K
Kaninchen
Guest
But not old enough to have come to terms with it.
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N
Numinous
Guest
Whatever that means.
Come on! Rip my head off!
I hate pussyfooting.
Come on! Rip my head off!
I hate pussyfooting.
D
Dameedna
Guest
You tell me.
How would you define the “christ” experience…in such a way that anyone who’s ever had it(and didn’t realize) would know it?
Because if it was “truthful” experience, it would obviously never be “subjective” and “relative” to the individual. It would have to be consistant, if it was to be called truth.
S
Susan1006
Guest
I suspect you realize truth exists. You just seem to think you can hold onto it. That greatest sin of your church, was to remove from it’s ancient walls…the concept of doubt.
.
Why can’t I hold on to truth with intent. If doubt is gone from the minds of the members of the Catholic Church, I have not been made aware of it. Everyone suffers from the cruel temtation to think that anything he believes could be a mirage. But then, to continue the metaphor, a mirage only has meaning if it represents something he can recognize as true. In Fides et Ratio JPII cogently makes a case for faith as a companion to reason. I accept it. Without one, the other is incomplete.
The ability to recognize transcendent truth (faith) is, in the end, a gift. If one is unable to recognize an encounter the sublime, and chooses to mock what I find most precious, who am I to criticize him in his poverty.
.
Why can’t I hold on to truth with intent. If doubt is gone from the minds of the members of the Catholic Church, I have not been made aware of it. Everyone suffers from the cruel temtation to think that anything he believes could be a mirage. But then, to continue the metaphor, a mirage only has meaning if it represents something he can recognize as true. In Fides et Ratio JPII cogently makes a case for faith as a companion to reason. I accept it. Without one, the other is incomplete.
The ability to recognize transcendent truth (faith) is, in the end, a gift. If one is unable to recognize an encounter the sublime, and chooses to mock what I find most precious, who am I to criticize him in his poverty.
N
Numinous
Guest
T.S. Eliot said that a person without doubt can never truly believe.
It’s not like I’ve never doubted. I spent most of my life doing so. Now, thanks to Christ, I no longer doubt on the fundamentals. There are still several things I might raise my eyebrows at, however.
St. Thomas doubted, and look at how great his faith is: he proclaimed that Christ is God.
There is doubt, and then there is willful blindness. They are not synonymous. An open mind is like an open mouth: we open it so that we may close it on something wholesome.
It’s not like I’ve never doubted. I spent most of my life doing so. Now, thanks to Christ, I no longer doubt on the fundamentals. There are still several things I might raise my eyebrows at, however.
St. Thomas doubted, and look at how great his faith is: he proclaimed that Christ is God.
There is doubt, and then there is willful blindness. They are not synonymous. An open mind is like an open mouth: we open it so that we may close it on something wholesome.
N
Numinous
Guest
@ Dameedna
Let’s drop it. People only believe things they learn from people they know. It’s all about ethos. I just hope to Christ you have some sensible people in your life that you know personally. If you don’t, move to Tokyo, and I’ll be your friend. Then we can talk about “experiences.”
Let’s drop it. People only believe things they learn from people they know. It’s all about ethos. I just hope to Christ you have some sensible people in your life that you know personally. If you don’t, move to Tokyo, and I’ll be your friend. Then we can talk about “experiences.”
D
Dameedna
Guest
Doubt was not considered cruel nor was it something that was considered a mirage back when christian community first formed. Quite the opposite. Jesus…was a mystery to them. He blew them away. They recgnized the divine, and chose to immerse themselves with it.
Christianity would never have become what it was if doubt and a desire to explore God was not a given. Everything you cherish about your faith, and all those old philosphers you trust…they didn’t live in a world of absolutes. If they DID…they would never have TRIED to understand what they understood. They weren’t sitting a church that was sure of it’s philosophy. Obviously…since they MADE the philosophy.
Doubt…is not the issue. It is only your modern times… since around the 1700’s to1800’s church that told you it was infailable in doctrine and that you MUST believe.
That was not your old church and it is certainly not judaism. The entire POINT of the old testament, was that a journey toward growth and truth and ultimately God had to be made without any knowing but with a faith that truth and life would reveal itself if you would just try. It is the Jewish Story. Faith… was never about being sure of yourself. How could it be? It was never about…You must not doubt god, or you will perish. Faith, was about a life lived…and a history that showed that WHEN you lived that life well, and with intergity…honestly and a passion for truth, life…worked out.
Your religion has become about absolutes, rules…and I think…misses the point. It was never and it will never be about absolutes. It was alway’s about a journey you are taking…and a philosphy you can hold dear to you, while you make that journey. It’s a philosphy you believe in. The one you called christ.
