existence of his Son and the role he has played in the divine plan for salvation. These early writers talk of long-hidden secrets being disclosed for the first time to apostles like Paul, with no mention of an historical Jesus who played any part in revealing himself, thus leaving no room for a human man at the beginning of the Christian movement. Paul makes it clear that his knowledge and message about the Christ is derived from scripture under God's inspiration. [See "Part Two" and Supplementary Articles Nos. 1 and 6.] (Doherty)



As We have seen above this is totally false. There are Pre-Pauline and Pre-Markan references to Jesus as a flesh and blood man, and the basic historical setting of the Gospels existed in wrttien and oral traditions from at least the middle of the century. We have no reason to assume that this doesn't' reflect the basic facts of the original events and Jesus' actual sayings. Even though Doherty tries to connect his theory to the Mystery cults, it really belongs more firmly in the realm of Gnosticism. The Gnostic redeemer myth was that of a ethereal being whose participation in history was marginal and whose fleshly appearance only illusory. The Gnostics traded in "secret knowledge" and "hidden wisdom." It is really the Gnostics that fit the theory better, but they do not fit Paul at all.


B. Gnosticism at Corinth



Fred Layman,
Northwestern Nazarene University
Wesley Center Online
"Male Headship in Paul's Thought"
april 2004


Historical studies have increasingly shown the pervasive presence of Gnosticism in the background of several New Testament books, especially those which are important for this discussion-1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastorals. At this stage Gnosticism was not so much a defined religious philosophy as it was a radical pneumatic disposition which was diffused throughout many religions including Judaism and Christianity. (for his sources see below)

This does not mean, however, that Gnosticism is the basis of the teaching in the NT books, rather the basis of the heretical ideas being combatted! That is the is the context of the above statement.




Paul Does seem to know a wisdom saying source for Jesus' sayings but it is one that is also reflected in the canonical Mark. The believers in Corinth seem to have a different take on the Gospel than many others. In the first couple of chapters of 1 Cor. Paul uses a different terminology than he uses anywhere else. Mainly this consists of words like "wise" and "wisdom." He uses these 10 times in the first chapter, but only four times in all the rest of his corpus. These terms bring up a set of sayings from Mark that are noted as distinctly different from Jesus' other other sayings. Mark: 11:25,27, 13:16-17--Luke 10:21-24. The contrast between terms "wise" and "clever" found there are used nowhere else in Jesus' sayings. These refer to Isaiah 29:14:"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart." Paul refers to this saying. Other contrasts include hidden and revealed. All of these concepts pertain to Gnostic ideas of the secret knowledge and those who possess it vs. those who possess it not. In 1 Cor. 4:5 "the Lord who will illumine the hidden things of darkness and reveal the councils of the heart." This is parallel by Mark 4:22 and also has a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas.


What's going on here? Does this mean that Paul was a Gnostic? It means that there was a Gnosticizing element in the early church, one which complied an early sayings list, and fragments of that list are used in the canonicals (perhaps because Jesus really said them?) But the Gnosticizers put their own Gnostic spin on these sayings. Such a faction existed at Corinth. Paul is entering their scheme and their language to deal with them. In other words I'm arguing that either Gnostic perverted real sayings of Jesus or they use a common background document that was an authentic saying source and all we have is some Gnosticized version like the Gospel of Thomas that contains some potentially authentic sayings of Jesus mixed in with latter Gnostic lore.



1) Paul adopts "wisdom" Schema to deal with faction



Koester tells us "Paul not only alludes to the sayings where were evidently of crucial importance to his opponents, he also adopts their schema of revelation which speaks of the things that were formerly hidden, but have now been revealed. This scheme is characteristic of the Q sayings...though it is not really typical of the Synoptic Saying Source as a whole. In the genuine Pauline letters, it is used only in 1 Cor 2:6-16, while it occurs frequently in the deutero-Pauline letters and also appears in the secondary ending of Romans" (16:25-26).(Koster p.59)


"For the Corinthian wisdom theology this revelation schema, of central importance for their understanding of salvation, it related to the sayings tradition by another element, namely, the recourse to the authority of certain persons: Paul, Appeals, Cephas, possibly Christ "(1 Cor 1:12, 3:4-5, 22).(Koester p 62)


There are three elements which together call for an answer: (1) the Corinthians knew saying which they took to be a hidden wisdom saying source. (2) Paul rejects that his calling had anything to do with Baptism (1 Cor. 1:15-17) the claim of belonging to a specific person may have entered into this. (3) Several other sources indicate that Apostolic Authority and the name of a specific Apostle played a role in transmission of sayings for both Orthodox and Gnostic. These sources include: Gospel of Thomas, The Apocrypha of James and Ptolemy's Letter of Flora.


Koester concludes form all of this that at Corinth Paul faced a Gnosticizing faction which believed that they had been initiated into secret knowledge through baptism. "They understood particular Apostles as their Mystagogues from whom they received sayings from which they received life giving wisdom...Paul's arguments against this understanding of Salvation become quite clearer if they are understood against this background." (Koster, p.62).



2) Paul never adopts this vocabulary again



As pointed out already, he only uses these terms of Wisdom and wise four other times in his whole corpus. Koester says that with this background in mind the way he speaks of the cross as hidden wisdom before the ages becomes understandable, because he is dealing with this Gnosticizing faction in their own terms. It is also important to note that the Cross was "hidden" to human understanding. The only verses about it in the OT are "hidden" and require interpretation, which even the Jewish people don't' accept today (Is 53, Ps 22, Zach.10:11). In other words Paul is creating the impression in the minds of the Gostic "I will show you the real secret knoweldge and wisdom, it's knowing Jesus."



3) never speaks of the Cross this way again.



Moreover, as Koster states: "Nowhere else does Paul speak about the Cross of Christ in such terms." (p.62). Doherty is merely confused and reversing Paul's meaning to place him in a position the opposite of which he was taking.



4) Paul is arguing against the Corinthian position!



It does not require much persuading to get most knowledgeable Bible readers to agree that Paul was not pleased with the Corinthians, that only when he was flattering them to coax them into submission was he saying positive things about their behavior. In the opening chapter he is clearly arguing against everything they think. He denies the importance of attaching one's self to a famous Apostle but one should only follow Christ. He denies that his mission was baptism precisely because they thought baptism by an Apostle or noteworthy was initiation into the secret mysteries. That's why he says "I thank God I did not baptize any of you." The rest of the time he is telling them they are not wise. They do not have the full truth, they are immature.


Note: There probably wasn't a full blown Gnosticism at Corinth since this doesn't show up tied to Christian Doctrine until the second century. The Corinthians probably didn't deny that Christ was a flesh and blood being, but just believed that they had "secret wisdom" that other churches didn't have. That is why Paul doesn't just come out and say explicitly "this is wrong, Christ was in history..."

