Zombies remind us that death is social

[Dioscuri]

And here I was labouring under the impression that it was plate tectonics . . .

It need not be mutually exclusive, it's not not plate tectonics, but that knowledge alone is so very partial, never getting beyond the level of how we know and onto the level of how we know that we know, which is where everything happens...

[Typhoon]

And here I was labouring under the impression that it was plate tectonics . . .

It need not be mutually exclusive, it's not not plate tectonics, but that knowledge alone is so very partial, never getting beyond the level of how we know and onto the level of how we know that we know, which is where everything happens...

Had to admit my interests lie more in the how, gravity, than in the why, gravitas, which is unknown - I have yet to figure out how it can be investigated.

[Marcus]

. . I have yet to figure out how it can be investigated.

The same way anything is investigated:

"Credo ut intelligam"


But we've been down that road already . . .

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

For a moment lets say that the gospel is empirically true. Jesus really was the son of God and did transcend pain and death on the cross. Now...the average Christian will tell you this is absolutely true, it really happened, and thus it validates their belief. But what they don't realize is the idea that what they believe Christianity to be is a gloss upon a gloss upon a gloss of beliefs handed down through the generations. So their intepretation is an interpretation of their pastor's interpretation and so on and so forth. Apostolic succession used to handle that magically but protestantism rejected the sacerdotal underpinnings of the apostolic succession. So people will argue that Jesus is really real, actually God, but they don't stop to accept that they as an individual have no clue what that even means.

^^this.......... without a tradition based on provenance tied to the actual event, you are just making it up.....

To me true faith in God does not worry about whether one has faith in worldly things. All worldly things are God's Creation. So any faith put into the world IS faith in God. It is those who cannot transcend the lower mental duality that is required for regular thought that cannot see this and cannot recognize the underlying unity of all creation. In otherwords the people who are loudest about their faith are usually rather faithless. It becomes about buzzwords and mantras.

What I can't stand is the notion that, "God is in this, but not in that."

G_d is in all His creation, but we who are just above animals deign to try to live as G_d in this world He has made, and right fail at doing so. We blame the world for evil like the bad carpenter blames his tools - we are barely competent to function in this reality and we have to strive to be better. More as if we were G_d Himself, or of His spirit. This makes sense of original sin to me........

[Marcus]

. . protestantism rejected the sacerdotal underpinnings of the apostolic succession. So people will argue that Jesus is really real, actually God, but they don't stop to accept that they as an individual have no clue what that even means.

You couldn't be more dead-wrong. Just because Protestantism rejects the validity of apostolic succession (both Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy claim apostolic succession as validation of their separate, distinct, and differing traditions and dogma) does not mean that Protestantism lacks provenance and tradition.

G_d is in all His creation, but we who are just above animals deign to try to live as G_d in this world He has made, and right fail at doing so. We blame the world for evil like the bad carpenter blames his tools - we are barely competent to function in this reality and we have to strive to be better. More as if we were G_d Himself, or of His spirit. This makes sense of original sin to me........

Nicely said . . .

[Dioscuri]

without a tradition based on provenance tied to the actual event, you are just making it up.....

So are the traditions, in significant part. They confabulate by deletion and misemphasis. We are never told of incidents whose recounting would change the entire complexion of the "tradition" as we have it, such as what happened when Salome visited the crucifix.

Even what comes down to us almost intact, religions have succeeded in making the plain meaning all but invisible. Despite the numerous emendations regarding the appearance of the Serpent in Genesis, the meaning is still clear enough to eyes that see and heed, and yet you can ask any believer what they think of it and you'll get nothing but the churchly blabla they've grown up with, as if they've never sat down and read the damn thing for themselves a single time.

In revealing, something is always concealed. In protecting, something is always violated. The Tradition aimed to protect us from the truth, and ended up pressing Man into allegiance with a systematic lie. The protected learned to hate the robed, concealed figure from which they were being protected, and the protectors, who were charged with remembering the truth for themselves while double-speaking about it to the laypeople, ended up trying to convince themselves and their flock of the same thing, the same pious forgetfulness.

The scribes are henpecked by their wives, mistresses or catamites into centuries of soft treason; the voice of the Master fades into the decrepit functionary whose simulacrum of authority comes from sitting in a chair. The institutional worriers about decline and impiety fuss ever more furiously over the corpse of Paul while John has enough sense to depart all the blabla of believers into the desert, knowing that the Time of the old Master is at an end, and knowing that when the new Master approaches it will be as an abomination to all that is good and proper.

By the end of the old Master, where we are now, Church is reduced to basically a Thai massage parlor: go in once a week to get your God-problem taken care of, fix you up enough to tolerate another week of drudgery, Maya dancing all around you.

[Marcus]

. . the traditions . . confabulate by deletion and misemphasis. . .

