Many Atheists are hung up on empirical knowledge. Thats why so many of them (not all by many) insist that we have no info about God, you can't verfy God and so forth.Many posts on CARM lattely have criticized "religious subjectivity." Even many christians have fallen into the trap of dicotomizing between subect and object, such that they think: subjectivity = bad, objectivity = good.
But God cannot be the subject of empirical data becasue is not given in sense data. That's becasue God is not just another object along side objects in creation. God is not just another thing, God is the basis of reality. That's like a fish scientist saying "they assinged me to study this thing called 'water' but I can't find any water." he says that because it never dawns on him that its' all around him, the medium in which he lives and he's always looking through it. he can't see the water because he's looking through it.
That's sort of the case with God because God is the basis of reality, the ground of Being. "in him we live and move and have our being." When we try to look at God and see him directly we look through him because in a sense he's the medium in which we live.
The only answer to this is to search for something else. We don't look for empirical evdience of God, we look for a "co-detemrinate." That is, we look for the signatrue of God, or to use a Derridian term the "trace of God." Like the arua of a neutrino. We can't photogrpah neutrinos directly but we have photographed their auruas that are the reaction of Nuetrinos with other particals. When you see that aurua you know you have one.
But the trace of God has to be the result of a subjective or intersubjective understanding. So rather than subject it to empirical means, we need allow the sense data to determine the categories under which we organize our thinking about God.
Schleiermacher was the originater of this kind of thinking (prior to Brintono who is attributed to be the inventer of Phenomenology). Here is Schleiermacher's take on God consciousness. We don't search for God in objective terms we search for "God consciousness."
Phenomenology
Phenomenology is very important because it is the altenative way of htinking to either empirical science and hangs ups on iductive data, or deudtive reasoing and hang ups on the a prori. When I say "allow the sense data to determine the categories," what do I mean? (this is very crucial to understanding every point I make on message boards):
What that means is, you have a bit of qualia, an impression of the say sense data strikes us,the way something appears to us. Let's say the desk my computer sits upon. Our tendency is to tuck it away into a neat category based upon our preconcieved notions of desks. This is a bit of wodden furniture, it's funciton is proving a surface for writting and bit of storage for what we write. We plug in the label "made in Hong Kong" and we say "it's a cheap desk." Now we have a sub category. all that is pre set in our minds based upon our understanding of the universe vis a vie writting surfaces. But if we appraoch the desk phenomenologically, we don't say "o a cheap peice of furniture for holding my computer--manufactured in formerly British colony, the home of Jackie Chan, thus a Kung fu capitalist cheap desk. but we just say "there is this object that appears in my sense data, and it seems to provide uses x,y,z. So it may not be a desk at all in terms of its functionality, perhaps it would work better as a door stop. Or perhaps this door put across two saw horses would make a better desk. That's not part of my preconcieved notion because it's not made to be a desk, but it might work better."
Ok that's a trivial example, so much for my understanding of desks and their place in the univrese. But, when we consider other thins, things of more gravity such as empirical science and reilgion, or religious belief and expeirnce, the nautre of myth and religious texts, you can see how the outcome might might be a lot more significant if we do it one way as oppossed to another.
The way the atheists want to to it is to demand certian things, and those things require sense data and that sense data is preconcieved to belong in certain categories and to rule out other sense data. Thus they wind up asking for probability of miracles when in fact by defition a miracle cannot be probable. So they rule out any kind of miracle based upon the pre convieved category of "things that do no happen because we don't observe them so they are too impoprobable." Whereas in reality, since miracles are things taht are impossible, but happen anyway because some higher law overrides that of probablity, they are just arbitrarly crossing out the category of the possible and arbitraily arranging their understanding of the universe to exclude the SN, then demanding that, well there's no evidence for it (because we have filed all the evidence under the preconvcieved category of "that which does not happen.").
Religion not Reduceable to Knowledge
Frederick Schleiermacher, (1768-1834) in On Religion: Speeches to it's Cultured Dispisers, and The Chrisitian Faith (Glogenschleurer) (I know my German spell has to worse than my English spelling),sets forth the view that religion is not reduceable to kowledge or ethical systems. It is primarily a phenomenoloigcal apprehension of God consciusness through means of religious affections. Affections is a term not used much anymore, and it is easily confussed with mere emotion. Sometimes Schleiermacher is udnerstood as saying that "I become emotional when I pay and thus there must be an object of my emotional feelings." Though he does vinture close to this position in one form of the arugment, this is not exactly what he's saying.
In the earlier form of his argument he was saying that affections were indicative of a sense of God, but in the Christian Faith he argues that there is a greater sense of unity in the life world and a snese of the dependance of all things in the life world upon something higher.
What is this feeling of utter depenedence? It is the sense of the unity in the life world and it's greater reliance upon a higher reality. It is not to be confussed with the stary sky at night in the desert feeling, but is akin to it. I like to think about the feeling of being in my backyard late on a summer night, listening to the sounds of the freeway dying out andrealizing a certain harmony in the lfie world and the sense that all of this exists because it stemms form a higher thing. There is more to it than thatbut I don't have time to go into it. That's just a short hand for those of us to whom this is a new concept to get some sort of handle on it. Nor does"feeling" here mean "emotion" but it is connected to the religiousaffections. In the early version S. thought it was a corrolate between thereligious affections and God; God must be there because I can feel love for him when I pray to him. But that's not what it's saying in the better version.
The basic assumptions Schleiermacher is making are Plaontic. He believes that the feeling of utter dependence is the backdrop, the pre-given, pre-cognative notion behind the ontological argument. IN other words, what Anselm tried to capture in his logical argument is felt by everyone, if they were honest, in a pre-cognative way. In other words, before one thinks about it, it is this "feeling" of utter dependence. After one thinks it out and makes it into a logical arguemnt it is the ontological arguement.
Unity in the Life world.
"Life world," or Labeinswelt is a term used in German philosophy. It implies the world of one's culturally contructed life, the "world" we 'live in.' Life as we expeirence it on a daily basis. The unity one senses in the life world is intuative and unites the experiences and aspirations of the individual in a sense of integration and belonging in in the world. As Heidegger says "a being in the world." Schleiermacher is saying that there is a special intuative sense that everyone can grasp of this whole, this unity, being bound up with a higher relatiy, being dependent upon a higher unity. In other words, the "feeling" can be understood as an intuative sense of "radical constingency" (int he sense of the above ontolgoical arugments).
He goes on to say that the feeling is based upon the ontological principle as its theoretical background, but doesnt' depend on the argument because it proceeds the argument as the pre-given pre-theorectical pre-cognative relaitzation of what Anslem sat down and thought about and turned into a rational argument: why has the fools said in his heart 'there is no God?' Why a fool? Becasue in the heart we know God. To deny this is to deny the most basic realization about reality.
All religions seek to do three things:
a) to identify the human problematic, b) to identify an ultimate transformative experience (UTE) which resolves the problematic, and c) to mediate between the two.
But not all religions are equal. All are relative to the truth but not all are equal. Some mediate the UTE better than others, or in a more accessible way than others. Given the foregoing, my criteria are that:
1) a religious tradition reflect a human problematic which is meaningful in terms of the what we find in the world.
2) the UTE be found to really resolve the problematic.
3) it mediates the UTE in such a way as to be effective and accessible. 4) its putative and crucial historical claims be historically probable given the ontological and epistemological assumptions that are required within the inner logic of that belief system.
5) it be consistent with itself and with the external world in a way that touches these factors.
These mean that I am not interested in piddling Biblical contradictions such as how many women went to the tomb, ect. but in terms of the major claims of the faith as they touch the human problematic and its resolution.
A religious tradition is like a language, and theology is a converation. Since God is mystyical reality, beyond words, to speak of our experiences of God one must encode those experinces into cutlural constructs, that makes for the differences in different religons. Traditions are like languages in that they furnish a vocabulary for dealing with such experinces based upon past experiences in an inter-subjective fashion. The point of the discussion is to mediate transformation. One moves into mediation through the conversation of theology. One is then able to come terms with mediation on a personal and experiential level as is still able to relate intersubjectively with others who have similar expeirnces.
The question then,is not which religion is "true," but which one best mediates transformation. For the individual who answers that question, and comes to identify with a tradition, that is the conversation to take up; join that traidion. For me its Christianity. As part of the conversation one can set up cirteria for understanding the conversation, criteria such as those listed above.
How Does the Bible fulfill these criteria? First, what is the Bible? Is it a rule book? Is it a manual of discipline? Is it a science textbook? A history book? No it is none of these. The Bible, the Canon, the NT in particular, is a means of bestowing Grace. What does that mean? It means first, it is not an epistemology! It is not a method of knowing how we know, nor is it a history book. It is a means of coming into contact with the UTE mentioned above. This means that the primary thing it has to do to demonstrate its veracity is not be accurate historically, although it is that in the main; but rather, its task is to connect one to the depository of truth in the teachings of Jesus such that one is made open to the ultimate transformative experience. Thus the main thing the Bible has to do to fulfill these criteria is to communicate this transformation. This can only be judged phenomenologically. It is not a matter of proving that the events are true, although there are ensconces where that becomes important.
Thus the main problem is not the existence of these piddling so-called contradictions (and my experience is 90% of them stem from not knowing how to read a text), but rather the extent to which the world and life stack up to the picture presented as a fallen world, engaged in the human problematic and transformed by the light of Christ. Now that means that the extent to which the problematic is adequately reflected, that being sin, separation from God, meaninglessness, the wages of sin, the dregs of life, and so forth, vs. the saving power of God's grace to transform life and change the direction in which one lives to face God and to hope and future. This is something that cannot be decided by the historical aspects or by any objective account. It is merely the individual's problem to understand and to experience. That is the nature of what religion does and the extent to which Christianity does it more accessibly and more efficaciously is the extent to which it should be seen as valid.
The efficacy is not an objective issue either, but the fact that only a couple of religions in the world share the concept of Grace should be a clue. No other religion (save Pure Land Buddhism) have this notion. For all the others there is a problem of one's own efforts. The Grace mediates and administrates through *****ures is experienced in the life of the believer, and can be found also in prayer, in the sacraments and so forth.
Where the historical questions should enter into it are where the mediation of the UTE hedges upon these historical aspects. Obviously the existence of Jesus of Nazareth would be one, his death on the cross another. The Resurrection of course, doctrinally is also crucial, but since that cannot be established in an empirical sense, seeing as no historical question can be, we must use historical probability. That is not blunted by the minor discrepancies in the number of women at the tomb or who got there first. That sort of thinking is to think in terms of a video documentary. We expect the NT to have the sort of accuracy we find in a court room because we are moderns and we watch too much television. The number of women and when they got to the tomb etc. does not have a bearing on whether the tomb actually existed, was guarded and was found empty. Nor does it really change the fact that people claimed to have seen Jesus after his death alive and well and ascending into heaven. We can view the different strands of NT witness as separate sources, since they were not written as one book, but by different authors at different times and brought together later.
The historicity of the NT is a logical assumption given the nature of the works. We can expect that the Gospels will be polemical. We do not need to assume, however, that they will be fabricated from whole cloth. They are the product of the communities that redacted them. That is viewed as a fatal weakness in fundamentalist circles, tantamount to saying that they are lies. But that is silly. In reality there is no particular reason why the community cannot be a witness. The differences in the accounts are produced by either the ordering of periscopes to underscore various theological points or the use of witnesses who fanned out through the various communities and whose individual view points make up the variety of the text. This is not to be confused with contradiction simply because it reflects differences in individual's view points and distracts us from the more important points of agreement; the tomb was empty, the Lord was seen risen, there were people who put there hands in his nail prints, etc.
The overall question about Biblical contradiction goes back to the basic nature of the text. What sort of text is it? Is it a Sunday school book? A science text book? A history book? And how does inspiration work? The question about the nature of inspiration is the most crucial. This is because the basic notion of the fundamentalists is that of verbal plenary inspiration. If we assume that this is the only sort of inspiration than we have a problem. One mistake and verbal plenary inspiration is out the window. The assumption that every verse is inspired and every word is true comes not from the Church fathers or from the Christian tradition. It actually starts with Humanists in the Renaissance and finds its final development in the 19th century with people like J. N. Drably and Warfield. (see, Avery Dulles Models of Revelation).
One of my major reasons for rejecting this model of revelation is because it is not true to the nature of transformation. Verbal plenary inspiration assumes that God uses authors like we use pencils or like businessmen use secretaries, to take dictation (that is). But why should we assume that this is the only form of inspiration? Only because we have been conditioned by American Christianity to assume that this must be the case. This comes from the Reformation's tendency to see the Bible as epistemology rather than as a means of bestowing grace (see William Abraham, Canon and Criterion). Why should be approach the text with this kind of baggage? We should approach it, not assuming that Moses et al. were fundamentalist preachers, but that they experienced God in their lives through the transformative power of the Spirit and that their writings and redactions are a reflection of this experience. That is more in keeping with the nature of religion as we find it around the world. That being the case, we should have no problem with finding that mythology of Babylonian and Suzerain cultures are used in Genesis, with the view toward standing them on their heads, or that some passages are idealized history that reflect a nationalistic agenda. But the experiences of God come through in the text in spite of these problems because the text itself, when viewed in dialectical relation between reader and text (Barth/Dulles) does bestow grace and does enable transformation.
After all the Biblical texts were not written as "The Bible" but were complied from a huge voluminous body of works which were accepted as "holy books" for quite some time before they were collected and put in a single list and even longer before they were printed as one book: the Bible. Therefore, that this book may contradict itself on some points is of no consequence. Rather than reflecting dictation, or literal writing as though the author was merely a pencil in the hands of God, what they really reflect is the record of people's experiences of God in their lives and the way in which those experiences suggested their choice of material/redaction. In short, inspiration of text is a product of the transformation afore mentioned. It is the verbalization of inner-experience which mediates grace, and in turn it mediates grace itself.
The Bible is not the Perfect Revelation of God to humanity. Jesus is that perfect revelation. The Gospels are merely the record of Jesus' teachings, deposited with the communities and encoded for safe keeping in the list chosen through Apostolic backing to assure Christian identity. For that matter the Bible as a whole is a reflection of the experience of transformation and as such, since it was the product of human agents we can expect it to have human flaws. The extent to which those flaws are negligible can be judge the ability of that deposit of truth to adequately promote transformation. Christ authorizes the Apostles, the Apostles authorize the community, the community authorizes the tradition, and the tradition authorizes the canon.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Subjective Faith
Recently on a Message board I defended Keirkegaard's idea of fiath as subjective. A fellow Christian said to me:
I think you have fallen into the trap of letting the
>atheists set the agenda fort the meaning of the word
>"subjective."