C. No Grounds for the Charge of non-historical crucifixion



Paul's repudiation of the Gnostic faction at Corinth can be seen as a repudiation of all Gnostic positions, especially any position that would detach Jesus Christ form Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of flesh and blood and history. Paul clearly rejected the hidden wisdom schema, why than assume that he rejects the rest of the Gnostic schema? Moreover, Doherty sites this Gnostic vocabulary as grounds for the assumption that Paul is working in the Mythos of a mystery cult. Yet Paul repudiates the mystery cult diatribe. Let's look further at some of the verses Doherty sites.


1) The Charge that Paul does not
Place crucifixion in Spiritual Realm.



Doherty:

Piece No. 4: A SACRIFICE IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM


"Paul does not locate the death and resurrection of Christ on earth or in history. According to him, the crucifixion took place in the spiritual world, in a supernatural dimension above the earth, at the hands of the demon spirits (which many scholars agree is the meaning of "rulers of this age" in 1 Corinthians 2:8). The Epistle to the Hebrews locates Christ's sacrifice in a heavenly sanctuary (ch. 8, 9). The Ascension of Isaiah, a composite Jewish-Christian work of the late first century, describes (9:13-15) Christ's crucifixion by Satan and his demons in the firmament (the heavenly sphere between earth and moon). Knowledge of these events was derived from visionary experiences and from scripture, which was seen as a 'window' onto the higher spiritual world of God and his workings." (See "Part Two" and Supplementary Articles Nos. 3 and 9)




2) The Charge Refuted



As we have seen, Paul most certainly did place the Crucifixion in history, even tying it to historical witnesses Peter and James, and the Resurrection. But moreover the Pauline Verses (and Hebrews) Used to place the Crucifixion in this ethereal realm of The Gnostic Redeemer myth are totally misconstrued. Of course these other sources he uses, the Ascension of Isaiah for example, has nothing to do with Pauline letters and was produced late in the first century. He can't tie that to Pauline thought at all. Paul actually does say Jesus was flesh and blood in Romans 1:3 where he speaks of his linage. He even uses the Greek word for Felsh calling it his fleshly line, but Doherty who is not a Greek Scholar fudges on the meaning of the term.



a. Crucifixion in Space? 1 Cor. 2:8



This is a very deceptive statement Doherty makes above, for while many scholars do believe that the phrase "rulers of the age" could refer to demon powers, very few of them actually believe that Paul places the crucifixion in some ethereal Plaroma or nether world. In fact the statement does not have to be understood this way at all. The word Archon (ruler) merely means "firt" or "commander." It is used of human commanders and rulers all the time. While Aeon, "age" just means a period of time, or this epoch in history. So this statement could just as easily describe human rules as demonic ones. The statement , taken by itself, just in terms of its language, could as easily place the crucifixion in history as outside it. Since we have already shown so many ensconces where Paul thinks of the crucifixion as historical, it is foolish and absurd to make this one enstance into anything more, especially when we know that he is adopting the terminology of a Gnsoticizing faction in order to coutner their heresy.



b. Rulers of the Age are in history.



Now it is probable that Paul did use this phrase of demonic powers. But he believed that demonic powers played a hand in the running of the world, the affairs of state, that they controlled governments. They were able to motivate the crucifixion for this very reason. That still means however that the crucifixion was in history. It is the demonic powers influence over human affairs of which he speaks, not some ethereal events in some realm removed form history (Whiteley, Theology of St.Paul Fortress:1965, 229).


2:7 "No we speak of God's secret Wisdom. A wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rules of this age understood it for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. "(8)



He adopts the language of the Wisdom faction at Corinth while arguing with them. This is a basic Pauline strategy "I become all things to all men that I might win some for Christ." He's merely striving to appeal to his audience. Nothing in this statement implies that the crucifixion was not in history. Rather, it was motivated by the demonic powers since they control the worldly reigns of power, through their stooges the humans who are not clinging to God but sold out to the "worldly powers." This is clearly an event in history.


E. St. Paul and the Mystery cults




1) Cross cultural fertilization



The framework of Palestine in the first century was a melting pot of several cultures cross fertilizing each other. "It must be remembered that Jewish and Hellenistic thought both grew up together in the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, both owed a little bit to Egypt and a great deal to the civilization of the Trigris-Euphrates valley. Both alike derived something form Aegean culture." (D.E.H.Whiteley, The Theology of ST Paul. Philadelphia: fortress press, 1964, p.5) It is not surprising then that some concepts and expression, modes of thought would be cross fertilized and "borrowed." This is a far cry form the "copy cat" savior theory that skeptics such as Dohrety often go in for.


2) St. Paul Not indebted to Mystery cults



As for the notion that Christianity was a mystery cult, D.E.H. Whiteley one of the greatest Pauline scholars tells us, "the subject need be considered only at the level of popular misconceptions. Most of our evidence for the extant mystery cults comes from after the time than that of ST. Paul. For example Apuleius whose Golden Ass is one of our sources for these cults wrote in the third quarter of the second century...St. Paul does not seem t have been the sort of man to barrow from pagan sources. He was brought up as a strict Jew...Col. 2:8 'do not let your minds be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophies' is a warning against the kind of thinking we find in the mystery religions." (p. 2). Moreover Whiteley points out had Paul borrowed from the mystery religions we should expect to find his "Judaizing opponents" attacking him for that.



3) Paul Warns against Mystery cults


"St. Paul does not seem to have been the Sort of man that we should expect to find borrowing from Pagan sources. He was brought up as a strict Jew (Phil 3:5) Col 2:8 'do not let your minds be captured by hollow and deceptive speculations'...this is the kind of thinking we find in the mystery religions: it is not directed against philosophy in any modern sense of the word." (Whiteley, p. 2).
__________________________


(The sources used in the Layman article)

12Constance F. Parvey, "The Theology and Leadership of Women in the New Testament," in Reuther, Religion and Sexism, p. 121.13Ibid., pp. 121f.14Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth (New York: Abingdon, 1971), pp. 160f.15Ernst Kasemann, New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), p. 71.)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Paul's Sturggle against the Gnostics part 1

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I.The Pauline Connection

A.Formation of the Gospel



The notion that there was "a Gospel" per se, that the message about Jesus was distinctive from the one about the Messiah, that Jesus gave it a kind of life of its own, was also slow in coming. The first real formation of it was the Apostle's Church council which we find in Acts . Before this time emphasis was upon Jesus as Messiah. Now Jesus did not cease to be the Messiah, but the church's vision of what that means in terms of the mission to the gentiles and something more than just liberation of Israel from the Romans began to dawn upon them at that council. The Word preached in Antioch, by Hellenistic Jews, the first to be called "Christians." The Antioch church knew their traditions independently of the Apostles. The Creedal formula Paul quotes probably came out of this this council.


B. The Antioch Community as connecting link


"The creedal formula quoted in 1 Cor 15: 3-7 in which the "gospel" is defined as the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Christ make it possible that the understanding of the Gospel shared not only by the Church of Antioch from the very beginning but also by others who are named in the citation of those to whom Jesus appeared (Peter and James). This is confirmed independently in Paul's report about the Apostle's council" (Gal 2:1-10).(Koester p. 51)

"What Paul preached was never the subject of the controversy between Paul's Gentile mission and the church in Jerusalem. Jesus death and resurrection was the common event upon which their proclamation was based. Through the proclamation of this eschatological event the communities of believers became the New Israel. As new Believers came into the community they were baptized in the the death of Jesus so they would share also in Jesus' Resurrection." (Ibid.)