. . religions have succeeded in making the plain meaning all but invisible. . .

. . The Tradition [pressed] Man into allegiance with a systematic lie. The protected learned to hate the robed, concealed figure . . the protectors, who were charged with remembering the truth . . ended up trying to convince themselves and their flock of the same thing, the same pious forgetfulness.

. . the voice of the Master fades . .

. . Church is . . basically a Thai massage parlor . .

That's one way to look at it . . . . I guess . .

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

hrmn..... so the traditions, which are self-serving and self-referential, fall in on themselves. What will help? There is no plain meaning and no hidden meaning, there is just that which is baffling, contradictory and unamenable to reason? The authority of the Church is in support and maintenance of the central mystery, not of its own hierarchy and its trove of cultural treasure?.......

If faith is not served by tradition and culture, what do we have?........

[Marcus]

. . The authority of the Church is in support and maintenance of the central mystery, not of its own hierarchy and its trove of cultural treasure?.......

If faith is not served by tradition and culture, what do we have?........

If you'd amend that to read "The testimony of the catholic church* is in support and maintenance of the central mystery," I'd agree with you wholeheartedly.

And I'd rather say that tradition and culture are served by faith.

• *Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant

[Ibrahim]

hrmn..... so the traditions, which are self-serving and self-referential, fall in on themselves. What will help? There is no plain meaning and no hidden meaning, there is just that which is baffling, contradictory and unamenable to reason? The authority of the Church is in support and maintenance of the central mystery, not of its own hierarchy and its trove of cultural treasure?.......

If faith is not served by tradition and culture, what do we have?........

Atheists are right about one thing. Revealed religion is a sort of feeback loop, logically speaking. Either you accept the revelation as legit, or you don't. Why do we (Christian/Muslim/Jewish) respect out tradition? Because God gave us that tradition. How do we know God gave us that tradition? Because our tradition tells us so.

[Marcus]

. . Revealed religion is a sort of feeback loop, logically speaking. Either you accept the revelation as legit, or you don't. Why do we (Christian/Muslim/Jewish) respect out tradition? Because God gave us that tradition. How do we know God gave us that tradition? Because our tradition tells us so.

Good grief! I may have to rethink my opinion of you:

To deny circularity when it comes to an ultimate authority is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons. If a person holds to a certain view, A, then when A is challenged he appeals to reasons B and C. But, of course, B and C will certainly be challenged as to why they should be accepted, and then the person would have to offer D, E, F, and G, as arguments for B and C. And the process goes on and on. Obviously it has to stop somewhere because an infinite regress of arguments cannot demonstrate the truth of one's conclusions. Thus, every worldview (and every argument) must have an ultimate, unquestioned, self-authenticating starting point. Another example: Imagine someone asking you whether the meter stick in your house was actually a meter long. How would you demonstrate such a thing? You could take it to your next-door neighbor and compare it to his meter stick and say, "see, it's a meter." However, the next question is obvious, "How do we know your neighbor's meter stick is really a meter?" This process would go on infinitely unless there were an ultimate meter stick (which, if I am not mistaken, actually existed at one time and was measured by two fine lines marked on a bar of platinum-iridium allow). It is this ultimate meter stick that defines a meter. When asked how one knows whether the ultimate meter stick is a meter, the answer is obviously circular: The ultimate meter stick is a meter because it is a meter. This same thing is true for Scripture. The Bible does not just happen to be true (the meter stick in your house), rather it is the very criterion for truth (the ultimate meter stick) and therefore the final stopping point in intellectual justification. —emphasis added

Every worldview ultimately resides in a self-authenticating source of authority. Without exception. The problem is that most people are epistemologically unconscious of their source of ultimate authority. It "just is," and that's as far as they get.

[Mr. Perfect]

Atheists are right about one thing. Revealed religion is a sort of feeback loop, logically speaking. Either you accept the revelation as legit, or you don't. Why do we (Christian/Muslim/Jewish) respect out tradition? Because God gave us that tradition. How do we know God gave us that tradition? Because our tradition tells us so.

Perhaps just another difference between Christianity and everything else (Islam included) is that any individual may know the truthfulness of Revelation through the utility of the Holy Ghost.

[Demon of Undoing]

Atheists are right about one thing. Revealed religion is a sort of feeback loop, logically speaking. Either you accept the revelation as legit, or you don't. Why do we (Christian/Muslim/Jewish) respect out tradition? Because God gave us that tradition. How do we know God gave us that tradition? Because our tradition tells us so.

Perhaps just another difference between Christianity and everything else (Islam included) is that any individual may know the truthfulness of Revelation through the utility of the Holy Ghost.

How does that work? Because I heard that my whole life, and every time I did, all explanations boiled down to, " I know because I know that I know".