>
>I answered:
>
That's so very irnonic. Becasue by embracing the subject Object dichotomy you are doing nothing more than affirming the atheist world view. There is no way to be a Christian and affirm the subject/object dichotomy in the strict "good/bad" framework, with subject = bad, object = good that atheists impose.
That is empirically and Biblically the case. When God speaks thorugh Jerimaiah and describe the new covenant (ch 31) he says "the new covmenat will not be like the old one, for the broke the old one. NO longer will a man say to his neighbor "know the lord" for they will alll know me from the least to the greatest."
Now laws are objective. Rules are objective. He's saying they broke the objective covenant the one based upon rule keeping. They new one will be subjective (they will all know me--knowing is a jubjective matter because it depends upon the indivuaul's percetions).
so he's saying the objective coveneant will be overturned in favor of the subjective covmenat, the one based upon personal experince.
You have fallen into the trap of not being up to date on Heidegger and not being well versed int he thierkers of the tradition, such as Kierkegaard.
I think you have fallen into the trap of letting the
>atheists set the agenda fort the meaning of the word
>"subjective."
>
>I answered:
>
That's so very irnonic. Becasue by embracing the subject Object dichotomy you are doing nothing more than affirming the atheist world view. There is no way to be a Christian and affirm the subject/object dichotomy in the strict "good/bad" framework, with subject = bad, object = good that atheists impose.
That is empirically and Biblically the case. When God speaks thorugh Jerimaiah and describe the new covenant (ch 31) he says "the new covmenat will not be like the old one, for the broke the old one. NO longer will a man say to his neighbor "know the lord" for they will alll know me from the least to the greatest."
Now laws are objective. Rules are objective. He's saying they broke the objective covenant the one based upon rule keeping. They new one will be subjective (they will all know me--knowing is a jubjective matter because it depends upon the indivuaul's percetions).
so he's saying the objective coveneant will be overturned in favor of the subjective covmenat, the one based upon personal experince.
You have fallen into the trap of not being up to date on Heidegger and not being well versed int he thierkers of the tradition, such as Kierkegaard.
Ethical Paraidigms
Many atheists support the notion of morality based upon what is teleological ethics. The end or outcome or the goal is the point. It is the achieved goal tha makes an action moral. The prime exmaple of this form of ethics is Utilitarianism; life is a trade off of pursuit of pleaure and avoidence of pain. the highest goal to which one can aspire morally is to aid othes avoidence of pain.
Of course who could forget that gem of the Utilitarian hit parade, "the grestest good for the geraest number."My view is represented by the deontological school of ethics. to be more prescise, rule deontology is my bag.
The basic concept here is that morality is grounded in duty and obligation. Rule deonology says that all rules must be observed from a standard of following duty and promoting obligation, and keeping these rules determines the morality of a given standard.
Deontology is unfairly criticized as blind rule keeping is often confussed with empty legalism. Quite the conrrary, I think I'm very unlegalistic type of person. Rather than insiting up rule keeping at, my level of ethical standard is one in wich the attempt to fulfill duty or keep an obligation is enough to make an action ethical, so that the agent need not even succeed at keeping the rule.
If I said that actions must confrom of rule keeping I would be a "act deontologist."
On the other hand the notion that actions are judged by their outcomes is "act utilitarianism." Whereas the idea that general percipoles shoudl foster outcomes such that pleasure over pain is promoted is called "rule utilitiarianism." Act utilitairainism is often noted for producing extremes.
Teleological or consquential ethics (HRG's bag) is well know among liberals. It's the brand of ethics most often embraced by liberals and humanitsts (which doesn't mean that I'mn not a liberal and humanist--although Christian humanist).
Even though most liberals tend to embrace teleological ethics, most ethecists do not. Teleological ethics fell into disvaor in the 30s, and has been on the decline every since. IN the 1960s it was considered that John Rawls of Oxford drove the final nail in the coffin when he proved that teleological ethics reduces the indivudal to a faceless aggregat at the bottom of a business ledger.
That would be the key to my attack upon consquentialist ethics, it does not take account of the fine feeling of the indiviual to keep his/her sense of duty of obligation, but urges the indiviudal to do immoral acts and to betreay his or her own personal sense of the moral in order to fulfill some aggreagate sum such as "greatest good for the greatest number."
this can be demonstrated in most life theory games, where one is led to believe that the old lady and the presit must be chucked over the side they can't row as fast.
Of course who could forget that gem of the Utilitarian hit parade, "the grestest good for the geraest number."My view is represented by the deontological school of ethics. to be more prescise, rule deontology is my bag.
The basic concept here is that morality is grounded in duty and obligation. Rule deonology says that all rules must be observed from a standard of following duty and promoting obligation, and keeping these rules determines the morality of a given standard.
Deontology is unfairly criticized as blind rule keeping is often confussed with empty legalism. Quite the conrrary, I think I'm very unlegalistic type of person. Rather than insiting up rule keeping at, my level of ethical standard is one in wich the attempt to fulfill duty or keep an obligation is enough to make an action ethical, so that the agent need not even succeed at keeping the rule.
If I said that actions must confrom of rule keeping I would be a "act deontologist."
On the other hand the notion that actions are judged by their outcomes is "act utilitarianism." Whereas the idea that general percipoles shoudl foster outcomes such that pleasure over pain is promoted is called "rule utilitiarianism." Act utilitairainism is often noted for producing extremes.
Teleological or consquential ethics (HRG's bag) is well know among liberals. It's the brand of ethics most often embraced by liberals and humanitsts (which doesn't mean that I'mn not a liberal and humanist--although Christian humanist).
Even though most liberals tend to embrace teleological ethics, most ethecists do not. Teleological ethics fell into disvaor in the 30s, and has been on the decline every since. IN the 1960s it was considered that John Rawls of Oxford drove the final nail in the coffin when he proved that teleological ethics reduces the indivudal to a faceless aggregat at the bottom of a business ledger.
That would be the key to my attack upon consquentialist ethics, it does not take account of the fine feeling of the indiviual to keep his/her sense of duty of obligation, but urges the indiviudal to do immoral acts and to betreay his or her own personal sense of the moral in order to fulfill some aggreagate sum such as "greatest good for the greatest number."
this can be demonstrated in most life theory games, where one is led to believe that the old lady and the presit must be chucked over the side they can't row as fast.
Monday, May 30, 2005
The Rise of Right Wing "Fundism"
On my board someone echoed Sam Harris's (End of Faith) sentiment that liberal theology didn't do enough to stem the tide of the "fundies." The liberal theologians didn't criticize them enough. While that may be true to a certain extent, it's understandable why they didn't. But we can't find much decent analysis about the reasons for the right-wingization of American religion. I think I can shed some light on that isn't often shed. But one must realize that fundamentalism goes way back in American clutter. There are many good books written on the phenomenon of American conservative mentality and American religion. Martin Marty was one the beast Historians of American Civil religion. Another excellent source is a book by McLaughlin on American Revivals. I think if I recall its called Awakenings in America or something like that. There's also a guy named Smith with a revival book. I read all of this back at Perkins, under the tutelage of Billy Abraham.
As to the charge that liberal leaders didn't do enough to discourage it:
That is absolutely ignorant. The guy (Sam Harris) has no understanding of history. I get the idea he doesn't even bother to do historical research about any of the statements he makes. He probably thinks his understanding of history is so good he doesn't need to research it.
Fundamentalism goes way back in American culture, back to the founding of the original 13 colonies, but it was really structured the way we know it today by the civil war. Calvinist mentality created a degree of guilt over the failure to obtain wealth. That set the conservative mind set in American culture, as each new shifting in American landscape, Wallace's "chaining of the Maze ways" brought new and deeper retest into the mythical "golden age of the past" when people were truly virtuous and faith was truly faithful; the great "golden age" the Reagan era kept evoking.
W.W.I played a major role too, and most of what we know as the fundi movement came about as a result of the shift from post millennialism to pre mil. But of course that was connoted by WW1 and the civil war. But I would be totally remiss if I didn't include the two great awakenings, especially the second one, as the real seed bed of fundamentalism.
Essentially, Post millennialism was liberal, although believing liberals not the 19th century European kind; but socially liberal, abolitionist, progressive era crusaders, social Gospels and the like; in fact there was a major feminist egalitarian movement among Evangelicals in the mid 19th century, that would also figure into the post mil mix. Post millers said we will make the world a better place through our Christian social reforms and Christ will return to find a Christian world. that's where the phrase "Christian century comes from."
So they had all these well meaning liberal crusading types who had very strong Christian triumphalism but only in a purely liberal social sense. That's how they thought of Christian victory. Some of the early influences coming out 2nd great awakening were in the Charles Finney camp.
But after the civil war all that began to change. Post mil began to waver, the war turned everyone cynical and convinced them that post minims wasn't going to work. It also brought in right wing groups, anti-foreigners, anti immigration, anti-reform, or conservative reform such as prohibition of liquor.
If you saw Gangs of New York, the Cutter chatter (the Butcher played by Daniel Day Lewis) represented that kind of thinking. The beginnings of the Jung ho American New York hard hat type.
at this point the mid to late 19th century, liberals in America were growing strong. They didn't have televangelists but they had guys like them, and the most famous ones, such as Horace Bushnelll, were liberal. They did criticize fundies, except there weren't many fundies in the contemporary sense. But that didn't matter because the incoming right winners who themselves as preaching the social Gospel and carrying on the torch of Finney and holiness movement, but the center was slipping over to the right.
After W.W.I post minims was totally dead. Everyone figured cyclically that the world get worse and worse, the war made them see it this way. so the new right wing fundie pessimism was born; the word will get more and more evil until Christ comes back and saves a tiny little remnant from a vastly evil black antichrist world.
Then they started with pre-mil thinking; we can avoid all that because the rapture will come first. Meanwhile the real liberals had no more post millennialism, they had enough of that and began embedding the 19th century Germanium liberalism and questioning the whole faith and rewriting the faith to exclude any super naturalism and taking out all aspect of what fundies consider true faith.
But the funds were largely confide to camp meetings and tent revivals, the rural areas. They were thought of as uneducated hicks, or deep inner city dwellers in Greta poverty. But it was after WW 2 brought them to California and other places, to the city to work in defense that they became part of main stream America and their views began to take over the air waves as they became prosperous enough to buy air time and respectable enough to avoid ridicule.
Reinhold Neibhur tried to instigate a show down with Billy Graham in the 50s over anti-communism. But he couldn't go very far because he would have been seen as a communist. He had an uphill battle because his position was complex and people preferred Graham's simplistic optimism of "get saved and beat communism."
By the 60 the liberals were so far out they weren't even in the ball park of faith anymore, or those that were so shell shocked by the seeming secularization that when the Jesus movement came along they eagerly embraced it because it seemed great; be a Christian hippie meant for them being open and caring about others and living up the social gospel at last. but people like Graham just used it to try and drain off young people protesting the war. So by the late 80's the church was ready for taking over by the Regents and the extreme right wing. The overall center of the country moved right and the funds didn't seem so far out anymore
As to the charge that liberal leaders didn't do enough to discourage it:
That is absolutely ignorant. The guy (Sam Harris) has no understanding of history. I get the idea he doesn't even bother to do historical research about any of the statements he makes. He probably thinks his understanding of history is so good he doesn't need to research it.
Fundamentalism goes way back in American culture, back to the founding of the original 13 colonies, but it was really structured the way we know it today by the civil war. Calvinist mentality created a degree of guilt over the failure to obtain wealth. That set the conservative mind set in American culture, as each new shifting in American landscape, Wallace's "chaining of the Maze ways" brought new and deeper retest into the mythical "golden age of the past" when people were truly virtuous and faith was truly faithful; the great "golden age" the Reagan era kept evoking.
W.W.I played a major role too, and most of what we know as the fundi movement came about as a result of the shift from post millennialism to pre mil. But of course that was connoted by WW1 and the civil war. But I would be totally remiss if I didn't include the two great awakenings, especially the second one, as the real seed bed of fundamentalism.
Essentially, Post millennialism was liberal, although believing liberals not the 19th century European kind; but socially liberal, abolitionist, progressive era crusaders, social Gospels and the like; in fact there was a major feminist egalitarian movement among Evangelicals in the mid 19th century, that would also figure into the post mil mix. Post millers said we will make the world a better place through our Christian social reforms and Christ will return to find a Christian world. that's where the phrase "Christian century comes from."
So they had all these well meaning liberal crusading types who had very strong Christian triumphalism but only in a purely liberal social sense. That's how they thought of Christian victory. Some of the early influences coming out 2nd great awakening were in the Charles Finney camp.
But after the civil war all that began to change. Post mil began to waver, the war turned everyone cynical and convinced them that post minims wasn't going to work. It also brought in right wing groups, anti-foreigners, anti immigration, anti-reform, or conservative reform such as prohibition of liquor.
If you saw Gangs of New York, the Cutter chatter (the Butcher played by Daniel Day Lewis) represented that kind of thinking. The beginnings of the Jung ho American New York hard hat type.
at this point the mid to late 19th century, liberals in America were growing strong. They didn't have televangelists but they had guys like them, and the most famous ones, such as Horace Bushnelll, were liberal. They did criticize fundies, except there weren't many fundies in the contemporary sense. But that didn't matter because the incoming right winners who themselves as preaching the social Gospel and carrying on the torch of Finney and holiness movement, but the center was slipping over to the right.
After W.W.I post minims was totally dead. Everyone figured cyclically that the world get worse and worse, the war made them see it this way. so the new right wing fundie pessimism was born; the word will get more and more evil until Christ comes back and saves a tiny little remnant from a vastly evil black antichrist world.
Then they started with pre-mil thinking; we can avoid all that because the rapture will come first. Meanwhile the real liberals had no more post millennialism, they had enough of that and began embedding the 19th century Germanium liberalism and questioning the whole faith and rewriting the faith to exclude any super naturalism and taking out all aspect of what fundies consider true faith.