E
eichenb2
Guest
Without the NECESSARY existence of a higher intellect, we would have no possiblity of making sense of our world, physically or rationally. If fact rationality itself would be meaningless. Notice that most philosophical theories proposes in the last 400 years have tended toward deconstructionism. Previous to that they tended constructing the same philosophical view that now is being deconstructed.
M
MindOverMatter
Guest
This is going to be a long post and is not aimed at anybody in particular. It is simply my own observation on the subject.
Everything is subjective. Thats not to say that there is no such thing as the objective; but rather we perceive everything from the subjective point of view. We have absolutely no proof that anything apart from our minds truly exists. We simply interpret the data, that we see, as objective. However; apart from any philosophical considerations, we feel it more reasonable and practical to accept the objective data that we do receive as a true manifestation of what we experience subjectively. We accept on principle, “causality” beyond the mind on the basis that we are effected by our experiences.
We also experience a “guilty conscience”; and guilt is often activated in response to are freedom of choice. In other words, it meaningfully relates to the objective ability to choose in regards to the objective existence of other “persons” and our understanding of what a person is. When a healthy minded person hurts somebody, and comes to understand “why” it was wrong, most of us, if not all, feel guilt because we have an **innate **desire not to be “wrong” or “immoral” in regards to our free choices. This is not something that we invented. It is apart of our very being.
While having the capacity to feel guilt doesn’t necessarily tell us what is actually wrong; the intellectual must admit that a sense of guilt in response to knowing and understanding that we have done wrong, is so meaningful in itself, in-so-far as it relates to the value of a person, it is not surprising or unreasonable that this compels most of humanity towards accepting the objective truth of moral absolutes; that somethings are truly and universally wrong. This is because of the meaningful relationship between the objective and the subjective experience. Most naturalists are unconsciously compelled toward moral absolutes when they do not understand the philosophical implications of such an acceptance. Its only after they become aware of its necessary relation to divine transcendence, that most of them begin to question the truth of moral statements. They either begin to believe in God, or they reject moral absolutes altogether. Moral absolutes, is what our common “experiences” compels us to believe before we ever engage in critical and philosophical analyze on the subject of proof.
There is no proof. But so far as experience is concerned, there is no good or practical reason to doubt moral absolutes outside of a naturalistic faith that maintains the principled rejection of any truth that requires us to transcend “physical reality”. Neither does moral differences across cultures give us an a-prior or even an a-posterior reason to reject the reality of moral absolutes, even though it can provide a bases for investigations in to why people think differently. Despite this, however, we all have a universal understanding of good and evil; right and wrong; virtue and honor; love and hate; even though we might dispute the nature of those things. And given the fact that human beings have desires and has an ego and therefore “self interests”, it is not surprising that human beings would reinvent right and wrong according their own philosophical and personal needs.
If somebody has freewill, and if in having freewill, this means that we have the “freedom of interpretation” and “learning”, then it is quite possible that some people will be ignorant of wrong, and that somebody will deny that they are in the wrong even when it is evident to you that they are wrong. They will lie to them-selves and present half truths, because nobody wants nor likes the degrading feeling of the “wrong”. The “guilty conscience”. And because of this fact, one is not surprised in the least, that some will even go to such lengths as to deny that morality exists altogether. Thus, some in the pursuit of such an ideal, turn legitimate scientific ideas such as evolution into an intellectual religion; because of the faulty premise that such concepts provides excuse. Therefore one is not out of line for regarding concepts such as naturalism and relativism with absolute suspicion and contempt. It is only natural.
While it is quite possible that moral absolutes are not real, this still does not undermine the fact that we all have a sense of the moral absolute; the sense of duty; the sense that we owe something to those around us; that we ought to love, and that nobody likes to be wrong, even though we may reject and deny moral absolutes because of some philosophical principle.
Thank-you for reading. I hope you learned something.
Everything is subjective. Thats not to say that there is no such thing as the objective; but rather we perceive everything from the subjective point of view. We have absolutely no proof that anything apart from our minds truly exists. We simply interpret the data, that we see, as objective. However; apart from any philosophical considerations, we feel it more reasonable and practical to accept the objective data that we do receive as a true manifestation of what we experience subjectively. We accept on principle, “causality” beyond the mind on the basis that we are effected by our experiences.
We also experience a “guilty conscience”; and guilt is often activated in response to are freedom of choice. In other words, it meaningfully relates to the objective ability to choose in regards to the objective existence of other “persons” and our understanding of what a person is. When a healthy minded person hurts somebody, and comes to understand “why” it was wrong, most of us, if not all, feel guilt because we have an **innate **desire not to be “wrong” or “immoral” in regards to our free choices. This is not something that we invented. It is apart of our very being.