In other words the Antioch community didn't just Preach Paul's doctrine, they already had the basic core of the Gospel which they knew from their migration form Jerusalem. They knew the cross and the Resurrection from the beginning. Clearly they located these events in history, in their own recent past as did the Jerusalem church. This will be seen shortly.


C. The Peter and James Connection.


Paul had several opportunities to Meet Peter and James, perhaps even other Apostles or those who saw Jesus in the beginning. He knew the stories to some extent, although perhaps not all of them and not well. But he clearly grounded himself in Jesus teachings. The creedal formula which he quotes places Peter and James in the thick of the action, ignoring the women witnesses of the Gospel (probably because they were women) and only counting these two men as early witnesses. Yet this was circulating during their life time. Peter and James knew this talk of Jesus resurrection and themselves as witnesses was being noised about the very city in which they lived. They clearly did nothing to hush it up! Why would they have no issues with Paul's basic message if that message was that Jesus was not an historical figure? The creedal statement says: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that the appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve..."


Why would an ethereal spirit require burial? Clearly the passage is speaking of events that occurred in space and time as we know it, in our world, involving flesh and blood historical figures. Paul knew those who were involved in the events and they had no problem with his understanding of those events or the core message.


D. Pauline References.


First, there is no reason for Paul to include such references since the epistles are not an attempt to convert pagans, but letters to churches dealing with practical and theological matters. Secondly, Paul was an intellectual, a thinker and a theologian. His concern was theology. He sought to answer the hard questions about the faith which were not answered by mere repetition of the basic facts of Jesus life. Why should he go into detail about Mary and Joseph and Christ born in a manger when he had more lofty matters to deal with? Finally, he wasn't present during the ministry of Jesus and he was not an eye witness, it is doubtful that he he ever saw a copy of Mark, or any of the other Gospels, so he may not have known all the facts or all the sayings. But he knew enough to formulate a theology. Granted it is a lofty theology, he does have something of a "cosmic Christ," but Paul's Christ is not a Gnostic redeemer, and Paul does demonstrate many times a basic awareness of the core Jesus story. But we should not expect to find it in great detail. This is argument from Silence and proves nothing. I will argue that not only do we find many direct contradictions to Doherty's views, that the Gnostic redeemer myth is bunk, and that Paul saw Jesus was a flesh and blood man who lived in history, but that some traces of the Gospel theology and material come through in Paul's understanding.


See my Chart showing Paul's allusions to Gospel stories and saying of Jesus. Koester believes he had a saying source, such as Q.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Paul was not a Gnostic Part 1

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Here I have another fun exchange with my Jesus myther friend "Grog" who remains one of the best dialogue partners on carm. .

Quote:
Originally Posted by grog225 View Post
Paul the Gnostic

So now we are ready to consider Paul’s thoughts. First, let’s consider the main elements of Jewish Gnosticism and how it relates to wisdom or “Sophia.” Gnosticism held that the world was created by a demiurge, the malformed offspring of Sophia (wisdom). The Demiurge is the ruler of this material world often with Sophia enthroned alongside him. Depending on the version, Sophia created the demiurge in an attempt to be as the Supreme Aeon. So we have this dualistic world: the demiurge and the Supreme Aeon. Within this world, Sophia plays a dual, ambivalent role: she is on the one hand responsible for the evil material world and on the other hand the source of wisdom from the Supreme Aeon (see McRae, Novum Testamentum, 1971).

Earlier, I posted 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 and proclaimed it to be the bedrock of Paul’s thinking. Metacrock countered saying that Paul specifically rejected wisdom in 1 Cor 2:6:

1 Cor 2:6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

Metacrock’s error here was failing to recognize the ambivalent nature of Sophia, both as agent of the material world and as agent of the Supreme God. In 1 Cor 2:6, Paul explicitly references that:”We do, however, speak of Sophia among the mature” (or in some translations, ‘perfected’). Then “Not of Sophia of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.” This exactly and precisely reflects Jewish Gnostic thought of the times. Note that the ‘rulers of this age’ are the evil elemental spirits, agents of the Demiurge:



No Sophia was the good guy among the gnostic, she was their goddess.

Actually I have no idea where you get the idea that this statement is the bedrock of Paul's thought? It's only the time ever talked this way.Most scholars are convinced that he adopts this kind of language for no other reason than to humor the Corinthian proto gnostic so he can lead them down the garden path to his own view. You are merely willing to read into it at ever opportunity the slightest nuance that puts a myther spin on it. Of course your motive for doing that its merely to fit the Doherty time table on grounding Jesus in history by the next century, and then making it appear that Paul supported some sort of gnostic or mystery cult myth making in the first century, so that you can subvert the history of Christianity and make it appear that it came out of mystery cult sources.

see Koester, in his chapter on John, he takes the prologue to be an anti-gnostic counter to the Sophia cult. Ancient Christian Gospels.


Koester tells us "Paul not only alludes to the sayings where were evidently of crucial importance to his opponents, he also adopts their schema of revelation which speaks of the things that were formerly hidden, but have now been revealed. This scheme is characteristic of the Q sayings...though it is not really typical of the Synoptic Saying Source as a whole. IN the genuine Pauline letters, it is used only in 1 Cor 2:6-16, while it occurs frequently in the deutero-Pauline letters and also appears in the secondary ending of Romans" (16:25-26).(Koster p.59)


"For the Corinthian wisdom theology this revelation schema, of central importance for their understanding of salvation, it related to the sayings tradition by another element, namely, the recourse to the authority of certain persons: Paul, Appeals, Cephas, possibly Christ "(1 Cor 1:12, 3:4-5, 22).(Koester p 62)

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“However, it appears to us that these names have been indiscriminately used by Paul to designate the cosmic powers. Besides them there are also "OS0L 7oXXoi" and "xupmo ToXXoA" (I Cor. viii 5), "aocv 6votoca votaocC6irvoq" (Eph. i 21), and "erzoupavoc" and "MysWoc" and "xoraXocovLc" (Phil. ii Io). Finally, some of their names with cosmic bearings are "xootpoxp'Tops; TOU C7XOTOU TOToou" (Eph. vi 12), "a'roloa" (Gal. iv 3, 9; Col. ii 8, 20), and "'dpXovTzo zo ax6O0ou TOUTou" (I Cor. ii 6-8). These designations seemingly correspond to the Johannine title for the supreme demonic being…”(Lee, Novum Testamentum, 1971)[emphasis added]


That is all third century. We have no writing's from the gnostics from the first century, except those mentioned nit he NEw testament, and couple of lost gospels such as Egerton 2 or the Gospel of the Savior, but they do not include these kinds of characters found at Nag Hammadi. Everything from Nag Hammodi is third century.