But the funds were largely confide to camp meetings and tent revivals, the rural areas. They were thought of as uneducated hicks, or deep inner city dwellers in Greta poverty. But it was after WW 2 brought them to California and other places, to the city to work in defense that they became part of main stream America and their views began to take over the air waves as they became prosperous enough to buy air time and respectable enough to avoid ridicule.
Reinhold Neibhur tried to instigate a show down with Billy Graham in the 50s over anti-communism. But he couldn't go very far because he would have been seen as a communist. He had an uphill battle because his position was complex and people preferred Graham's simplistic optimism of "get saved and beat communism."
By the 60 the liberals were so far out they weren't even in the ball park of faith anymore, or those that were so shell shocked by the seeming secularization that when the Jesus movement came along they eagerly embraced it because it seemed great; be a Christian hippie meant for them being open and caring about others and living up the social gospel at last. but people like Graham just used it to try and drain off young people protesting the war. So by the late 80's the church was ready for taking over by the Regents and the extreme right wing. The overall center of the country moved right and the funds didn't seem so far out anymore
Descartes,Epistemology, and Phenomenology
We tend to think of epistemology as fashioned by Descartes. the rationalist constucts a neat little system for obtaining certain knlwedge. At the time that Descartres came up with the cogito Europe was emboiled in a crisis of skepticsm. The Skeptics weren't just anti-religious, though, they were Calivnists! The Calvinists challenged chruch authority, and the chruch was the gate keeper of knowledge. So Descartes' system was aimed at wrecking the arguments of the Calvinists, who despized reason and militated for faith as the ulimate route to knoweldge.
Descartes failed in that he didn't bring everyone back to the RCC, but he succeeded beyond his wildest in that he established the method of empirical scientific proof thorugh statistical verifcation, or helped to do so. Since that time we have tenede to think of epistemology as a need little disciplien that sets out a systemstic system and 1,2,3 we have the truth because we know how we know.
But it doesn't work that way in moderity. Things are too complex. One thing that happened since WWII was a current in German thought that goes back to Brintano and the 19th century came to fruition in the guise of a Nazi, even one accepted in the land of the Nazi deafters.
I speak of course of Heigeggerian epistemology. That is a very appropriate juncture for a Christian to move into thinking about epistemolgy, since Heidegger was influenced by two major christian thinkers, in the liberal tradition; the 'father' of modern liberal theology, Schleiermacher, and the "father" of modern existentialism, Keirkegaard. Both were devout christians.
This phenomenological persective runs parell to the persective of mystical religoius experince, which is the most sure fire safe guard on faith of which I know.
Heideggerian phenomenology proceeds from a point of allowing the phenomena to suggest their own categories. Rather than "gathering" all data into a heap and forcing it into pre conceieved categoreis, the phenomenologist begins with the root of the experince in sense data and phenomena, and rather than insisting upon filing it where he thinks it goes, he mentally allows the phenomena to suggest its own category.
That means in practicle terms expeiencing the presence of God rather than insisting thorugh rationalistic means that God exists and God is thus and so. One experinces God and then comes to an understanding of the nature of God.
Now I'm not saying that this can be a total empistemology in and of itself. We also have emprical knowledge and revelation. But you know my view on revelation of the Bible, that is a recored f peopel's experinces of god; that is very phenomenological. rather than be dictated their theological tennets, they recorede their expeinces and that becomes the tennet as the community comopares it to its own experinces; the dialetical presence model of inspiration that Barth and others spoke of.
Descartes failed in that he didn't bring everyone back to the RCC, but he succeeded beyond his wildest in that he established the method of empirical scientific proof thorugh statistical verifcation, or helped to do so. Since that time we have tenede to think of epistemology as a need little disciplien that sets out a systemstic system and 1,2,3 we have the truth because we know how we know.
But it doesn't work that way in moderity. Things are too complex. One thing that happened since WWII was a current in German thought that goes back to Brintano and the 19th century came to fruition in the guise of a Nazi, even one accepted in the land of the Nazi deafters.
I speak of course of Heigeggerian epistemology. That is a very appropriate juncture for a Christian to move into thinking about epistemolgy, since Heidegger was influenced by two major christian thinkers, in the liberal tradition; the 'father' of modern liberal theology, Schleiermacher, and the "father" of modern existentialism, Keirkegaard. Both were devout christians.
This phenomenological persective runs parell to the persective of mystical religoius experince, which is the most sure fire safe guard on faith of which I know.
Heideggerian phenomenology proceeds from a point of allowing the phenomena to suggest their own categories. Rather than "gathering" all data into a heap and forcing it into pre conceieved categoreis, the phenomenologist begins with the root of the experince in sense data and phenomena, and rather than insisting upon filing it where he thinks it goes, he mentally allows the phenomena to suggest its own category.
That means in practicle terms expeiencing the presence of God rather than insisting thorugh rationalistic means that God exists and God is thus and so. One experinces God and then comes to an understanding of the nature of God.
Now I'm not saying that this can be a total empistemology in and of itself. We also have emprical knowledge and revelation. But you know my view on revelation of the Bible, that is a recored f peopel's experinces of god; that is very phenomenological. rather than be dictated their theological tennets, they recorede their expeinces and that becomes the tennet as the community comopares it to its own experinces; the dialetical presence model of inspiration that Barth and others spoke of.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
God imged as big Sky Dadday or great adminstrarotr in sky?
I have traffic hit counters that trace where visitors are coming from. We have quite a collection of international reders:
45 United States
23 United Kingdom
8 Thailand
5 Ireland
3 Canada
2 Australia
2 Singapore
2 - -
1 Korea, Republic Of
1 Indonesia
I do notice that I've lost ground among UK readers. I guess I'm just not as interesting to UK people as I used to be.
The reason I mention it is because I can follow the links and see where they came from, that is what sight brought to me. One such site was a post on some message board in which the poster made the remarkable observation that the God of the Bible is not a very good administator. The poster seemed to be quite serious about it. Of curse one might think having a whole universe to run is a big deal, but this guy seemed rather emphatic that God has really screwed it all up. For example, all those wars in the Bible. He made such an incredibly frail creation in man, we just canm't keep oursevles out of trouble; all God's fault of course. Atheism forbid that we should ever take responsiblity for our own actions. Its' all because God is such an inept creator that he just couldn't make a perfect speicies.
Of course, unique and original as this line of reasoning must be, it seems flawed somehow. I think the real flaw is in the incessent need that sketpics have to blame teh father. Its' truely freudian, they playout their battles with the superego by construing God as the Big Sky Daddy. Of course i must say, the Bible doesn't help matters that much by occaisoinally portraying God in ths manner. The Bible, chruches, religion in general all set up the image of the big man in the sky with a white beard on a big throne watching us all and decing who get's zapped. That kind of thinking hangs over religious thought like a stench, causing us to reflect upon God as though he were just another drunk in bar on saturday night. We all probably have a sneaking supscion that we could do better than the big white beard guy. We probably could, the thing is, that's not God. It's hard to think of it as not God, because incessently relate to God in such a way as to give that impression. It also could be the case that in those passages where God is portrayed this was a similar public image probelm from that time and perhaps the author's own Fruedian thing at work back then.
The truth of it is there are coutner images where God is imaged as female, or even non human, in the actual Bible. The number of passages in the OT where God is picutured sitting as a big man on a throne are not that many. I can think of Job, and couple in Isaiah, and a couple in Esserah. The word used for God and most often tralstaed "Lord," El Shaddi, means "brest."
"El Shaddai The God who is Sufficient
from the website Hebrew Letters by SARAHLEAH
EL SHADDAI is usually translated as GOD ALMIGHTY - EL, meaning GOD and SHADDAI being a combination word - SHE, meaning WHO and DAI meaning ENOUGH. EL SHADDAI GOD WHO IS ENOUGH, GOD WHO IS SELF-SUFFICIENT (Hagigah 12a). SHADDAI may also be from the Akkadian sadu, meaning MOUNTAIN, or the Hebrew sadeh, meaning BREAST. EL SHADDAI would then be translated respectively as GOD OF THE MOUNTAIN or GOD OF THE BREAST. Variant spelling - EL SHADAI “Adonai appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai” (Exodus 6:3).
(Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 3:130).
Jacob giving last instructions to his sons said:
Gen 49:24-25.(24) "But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God (El) of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)25 Even by the God (El) of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty (Shaddai), who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb..."
(For other references to this same usage, see Isaiah 60:15-16 and Isaiah 66:10-13.)
For the full list of female imagery of God:
There are also many ensconces in scripture where God is imaged in female or motherly terms:
Deu 32:11 "As an eagle stirs up her nest, and hovers over her young, and spreads her wings, takes them up, and bears them on her wings.
Deu 32 :18 "Of the Rock that bore you, you were unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you." (that one may be hard to get, baring children--female image).
Job 38:8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb."
Job 38:29 "From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven."
Isa 45 9-10 Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who fashions it: What are you making, or Your work has no handles? Woe to anyone who says to a father: What are you begetting? or to a woman: With what are you in labour?
Isa 49:15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (comparing God's attitude toward Israel with a woman's attitude toward her children).
Isa 66:13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Hosea 13:8 "I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart";
Mat 23:37 and Luk 13:34 Jerusalem, "Jerusalem, the city that kills its prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing."
But my point is not just that God can be imaged as female. A female could possibly also be thought of as a bad administrtor. There are also images of God that compare the divine to non human: hens, bears, egals, chickens, whirl winds, consuming fires, sotrms, darkness, light. The point is really that God is not an adminstrator. There is no passage that implys that God set up the world to opporate as some form of public works project. Even though God is often compared to kings, taht is no reason to understand creation as a Kingdom in the sinese of a nation state.
The virulent atheist is fond of thinking of religious people as week and needing a crutch. We could just as eaisly think of the atheist (or at least that knee jerk type of atheist) as obressed with castrating the father, and needing an authority figure to best. The problem is in trying to think of God in a way that doesnt conjure up some athropomophic image projected into the heavens, while not losing the warm fuzzy of the parental images. I don't think this is possible. There is no such image that is both human and none human at the same time. Givent he track record of athropomorphizing, it might not be a bad idea to try to think of God in other ways; like the laws of physics for examle, or as some kind of strange attractor (even strage attractors are not real things).
45 United States
23 United Kingdom
8 Thailand
5 Ireland
3 Canada
2 Australia
2 Singapore
2 - -
1 Korea, Republic Of
1 Indonesia
I do notice that I've lost ground among UK readers. I guess I'm just not as interesting to UK people as I used to be.
The reason I mention it is because I can follow the links and see where they came from, that is what sight brought to me. One such site was a post on some message board in which the poster made the remarkable observation that the God of the Bible is not a very good administator. The poster seemed to be quite serious about it. Of curse one might think having a whole universe to run is a big deal, but this guy seemed rather emphatic that God has really screwed it all up. For example, all those wars in the Bible. He made such an incredibly frail creation in man, we just canm't keep oursevles out of trouble; all God's fault of course. Atheism forbid that we should ever take responsiblity for our own actions. Its' all because God is such an inept creator that he just couldn't make a perfect speicies.
Of course, unique and original as this line of reasoning must be, it seems flawed somehow. I think the real flaw is in the incessent need that sketpics have to blame teh father. Its' truely freudian, they playout their battles with the superego by construing God as the Big Sky Daddy. Of course i must say, the Bible doesn't help matters that much by occaisoinally portraying God in ths manner. The Bible, chruches, religion in general all set up the image of the big man in the sky with a white beard on a big throne watching us all and decing who get's zapped. That kind of thinking hangs over religious thought like a stench, causing us to reflect upon God as though he were just another drunk in bar on saturday night. We all probably have a sneaking supscion that we could do better than the big white beard guy. We probably could, the thing is, that's not God. It's hard to think of it as not God, because incessently relate to God in such a way as to give that impression. It also could be the case that in those passages where God is portrayed this was a similar public image probelm from that time and perhaps the author's own Fruedian thing at work back then.
The truth of it is there are coutner images where God is imaged as female, or even non human, in the actual Bible. The number of passages in the OT where God is picutured sitting as a big man on a throne are not that many. I can think of Job, and couple in Isaiah, and a couple in Esserah. The word used for God and most often tralstaed "Lord," El Shaddi, means "brest."
"El Shaddai The God who is Sufficient
from the website Hebrew Letters by SARAHLEAH
EL SHADDAI is usually translated as GOD ALMIGHTY - EL, meaning GOD and SHADDAI being a combination word - SHE, meaning WHO and DAI meaning ENOUGH. EL SHADDAI GOD WHO IS ENOUGH, GOD WHO IS SELF-SUFFICIENT (Hagigah 12a). SHADDAI may also be from the Akkadian sadu, meaning MOUNTAIN, or the Hebrew sadeh, meaning BREAST. EL SHADDAI would then be translated respectively as GOD OF THE MOUNTAIN or GOD OF THE BREAST. Variant spelling - EL SHADAI “Adonai appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai” (Exodus 6:3).
(Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 3:130).
Jacob giving last instructions to his sons said:
Gen 49:24-25.(24) "But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God (El) of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)25 Even by the God (El) of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty (Shaddai), who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb..."
(For other references to this same usage, see Isaiah 60:15-16 and Isaiah 66:10-13.)
For the full list of female imagery of God:
There are also many ensconces in scripture where God is imaged in female or motherly terms:
Deu 32:11 "As an eagle stirs up her nest, and hovers over her young, and spreads her wings, takes them up, and bears them on her wings.
Deu 32 :18 "Of the Rock that bore you, you were unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you." (that one may be hard to get, baring children--female image).
Job 38:8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb."
Job 38:29 "From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven."
Isa 45 9-10 Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who fashions it: What are you making, or Your work has no handles? Woe to anyone who says to a father: What are you begetting? or to a woman: With what are you in labour?
Isa 49:15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (comparing God's attitude toward Israel with a woman's attitude toward her children).
Isa 66:13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Hosea 13:8 "I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart";
Mat 23:37 and Luk 13:34 Jerusalem, "Jerusalem, the city that kills its prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing."
But my point is not just that God can be imaged as female. A female could possibly also be thought of as a bad administrtor. There are also images of God that compare the divine to non human: hens, bears, egals, chickens, whirl winds, consuming fires, sotrms, darkness, light. The point is really that God is not an adminstrator. There is no passage that implys that God set up the world to opporate as some form of public works project. Even though God is often compared to kings, taht is no reason to understand creation as a Kingdom in the sinese of a nation state.