While having the capacity to feel guilt doesn’t necessarily tell us what is actually wrong; the intellectual must admit that a sense of guilt in response to knowing and understanding that we have done wrong, is so meaningful in itself, in-so-far as it relates to the value of a person, it is not surprising or unreasonable that this compels most of humanity towards accepting the objective truth of moral absolutes; that somethings are truly and universally wrong. This is because of the meaningful relationship between the objective and the subjective experience. Most naturalists are unconsciously compelled toward moral absolutes when they do not understand the philosophical implications of such an acceptance. Its only after they become aware of its necessary relation to divine transcendence, that most of them begin to question the truth of moral statements. They either begin to believe in God, or they reject moral absolutes altogether. Moral absolutes, is what our common “experiences” compels us to believe before we ever engage in critical and philosophical analyze on the subject of proof.
There is no proof. But so far as experience is concerned, there is no good or practical reason to doubt moral absolutes outside of a naturalistic faith that maintains the principled rejection of any truth that requires us to transcend “physical reality”. Neither does moral differences across cultures give us an a-prior or even an a-posterior reason to reject the reality of moral absolutes, even though it can provide a bases for investigations in to why people think differently. Despite this, however, we all have a universal understanding of good and evil; right and wrong; virtue and honor; love and hate; even though we might dispute the nature of those things. And given the fact that human beings have desires and has an ego and therefore “self interests”, it is not surprising that human beings would reinvent right and wrong according their own philosophical and personal needs.
If somebody has freewill, and if in having freewill, this means that we have the “freedom of interpretation” and “learning”, then it is quite possible that some people will be ignorant of wrong, and that somebody will deny that they are in the wrong even when it is evident to you that they are wrong. They will lie to them-selves and present half truths, because nobody wants nor likes the degrading feeling of the “wrong”. The “guilty conscience”. And because of this fact, one is not surprised in the least, that some will even go to such lengths as to deny that morality exists altogether. Thus, some in the pursuit of such an ideal, turn legitimate scientific ideas such as evolution into an intellectual religion; because of the faulty premise that such concepts provides excuse. Therefore one is not out of line for regarding concepts such as naturalism and relativism with absolute suspicion and contempt. It is only natural.
While it is quite possible that moral absolutes are not real, this still does not undermine the fact that we all have a sense of the moral absolute; the sense of duty; the sense that we owe something to those around us; that we ought to love, and that nobody likes to be wrong, even though we may reject and deny moral absolutes because of some philosophical principle.
Thank-you for reading. I hope you learned something.
M
MindOverMatter
Guest
Notice how some atheists talk about strict rationalism. Yet they are quite happy to promote the idea that to have humanity is to be the epitome of moral order. They have a non-rational belief that to be human is synonymous to being good; and to do wrong is to undermine ones humanity. Which is to believe that a human being ought to behave in a certain way before they can be fully human. It is the idea that some behavior is objectively greater then others.
But if you don’t believe in God, then this concept of humanity is irrational.
But if you don’t believe in God, then this concept of humanity is irrational.
N
Numinous
Guest
Thanks for whoopin’ some learnin’ on us…
L
Leela
Guest
Hi Numinous,Thanks for whoopin’ some learnin’ on us…
What did you learn?
Best,
Leela
L
Leela
Guest
I take this to mean that if it is impossible to imagine the sort of evidence that would convince you that a claim is not true or even imagine any evidence that would be taken as inconsistent with that claim, then it is meaningless to assert the truth of that claim.
This makes me wonder what sort of evidence could ever be viewed as inconsistent with the claim that God exists. If a claim’s falsity has no meaning, then what could it mean to say that it is true?
Best,
Leela
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Numinous
Guest
Nothing. I was being sarcastic and making fun of above poster’s egomania.
M
MindOverMatter
Guest
Nice.
M
MindOverMatter
Guest
What you should have all learned is that it is more reasonable to believe in moral absolutes, then it is to believe that the ultimate reality of all things is physical in nature.
N
Numinous
Guest
It’s not that I disagree with you; it was the phrasing of your post – “I hope you learned something” – which came off as REALLY egomaniacal.
S
Susan1006
Guest
L
Leela
Guest
I think everyone is open to the possibility that moral absolutes exist. We just want you to tell us what they are and how you know.
S
Susan1006
Guest
This premise… that moral absolutes exist… is the antithisis of relativism. The syllogism would be something lke: relativism insists there are no absolutes. Moral absolutes exist, therefore, relativism is not relevant (I can’t help myself). As I keep insisting, my philosophical disucssion skills are really bad, but I can try
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