When Paul says "we struggle not against flesh and blood" (totally anti-gnostic statement because they did struggle against flesh) "but against principalities and powers" he's talking about the demonic force in the Roman empire not just the powers that the gnostic dreaded running into after death. That whole business about the powers keeping the spirit from the plaroma is latter. We don't have an example of it ni the first century. It looks like it evolved.

so you are trying to impose the third century style of gnosis upon the first century before it even existed. And there's no evdience for the type of gnostic Doherty reads back into the era before Chrsit. either.


Quote:
“All this suggests that St. Paul did not think about earthly kings and authorities, but rather about spiritual entities located somewhere in space, the ambivalent spiritual powers behind the earthly authorities.” (Quispel, Vigiliae Christianae, 1965)


So what if he did? Jews believed in demonic powers. But he's probably talking about demonic powers as they pertained to the Roman administration. There is nothing uniquely gnostic about that.


Now it is probable that Paul did use this phrase of demonic powers. But he believed that demonic powers played a hand in the running of the world, the affairs of state, that they controlled governments. They were able to motivate the crucifixion for this very reason. That still means however that the crucifixion was in history. It is the demonic powers influence over human affairs of which he speaks, not some ethereal events in some realm removed form history (Whiteley, Theology of St.Paul Fortress:1965, 229).


2:7 "No we speak of God's secret Wisdom. A wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rules of this age understood it for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. "(8)






Quote:
Quispel adds “behind the earthly authorities” but I think that presumes too much that the crucifixion is an actual event

.

you are begging the question. there is no reason to assume otherwise, you are treating the gap in knowledge a proven fact.


Quote:
In fact, in Romans 13 Paul refers to the governing authorities as agents of the Supreme God, not the Demiurge (I have argued this elsewhere and for the sake of space, I won’t do so here). So I agree with Quispel up to “spiritual powers” period.
supreme God in comparison with pagan gods. The God who really exists vs teh "gods" who are really the demons. given what he says in Rom 1 that makes such perfect sense and is clearly what he means!


That's imposing the reading upon the text. There's no connection between the idea that civil authoities are agents of God so therefore that must be a reference to the "true God" above the dimurge. That's certainly a warpped way to look at it.

(1) Clearly he's talking about human governments, for he would hardly advize us to pray that God would bless the authorities and keep them peaceful so we wont be persecuted and the talking about demonic powers.

(2) The phrase "principalities and powers" probably does refer to demons but as they work their evil through human governments. You are using that to connected to what you take to be a gnostic dichotomy but there no reason at all to connect it in that way. It makes just as much sense with Christian, who would also be talking bout demonic powers.

Quote:
So having set aside Metacrock’s objection, let’s look at the rest of 1 Cor 2:6-10:
1 Cor 2:6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
I sense a twister coming on. He uses the same pharse who ti must be same idea for the same group.


this is still just more of your refusal to understand the uniqueness of this kind of talk in Pauline usage means he had a special reason for speaking to these guys this way. This was not Paul's usual way of speaking, which indicates something different is going on and we can't take it to be indicative of his real beliefs. In other words he's trying to reason with them no their own terms!

here's the sort of ink blot job you are doing on the language:

Barit means covenant in Hebrew

ish means man in Hebrew

therefore barit-ish means "man of the covenant"

therefore the British are the 10 lost tribes!



Quote:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

Again in 2:8, ‘none of the rulers of this age’ refers to the evil elemental spirits as I documented above with the Quispel and Lee quotes. (A sidenote on Quispel: he believes Gnosticism is a late development and a Christian heresy. If this analysis of Paul is correct, that would be decisive against Quispel.)



again you continue along the same lines of errors. Still using Corinthians which is not normal language for Paul. You also seem to assume that Orthodox Christians didn't have the idea of revelation by the spirit, which is just foolish as hell.

Quote:
Note that in 1 Cor 2:10 the source of the revelation is the Spirit, not an earthly ministry of Jesus. Who is this Spirit? The Spirit is most often in Gnosticism associated with Sophia. So it is Sophia who has revealed the gospel to Paul, the “secret wisdom” of the Supreme God, hidden through the ages, and now revealed through Sophia.


It's totally ridiculous to try and kidnap the Holy Spirit and term him into a side kick of Sophia. There's absolutely no reason to think the Orthodox could not have the Holyk Spirit as a miracle working aspect of God's power. Clearly they did. It's all over Acts, the Jews had it to. Its' in the OT: Joel 2 "in the last days I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams."



(1) you assume fallaciously that he would have to chalk the source up to Jesus ministry

(2) you are apparently ignorant of the role of the spirit of God in Jewish beilef--it had one

(3) in several places Paul refers to "the spirit of Christ."

this is all the very very Jewish concept of Memra. The presence of God revealed on earth--which is equivalent to the logos. When John said "logos" in John 1:1 he was saying "memra" the phrase used in the targemum to say "the presence of God revealed downward from heaven to earth."

very very Jewish has nothing at all to do with Gnosticism and that's the link he's making to Sprit.



Quote:
Note also the similar passage in the Gospel of Thomas:

“I will give you what eye has not seen, and what ear has not heard, what has not been touched, and what has not arisen in the heart of man.”


Thomas is not gnostic. the core first century sayings of Thomas are not gnostic, they are q source and related to Q source. The gnostic bits are just a framework in which the core was placed in the second or third century.


Quote:
(Albeit the source of this saying is Isaiah 64:4, however, it clearly resonated with Christian Gnostics.)


why is that clear? prove that it resonated anymore with them than with any other Jews or Jewish Christians? There are no writings of Christian gnostic in this period. They don't show up until the middle of the second century. We don't kow exactly who he was dealing with in Corinth or exactly what they were thinking; but there were ony "proto gnostics" among the Christians at this time.


Quote:
It is hard to imagine a more thoroughly Gnostic passage than 1 Cor 2:6-10.


there's basically noting Gnostic about it. The kind of gnosticism you try to read into it you can't prove existed at that time.


Quote:
If you read Paul from this perspective, you find that his thinking is grounded in Gnosticism. Another parallel to Gnosticism (parallel? it is Gnosticism!) is Paul’s reference to different levels of understanding his Gospel (don’t confuse Paul’s gospel with THE Gospels, they are separate things!). Paul, like the Gnostics, referred to different levels of understanding God’s revealed secret mystery:
if you stare at my shrink's ink blots long enough you get the same effect


again, he never spoke this way again. It's totally unique for Paul and that implies that he was trying to reason with a proto gnsotic faction on their terms. OF course one can read in all sorts of things when dealing with what we take to be someone's understanding. So the ideas of "levels" is all the fruitful imagination of the mythers require to go off to the races.


Quote:
1 Cor 2:14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:


Jews believed in the Holy Spirit. it was the Sprint of God. they talked about they believed in it. that's clearly and obviously what he 's talking about.


the Gnostic did not talk about "the spirit." you are trying to equate that with Sophia but Paul never links the spirit to wisdom except in an ordinary way and never attaches female sense to it. I've never seen any references by the gnostics to "the spirit" in this way, or any charismatic seeming passages about the giftrs either. I don't call any such thing in Nag Hammadi or in the Gnsotic elements in Thomas.