The virulent atheist is fond of thinking of religious people as week and needing a crutch. We could just as eaisly think of the atheist (or at least that knee jerk type of atheist) as obressed with castrating the father, and needing an authority figure to best. The problem is in trying to think of God in a way that doesnt conjure up some athropomophic image projected into the heavens, while not losing the warm fuzzy of the parental images. I don't think this is possible. There is no such image that is both human and none human at the same time. Givent he track record of athropomorphizing, it might not be a bad idea to try to think of God in other ways; like the laws of physics for examle, or as some kind of strange attractor (even strage attractors are not real things).
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Gournd 0
Donald Trump doesn't like the proposals for re-making ground 0. The proposals call for modern archetecture to be applied to new desinged commemorting the tragedy and the subsequent spirit of triumph. Trump wants to build back twin towers that look almost like the orignals. That to me is very emblemeatic of his generation and the American unorigniality syndrome. Trump and his Ilk, the geniuses who destoryed America's landscape and covered the country in asphault, have no more originality than to just rebuild, which would be the greatest insult to the dead, as though the events of 9/11 had no meaning and never happened.
I think the problem goes deepr than that. I think it's really becasue most Americans have no appreication for the arts. Trump is kind of like the super average American. Not that the Average American can be rich, but the Average american worships wealth and aspires to be like Trump. This sort of anti-intellectual mentality places no value upon atheistics, so the concept of commeneration through astheitics is probably a part of a by-gone era. In the one-dimensional world of Donald Trump remaking the landscape in the shape of the preivous landscpae is just another way to commemorate the only value that can survive in a mercantile age; that of erecting monuments to wealth and power.
I think the problem goes deepr than that. I think it's really becasue most Americans have no appreication for the arts. Trump is kind of like the super average American. Not that the Average American can be rich, but the Average american worships wealth and aspires to be like Trump. This sort of anti-intellectual mentality places no value upon atheistics, so the concept of commeneration through astheitics is probably a part of a by-gone era. In the one-dimensional world of Donald Trump remaking the landscape in the shape of the preivous landscpae is just another way to commemorate the only value that can survive in a mercantile age; that of erecting monuments to wealth and power.
Monday, May 16, 2005
what a quick way to get a head ache?
On "Christian Froums" a set of boards that exist for the benifit of atheists so they can look more intelligent than Christians, I've bee having the kind of discussion I hate; all about the ontolgoical argument.
I woud noramlly love discussing that argument, but only if I had someone to discuss it with who know and cared about logic. Most atheists hate logic. They try to pretend that atheism is so much more loigcal than Christianity, but when confronted with real logial arguments (I mean s5modal) they just fold up and strat mocking and openly say logic is no good,it doens't tell us anything ect ect. Some have gone so far as to deny the validity of modus Ponines and some even deny the law of non contradiction! Anything to avoid the horrible conclusin that God can't not exist.
Here's what most people mean by "logic:" "I like X, whoray for X." If you disagree with X you are illogical. Most people do not know that logic has rules, they think that it's just a matter of having a "cool" opinion. So when they say "Christianity is not logical" they really mean "Christianity is not cool."
Here's another aspect of logic that these atheists couldn't handel:
X cannot be p
q = p
therefore, X cannot be q.
they deny the loigc of this. First they denied it in terms of God arugment when the symbolic value represented these concepts:
X = necessity
q = possiblity
p = contingency.
first they deneied the idea that:
if X cannot be contingent and it cannot be impossbile then it must be necessary. Therefore, if God cannot be contingent, and cannot be impossible, then God must be necessary.
Then they denied it in the form above when they didn't know the values.
In four threads of about 4 pages each not one single atheist made a single argument based upon loigc but they all said the OA was illogical.
I woud noramlly love discussing that argument, but only if I had someone to discuss it with who know and cared about logic. Most atheists hate logic. They try to pretend that atheism is so much more loigcal than Christianity, but when confronted with real logial arguments (I mean s5modal) they just fold up and strat mocking and openly say logic is no good,it doens't tell us anything ect ect. Some have gone so far as to deny the validity of modus Ponines and some even deny the law of non contradiction! Anything to avoid the horrible conclusin that God can't not exist.
Here's what most people mean by "logic:" "I like X, whoray for X." If you disagree with X you are illogical. Most people do not know that logic has rules, they think that it's just a matter of having a "cool" opinion. So when they say "Christianity is not logical" they really mean "Christianity is not cool."
Here's another aspect of logic that these atheists couldn't handel:
X cannot be p
q = p
therefore, X cannot be q.
they deny the loigc of this. First they denied it in terms of God arugment when the symbolic value represented these concepts:
X = necessity
q = possiblity
p = contingency.
first they deneied the idea that:
if X cannot be contingent and it cannot be impossbile then it must be necessary. Therefore, if God cannot be contingent, and cannot be impossible, then God must be necessary.
Then they denied it in the form above when they didn't know the values.
In four threads of about 4 pages each not one single atheist made a single argument based upon loigc but they all said the OA was illogical.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
I am in trouble i need help
I am as far down as I've ever been in life. PLease help.
read all about it.
http://www.webspawner.com/users/palbo/index.html
read all about it.
http://www.webspawner.com/users/palbo/index.html
Monday, May 09, 2005
Bad Moon on the Right
I can't find an article to Chris Hedges article in Hapers for this moth, but it's a very important article: "feeling the hate of the Religious Right." So here's a link to an article about the article.
http://www.liquidlist.com/archives/2005/05/politics_louis.html
I Just saw Hedged talking about this on "Democracy Now" On Free Speech TV. It's a terrible thing to wake up and released I've had my head in the sand. I've known for a long time what the religious right is about, but have paid less and less attention on the assumption that; (1) I can't do anything about it; (2) Americans love to sin and even if the RR establishes theocracy it wont last long.
That later point might have a point to it. But I think we should all be aware of the religious right's agenda. I also want my non Christian friends to be aware of the fact that a minority of hip Christians have always tumbled to the agenda of the Christian fascists, and we are not pleased or amassed. I now see that minority growing. That in itself gives me a bit of hope.
The alarming problem is that most Christians, most Evangelicals are just not willing to listen. 90% are good people who want to please God and have no political savvy so they have no idea what is being said by these people. But the religious right's agenda is to marginalize everyone not a member of their movement. Hedges traces the roots of that movent from the modern Falwell and so on to the segregation's of the 60s to the Ku Klux Klan.
It's in the latest issue of Harpers, we should all read it.
http://www.liquidlist.com/archives/2005/05/politics_louis.html
I Just saw Hedged talking about this on "Democracy Now" On Free Speech TV. It's a terrible thing to wake up and released I've had my head in the sand. I've known for a long time what the religious right is about, but have paid less and less attention on the assumption that; (1) I can't do anything about it; (2) Americans love to sin and even if the RR establishes theocracy it wont last long.
That later point might have a point to it. But I think we should all be aware of the religious right's agenda. I also want my non Christian friends to be aware of the fact that a minority of hip Christians have always tumbled to the agenda of the Christian fascists, and we are not pleased or amassed. I now see that minority growing. That in itself gives me a bit of hope.
The alarming problem is that most Christians, most Evangelicals are just not willing to listen. 90% are good people who want to please God and have no political savvy so they have no idea what is being said by these people. But the religious right's agenda is to marginalize everyone not a member of their movement. Hedges traces the roots of that movent from the modern Falwell and so on to the segregation's of the 60s to the Ku Klux Klan.
It's in the latest issue of Harpers, we should all read it.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Concept of the Supernatural
The problem in all these discussions about the supernatural is that we are dealing with a degraded concept. The notion of "Supernatural" is a misgnomer to begin with, because modern people construe the idea as another place, an actual location that you can go to. It's the unseen invisible world that is filled with ghosnts and magic and so forth. It's in the realm where God can heaven are, we supposse. But what they dont' realize is that this is the watered down, dilapidated concept. It's not even understood well by Christians because it was destroyed in the reformation.
The term "supernatural" comes from the term "supernauturalator" or "Supernature." Dyonisus the Areogopite (around 500ad) began talking of God as the supernaturalator, meaning that God's higher nature was the telos toward which our "lower" natures were drawn. St.Augustine has spoken of Divine nature as "Supernature" or the higher form of nature, but that is speaking of nature in you, like human nature and divine nature.
In the begining the issue was not a place, "the realm of the supernatural" but the issue was the nature inside a man. Human nature, vs. divine nature. The Sueprnatural was divine nature that drew the human up to to itself and vivified it with the power (dunimos) to live a holy life. This is the sort of thing Paul was talking about when he said "when I am weak I am strong." Or "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." The weak human nature which can't resist sin is transformed by the power of the Godly nature, through the spirit and becames strong enought to reisist sin, to be self sacraficing, to die for others ect ect.
This was the "supernatural" prior to the reoformation. It was tied in wiht the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebell agianst it. Austine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Chrstians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nauture. But the extention of the natural world as "nature" didn't come unitl latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first bsed upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.
Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a seperate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the rformation reality was biphercated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtoppossed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is correllated to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's myered in sin and naural urges.
But all of that represents a degraded form of thinking after goign throught he mill of the Protestant Catholic split. The basic split is charactorized by riationalism vs feideism. The Catholics are rationalists, because they believe God is motivated by divine puropose and wisdom, the Protestants were fiedeists, meaning that faith alone apart form reason because God is motived by will and sheer acceptation, the desire to prove soverignty above all else.
The rationalistic view offered a single harmony, a harmonous reality, governed by God's reasoned nature and orchastrated in a multiferious ways. This single reality continaed a two sided nature, or a mutli-facets, but it was one harmonious reality in wich human nature was regeuvinated thorugh divine nature. But the Protestant view left Christian theology with two waring reality, that which is removed from our empirical knowledge and that in which we live.
The true Christian view of the Sueprnatural doesn't see the two realms as juxtoppossed but as one reality in which the natural moves toward its' ground and end in divien nature. It is this tendency to move toward the ground and end, that produces miracles. A miracle is merely nature bending toward the higher aspect of Supernature.
but with the Protestant divinsion between divine sogerignty, acceptation and will motivating the universe, we mistake univocity and equivocity for nature and supernature. We think nature and supernature are not alike they are at war, so difference marks the relationship of the two. But to make the Suepernatural more avaible they stress some aspect of nature and put it over against the rest of nature and pretend that makes it sueprnatuarl, this is univocity, it's the same. So will and acceptation, soverigty, God has to prove that he is in charge, these are all aspects of univocity.
It's the natural extension of this biphercation that sets up two realms and sees nature as "everything that exits." or "all of mateiral reality" that sets up the atheist idea that supernatural is unnecessary and doesn't exist.
The medieval Christian doctrine of the supernatural has long been misconstrued as a dualistic denigration of nature, opposed to scientific thinking. The concept of supernature, however, is not a dualism in the sense of dinigrading nature or of pitting against each other the "alien" relams of spirit and matter. The Christian ontology of the supernatural bound together the realm of nature and the realm of Grace, immanent and transcendent, in a unity of creative wisdom and purpose, which gave theological significance to the natural world. While the doctrine of supernature was at times understood in a dualistic fashion, ultimately, the unity it offered played a positive role in the development of scientific thinking, because it made nature meaningful to the medieval mind. Its dissolution came, not because supernatural thinking opposed scientific thinking, but because culture came to value nature in a different manner, and the old valuation no longer served the purpose of scientific thinking. An understanding of the notion of supernature is essential to an understanding of the attitudes in Western culture toward nature, and to an understanding of the cultural transition to science as an epistemic authority.
The ontology of supernature assumes that the natural participates in the supernatural in an ordered relation of means and immediate ends, with reference to their ultimate ends. The supernatural is the ground and end of the natural; the realm of nature and the realm of Grace are bound up in a harmonious relation. The Ptolemaic system explained the physical lay-out of the universe, supernature explained its theological relation to God. The great chain of being separated the ranking of creatures in relation to creator. The supernatural ontology is, therefore, sperate from but related to cosmologies. This ontology stands behind most forms of pre-reformation theology, and it implies an exaltation of nature, rather than denigration. This talk of two realms seems to imply a dualism, yet, it is not a metaphysical dualism, not a dualism of opposition, but as Fairweather points out, "the essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into dualism, and then to resolve ... an exclusive emphasis on one or the other severed elements of a complete Christianity...such a dissolution is inevitable once we lose our awareness of that ordered relation of the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, which the Gospel assumes." Yet, it is this "two-sidedness" which leads unwary historians of into dualism.
In his famous 1967 article, "The Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Lynn White argued that the Christian belief of the Imago Dei created "a dualism of man and nature;" "man shares in God's transcendence of nature." This notion replaced pagan animism, it removed the "sacred" from the natural world, and with it, inhibitions against exploiting nature. Moreover, by the 12th century, nature became a source of revelation through natural theology. In the Latin West, where action prevailed over contemplation, natural theology ceased to be the decoding of natural symbols of the divine and became instead an attempt to understand God through decerning the operation of creation. Western technology flourished, surpassing even that of Islamic culture (although they still led in theoretical pursuits). Thus, White argues, medieval theology did allow science to grow, but at the ultimate expense of the environment.
The insights of feminist scholarship, however, suggest an even more subtle argument for the denigration of nature. Feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruther, argued that there is an identification between the female and nature, the male and transcendence. Women have been disvalued historically through the association between female sexuality and the "baseness" of nature. Londa Schiebinger, calls attention to the fact that the Judeo-Christian cosmology placed women in a subordinate position. Gender was more fundamental than biological sex, and it was a cosmological principle, "...Men and women were carefully placed in the great chain of being--their positions were defined relative to plants, animals, and God." The subordination of women was predicated upon their position in nature. "Male" and "Female represented dualistic cosmological principles penetrating all of nature, principles of which sexual organs were only one aspect. One might suspect that the place of women on the great chain of being is indicative of the true status of nature itself in Christian ontology; an overt denigration of women indicates a covert denigration of nature.
read the following paper i wrote for Grade school on Science and the Sueprnatural. Only 12 pages.
http://www.webspawner.com/users/scienceandnature/
The term "supernatural" comes from the term "supernauturalator" or "Supernature." Dyonisus the Areogopite (around 500ad) began talking of God as the supernaturalator, meaning that God's higher nature was the telos toward which our "lower" natures were drawn. St.Augustine has spoken of Divine nature as "Supernature" or the higher form of nature, but that is speaking of nature in you, like human nature and divine nature.