[Mr. Perfect]

I can only speak for myself but the sum of my knowledge on the subject is that it (being the HG) is just something you experience inside, you can't give it to someone else. I guess it either happens for you or it doesn't. I don't say that lightly, it didn't happen for me for a long time.

[Mr. Perfect]

This is my Sunday School 101 on it, in case it helps anybody:

From John 17;

"Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or [whether] I speak of myself."

So one must actually seek to be more righteous in order to invite the spirit in. It's not usually given to petulants sitting in the peanut gallery. God must be sought.

[Ibrahim]

How does that work? Because I heard that my whole life, and every time I did, all explanations boiled down to, " I know because I know that I know".

Supernatural explanations for otherwise unjustifiable certitude are no different than any other statement of faith. It all falls under what I've described above.

[Ibrahim]

. . Revealed religion is a sort of feeback loop, logically speaking. Either you accept the revelation as legit, or you don't. Why do we (Christian/Muslim/Jewish) respect out tradition? Because God gave us that tradition. How do we know God gave us that tradition? Because our tradition tells us so.

Good grief! I may have to rethink my opinion of you:

To deny circularity when it comes to an ultimate authority is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons. If a person holds to a certain view, A, then when A is challenged he appeals to reasons B and C. But, of course, B and C will certainly be challenged as to why they should be accepted, and then the person would have to offer D, E, F, and G, as arguments for B and C. And the process goes on and on. Obviously it has to stop somewhere because an infinite regress of arguments cannot demonstrate the truth of one's conclusions. Thus, every worldview (and every argument) must have an ultimate, unquestioned, self-authenticating starting point. Another example: Imagine someone asking you whether the meter stick in your house was actually a meter long. How would you demonstrate such a thing? You could take it to your next-door neighbor and compare it to his meter stick and say, "see, it's a meter." However, the next question is obvious, "How do we know your neighbor's meter stick is really a meter?" This process would go on infinitely unless there were an ultimate meter stick (which, if I am not mistaken, actually existed at one time and was measured by two fine lines marked on a bar of platinum-iridium allow). It is this ultimate meter stick that defines a meter. When asked how one knows whether the ultimate meter stick is a meter, the answer is obviously circular: The ultimate meter stick is a meter because it is a meter. This same thing is true for Scripture. The Bible does not just happen to be true (the meter stick in your house), rather it is the very criterion for truth (the ultimate meter stick) and therefore the final stopping point in intellectual justification. —emphasis added

Every worldview ultimately resides in a self-authenticating source of authority. Without exception. The problem is that most people are epistemologically unconscious of their source of ultimate authority. It "just is," and that's as far as they get.

What are you quoting here?


Anyway this isn't necessarily true of anything knowable, but the nature of religious belief or faith positions is that they are not otherwise verifiable. You can choose to believe the Bible etc., but you do not choose to believe that 2+2=4.

[Dioscuri]

If faith is not served by tradition and culture, what do we have?........

Ultimately, knowledge must be allowed to develop its own stratum independent of faith. Faith will have to separate itself completely from reliance on unknowns as the Unknown and the private comes under the function of knowledge. What we have been told about dedicating our privacy to God will be made true for us. All knowledge will be created and none will be escaped.

Faith is hermeneutical: it decides upon interpretations. We hear from neuroscience departments that your brain decides on things before you make a movement. No doubt this is just as true of the words that occur to us in the catching of what it is that belief or faith is in. To whatever extent one can decide what is versus passively accept what is given, the linking and indifferentiation of the two is the invariant dictum of the true tradition. Words are destined for their occasions, and there can be nothing other than what is. The words we say and the words we heed are that upon which all of life is lived, for have not we heard it said, "For where your thesaurus is, there also your heart shall be"?

The thesaurus, mistranslated "treasure," is not the precious gift of your romantic individuality, it's your "storehouse" of knowledge, the slave's knowing of where everything is concerning the House. What you know is and can become your lot, your thelema, the choice of your heart.

The work we are to do is according to the words we know and guided by the words we set above us.

The Secret knowledge (words we use advisedly; yes, Dave Mamet, there actually is a bit) of Logos has never been for All, indeed has not even been for the Few, but for just a few of the few. Sages of all ages have sighed wondering at how it is a halfway intelligent man can look upon this dream and not see the fakery behind all that men say and do, the willing suspension of disbelief that exists, that dominates, as soon as one person is in the presence of one other, and how every fact of life derives from the willingness to take advantage of, to "master" this passivity. Nietzsche ranted about slave morality, but Jesus too shook his head at man's fantastic obedience, his endless need to conform himself to proper vocabulary, to serve.