Obvious you are just reading in what you want to be there.


Quote:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?"But we have the mind of Christ.


show me what ordinary Jew could not say that?

Quote:
Koester and Fred Layman based research (my words largely but from Koester)

Paul Does seem to know a wisdom saying source for Jesus' sayings but it is one that is also reflected in the canonical Mark. The believers in Corinth seem to have a different take on the Gospel than many others. In the first couple of chapters of 1 Cor. Paul uses a different terminology than he uses anywhere else. Mainly this consists of words like "wise" and "wisdom." He uses these 10 times in the first chapter, but only four times in all the rest of his corpus. Therse terms bring up a set of sayings from Mark that are noted as distinctly different from Jesus' other other sayings. Mark: 11:25,27, 13:16-17--Luke 10:21-24. The contrast between terms "wise" and "clever" found there are used nowhere else in Jesus' sayings. These refer to Isaiah 29:14:"I will destroy the wisdom f the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart." Paul refers to this saying. Other contrasts include hidden and revealed. All of these concepts pertain to Gnostic ideas of the secret knowledge and those who possess it vs. those who possess it not. In 1 Cor. 4:5 "the Lord who will illumine the hidden things of darkness and reveal the councils of the heart." This is parallel by Mark 4:22 and also has a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas.




Quote:
“Man without the spirit” is reference to the lowest level of understanding the hylic or Psychic. Those with the Spirit are the Pnuematic they are the “spiritual man”, The Spirit has blown the pneuma (revelation) into them.


not talking about people who don't have spirits he's talking about people who don't use the Holy Spirit. To the myther this is so inviting to see it as the secret Gnostic the man without the spirit would be the ordinary fleshly man who si not gnostic. But that's just the spin that gnostic put on it a century latter. That's not the implication that need be attached to the actually thinking of Paul which is charismatic in nature. He's saying those who don't live by the spirit. It's the myther's misfortune not to know about that.


Paul’s Followers

Quote:
It is interesting to note that early Christian Gnostics cited Paul as the founder and sage of their movement.



that's hardly surprising. They could hardly claim a James church origin since Paul was the one with the mission to the Gentiles. Paul was not the only origin they claimed either.





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Today’s orthodoxy maintains that Paul was not a Gnostic, Metacrock scoffs at the idea, but to the gnostic Marcion, Paul was the one true apostle.



because he took the missions to the gentiles. Marcion was not a Gnostic.

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In fact, Paul’s letters probably survive today because of Marcion.


foolish. he's clearly a badge of honor for both Clement and Igantias. and Ploycarp. That's why!


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Marcion was the first to collect together writings and call them a Gospel, the Gospel of the Lord or the Evangelicon. This was in the early second century and it is the first attempt to create a cannon. Marcion’s cannon included a version of the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul. Valentinius, the great gnostic sage of the mid-second century also traced his philosophy to Paul:


you are confusing uses of the term "gospel." Just because the term came into coinage then, and originally it mean the four fold gospel because the four canonical were accepted everywhere, that does not mean Marcion's was the original source. he truncated the previous Gospel he didn't make them.


Marcion had the demiurge, but that doesn't mean you can lump him in with the Nag Hammadi Sophia types. See you are just melding the "Gnosticism" into a single monolithic body. But the term is one coined by the Orthdox to brand who are not Orthodox. It's really a collection of a whole bunch of different groups that are not related.
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you also need to ask yourself why Paul became the centerpiece of the Orthodox? If he was a Gnostic and if the Orthodox were those who took the church away form the original gnostic state why did they take Paul for the major NT writer?



Paul adopts "wisdom" Schema to deal with faction


Koester tells us "Paul not only alludes to the sayings where were evidently of crucial importance to his opponents, he also adopts their schema of revelation which speaks of the things that were formerly hidden, but have now been revealed. This scheme is characteristic of the Q sayings...though it is not really typical of the Synoptic Saying Source as a whole. IN the genuine Pauline letters, it is used only in 1 Cor 2:6-16, while it occurs frequently in the deutero-Pauline letters and also appears in the secondary ending of Romans" (16:25-26).(Koster p.59)


"For the Corinthian wisdom theology this revelation schema, of central importance for their understanding of salvation, it related to the sayings tradition by another element, namely, the recourse to the authority of certain persons: Paul, Appeals, Cephas, possibly Christ "(1 Cor 1:12, 3:4-5, 22).(Koester p 62)


There are three elements which together call for an answer: (1) the Corinthians knew saying which they took to be a hidden wisdom saying source. (2) Paul rejects that his calling had anything to do with Baptism (1 Cor. 1:15-17) the claim of belonging to a specific person may have entered into this. (3) Several other sources indicate that Apostolic Authority and the name of a specific Apostle played a role in transmission of sayings for both Orthodox and Gnostic. These sources include: Gospel of Thomas, The Apocrypha of James and Ptolemy's Letter of Flora.


Koester concludes form all of this that at Corinth Paul faced a Gnosticizing faction which believed that they had been initiated into secret knowledge through baptism. "They understood particular Apostles as their Mystagogues from whom they received sayings from which they received life giving wisdom...Paul's arguments against this understanding of Salvation become quite clearer if they are understood against this background." (Koster, p.62).


2) Paul never adopts this vocabulary again


As pointed out already, he only uses these terms of Wisdom and wise four other times in his whole corpus. Koester says that with this background in mind the way he speaks of the cross as hidden wisdom before the ages becomes understandable, because he is dealing with this Gnosticizing faction in their own terms. It is also important to note that the Cross was "hidden" to human understanding. The only verses about it in the OT are "hidden" and require interpretation, which even the Jewish people don't' accept today (Is 53, Ps 22, Zach.10:11).


3) never speaks of the Cross this way again.


Moreover, as Koster states: "Nowhere else does Paul speak about the Cross of Christ in such terms." (p.62). Doherty is merely confused and reversing Paul's meaning to place him in a position the opposite of which he was taking.


4) Paul is arguing against the Corinthian position!


It does not require much persuading to get most knowledgeable Bible readers to agree that Paul was not pleased with the Corinthians, that only when he was flattering them to coax them into submission was he saying positive things about their behavior. In the opening chapter he is clearly arguing against everything they think. He denies the importance of attaching one's self to a famous Apostle but one should only follow Christ. He denies that his mission was baptism precisely because they thought baptism by an Apostle or noteworthy was initiation into the secret mysteries. That's why he says "I thank God I did not baptize any of you." The rest of the time he is telling them they are not wise. They do not have the full truth, they are immature.