In the begining the issue was not a place, "the realm of the supernatural" but the issue was the nature inside a man. Human nature, vs. divine nature. The Sueprnatural was divine nature that drew the human up to to itself and vivified it with the power (dunimos) to live a holy life. This is the sort of thing Paul was talking about when he said "when I am weak I am strong." Or "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." The weak human nature which can't resist sin is transformed by the power of the Godly nature, through the spirit and becames strong enought to reisist sin, to be self sacraficing, to die for others ect ect.
This was the "supernatural" prior to the reoformation. It was tied in wiht the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebell agianst it. Austine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Chrstians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nauture. But the extention of the natural world as "nature" didn't come unitl latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first bsed upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.
Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a seperate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the rformation reality was biphercated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtoppossed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is correllated to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's myered in sin and naural urges.
But all of that represents a degraded form of thinking after goign throught he mill of the Protestant Catholic split. The basic split is charactorized by riationalism vs feideism. The Catholics are rationalists, because they believe God is motivated by divine puropose and wisdom, the Protestants were fiedeists, meaning that faith alone apart form reason because God is motived by will and sheer acceptation, the desire to prove soverignty above all else.
The rationalistic view offered a single harmony, a harmonous reality, governed by God's reasoned nature and orchastrated in a multiferious ways. This single reality continaed a two sided nature, or a mutli-facets, but it was one harmonious reality in wich human nature was regeuvinated thorugh divine nature. But the Protestant view left Christian theology with two waring reality, that which is removed from our empirical knowledge and that in which we live.
The true Christian view of the Sueprnatural doesn't see the two realms as juxtoppossed but as one reality in which the natural moves toward its' ground and end in divien nature. It is this tendency to move toward the ground and end, that produces miracles. A miracle is merely nature bending toward the higher aspect of Supernature.
but with the Protestant divinsion between divine sogerignty, acceptation and will motivating the universe, we mistake univocity and equivocity for nature and supernature. We think nature and supernature are not alike they are at war, so difference marks the relationship of the two. But to make the Suepernatural more avaible they stress some aspect of nature and put it over against the rest of nature and pretend that makes it sueprnatuarl, this is univocity, it's the same. So will and acceptation, soverigty, God has to prove that he is in charge, these are all aspects of univocity.
It's the natural extension of this biphercation that sets up two realms and sees nature as "everything that exits." or "all of mateiral reality" that sets up the atheist idea that supernatural is unnecessary and doesn't exist.
The medieval Christian doctrine of the supernatural has long been misconstrued as a dualistic denigration of nature, opposed to scientific thinking. The concept of supernature, however, is not a dualism in the sense of dinigrading nature or of pitting against each other the "alien" relams of spirit and matter. The Christian ontology of the supernatural bound together the realm of nature and the realm of Grace, immanent and transcendent, in a unity of creative wisdom and purpose, which gave theological significance to the natural world. While the doctrine of supernature was at times understood in a dualistic fashion, ultimately, the unity it offered played a positive role in the development of scientific thinking, because it made nature meaningful to the medieval mind. Its dissolution came, not because supernatural thinking opposed scientific thinking, but because culture came to value nature in a different manner, and the old valuation no longer served the purpose of scientific thinking. An understanding of the notion of supernature is essential to an understanding of the attitudes in Western culture toward nature, and to an understanding of the cultural transition to science as an epistemic authority.
The ontology of supernature assumes that the natural participates in the supernatural in an ordered relation of means and immediate ends, with reference to their ultimate ends. The supernatural is the ground and end of the natural; the realm of nature and the realm of Grace are bound up in a harmonious relation. The Ptolemaic system explained the physical lay-out of the universe, supernature explained its theological relation to God. The great chain of being separated the ranking of creatures in relation to creator. The supernatural ontology is, therefore, sperate from but related to cosmologies. This ontology stands behind most forms of pre-reformation theology, and it implies an exaltation of nature, rather than denigration. This talk of two realms seems to imply a dualism, yet, it is not a metaphysical dualism, not a dualism of opposition, but as Fairweather points out, "the essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into dualism, and then to resolve ... an exclusive emphasis on one or the other severed elements of a complete Christianity...such a dissolution is inevitable once we lose our awareness of that ordered relation of the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, which the Gospel assumes." Yet, it is this "two-sidedness" which leads unwary historians of into dualism.
In his famous 1967 article, "The Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Lynn White argued that the Christian belief of the Imago Dei created "a dualism of man and nature;" "man shares in God's transcendence of nature." This notion replaced pagan animism, it removed the "sacred" from the natural world, and with it, inhibitions against exploiting nature. Moreover, by the 12th century, nature became a source of revelation through natural theology. In the Latin West, where action prevailed over contemplation, natural theology ceased to be the decoding of natural symbols of the divine and became instead an attempt to understand God through decerning the operation of creation. Western technology flourished, surpassing even that of Islamic culture (although they still led in theoretical pursuits). Thus, White argues, medieval theology did allow science to grow, but at the ultimate expense of the environment.
The insights of feminist scholarship, however, suggest an even more subtle argument for the denigration of nature. Feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruther, argued that there is an identification between the female and nature, the male and transcendence. Women have been disvalued historically through the association between female sexuality and the "baseness" of nature. Londa Schiebinger, calls attention to the fact that the Judeo-Christian cosmology placed women in a subordinate position. Gender was more fundamental than biological sex, and it was a cosmological principle, "...Men and women were carefully placed in the great chain of being--their positions were defined relative to plants, animals, and God." The subordination of women was predicated upon their position in nature. "Male" and "Female represented dualistic cosmological principles penetrating all of nature, principles of which sexual organs were only one aspect. One might suspect that the place of women on the great chain of being is indicative of the true status of nature itself in Christian ontology; an overt denigration of women indicates a covert denigration of nature.
read the following paper i wrote for Grade school on Science and the Sueprnatural. Only 12 pages.
http://www.webspawner.com/users/scienceandnature/
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Hello in the Faroe Islands!
I've been tracking my readerhip and I have some readers from some very interesting places. Here's the total for this period. I'm sure what period is covered but here they are:
70 United States
20 United Kingdom
2 Australia
1 Thailand
1 Faroe Islands
1 France
1 Switzerland
I would like to hear from all who aren't in the USA, and even some who are. I'm especially curious about the one from Thailand, Austrailia and the Faroe islands. Until right now when I did a browser search, I had no idea where the Faroe Islands were nor had I heard of them. I love Frace, hope to live in Nice some day. I took as Frency as doctroal language. I probably know the Aussie whose reading the blog, but how did Thilander and a Faroe Islander find my blog? Come to that I wonder how many people in the Faroe's have copmuters.
Let me hear from you guys and/or gals. It would be interesting.
Metacrock@aol.com
70 United States
20 United Kingdom
2 Australia
1 Thailand
1 Faroe Islands
1 France
1 Switzerland
I would like to hear from all who aren't in the USA, and even some who are. I'm especially curious about the one from Thailand, Austrailia and the Faroe islands. Until right now when I did a browser search, I had no idea where the Faroe Islands were nor had I heard of them. I love Frace, hope to live in Nice some day. I took as Frency as doctroal language. I probably know the Aussie whose reading the blog, but how did Thilander and a Faroe Islander find my blog? Come to that I wonder how many people in the Faroe's have copmuters.
Let me hear from you guys and/or gals. It would be interesting.
Metacrock@aol.com
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Big Picture on Biblical Morality
Atheists are always getting us to lose slight of the big pictue. They put so many little knit picking aruments like "in Passage X God cammands themt o kill so and so,and so and so didn't do anything that wrong."
They will present a massive profussion of such passages, most of which (thinking of the OT now) are based upon the fact that people over 2000 years ago looked at things very differently and had different standards of what constituted morality, truth, compassion and brutatlity. So natuarlly a great deal ancient world morality will seem very brutal to us.
But the atheists always distract us form the big picture. Everytime I try to demonstate one or two major princples that oversweep the whole field and tie up all the problems into one neat little point that can esaisly resolved, they just go "Yea? well abotu here, where x got stoned for blowing his nose?" "what about about where God tells them to wipe out the Pedestriakites and kill even the bateria on their dinner plates?!! that's bad, God is BAD BAD BAD!!!"
But never will they just face the central point and take it like real thinkers. They want this massive profussion of problematic verses to stand in the way of rally understanding or thinging about Biblical moralty; and often much what passes for their problematic verses is misunderstood.
DD prestens a lit of what's wrong with Jesus' morality, here's what he does:
(a) doubles up on synoptic passages so he can present them like four different enstances, instant multiplicty of examles. Now Jesus dint' say "pluck out your eye" once, but four times! four times as bad!
(b) mostly misunderstood because no attempt is made to watch for figurative language so he sees "i come to bring not peace but a sword" as a litteral statment that Jesus likes war! I can't even begin to comment.
But in this thread I want to ask each and everyone of you speicail, pease do not quote an massive profussion of texts in a vien attempt to show "how bad the bible is." Let's stick to the two central poinkts that I want to get at.Please?
Point 1: OT morality is progressive.
that's right. It doesn't seem so because it is brutal and unfair in many places. But:
(a) still better than sourrounding committies that had infant sacrafice and no ruels for freeing of slaves in jubalee year, no prohabitions agaisnt raping slave women, or civil recompense for rape or anything of the kind.
(b) Points to advancements in moral thinking over and above what the others had in terms of; written code, basic rights for slaves, expectation of humane treatment, laws to help the poor, ect.
The point; God told Israel they would be a light to the gentiels, they were. Their example led to better morality on a progressive scale; but it took time of course. Yet the standards did change.
Now of course atheists will argue that this is not indicative of a divine plan. On the other hand it meshes perfectly with my view of inspritation. It's not a memo from God but a collection of writtings that are inspired by divine/human encoutner.
Moreover, remeber the principle of shadow to substance!
the Moseic law was impossed to show how bad bad could be. It was a measuring stick to demonstrate and clearly define sin. It was not the solution to sin. So it shows how hard it is to live perfectly and how difficutl it is to keep a benchmark of righteousness, it's suppossed to be hard and unreasonable; because trying to live a holy life under our own effecists is hard and unreasonable.
But in the NT we find God entering history as a man, and we have a direct example of what to do, just follow Jesus' charater. which leads to point 2.
Point 2: Jesus anticipated the Categorical imprative.
that gives us a logical modern framework in which to play out Christian morality in a deontolgoical fashion.
The imprative of Kant anticipated (and tha's where Kant got it) in the golden rules do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The "as you would hagve them do unto you" cluase is what makes it clever, because it is both objective and flexible at the same time.
These two points explain the basis of Biblcial morlaity and they make up for all the little picky verses where God appears to be a rotter, because they explain why the context of OT morality is so culturally bound, and demarkate a sense in which OT morality is progressive. It also explians NT as modern, advanced, loigcal and Kantian.
Metacrock
They will present a massive profussion of such passages, most of which (thinking of the OT now) are based upon the fact that people over 2000 years ago looked at things very differently and had different standards of what constituted morality, truth, compassion and brutatlity. So natuarlly a great deal ancient world morality will seem very brutal to us.
But the atheists always distract us form the big picture. Everytime I try to demonstate one or two major princples that oversweep the whole field and tie up all the problems into one neat little point that can esaisly resolved, they just go "Yea? well abotu here, where x got stoned for blowing his nose?" "what about about where God tells them to wipe out the Pedestriakites and kill even the bateria on their dinner plates?!! that's bad, God is BAD BAD BAD!!!"
But never will they just face the central point and take it like real thinkers. They want this massive profussion of problematic verses to stand in the way of rally understanding or thinging about Biblical moralty; and often much what passes for their problematic verses is misunderstood.
DD prestens a lit of what's wrong with Jesus' morality, here's what he does:
(a) doubles up on synoptic passages so he can present them like four different enstances, instant multiplicty of examles. Now Jesus dint' say "pluck out your eye" once, but four times! four times as bad!
(b) mostly misunderstood because no attempt is made to watch for figurative language so he sees "i come to bring not peace but a sword" as a litteral statment that Jesus likes war! I can't even begin to comment.
But in this thread I want to ask each and everyone of you speicail, pease do not quote an massive profussion of texts in a vien attempt to show "how bad the bible is." Let's stick to the two central poinkts that I want to get at.Please?
Point 1: OT morality is progressive.
that's right. It doesn't seem so because it is brutal and unfair in many places. But:
(a) still better than sourrounding committies that had infant sacrafice and no ruels for freeing of slaves in jubalee year, no prohabitions agaisnt raping slave women, or civil recompense for rape or anything of the kind.
(b) Points to advancements in moral thinking over and above what the others had in terms of; written code, basic rights for slaves, expectation of humane treatment, laws to help the poor, ect.
The point; God told Israel they would be a light to the gentiels, they were. Their example led to better morality on a progressive scale; but it took time of course. Yet the standards did change.
Now of course atheists will argue that this is not indicative of a divine plan. On the other hand it meshes perfectly with my view of inspritation. It's not a memo from God but a collection of writtings that are inspired by divine/human encoutner.
Moreover, remeber the principle of shadow to substance!
the Moseic law was impossed to show how bad bad could be. It was a measuring stick to demonstrate and clearly define sin. It was not the solution to sin. So it shows how hard it is to live perfectly and how difficutl it is to keep a benchmark of righteousness, it's suppossed to be hard and unreasonable; because trying to live a holy life under our own effecists is hard and unreasonable.
But in the NT we find God entering history as a man, and we have a direct example of what to do, just follow Jesus' charater. which leads to point 2.
Point 2: Jesus anticipated the Categorical imprative.
that gives us a logical modern framework in which to play out Christian morality in a deontolgoical fashion.
The imprative of Kant anticipated (and tha's where Kant got it) in the golden rules do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The "as you would hagve them do unto you" cluase is what makes it clever, because it is both objective and flexible at the same time.