Nevertheless, if we are to have faith, we must proceed on the assumption that there is an all-Master whose Word is capable of reordering the minds of men according to the only ever half-spoken truth, that there must and will be an overmastering of the various regimes of Blabla. In our view, proper faith is in such seeking to know and to explicate the secret ordering of men's obedience in the world. Such explications will always have a double register depending on how the hearer chooses/obeys to hear it. The words of Jesus may be heard either as the Word, or as Sunday School 101, and ne'er the twain shall meet. It is for the hearers of the Word to know that what can be desired can be brought before your eyes, thelema -> ophthalma.

"Not all will accomplish this Word, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who are from mother's womb born thus, and there are eunuchs made so by men, and there are eunuchs who make eunuchs of themselves across the kingdom of the heavens. The one capable of accomplishing will accomplish."

[Mr. Perfect]

How does that work? Because I heard that my whole life, and every time I did, all explanations boiled down to, " I know because I know that I know".

Supernatural explanations for otherwise unjustifiable certitude are no different than any other statement of faith. It all falls under what I've described above.

Supernatural is a man made word.

Someone who has experienced x is in a different state than someone who has not. Regardless of what x is.

[Mr. Perfect]

What are you quoting here?


Anyway this isn't necessarily true of anything knowable, but the nature of religious belief or faith positions is that they are not otherwise verifiable. You can choose to believe the Bible etc., but you do not choose to believe that 2+2=4.

Some people don't have to choose to believe the Bible.

If it ends up being true then others will not have a choice either, in the way you describe.

Every knee shall bow, etc...

[Demon of Undoing]

This is my Sunday School 101 on it, in case it helps anybody:

From John 17;

"Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or [whether] I speak of myself."

So one must actually seek to be more righteous in order to invite the spirit in. It's not usually given to petulants sitting in the peanut gallery. God must be sought.

You are mixing two separate things, which is usually about what I got for an explanation. Convinced me that others didn't know, either.

Christ was there ( actually, this is from John ch 7) talking about who sent him in terms of authority of the law. The idea was ( for the alleged Pharisees in the audience, yet another Johnine diatribe against the Jews that came from the split with the synagogue around AD 80) that Christ might have been somebody pulling miracles in Gods name, but was in fact working for Satan. Taking that quote and grafting it on to a mechanic of the HS doesn't make sense. To do that turns the HS and faith in general into unverifiable ( even for the believer) solipsism. It's worse than worthless. It's confusing.

At least one person in the peanut gallery got there because no matter how much he tried to play with Howdy Doody, it all just turned into a guy with a puppet, making funny dances for the kids. I'm open to the idea of there being a Howdy Doody that actually exists and functions, but so far ( and no offense) , this is the level of coherence I get. If there is a 'there' there, people seeking it ought to be able to find it. " You ain't trying hard enough" , when it was job one for decades, doesn't cut it.

The problem is that the HS as perceived in Charismatic circles is flat out a fabrication. If a tenth of the crap I've seen attributed to the HS had been real, heaven would have already fallen on all our faces.

[Typhoon]

. . .

Every worldview ultimately resides in a self-authenticating source of authority. Without exception. The problem is that most people are epistemologically unconscious of their source of ultimate authority. It "just is," and that's as far as they get.

So does gravity only exists because I believe it to be so?

[Marcus]

. . You can choose to believe the Bible etc., but you do not choose to believe that 2+2=4.

How do you know that two is two, that four is four, that two plus two equals four? How do you know that?

. . . Every worldview ultimately resides in a self-authenticating source of authority. Without exception. The problem is that most people are epistemologically unconscious of their source of ultimate authority. It "just is," and that's as far as they get.

So does gravity only exists because I believe it to be so?

Your apprehension and explanation of gravity is what you believe.

[Hoosiernorm]

Ok Dioscuri that last post made me go to the closet to dig out Truth in Tolerance by B16 and go back to his discussion about Voodoo. Where an incomplete hermeneutic system is pruned to the point that the only thing left is what represented the danger in them. The anticipation of resurrection, the initiation of man into being, the structure of the sexes and forgiveness of sin was decimated to the point that it became a system of only magic that creates it's own irrational second world to live along side it.

[Ibrahim]

. . You can choose to believe the Bible etc., but you do not choose to believe that 2+2=4.

How do you know that two is two, that four is four, that two plus two equals four? How do you know that?

Assuming you aren't trying to delve into the murk of language theory, certain types of knowledge are demonstrable, reproducible, and externally verifiable. Others are provable by logic alone. Faith positions are different in that they are based on things that are not verifiable, by definition.

The strange theistic counterargument to atheists that "well, ALL knowledge comes from God, so you only know that 2+2=4 is correct because of God!" is a rather poor argument, logically speaking. It still requires anybody taking this argument seriously to subscribe to the entire belief system in order for it to make any sense, so it's the same problem described above.