Note: There probably wasn't a blow blown Gnosticism at Corinth since this doesn't show up tied to Christian Doctrine until the second century. The Corinthians probably didn't deny that Christ was a flesh and blood being, but just believed that they had "secret wisdom" that other churches didn't have. That is why Paul doesn't just come out and say explicitly "this is wrong, Christ was in history..."
C. No Grounds for the Charge of non-historical crucifixion


Paul's repudiation of the Gnostic faction at Corinth can be seen as a repudiation of all Gnostic positions, especially any position that would detach Jesus Christ form Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of flesh and blood and history. Paul clearly rejected the hidden wisdom schema, why than assume that he rejects the rest of the Gnostic schema? Moreover, Doherty sites this Gnostic vocabulary as grounds for the assumption that Paul is working in the Mythos of a mystery cult. Yet Paul repudiates the mystery cult diatribe. Let's look further at some of the verses Doherty sites.
1) The Charge that Paul does not
Place crucifixion in Spiritual Realm.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Discussion with Daedalus part 2

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Originally Posted by daedalus2.0 View Post
We all know the Ont. argument. I won't repeat it, but something occurred to me.

The most perfect, excellent or greatest Being I can imagine would be one that would offer me all the joys of Heaven, and my family and friends, despite what I believe, since it is a given that such a great being can think on such a higher level than I, that it would be impossible for me to understand what it is and how I could come to believe in it.

This effectively disproves the Christian God.

After all, the Christian says that the greatest being they can imagine is one that tortures infidels for eternity. But since it is greater to forgive (a clear Christian doctrine), a forgiving God - despite a persons acceptance of Jesus - the Christian god MUST be forgiving to be the greatest being imaginable.

It is a clear contradiction that requires us to disbelieve that the Christian God can exist.
you are attacking the version that was going about in the middle ages. Why don't you try dealing with the modern version, the modal argument?

(1) If God exists, he must exist necessarily, if God does not exist his existence is impossible.

(2) Therefore, God is either necessary or impossible.

(3) God can be conceived without contradiction

(4) therefore, God is not impossible

(5) Since God is not impossible he must be necessary.

(6) Since god is necessary he must exist.
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[QUOTE=daedalus2.0;5546783]It's word play. It doesn't define God other than an assumption that God=Necessary.[/qutoe]


Not word play. the defining thing is not an issue. you are misunderstanding the nature of definitions of God.

This argument ws revived by Norman Malchom and two major philosophers made their reputations on defending it. By the turn of the 20th century the OA was considered a thing of the past, an artifact of a by gone era in philosophy one that would never come back. But by the end of he 20th century all the major philosophers who revived it had become major based upon their defense of it (Hartshorne and Plantinga, Purtil to some extent and Maclum who was already famous and respected but the became more so).

"definition" of God is the big hairy atheists think it is. There are four or five options.


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Change "God" with "Alpha-Condition". (The definition of Alpha-Condition is "the Necessary, ever-existing State of Affair that is able to create a Universe. It Necessarily exists without a God. It is a priori and non-contingent.")
that argument is reversible. it works both ways. you are just calleing God "whatever." In the end the point is it doesn't matter what you call him. There can only be one and he had to be the ground of being, so we know what we are talking about, it's just a question which tradition mediates best what he wants (if anything).




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that is, the argument smuggles in the presumption that the definition of "God" includes a necessary existence, and assumes that something like that exists.
The concept "G-0-D" refers to necessary existence. That's just the definition of what "God" is. That doesn't mean the argument is defining God as "that which exists" because it's either or, god either exists necessary or is impossible."

So there's no resting premise on conclusion because there are two possible outcomes. then its' just a matter of eliminating one of them.


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Then, it does a little bait and switch and plays on "Well, if it isn't impossible, it must be not only possible, but Necessary! Voila!"

what makes that a bait and switch? The bait and switch means you change one thing for another, not that that you eliminate one of two alternatives. That's process of elimination.

example of bait and switch is where reductionists say consciousness is brain function, then they go on to show that brain function is rooted in brain chemistry. But property dualist don't believe that consciousness = brian function.

The modal argument is not saying impossibility is the same as necessity. But that they are two possible alternatives and the argument is won by which ever one is not eliminated logically through process of elimination.



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so, i don't see how the term "god" means anything, since it is undefined in this argument, and even if so, it can only be defined enough to make it true... defining God into existence.
God arguments don't have to supply definitions of God within the logic of the argument. All they have to do is be compatible with whatever definition one things fits the argument. you can use the model argument for standard theistic view of God.

My move is to not argue for the existence of God but for the idea that belief is ratinoally warranted. Then you are not talking proving that God exists. Thus Ground of being could be argued for this way even though Tillich nixed doing so.


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And, then, the leap from if it "can be concieved without contradiction, it's possible, which means it's Necessary" isn't warranted.

the argument turns on that move, yes, but it is a valid move. Because due to the concept of necessity vs contingency there can't be a mere possibility of a necessity. Possibility becomes necessity in the sense that iff (if and only if) you are dealing necessity anyway, there are only two options, necessity or impossibility.



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So, here is my argument for a Godless Universe(s):


Still convinced by the argument? I'm not. Not until one can prove the definition is accurate!
prove that tables are things to put things on?

let's say I have a table, a level surface on four "legs" or columns. I say "this is a table, it' function is to put things on.I use the term "table" to mean this."

you say "prove it's really a table."

"that's what table means it means this thing here."

"you are just defining it into existence."

"but it does exist, here it is. I'm just telling you want I call it."

"no no! it can't exist becuase you are confusing the name of it with the quality of its existing."

but actually I'm not. I'm just telling what I call something that exists.

you might say "but this is an argument." Yea but it's an argument for something the logic of the augment prove this "something" exits, and I choose to call it "God." I could call it birdy birdy nam nam if I wanted to that doesn't really matter. The fact is the logic proves it exists.


the confusion arises from the atheist failure (no offense) to grasp what necessity really implies. atheits tend to think of God in terms of contignent localized personalities. They think "the God of Christianity" they thin of a big man in the sky.

They can't see the big man and the personality as the metaphor and the reality that points to as "an aspect of being" or as "primordial being" rather than a big man.

that's why the name doesn't matter and "which big man" is not an issue. There is no big man, there is only this one aspect of relaity and anything that fits it is it.
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Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Discussion with Daedalus part 1

This discussion began on CARM. It looked like it was shaping up to be a good discussion. I don't know anything about Daedalus but he seems bright and more informed than most.He also seemed eager to have a good discussion and not a Ping contest, so that makes him a worthy opponent and it makes his arguments worth dealing with. This discussion kept foundering becuase he kept saying he didn't have time but would get back latter. So It kind of built over time by little pieces step by step. He reflects a lot of "typical" atheist understanding of many important issues that dealing with, but when I say "typical" I don't mean that as a pejorative.



#1

Quote:Meta
the mystical tradition in Christianity is old and all organized religion is probably based upon mystical experience at some level. The assumption that any temporal image used to discuss God is just a metaphor pointing to God is implied in all theology.

we don't have to have the kind of precision we have with science because it's not about words on paper or mathematical equations, it's about personal experience.
Daedalus:


I will be short in my responses. I don’t mean to be curt – ask if you want clarification. I think you probably understand the principles I am raising as well (or better) than I do, so I hope you will extrapolate the best argument you are aware of, rather than going for the quick kill. I will try to do the same.
I agree that all theology attempts to talk about God tangentially. In fact, it seems a weakness to me, since it seems unable to talk about God in ANY direct manner.