These two points explain the basis of Biblcial morlaity and they make up for all the little picky verses where God appears to be a rotter, because they explain why the context of OT morality is so culturally bound, and demarkate a sense in which OT morality is progressive. It also explians NT as modern, advanced, loigcal and Kantian.
Metacrock
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Up Against The Wall Red Neck School Administrators
I posted this on CADRE by mistake, but I hope they like it. But I want it here too.
People who run the educational system in America, UK, and probably all major English speaking countries (excluding New Zealand) out to be shot. They should just be put up against the wall and shot. I don't mean the teachers (not my sister)! but those who run the wretched excuse for an educational system (of cousre I don't really mean that, I'm JUST JOKNIG!). When I used to substitute "teach" (baby sit) I would sit at lunch in the teacher's lounge and every single conversation I had with teachers was about the failure of the system, and every single teacher admitted it is a dismal failure and that they don't do any real teaching.
In considering the ignorance of atheists I encounter on the net, I have long believed that their true ignorance is a failure of the educational system in America. Most of them just don't know the intellectual background of western culture, or the extent to which our culture is predicated upon Christian concepts. I think those of us who are historically aware have even forgotten a great deal of this. Almost every idea we have in modernity come to us as a left over form Christian doctrine.
The rise of the Christian religion obliterated a great deal of the pagan influence of Greco-Roman world. There are many surviving folkways in Greece, there are a lot of texts and various ideas that come to us from Greece, mostly via the church. For the most part there is no real remembrance of what the ancient world was or what their thinking was pre-Christianity.
By the same token, moderns have done a similar number on Christianity. The contemporary student is so cut off from the historical facts of the culture that we are constantly finding them on message boards lost, confused, wondering without a clue, and the only direction they have grasped and cling to with white knuckles is their ever deepening hatred of Christianity.
some of this ignorance is so shocking I can't believe it. Tonight on CARM one of the designs of the apologetics board argued that Trinitiarn doctrinal terminology "rapes the English language." This is so because the Trinitarian concept of "person" totally distorts the concept of "person" that we have in English. Of cooers never mind that Trinitarian doctrine was settled by the fourth century, when English didn't even exits (I'm sure if they even spoke old English in the British isles that early). Of course our modern concept of person evolves out of the notion of persona (Hypostasis) that was used from the Greek (the word for substance) in making the doctrine. So this atheist has the whole thing backwards, English rapes Greek to come up with modern concept of personated, but the origin of the concept is the Trinitarian doctrine!
How many times have I confronted atheists whose idea of a Bible contradiction was just not knowing how to read a text? My favorite example; song of songs, the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. Well, heck, turtles dot' have voices! Couldn't stupid Bible people see that? Or hear it? or not hear it? Excuse me, it's "Turtle dove." Its' a bird. Or, how could Christ be a door when over there he says he's a gate, what a contradiction! Many atheists seem to ink Shakespeare just wrote in cliches, he's just much adieu about nothing.
I think a lot of the hostility is based upon cultural divide and we need to start educating the church. The problem is the church! Christians don't appreciate this stuff. How many average church pew sitters would the allusion to much due about nothing? We need to begin by making the church aware of its own intellectual heritage. Then we need to start trying to put stuff back in the schools, not creationism, let that one go! Let's worry about just getting the reality of western letters into the schools.
(you know I could get to like this spell check thing--this may be the begining of a beautiful frienship)
People who run the educational system in America, UK, and probably all major English speaking countries (excluding New Zealand) out to be shot. They should just be put up against the wall and shot. I don't mean the teachers (not my sister)! but those who run the wretched excuse for an educational system (of cousre I don't really mean that, I'm JUST JOKNIG!). When I used to substitute "teach" (baby sit) I would sit at lunch in the teacher's lounge and every single conversation I had with teachers was about the failure of the system, and every single teacher admitted it is a dismal failure and that they don't do any real teaching.
In considering the ignorance of atheists I encounter on the net, I have long believed that their true ignorance is a failure of the educational system in America. Most of them just don't know the intellectual background of western culture, or the extent to which our culture is predicated upon Christian concepts. I think those of us who are historically aware have even forgotten a great deal of this. Almost every idea we have in modernity come to us as a left over form Christian doctrine.
The rise of the Christian religion obliterated a great deal of the pagan influence of Greco-Roman world. There are many surviving folkways in Greece, there are a lot of texts and various ideas that come to us from Greece, mostly via the church. For the most part there is no real remembrance of what the ancient world was or what their thinking was pre-Christianity.
By the same token, moderns have done a similar number on Christianity. The contemporary student is so cut off from the historical facts of the culture that we are constantly finding them on message boards lost, confused, wondering without a clue, and the only direction they have grasped and cling to with white knuckles is their ever deepening hatred of Christianity.
some of this ignorance is so shocking I can't believe it. Tonight on CARM one of the designs of the apologetics board argued that Trinitiarn doctrinal terminology "rapes the English language." This is so because the Trinitarian concept of "person" totally distorts the concept of "person" that we have in English. Of cooers never mind that Trinitarian doctrine was settled by the fourth century, when English didn't even exits (I'm sure if they even spoke old English in the British isles that early). Of course our modern concept of person evolves out of the notion of persona (Hypostasis) that was used from the Greek (the word for substance) in making the doctrine. So this atheist has the whole thing backwards, English rapes Greek to come up with modern concept of personated, but the origin of the concept is the Trinitarian doctrine!
How many times have I confronted atheists whose idea of a Bible contradiction was just not knowing how to read a text? My favorite example; song of songs, the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. Well, heck, turtles dot' have voices! Couldn't stupid Bible people see that? Or hear it? or not hear it? Excuse me, it's "Turtle dove." Its' a bird. Or, how could Christ be a door when over there he says he's a gate, what a contradiction! Many atheists seem to ink Shakespeare just wrote in cliches, he's just much adieu about nothing.
I think a lot of the hostility is based upon cultural divide and we need to start educating the church. The problem is the church! Christians don't appreciate this stuff. How many average church pew sitters would the allusion to much due about nothing? We need to begin by making the church aware of its own intellectual heritage. Then we need to start trying to put stuff back in the schools, not creationism, let that one go! Let's worry about just getting the reality of western letters into the schools.
(you know I could get to like this spell check thing--this may be the begining of a beautiful frienship)
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Beauty of Deism or Arrogance of "Man?"
this was put up originally by blackmagic on my boards. I thought it desreves is own Blog. I will try to get to write an essay for the Blog which this article suggests to me. that will be coming soon.
THE BEAUTY OF DEISM
by Robert L. Johnson
(posted by Magiknoir on EZB Sense of the numinous)
>>>Athiests have a hard time understand the psychology of anyone who is capable of accepting his own sins and take responisiblity for his own actions. One of the major reasons that a person is an atheist is to escape such responsiblity (not true of all by any means). But study after study, going back to James and to Mininger (Karl, of the clinic fame) have proven that Christian notions of confession, grace, forgiveness lead to a much more healthy minded state than unbeilef. Christians speicifically, and religious people in general have a lot less clicincal depression or mental illness than unbelievers.
>>>Have you ever heard the term "loaded statment?" Holy begging the question Batman!
>>>Christians are not obligated to accept the story of passover as litteral history.
THE DEISTIC IDEA OF GOD
>>>But an entity who has no concern for its creatures, who takes no responsiblity and who is totally removed form the daily lives of those it creates. The god of diesm is just the power of god with the "personality" removed. Deistic God flings the world off into the void and has nothing more to do with it. That is the classic definfition.
>>>It appears your ignorance of modern Christian thoelogy is abismal. First, classical theism and historical Christainity have always asserted that God is eternal and has no begining. That is hardly an advance upon any sort of thinking about God.
you probalby have been led astay for fundamentalists to think that Christians think of God as a big guy int he sky. Christian theolgoians, those worth their grades in seminary, do NOT think of God in this way. In fact Judeo-Christian tradition has not thought of God in this way since the translators of the LXX translated God's word to Moses as "I am eing itself." (Exodus 3:19). Modern Christian theology embrasses several general directions in thinking about the nature of God, none of them invovle big guy on throne; process theology, Tillich's notion of "Being itself," to name two examples.
>>>Just as I thought. Your understanding of Christain theology is worefully inadquate. You seem to confusse the most vocal segemnts of society with the thing itself. The state of the art in Christian thought is found in Washington Squre, not the blue ridge moutins.
>>>The Judeo-Christian tradition never understood God as a man! this is a total mistake that just comes of not reading enough real theology! The father image, the guy on the throne in the bible, these are metaphorical images. they are also counter balanced by God as a mother bera, an egal, a hen, a flame of fire a while wind, a burning bush all kinds of images only a few of them involve guys on thrones. In fact one major image of God is the female brest! (Adonai = translated as "Lord" in OT--means "God of the brest." .
In fact the Bible tells us not to think of God as a man. Several verses say this: "God is spirit, those who worhsip him must do so in spirit and truth" (John) "he is not worhsiped with hands as though he neded anything" "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts" ect ect. These are metaphorical images because religious lanauge is analogical.
DEISM REJECTS VIOLENCE
>>>Christianity rejects violence. There has always been a non violent and pascifistic element in the chruch. But if you think that all diesm is pascifistic you are totally wrong! There was no pascifistic deistic movement in the enlightenment.
>>>There are no such records in Christianity. There are only people like George W. Bush would interprit a gum wrapper to justify his war. It is not the absnese of revelation that will keep us out of war, but understanding of human power sturctures and the capitalist motivations that require defense of private property at all costs!
>>>Nothing in the nature of revealed religion that makes people go to war. It's just as easy to interprit all of it as promoting peace.
DEISM'S APPRECIATION OF LIFE AND BEAUTY
>>>Life beauty! yech! you like that sutff? Forget it man, Diesim not for me!!!
>>>Yet oddly enough you express no gratitude at the grace of atonement though which Christ died for your sins.
>>>O that doesn't work for Christians! We only get off on thinking about bad stuff. Paul said "whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are good, think on these things."
>>>If you are trying to say that Christianity held back science your ignorance of the history of science is as bad as your ignorance of theology. It was Christian thinkers who created the interest in modern science, who saved Newtonianism from the fate of being an overlooked and forgotten theory of the 17th century. But the reason society is not a paradise on earth is not because we have religion and Christainity to hold us back, it's because we have human nature to hold us back!
Reinhold Neibuhr proved that more education is not the answer to societies ills, but finding a way to stop self interest of the group froms subsuming the moral impartives of he indiviudal.
WHAT BEING A DEIST DEMANDS
>>>I don't see how that can be since the orginaized deistic movement is fledgeling and there is no manifesto and no credio to which one must adhere to be a diest. In essence there is no deist tadition.
>>>You really need to come up to speed in understanding the nature of modern christian theology. You are just making a knee jerk reaction to the jerks you see in the media. There's a whole other world of Christian thoelogians you appreantly know nothing of. Reihold Neibuhr would be a good one to start with.
I recomend his books Moral Man and Immoral Society and the Nature and Destiny of Man vol I to strat out.
THE BEAUTY OF DEISM
by Robert L. Johnson
(posted by Magiknoir on EZB Sense of the numinous)
A positive approach to life is always more rewarding and motivating than a negative outlook. People all have an individual choice to embrace either the positive or the negative, regardless of their situation. By choosing and dwelling on the negative, people often paralyze themselves. It seems one depressing and negative thought spawns two or three more. It soon becomes an endless and apparently overwhelming negative cycle. I believe the Christian mind-set that is so eager to accept guilt and original sin, as well as the additional unnatural idea of redemption by proxy, is much to blame for the suffering of millions of people who allow themselves to be victims of negativity.
>>>Athiests have a hard time understand the psychology of anyone who is capable of accepting his own sins and take responisiblity for his own actions. One of the major reasons that a person is an atheist is to escape such responsiblity (not true of all by any means). But study after study, going back to James and to Mininger (Karl, of the clinic fame) have proven that Christian notions of confession, grace, forgiveness lead to a much more healthy minded state than unbeilef. Christians speicifically, and religious people in general have a lot less clicincal depression or mental illness than unbelievers.
The insane and unreasonable ideas which abound in Christianity and Judaism are effectively neutralized and eliminated by the reason-friendly openness which permeates Deism.
>>>Have you ever heard the term "loaded statment?" Holy begging the question Batman!
In place of Christianity's vacillating god of the Old and New Testaments, Deism offers an idea of a Creator as unchangeable as the laws of Nature. A Creator incapable of such misery producing acts as the extermination of men, women, children and even of unborn babies by drowning. Deism happily rejects the Passover horror story which depicts God killing the first-born of all the Egyptians, and even the first born of their animals, because Pharaoh did not do what the Bible god allegedly (according to Exodus 11:10) made impossible for him to do (releasing the Jews).
>>>Christians are not obligated to accept the story of passover as litteral history.
THE DEISTIC IDEA OF GOD
In contrast to the ideas of God endorsed and promoted by the various revealed religions, ranging anywhere from killing babies in the Old Testament to suggesting the practice of "turning the other cheek" in the New Testament, Deism offers a very simple non-dogmatic concept of God: an eternal entity whose power is equal to his/her will.
>>>But an entity who has no concern for its creatures, who takes no responsiblity and who is totally removed form the daily lives of those it creates. The god of diesm is just the power of god with the "personality" removed. Deistic God flings the world off into the void and has nothing more to do with it. That is the classic definfition.
With the quality of being eternal, the entity of God obviously would have no beginning or end. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted places in the universe void of time, so the idea of eternalness is not unreasonable. As humanity learns more about science and the universe, our concepts of the Creator will correspondingly grow. This is the only way we can learn more about God: through the honest study of the Creator's creation, not through contradictory books written by men but claiming inspiration and revelation from God.
>>>It appears your ignorance of modern Christian thoelogy is abismal. First, classical theism and historical Christainity have always asserted that God is eternal and has no begining. That is hardly an advance upon any sort of thinking about God.
you probalby have been led astay for fundamentalists to think that Christians think of God as a big guy int he sky. Christian theolgoians, those worth their grades in seminary, do NOT think of God in this way. In fact Judeo-Christian tradition has not thought of God in this way since the translators of the LXX translated God's word to Moses as "I am eing itself." (Exodus 3:19). Modern Christian theology embrasses several general directions in thinking about the nature of God, none of them invovle big guy on throne; process theology, Tillich's notion of "Being itself," to name two examples.
