Originally posted by robbie carrobie I heard this phrase while listening to radio 4, the meaning is of course that there are
Christians who are Christians in some sense but who find spiritual fulfilment, not so
much in the application of Christianity as they perceive it, but in other pursuits, for
example art or music. I myself find the concept rather disturbing, for I know that ...[text shortened]... embering-with Erasmus-that unless we purify our texts we can never hope to
purify ourselves."
What if one is a hyphenated artist? There are artists who are artists in some sense but who find fulfillment, not so much in the application of art as they perceive it, but in other pursuits, for example RHP forums. I myself find the concept rather disturbing, for I know that the RHP forums can be a very jealous mistress, leaving virtually little room for anything else.
Originally posted by robbie carrobie I don't think so, in fact, it appears to me that such 'fulfillment', is nothing but a fleeting
and transient glimpse, as GB stated, we have much deeper spiritual needs that art and
music simply cannot fulfill.
would you say a country like sweded that has a high percentage of atheists is any more or less fulfilled than any christian country?
if you walked into a room full of 100 random people, would they have a lower percentage of fulfillment than a room full of 100 j.w's?
Originally posted by rwingett What if one is a hyphenated artist? There are artists who are artists in some sense but who find fulfillment, not so much in the application of art as they perceive it, but in other pursuits, for example RHP forums. I myself find the concept rather disturbing, for I know that the RHP forums can be a very jealous mistress, leaving virtually little room for anything else.
Originally posted by stellspalfie would you say a country like sweded that has a high percentage of atheists is any more or less fulfilled than any christian country?
if you walked into a room full of 100 random people, would they have a lower percentage of fulfillment than a room full of 100 j.w's?
Its not about Christians and atheists , its about those Christians who are finding
fulfillment in some secular way and whether this can truly be deemed fulfillment.
Originally posted by robbie carrobie Its not about Christians and atheists , its about those Christians who are finding
fulfillment in some secular way and whether this can truly be deemed fulfillment.
When you say "fulfillment" are you referring to "fame and fortune"?
Originally posted by robbie carrobie I don't think so, in fact, it appears to me that such 'fulfillment', is nothing but a fleeting
and transient glimpse, as GB stated, we have much deeper spiritual needs that art and
music simply cannot fulfill.
You might have such needs.
I don't.
Don't make the mistake of generalising from your own experience of the world by
assuming that everyone else thinks/feels as you do.
My old professor, David Berman, liked to talk about what he called the "typical mind fallacy", which he illustrated through the
following example:
There was a debate, in the late 1800s, about whether "imagination" was simply a turn of phrase or a real phenomenon. That is, can people
actually create images in their minds which they see vividly, or do they simply say "I saw it in my mind" as a metaphor for considering what
it looked like?
Upon hearing this, my response was "How the stars was this actually a real debate? Of course we have mental imagery. Anyone who doesn't
think we have mental imagery is either such a fanatical Behaviorist that she doubts the evidence of her own senses, or simply insane."
Unfortunately, the professor was able to parade a long list of famous people who denied mental imagery, including some leading scientists of
the era. And this was all before Behaviorism even existed.
The debate was resolved by Francis Galton, a fascinating man who among other achievements invented eugenics, the "wisdom of crowds",
and standard deviation. Galton gave people some very detailed surveys, and found that some people did have mental imagery and others
didn't. The ones who did had simply assumed everyone did, and the ones who didn't had simply assumed everyone didn't, to the point of
coming up with absurd justifications for why they were lying or misunderstanding the question. There was a wide spectrum of imaging ability,
from about five percent of people with perfect eidetic imagery1 to three percent of people completely unable to form mental images2.
Dr. Berman dubbed this the Typical Mind Fallacy: the human tendency to believe that one's own mental structure can be generalized to apply
to everyone else's.
He kind of took this idea and ran with it. He interpreted certain passages in George Berkeley's biography to mean that Berkeley was an eidetic
imager, and that this was why the idea of the universe as sense-perception held such interest to him. He also suggested that experience of
consciousness and qualia were as variable as imaging, and that philosophers who deny their existence (Ryle? Dennett? Behaviorists?) were
simply people whose mind lacked the ability to easily experience qualia. In general, he believed philosophy of mind was littered with examples
of philosophers taking their own mental experiences and building theories on them, and other philosophers with different mental experiences
critiquing them and wondering why they disagreed.
Originally posted by robbie carrobie Its not about Christians and atheists , its about those Christians who are finding
fulfillment in some secular way and whether this can truly be deemed fulfillment.
you said you thought people had deeper spiritual needs. if that was the case then non-spiritual countries would be full of unfulfilled people.
Originally posted by FMF This is only of concern to you and other Christians. You have dodged the question of the profound dishonesty in claiming that filling one's life with an "artful falsehood" involves having "nothing to lose".
a) We all have immortal souls; we all have limited life spans on the spinning globe; and we all have an eternal address to choose. b) Choosing incorrectly, we have everything to lose.
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Originally posted by Grampy Bobby a) We all have immortal souls; we all have limited life spans on the spinning globe; and we all have an eternal address to choose. b) Choosing incorrectly, we have everything to lose.
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robbies' OP said nothing at all about fulfillment [or whether or not one can seen to "succeed"] being measured in terms of "fame and fortune". Now in his latest post he is talking about "fame and fortune" as "compensation", something totally different from the spiritual/secular pursuits as framed in the OP. It would seem the Goalposts have been moved.
"I myself find the concept rather disturbing, for I know that art can be a very jealous mistress leaving virtually little
room for anything else, what think you, is it possible that spiritual fulfilment can be found in secular pursuits?"
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Originally posted by Grampy Bobby "I myself find the concept rather disturbing, for I know that art can be a very jealous mistress leaving virtually little
room for anything else, what think you, is it possible that [b]spiritual fulfilment can be found in secular pursuits?"
-[/b]
Exactly. So the "fame and fortune" stuff was a clumsy moving of the goalposts. What would the "fame and fortune" equivalency for "religious pursuits be? It's putting an apple on one goalpost and an orange on the other, and then moving them. Of course non non-religious pursuits can offer spiritual fulfillment, at least in my personal view, and it was clearly so in my years as a Christian and has been just as clear to me in the years since I stopped being one.
Originally posted by Grampy Bobby a) We all have immortal souls; we all have limited life spans on the spinning globe; and we all have an eternal address to choose. b) Choosing incorrectly, we have everything to lose.
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You are entitled to believe these things. I subscribe to none of it. More to the point, you are still dodging answering the question about your arrant nonsense about filling one's life with an "artful falsehood" coming at no cost.
You are entitled to believe these things. I subscribe to none of it. More to the point, you are still dodging answering the question about your arrant nonsense about filling one's life with an "artful falsehood" coming at no cost.
Your call, FMF. Your call and I respect your right to make it any which way you choose (though I'll miss you when we part ways).
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Hyphenated Christians
11 Dec '12 13:10
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