MEta"Tangentially" Is a bad word. Analogically is better. I would expect that argument. First,it's a necessity, weakness or not it can't be helped. God is beyond our understanding. You are playing up the self confidence of reductionism which is a sham and based upon ruling out most of reality and sticking to only that which we knwo (minuscule). Secondly, all language is meatphor. We don't have a set of words that accurately tell us the ultimate nature of reality, and scinece doesn't tell us that. Science is just as stumped epistemological when it comes to transcendent aspects of reality that aren immediately given in our limited experience. We do not know ultimate reality, we don't know the basis of reality. We have no more clue as to Heidegger's ultimate question (why something rather than nothing) now than we did in his day.


Daedalus:
The power of science, and Materialism, is that it relies on extrapolations of well-known principles that can be objectively proven.

MEta:That's an illusion because while the principles can be proved the extrapolation, like a abridgments (extrapolation is an abridged version of truth) must leave out huge gaps in knowledge and into those cracks fall all that makes cinece less than self confident, all the basis of metaphysical principle and religious belief.

Deadalus:
Personal experience is, obviously, a contentious philosophical topic. I don’t expect us to settle it here. It is enough to say, IMO, that we must rely on it to some extent, but that we must also understand its limitations. The discrepancy between the two (Objective vs. Subjective, vs. Inter subjective) is the crux of the issue it seems.
Meta:The limitations of personal experience are absolute. You can't get around them. To pretend that you can is the "epistemologist's fallacy." That means there is no objective knowledge. Think about it how can objective knowledge read us objectively if we can't be objective? It's not that numbers on paper have person biases, 2 + 2 = 4 in base 10 every time, but when we go to connect the "big picture" we can't do it. The info is distorted through a necessary lense of personal perspective that means we can't have objective anything except at the most mundane an immediate level.


Deadalus:

There is a vast difference between our experience of, say, Electricity (scientifically proven; its laws established and repeatable) and, say, Beauty (metaphorically described and subjective/Inter Subjective).
Meta:
Yes but again Electricity is established by "facts" in evidence because they mundane and within the limited sphere of our perceptions. But by the same token that creates the illusion of certainty and objectivity but when you go to connect it to some higher level and solve some real epistemological problem then it all has to go through the distorting lens of our assumptions. Moreover, the 'certainty' we think we found with Electricity is nothing more than the limited perspective which we can reason, which is by hits nature a prori a correlation and not causality itself. The same problems resolved in the same way in a religious sphere are dmissed as "speculation."

Daedalus:
It appears God floats in the middle ground: not scientifically provable, but also not a simple subjective feeling, according to – I think – your argument. God, according to your explanation is a generally agreed-upon “experience’ that people attribute to something they call God.

Meta:That's right. God is what Tillich calls "the unconditioned." That is transcendent of the subject/object dichotomy. The unconditioned is both subjective and objective. It's objective to the extent that everyone can see it and find it and reason to it, but it's not located in any one individual it's personal experiential perspective of everyone. Some don't experience it, but of those who do they experiences the same kinds of things.



Quote:Meta
I wouldn't say God needs anything, but the fact is all humans everywhere have always tried to define the human problematic and the one and only thing that mediates the definition and the resolution is ultimate transformative experience.


Daedalus:
Many religions claim God “requires” (needs) certain actions or acts of faith by us. No, I suppose by classical definitions, God doesn’t have Needs, although, philosophically, I’d say he does:

Meta:
I don't see why you say "philosophically." Why would God have a need?


Daedalus:
If God created the world for even just ONE person to realize something of his nature, or plan, then if no one did realize it, his experiment would be a failure. He NEEDS someone, anyone, to become enlightened or else why make the Universe and Life at all?
Meta:
straw man argument. You are assuming God's purpose in creation is this "experiment." You are deciding what you think he wanted to get out of creation. That's no guarantee that's it.


Daedalus:
That is if God is conscious in a way that I understand as a conscious, intelligent Being.
Meta:
That's the irony isn't it? god is not conscoius in the way we understand it. becuase God is beyond our understanding.


Daedalus:
Just to clarify, all Gods need something. Even the Creator of the Universe – if acting with purpose, needed to create the Universe, for some reason we can’t fathom. Otherwise, it was either created unwittingly – without a purpose – which makes the act of creating a Universe analogous to sweating: it’s just a by-product. Or it is a Want, which means it is by a whim.
Meta:
But that's still straw man argument. You are deciding in what sense the term "Need" really applies and in what sense it doesn't. The term "need" applies in two different senses here but you treat it one sense. For the argument to do some damage to a generic God concept, it has to be a need of dependence. To use the term in the ordinary sense of fulfilling a purpose, while technically sounding bad for a God concept is actually not a threat to God's impassibility or aseity. God can "need" to fuflill a purpose without being dependent for his existence or well being upon fulfilling it, and certainly without being unable to fill it. The ability of Go to supply any of his own needs means he is still a se and not contingent and not dependent.

Of course implacability is a quality Christian philosophers borrowed from Aristotle's unmoved mover.

Another mistake in your statement is the idea that there could be a multiplicity of gods. In my view God is the ground of being, thus there can only be one. Multiple gods would be contingent, in my view God has to be necessary.

Daedalus:
I Need food. I Want Cordon Bleu. There can be no moral Good, I would argue, that comes from a Want, not in the most strict analysis. Wants, by definition, are selfish.
Meta:
That's unfounded. That reminds me of this obscure English spy movie about a female James Bond figure called Modesty Blaze. There's a rock group named for it too. In the film (which was a real failure) the villian was this high living rich guy who has expensive tastes. He's crawling through the destert dying of thirst and he's saying "Champagne!" "Champagne!" Instead of "water!" As I drew the distinction between need for fulfillment of purpose vs. need for dependence you ad another one, selfish wants. So you are confusing want with need. But granting that desire introduces a "needy" aspect to wanting, it's not still not the same as the notion of "needing" for fulfillment of a purpose. To need for fulfillment does not require that one depend upon the fufillment for life or sustainance.


Daedalus:
God Needed to create the Universe.

This, of course, really makes a problem for the Theist. After all, if they claim that God is conscious in some way and He made the decision to create the Universe, that means the Universe (and everything about it) is Contingent. (This means Logic is Contingent and the Theist shoots himself in the foot claiming that he can use Logic to support his claim that Theism, Christianity, or whatever, is tenable.)

However, if the Universe is Necessary, then God is reduced to a step in a chain of something He is not in control of. If, in every possible world, God created a Universe, then there is no possible world in which he didn’t create a Universe. That is, God MUST act to create a Universe by a Law that He can’t even control – and he either CHOSE to make this one (with all the Suffering in it) or had no control over it (which makes him less potent than a God is usually defined as).