The antiquated practice of forming an idea of God based on purely past material experience, such as referring to God as "King", is also rejected by Deism. The extremely limited picture of God as the jealous and paranoid king of kings sitting on his throne upset that his subjects were going to reach "heaven" by building a brick tower is due to the limited vision which the Bible writers had of both the Creator and of the universe. This fear the Bible god had of the Tower of Babel is based on fear of humanities acquisition of knowledge. The Creator the Deist venerates invites all of us to learn as much as possible about absolutely everything, for this is the best way to learn about God.
>>>Just as I thought. Your understanding of Christain theology is worefully inadquate. You seem to confusse the most vocal segemnts of society with the thing itself. The state of the art in Christian thought is found in Washington Squre, not the blue ridge moutins.
Another problem with the idea of God as promoted by the revealed religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is its depiction of God as a man. By limiting God to the status of a man, women are consciously and subconsciously relegated to a lesser standing in society. After all, if God is characterized as a man, then men are closer to God then women. Perhaps this accounts for the multiple instances of women bashing found throughout the various "holy books." By limiting the advancement of women through their subjugation to men, revealed religion has limited the advancement and progress of all of society. And a very sad element of this anti-progress mind-set, advanced by revealed religion, is that it claims God as its author.
>>>The Judeo-Christian tradition never understood God as a man! this is a total mistake that just comes of not reading enough real theology! The father image, the guy on the throne in the bible, these are metaphorical images. they are also counter balanced by God as a mother bera, an egal, a hen, a flame of fire a while wind, a burning bush all kinds of images only a few of them involve guys on thrones. In fact one major image of God is the female brest! (Adonai = translated as "Lord" in OT--means "God of the brest." .
In fact the Bible tells us not to think of God as a man. Several verses say this: "God is spirit, those who worhsip him must do so in spirit and truth" (John) "he is not worhsiped with hands as though he neded anything" "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts" ect ect. These are metaphorical images because religious lanauge is analogical.
DEISM REJECTS VIOLENCE
All religions claim they reject violence. History, of course, proves them wrong. From the grotesque horror stories of slaughter and rape at the alleged command of God found throughout the Old Testament, to the claimed words of Jesus regarding bringing not peace but a sword, to the blood soaked Inquisition through religiously approved contemporary wars, revealed religion goes happily hand in hand with violence and war.
>>>Christianity rejects violence. There has always been a non violent and pascifistic element in the chruch. But if you think that all diesm is pascifistic you are totally wrong! There was no pascifistic deistic movement in the enlightenment.
Deism's rejection of divine revelation excludes it from falling into the same violence promoting business that the revealed religions are in. There are no written words from the Almighty that can be twisted to sanctify one human being killing another. This makes Deism less useful to the ambitions of the power-elites. Could this be why very few people are aware of Deism and of the Deistic influence of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution?
>>>There are no such records in Christianity. There are only people like George W. Bush would interprit a gum wrapper to justify his war. It is not the absnese of revelation that will keep us out of war, but understanding of human power sturctures and the capitalist motivations that require defense of private property at all costs!
Nuclear realities have made the waging of war an unacceptable proposition. War was never justifiable, it only exposed man's mental limitations at being able to formulate a workable solution to a problem. However, in the nuclear age humanities ignorance can lead to the extermination of civilization and life itself on our planet. The shallow chauvinism of the various revealed religions take us all one step closer to that irreversible catastrophe. Deism, by its reliance on reason and rejection of violence, serves as a block to the apocalyptic nightmare that is so central to the major revealed religions.
>>>Nothing in the nature of revealed religion that makes people go to war. It's just as easy to interprit all of it as promoting peace.
DEISM'S APPRECIATION OF LIFE AND BEAUTY
One of the best roads to happiness is to greatly appreciate the positive things in life. In spite of many obstacles that everyone has in their lives that need to be overcome, the fact remains there is much to be thankful for.
>>>Life beauty! yech! you like that sutff? Forget it man, Diesim not for me!!!
To quote Thomas Paine:
"But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born - a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on."
>>>Yet oddly enough you express no gratitude at the grace of atonement though which Christ died for your sins.
From personal experience I know if my problems seem overwhelming, all I need to do is force myself to only think of the positive things in life and my spirits are soon picked up and fortified. I not only feel better, but my mind is cleared and solutions to the problems flow much smoother. And the more often I use this method the easier it becomes.
>>>O that doesn't work for Christians! We only get off on thinking about bad stuff. Paul said "whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are good, think on these things."
Many people express anger at God for disease, natural disasters and war. Yet it is within humanities power to eliminate and/or neutralize all of these. By studying the principles of Nature we have already eradicated many diseases and protected ourselves from much of Nature's fury. If we didn't let our egos, selfishness and fear get in the way, just think of how far we could be by now. Every invention and discovery we have today, could have been in effect 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. For the fact is, the principles those inventions and discoveries are based on were in effect from before the evolution of mankind. We could be enjoying a virtually disease free, peaceful progressive society extending well beyond our planet Earth. It still isn't too late. As we generate a peaceful worldwide religious revolution through Deism and the World Union of Deists we will bring about the emancipation of the individual's mind and spirit. The soul of society will then be lifted to a new level, never before thought possible. A level of progress and international cooperation that will make warfare just an archaic oddity of the dark, superstitious past.
>>>If you are trying to say that Christianity held back science your ignorance of the history of science is as bad as your ignorance of theology. It was Christian thinkers who created the interest in modern science, who saved Newtonianism from the fate of being an overlooked and forgotten theory of the 17th century. But the reason society is not a paradise on earth is not because we have religion and Christainity to hold us back, it's because we have human nature to hold us back!
Reinhold Neibuhr proved that more education is not the answer to societies ills, but finding a way to stop self interest of the group froms subsuming the moral impartives of he indiviudal.
WHAT BEING A DEIST DEMANDS
Being a Deist demands that we truly believe, to the depths of our souls, that the spiritual philosophy of Deism will definitely make our own lives better and that it will make the world a better place. Once we realize this, it becomes obvious that the old outdated religious views of revealed religion must be overcome by peaceful means.
>>>I don't see how that can be since the orginaized deistic movement is fledgeling and there is no manifesto and no credio to which one must adhere to be a diest. In essence there is no deist tadition.
This entails a lot of work, sacrifice and giving on the individual's part. The revealed religions are so entrenched in society it will take a prolonged herculean effort on our part to pry their fingers from the throat and pockets of society. Once we do this by educating their rank and file, as well as by bringing in the millions of people who believe in God but don't endorse any particular religion, the power the revealed religions now yield will wither and society will get stronger. This requires each and everyone of us to make special efforts and sacrifices in both time and money. It's only logical that we must do and give more than those on the side of revealed religion are doing and giving to their cause. ...
>>>You really need to come up to speed in understanding the nature of modern christian theology. You are just making a knee jerk reaction to the jerks you see in the media. There's a whole other world of Christian thoelogians you appreantly know nothing of. Reihold Neibuhr would be a good one to start with.
I recomend his books Moral Man and Immoral Society and the Nature and Destiny of Man vol I to strat out.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Summary of Dissertation topc: turn to nature in 17th century England.
This isn't really even the topic.It's relaly just the background. It's only the introduction, and not even all of it. I paln to put the whole synopsis on my site smoeday, with footnotes and everything. In the mean time, I hope someone gets something out of this (sorry about the fn's not time to make them, but I might put up the bib soon).
The latitudinarians have been underrated as significant shapers of modern thought. Thanks to historians such as Margaret Jacobs and Steven Shapin, the latitudinarians are appreciated as political support in the rise of Newtonian science. Thinkers such as John Patrick and Edward Stillingfleet championed and won the cause of Newtonian science, assuring its place in modern thought by giving it a currency in the general English public that could not be ignored (Jacobs, 15). Accepting Robert Boyle’s social project, they believed that Newtonian science offered a method of acuity and, at the same time, would settle disputes and create social stability with their version of Anglicanism at the political center. The latitudinarians used Newtonian science as a tool for their own social hegemony (Jacobs, 16; Shapin, 2). Church historians such as William Spellman view them primarily as failed theologians whose contributions to the history of theology were scant at best (1). What seems to be missed by both secular and church historians alike is the significant contribution of the latitudinarians in conditioning the educated public for future developments of the enlightenment and transforming the Western tradition in thought from an ontological to an epistemological enterprise. The latitudinarian mission did not begin as a desire to create a new epistemic authority, but in seeking to clear a political space for their reading of Newtonianism they created an epistemological vacuum that could only be filled by empirical science. This was an unavoidable direction, one to which the latitudinarians were irrevocably committed once they embraced Robert Boyle’s project, because it committed them to an epistemic solution to the problem of social authority. In fact, my argument is that the latitudinarians’ major contribution, overlooked as it is, came in achieving the opposite of their stated goals; although they wanted a science-driven Christianity bolstering social order, their work led to a Christianity largely driven out of science.
The shift from biblical revelation to nature in the seventeenth century comes as the culmination of a long development of intellectual history. I use the phrase “the turn to nature” to mark this shift. The turn itself was a long process, beginning in the twelfth century, and culminating in the rise of enlightenment autonomy and modern science. Along the way the turn to nature included aspects of reformation fideism, the skeptical crisis of the sixteenth century, and the quest for certain knowledge (in the works of thinkers like Descartes). I will not dwell on these developments but will include an overview of the historical background in the first chapter. My analysis will begin in detail with the social situation of the restoration period and Boyle’s social project, and will focus on the following two areas: (1) The seventeenth-century shift from revelation to nature, (2) and the separation of human nature from its relation to grace and its inclusion in nature as a purely naturalistic fact.
Historical Background
In the twelfth century, Christian philosophy achieved its major social hegemony through almost universal acceptance of a vast theological system, a tradition that embodied both ontology and epistemology, and also motivated social hegemony in the form of dual power, church and state. This system began to unravel after the twelfth century with the late scholastic rise of scientific naturalism and the sixteenth-century reformations. In the mystical ontology of the church, nature was an extension of grace. “Man” was at the center of this system, and human nature united the realms of both nature and grace. As Eugene Fairweather points out, elemental nature (that is excluding human nature) was a symbol of divine truth (St. Augustine) rather than a means of knowledge. (237).. According to William Abraham, Luther and Calvin changed the nature of scripture from primarily a means of bestowing grace to primarily a source of epistemic authority (12). Prior to that time epistemic authority was grounded not in scripture alone, but in all of church tradition, which started with scripture but also church authority and natural theology (logic and reason about the natural world). Luther’s emphasis upon sola scriptura combined with the priesthood of the believer multiplied the problem he tried to solve: that there was no single clear-cut authority to which a Christian might turn in epistemic matters (Stout, 45). Many natural philosophers, such as Descartes, were trying to overcome this situation through the quest for certain knowledge.
The turn to “the book of nature,” first as a supplement, then as a replacement, for biblical revelation and church authority came largely in answer to the political and social conflicts of the religious wars. The disputants could not agree upon biblical readings; thus, it was hoped that science would provide indisputable answers (this was the essence of Boyle’s social project).
Latitudinarianism began after the English civil war, with the nonjuror controversy at Cambridge concerning confession of Protestant faith. As a movement, it fell into two time periods, demarcated by the so-called “glorious revolution” of 1688. The first phase does not pertain to this project. In the second phase, the latitudinarians became Newtonians and embraced Boyle’s social project, which was to use Newtonian science to establish the truth of religious doctrine and thus assure peace in society by means of an objective criterion for truth. Through their sermons, pamphlets, and private discussions they spread the word about Newton and his seeming connection to the divine mind. As a group they tended to be Whigs (although some were Tories) and churchmen, a few were scientists, most were members of the Royal Society. In so doing, however, they set up a situation in which deism later triumphed in England and much of the scientific world was conditioned to hear LaPlace’s statement “I have no need of that hypothesis” (God) and to divorce science from religion in modernity (Hahn, 256).
The latitudinarians have been underrated as significant shapers of modern thought. Thanks to historians such as Margaret Jacobs and Steven Shapin, the latitudinarians are appreciated as political support in the rise of Newtonian science. Thinkers such as John Patrick and Edward Stillingfleet championed and won the cause of Newtonian science, assuring its place in modern thought by giving it a currency in the general English public that could not be ignored (Jacobs, 15). Accepting Robert Boyle’s social project, they believed that Newtonian science offered a method of acuity and, at the same time, would settle disputes and create social stability with their version of Anglicanism at the political center. The latitudinarians used Newtonian science as a tool for their own social hegemony (Jacobs, 16; Shapin, 2). Church historians such as William Spellman view them primarily as failed theologians whose contributions to the history of theology were scant at best (1). What seems to be missed by both secular and church historians alike is the significant contribution of the latitudinarians in conditioning the educated public for future developments of the enlightenment and transforming the Western tradition in thought from an ontological to an epistemological enterprise. The latitudinarian mission did not begin as a desire to create a new epistemic authority, but in seeking to clear a political space for their reading of Newtonianism they created an epistemological vacuum that could only be filled by empirical science. This was an unavoidable direction, one to which the latitudinarians were irrevocably committed once they embraced Robert Boyle’s project, because it committed them to an epistemic solution to the problem of social authority. In fact, my argument is that the latitudinarians’ major contribution, overlooked as it is, came in achieving the opposite of their stated goals; although they wanted a science-driven Christianity bolstering social order, their work led to a Christianity largely driven out of science.
The shift from biblical revelation to nature in the seventeenth century comes as the culmination of a long development of intellectual history. I use the phrase “the turn to nature” to mark this shift. The turn itself was a long process, beginning in the twelfth century, and culminating in the rise of enlightenment autonomy and modern science. Along the way the turn to nature included aspects of reformation fideism, the skeptical crisis of the sixteenth century, and the quest for certain knowledge (in the works of thinkers like Descartes). I will not dwell on these developments but will include an overview of the historical background in the first chapter. My analysis will begin in detail with the social situation of the restoration period and Boyle’s social project, and will focus on the following two areas: (1) The seventeenth-century shift from revelation to nature, (2) and the separation of human nature from its relation to grace and its inclusion in nature as a purely naturalistic fact.