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Mystical experience is validated by over 100 empirical scientific studies (closer to 300). these studies are validated by Ralph Hood in the development of his instrument known as the "M scale." Through cross cultural verification he has demonstrated the verification for the theories of W.T. Stace and all the major mystics. so thesis validated and verified scientifically.
I’m not aware of these studies and must admit I am skeptical. If these truly showed some insight into the Supernatural, I think we’d be hearing about them much more.

I’d also have to look and see what the studies were and what they claim to find.

I don’t doubt mystical experiences happen.. I would just call them unknown experiences. I don’t see how you can attach a dubious experience to an unknown (God).

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Religious experience is not just subjective. Its' also inter subjective and thus contains verifiable aspects.
I don’t doubt that. However, connecting the experience to “God” is the problem. I don’t think anyone discounts that Theists aren’t experiencing SOMETHING!

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At least, we all agree Matter and Energy exist, which, to me, is the base at which we all start, not one that is more Idealistic in nature.
That's going in the wrong direction. You've already biased your findings from the beginning by sticking them with a metaphysical assumption about reality and concreteness. Why something is any more real just because it's more concrete? That's a metaphysical bias.
Wait a minute, though. We both agree that M&E exist and can be talked about Objectively. I am just stating that it is a reasonable place to start since we both agree and the added element is “Other”. We don’t know what “Other” (Supernatural) is. It could be anything.

It could actually be a simple misunderstanding of M&E and nothing more. Since it is unknown in a testable sense (in the same way as M&E), I don’t think it is unreasonable to place it in its own category and ask more questions about it.

After all, if it is a separate category, then it deserves to be measured by its own rules. But, if measuring M&E have shown to be effective/useful, then it also seems appropriate to rule it out by using the Scientific Method.

I imagine this is where your studies come into play. What do they claim? What do they show? What was the methodology? Etc?


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That discussion is beyond this scope. After all, if one of us can prove our position at this level, the one who wins the next (Idealism vs. Materialism) ultimately wins - unless God is a Materialist God.... (which the Bible implies if read literally, but is vague is Idealistic)
No offense but that's just a trumped up game. All you've done is stick on some biases that limit inquiry to the material realm then you will turn around and claim that this proves there's nothing beyond that because there's no proof for it, forgetting that there's no proof only because you eliminated the possibility of proof from the outset.

In other words, your method is circular it rests your premise on your conclusion.
Well, I hope that is not what I am doing. I will try to formalize it, if it comes to that so we can move past prose and into logical argument.

My point is that “IFF” my argument, with it’s assumptions, holds true, then “IFF” the foundation of those assumptions is shown to be true, then my conclusion would logically follow.

The same for yours.

IFF Supernaturalism is true, then if your argument (one in which the assumption that Supernaturalism exists) is valid, then the conclusion logically follows.

Not to be too simplistic but I would use this analogy:

A person is found dead, shot by a rifle multiple times. The detective has a theory but it relies on an assumption: that a person wouldn’t kill themselves by shooting, turning the gun around, loading it and turning it back to shoot themselves again 5 or 6 times – in the head!. (This was an actual case in the news many years ago – they called it suicide!)

Put another way:
People have religious experiences
All experiences are Natural in nature, and have natural explanations.
Therefore, religious experiences are a function of Nature (of Matter and Energy; not Supernatural)

If you agree that 1 is true, then all I have to do is show that 2 is true to arrive at 3.

If I can prove all experiences are based on M&E, or if I can show that ONLY M&E exist, then I don’t need to address religious experiences, since they would be the same as any and all experiences.

My larger point is that this is virtually impossible to prove – since it is a fundamental problem in philosophy, but there is warrant to believe it is true (that only M&E exist) for a number of reasons we can explore.

Either way, it is rollicking good fun to talk about it!

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Well, you'd have to convince me that your experience is objective in nature. If you show me how I can experience God, or, that your experience is verifiable (which seems to be the issue here).
that's asking for a contradiction in terms. Experiences are by definition not objective. Sot hat would be circular. But experiences can be inter subjective and religious experience can be and has been validated by objective scientific studies.
I guess I need to see what we are talking about here, since it seems you are being inconsistent: that experiences are subjective by nature, but that religious experiences have been objectively validated…

Let’s look at the studies.

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you have get past the circular reasoning of trying to bias the result up front by lionizing the data your methods can provide and automatically ruling out any other form of knowledge.
However, it’s fair to ask “by what metric do you measure these aspects of reality that you claim exist but can’t be proven to be objective?”

It seems that you are constantly begging the question, or arguing from ignorance, that your Experiences can’t be proven, except in the way that proves them to be what you want them to be.

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there is no reason to lionize empiricism. If science didn't know empiricism is not enough they would not have invented parsimony.
It’s hard not to lionize something that has worked so well. That is an understatement. It has made the difference! It has risen above all other ways of knowing that it stands alone in the Pantheon of Knowing.

However, that is not to say other ways of knowing can’t be entertained, but I suppose my point is the opposite of yours: let us not denigrate Empiricism for a few esoteric, philosophical reasons.


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It's not a proof, it's an attempt to make it a best explanation.
there can't be proof, there's nothing in valid about "best explanation." That's a lot better than circular reasoning and game playing.
I don’t think either of us are attempting to use circular reasoning or play games.

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that sort of circular reasoning that you think is so valid is the upshot of atheist ideology and reductionism. That in itself disproves your whole view, what think is the only valid form of knowledge is nothing more than circular reasoning.
Not the only valid form of reasoning, just the one that has proven to be most reliable. I think that reliability has value. That value can’t be proven by empiricism (many things can’t, and maybe nothing at all), but if Empiricism can’t prove things, there is little else that can except for Reason with some select circular (read: tautological) statements. Reason can prove things true, but only to the extent that they are “trivially true”.

For example, that a bachelor is unmarried is much less impressive than you arriving at the same atomic weight of a molecule as another person half-way round the world. Avogadro’s Constant is so magnificently large that to arrive at it by chance would be earth shattering – but people do arrive at it. Not by chance, I charge, and that seems to be a strong rationale for the reality and efficacy of the scientific method, Materialism, etc.


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I agree we know through experience, but not, IMO, through subjective experience.
All experience is subjective by definition. There is no such thing as "objective." objective is ideology. It’s a game, it circular. There are only degrees of subjectivity, that’s why inter subjective has to be the standard.
I see what you are saying, but I’d have to maintain that the philosophical world accepts that the concept of the Objective exists and is useful. In fact, it is a rather Skeptical position to not accept that certain things exist, and can be known, independent of the mind.

Again, I’d go back to Avogadro’s Constant as evidence that Matter exists independently of the mind; is Objective reality.

My point is that we ‘Know” through a number of criteria, most of which rely on some verification against our subjective experience. Inter-subjective experience only goes so far. After all, get two atheists together and they will claim that an experience of God doesn’t exist.

I guess I’d have to see why you feel “Inter subjective has to be the standard”? According to what standard? Why “must” it be the primary criterion?
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