Historical Background
In the twelfth century, Christian philosophy achieved its major social hegemony through almost universal acceptance of a vast theological system, a tradition that embodied both ontology and epistemology, and also motivated social hegemony in the form of dual power, church and state. This system began to unravel after the twelfth century with the late scholastic rise of scientific naturalism and the sixteenth-century reformations. In the mystical ontology of the church, nature was an extension of grace. “Man” was at the center of this system, and human nature united the realms of both nature and grace. As Eugene Fairweather points out, elemental nature (that is excluding human nature) was a symbol of divine truth (St. Augustine) rather than a means of knowledge. (237).. According to William Abraham, Luther and Calvin changed the nature of scripture from primarily a means of bestowing grace to primarily a source of epistemic authority (12). Prior to that time epistemic authority was grounded not in scripture alone, but in all of church tradition, which started with scripture but also church authority and natural theology (logic and reason about the natural world). Luther’s emphasis upon sola scriptura combined with the priesthood of the believer multiplied the problem he tried to solve: that there was no single clear-cut authority to which a Christian might turn in epistemic matters (Stout, 45). Many natural philosophers, such as Descartes, were trying to overcome this situation through the quest for certain knowledge.
The turn to “the book of nature,” first as a supplement, then as a replacement, for biblical revelation and church authority came largely in answer to the political and social conflicts of the religious wars. The disputants could not agree upon biblical readings; thus, it was hoped that science would provide indisputable answers (this was the essence of Boyle’s social project).
Latitudinarianism began after the English civil war, with the nonjuror controversy at Cambridge concerning confession of Protestant faith. As a movement, it fell into two time periods, demarcated by the so-called “glorious revolution” of 1688. The first phase does not pertain to this project. In the second phase, the latitudinarians became Newtonians and embraced Boyle’s social project, which was to use Newtonian science to establish the truth of religious doctrine and thus assure peace in society by means of an objective criterion for truth. Through their sermons, pamphlets, and private discussions they spread the word about Newton and his seeming connection to the divine mind. As a group they tended to be Whigs (although some were Tories) and churchmen, a few were scientists, most were members of the Royal Society. In so doing, however, they set up a situation in which deism later triumphed in England and much of the scientific world was conditioned to hear LaPlace’s statement “I have no need of that hypothesis” (God) and to divorce science from religion in modernity (Hahn, 256).
Monday, April 04, 2005
Ebla Froums: Can't treach old dog new tricks
You really can't. that froum turned out to be nothing more than the same old baised crap, where atheists can anything they want to belittle christians, and if Christians fight bck they are terrible and breaking the rules.
That little junta of cranks who think they are scholars and try to mutuilate the NT all the time are infesting both sec web and Ebla. They think that holding outlandish opinions and fill epistemic gaps with wishful think makes them shcolars.
why is there this tendency to think that gaps in knowledge can be filled with whatever we want to be there? At that rate the best evidence for something being in the Bible is that it's not in the Bible!
Doherty is a perfect case in point. He tries to force the fit between fourth century neo-platonism and porot Gnostic mystery cult that never exist,and along the way has to drag in all kinds of anacrinisms like the teacher at Qumran being some sort of pre-Jesus prototype. And the NT mutilation Junta probably don't even know that in the 1950s that move was attempted by several cranks, in cluding John Allegro, aka "the mushroom man."
One thing that divides a real scholar from these cranks is not the number books one has read but attitude; scholarly causation is at a premium.
That little junta of cranks who think they are scholars and try to mutuilate the NT all the time are infesting both sec web and Ebla. They think that holding outlandish opinions and fill epistemic gaps with wishful think makes them shcolars.
why is there this tendency to think that gaps in knowledge can be filled with whatever we want to be there? At that rate the best evidence for something being in the Bible is that it's not in the Bible!
Doherty is a perfect case in point. He tries to force the fit between fourth century neo-platonism and porot Gnostic mystery cult that never exist,and along the way has to drag in all kinds of anacrinisms like the teacher at Qumran being some sort of pre-Jesus prototype. And the NT mutilation Junta probably don't even know that in the 1950s that move was attempted by several cranks, in cluding John Allegro, aka "the mushroom man."
One thing that divides a real scholar from these cranks is not the number books one has read but attitude; scholarly causation is at a premium.
Doherty's BS is irrelivant
Early Doherty reads a lot. He pulls out a lot of obscrue texts in an attempt to bolster his fictional and highly imaginative wish list of anti-christian hatred. But the fact of it is, doesn't matter how many strange Alexandrian cults he knows or, or how many peusedpgiraphal texts he can pretend refur to cosmoic crucifiction, the simple fact is Jesus was understood as a flesh and blood person as early as 50AD. That is to say, we can prove that Jesus was noised about as a felsh and blood man, the one form Nazrerath at this period, meaning he was so understood in the previous two decades.
I will start with two examples, but I can find a lot more:
(1) Helmutt Koester's work in Ancient Christian Gosples
Koester traces the textal reading in the Diatresseron back to pre Mrkan redaction. Both he and Crosson place this writting, the Passaion narrative and empty tomb as ealry as AD 50. this includes of course, the idea of an earlthy crucification and flesh blood Jesus and the very same events that are found in the four canonical Gospels.
What this means is that he's going by the actual reading itself, and deducing form it, form the way it's written, in the mannar of textual criticism, the fact of its' early writting. So even though the Diatesseron is late (170) the readings it contains are earlier than the canonical readings, because they were copied form copies of the ealiest ms.
Of course Doherty groupies, I guess we can call them Dohertyiers, sort of like Treckers, love to talk about Paul, their highly imaginative attempts to read into Paul their ideological wish list; but that's unimportnat becasue the simple fact of he matter is, Doherty is just palin wrong, and he can be proven to be wrong by an examamination of the texts in the pre markan redaction!
(2) The Gospel of Tom
Now it's not generally noised about, and of cousre the little posse of NT mutilators at the Internet Defilers wont see it, but Thomas is a core from a very early saying source, stuck inside a very late gnostic frame.
we know this becasue the sayings themselves are not laden with much Gnostic goup, nor are they very ensconced in the Gnostic ideology,but really are rather in agreement with Q to a large extent.
But the non sayings material, the peusdo narratival framework in which these sayings are placed, is laden with the late Gnsotic ponchont for spekaing of the "powers" and so forth.
It is in this sayings core that we find the stament "in flesh I took my stand in the midst of them." So here Jesus says he's flesh. Now we know this is an early saying, because it too anti-Gnsotic. it mentions a Jesus come in the flesh. That also debucnks Doherty, because most schoalrs place the sayings core of thomas with Q in terms of date, and many feel that it pre dates the canonicals. That means Jesus was understood to be flesh and blood from a period prior to the destruction of the temple.
(3) We have at least 23 Gospels and all of them portray Jesus as flesh and bood.
Many of these have been dated to first century, some thought to pre date canonicals. None of them protray Jesus as a cosmic and ehterial. they all see him as a flesh and blood man living on earth.
(4) No other versions
the upshot of this argument is that it can't prove that the eventical are historical. But it does prove that they were thought to be historical from a very ealry period. Probably the most likely reason they are tought to be so is becaus they were historical.
(5) The prhaseology in Heberws.
Jesus is cleary stated to have been flesh and boold and to have had an earthly life. Doherty's answer, at least on the website, is in part to say that Heberws was written by Apollos and thus is Alexandrian so they couldn't have meant the obvious.
this is all off the top of my head, I don't have time to look for sources but I will. But see the book Pricilla Papers by Ruth Hoppin. She argues that Priscilla is a much better candidate for authorship than Apollos. Apollos wasn't even in the inner circle, he wasn't even alley of Paul's.
(6) canonical gospels themselves
consensus of the field to place them all within the first century. So clealry the tendency to pretend they dont' exist is just wishful thinking. They put the flesh and blood Christ in the first century.
_________________
I will start with two examples, but I can find a lot more:
(1) Helmutt Koester's work in Ancient Christian Gosples
Koester traces the textal reading in the Diatresseron back to pre Mrkan redaction. Both he and Crosson place this writting, the Passaion narrative and empty tomb as ealry as AD 50. this includes of course, the idea of an earlthy crucification and flesh blood Jesus and the very same events that are found in the four canonical Gospels.
What this means is that he's going by the actual reading itself, and deducing form it, form the way it's written, in the mannar of textual criticism, the fact of its' early writting. So even though the Diatesseron is late (170) the readings it contains are earlier than the canonical readings, because they were copied form copies of the ealiest ms.
Of course Doherty groupies, I guess we can call them Dohertyiers, sort of like Treckers, love to talk about Paul, their highly imaginative attempts to read into Paul their ideological wish list; but that's unimportnat becasue the simple fact of he matter is, Doherty is just palin wrong, and he can be proven to be wrong by an examamination of the texts in the pre markan redaction!
(2) The Gospel of Tom
Now it's not generally noised about, and of cousre the little posse of NT mutilators at the Internet Defilers wont see it, but Thomas is a core from a very early saying source, stuck inside a very late gnostic frame.
we know this becasue the sayings themselves are not laden with much Gnostic goup, nor are they very ensconced in the Gnostic ideology,but really are rather in agreement with Q to a large extent.
But the non sayings material, the peusdo narratival framework in which these sayings are placed, is laden with the late Gnsotic ponchont for spekaing of the "powers" and so forth.
It is in this sayings core that we find the stament "in flesh I took my stand in the midst of them." So here Jesus says he's flesh. Now we know this is an early saying, because it too anti-Gnsotic. it mentions a Jesus come in the flesh. That also debucnks Doherty, because most schoalrs place the sayings core of thomas with Q in terms of date, and many feel that it pre dates the canonicals. That means Jesus was understood to be flesh and blood from a period prior to the destruction of the temple.
(3) We have at least 23 Gospels and all of them portray Jesus as flesh and bood.
Many of these have been dated to first century, some thought to pre date canonicals. None of them protray Jesus as a cosmic and ehterial. they all see him as a flesh and blood man living on earth.
(4) No other versions
the upshot of this argument is that it can't prove that the eventical are historical. But it does prove that they were thought to be historical from a very ealry period. Probably the most likely reason they are tought to be so is becaus they were historical.
(5) The prhaseology in Heberws.
Jesus is cleary stated to have been flesh and boold and to have had an earthly life. Doherty's answer, at least on the website, is in part to say that Heberws was written by Apollos and thus is Alexandrian so they couldn't have meant the obvious.
this is all off the top of my head, I don't have time to look for sources but I will. But see the book Pricilla Papers by Ruth Hoppin. She argues that Priscilla is a much better candidate for authorship than Apollos. Apollos wasn't even in the inner circle, he wasn't even alley of Paul's.
(6) canonical gospels themselves
consensus of the field to place them all within the first century. So clealry the tendency to pretend they dont' exist is just wishful thinking. They put the flesh and blood Christ in the first century.
_________________
Friday, April 01, 2005
Further thinking on "no other versions argument"
The major questoin for this argument is, how can it be verified if we can't distinguish between stories with one verison which are fictional and those which are factual. After all, some stories, such as Little Red Riddinghood, and Robin Hood, have basically one verion, but are none the less either obviously fictional, are largely fictional.
I never said there's a one to one corrospendence between one version and truth. It can be that ficitonal stories only have one version. We can dichotomize between clealry fictional, such as LRRH, and somewhat factual, such as Robin Hood, and historical. But this raises the probelm, brought to me by Peter Kirby in email, if there has to be some basis in historicity to begin with, doesnt' this destory the idea of the argument as a useable paradigm. Becasue at that rate the single viersion is not telling us of the historicity of the narrative, but vice versa.
However, It think the importance of the paradigm is more subtle than just a cold "thumbs up, or down" on truth content. I think the real difference comes in at the point of understanding what was believed, not necessarily what is historical. The fact of one version only tells us that the events were set in stone form an early period. Now we have to ask, why were they set in stone? This would espeicially be improtant for a story like the Jesus narrative. One would think that miracles and amazing happenings would lead over active theological imaginations to invent new versions of the story.
The paradigm is toward an understanding of beilef. The fact of one story tells us that people at least believed the story in that version from an early period. It doesnt' tell us that this is indeed what happened, but it may tell us that this is what people believed happened from early on in the life of the narrative. That doesn't gaurontee truth, but it does mean that the community of faith was shaped by this particualr understanding of its history, and that this understanding forms the inception of the communtiy.
This gives us a history-likeness to the narrative. The importance of history-likeness cannot be over estimated. It means that this is what the community understands as it's history. We have to be prepared to adapt to new understandings as fact warrant, but this is the nature of the community to which we belong and the nature of our faith.
It means the Jesus story as related in the Gosples is still "in the running" as a histoircal event, until proven otherwise. Until the testimony of the community is demonstrated to be inadquate it has to stand as the bench mark of faith. These are the "history making" events that shape our faith.
I never said there's a one to one corrospendence between one version and truth. It can be that ficitonal stories only have one version. We can dichotomize between clealry fictional, such as LRRH, and somewhat factual, such as Robin Hood, and historical. But this raises the probelm, brought to me by Peter Kirby in email, if there has to be some basis in historicity to begin with, doesnt' this destory the idea of the argument as a useable paradigm. Becasue at that rate the single viersion is not telling us of the historicity of the narrative, but vice versa.
However, It think the importance of the paradigm is more subtle than just a cold "thumbs up, or down" on truth content. I think the real difference comes in at the point of understanding what was believed, not necessarily what is historical. The fact of one version only tells us that the events were set in stone form an early period. Now we have to ask, why were they set in stone? This would espeicially be improtant for a story like the Jesus narrative. One would think that miracles and amazing happenings would lead over active theological imaginations to invent new versions of the story.
The paradigm is toward an understanding of beilef. The fact of one story tells us that people at least believed the story in that version from an early period. It doesnt' tell us that this is indeed what happened, but it may tell us that this is what people believed happened from early on in the life of the narrative. That doesn't gaurontee truth, but it does mean that the community of faith was shaped by this particualr understanding of its history, and that this understanding forms the inception of the communtiy.
This gives us a history-likeness to the narrative. The importance of history-likeness cannot be over estimated. It means that this is what the community understands as it's history. We have to be prepared to adapt to new understandings as fact warrant, but this is the nature of the community to which we belong and the nature of our faith.
It means the Jesus story as related in the Gosples is still "in the running" as a histoircal event, until proven otherwise. Until the testimony of the community is demonstrated to be inadquate it has to stand as the bench mark of faith. These are the "history making" events that shape our faith.
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