Originally posted by RJHindsI must point out that my parents religion is not natural either.
Twhitehead said his whole family was Christian, so being an atheist
is not natural.
My father was Anglican, but only because a couple of generations back one of the men died young and the children grew up with their mothers religion. Prior to that the Whitehead line was Quaker. Presumably, prior to that they were Anglican or Catholic, and prior to that whatever religion or absence of religion preceded Christianity in England or Europe.
But if we go far back enough, we will find atheists.
He had to work hard to justify such a belief.
Not particularly.
So I think he has been suppressing the idea that God exists since that
would require a major decision for him.
How does that follow from anything you said before?
And, by the way, it isn't true. Your mind reading skills are no better than last time you tried them on me.
But I am sure his family would be happy if he did.
I rather doubt that they would be bothered that much. They are not fundamentalists.
Originally posted by twhiteheadI guess that is why we should leave the judging up to God.
I must point out that my parents religion is not natural either.
My father was Anglican, but only because a couple of generations back one of the men died young and the children grew up with their mothers religion. Prior to that the Whitehead line was Quaker. Presumably, prior to that they were Anglican or Catholic, and prior to that whatever religion or ...[text shortened]... e did.
I rather doubt that they would be bothered that much. They are not fundamentalists.[/b]
We are not very good at it.
Originally posted by epiphinehasEdit: “If truth is a social convention, then constructivism itself is a social convention—true or false depending on the social conventions of a given culture. Why accept it? Far from showing that objectivity is an illusion, constructivism only refutes itself.”
[b]Constructivism and similar philosophical approaches show how exactly the so called "objectivity" is just another illusion.
If truth is a social convention, then constructivism itself is a social convention—true or false depending on the social conventions of a given culture. Why accept it? Far from showing that objectivity is an illusi ...[text shortened]... act, assuming what you set out to disprove—i.e., the objectivity of the laws of physics!
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Of course, constructivism is just another convention/language/mapping based on subjectivity. It is not some dogma preaching the “absolute truth”. I accept it because it makes sense to me, just the way the Greek language makes sense to me although it remains Greek to you. Constructivism does not refute itself, it simply refutes the existence of the objectivity and demonstrates that the so called “objectivity” is in fact “collective subjectivity”.
Edit: “You are misconstruing quantum physics. The indeterminacy we find at the subatomic level does not require consciousness to give rise to the laws of classical mechanics.”
I am misconstruing nothing. The laws of classical mechanics (and everything else that we are experiencing in person and/ or massively and we accept it as “objective” simply because it is a product of our collective subjectivity) are merely mind-only products of ours that they arise solely when We are making specific observations in a given SpaceTime.
Edit: “Worse, by using (correctly or not) the laws of physics (in this case, the laws of quantum mechanics) in order to disprove the objectivity of the laws of physics, you are, in fact, assuming what you set out to disprove—i.e., the objectivity of the laws of physics!”
I am using QM (and everything else that you may think of) in order to keep up showing that the so called “objectivity” is in fact our “collective subjectivity”. The laws of physics hold, not because they are “objectively true” but because they hold according to our evaluations and our assessments HereNow. Would these laws hold in the future? Nobody knows.
Objectivity is a delusional product of the dogmas. Am I ever objective? Nope. This ignoramus atheist black beetle is always subjective to the hilt.
Do I preach the absolute truth (objectivity) ? Nope. I drink when I ‘m thirsty, then I wash my cup;
Nothing Holy
😵
Originally posted by epiphinehas[/b]The answer to that question depends on your concept of God. Pantheism, for instance, is the belief that the universe is an extension of God's being. While orthodox Christianity conceptualizes God as distinct from the universe.
[b]Is not the Son of God both physical an spiritual?
Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Word was indeed physical and spiritual. That said, before the Incarnation and since the Resurrection, Jesus was/is a purely spiritual being.
Why can not space exist with God without being God...
The answer to that question depends ...[text shortened]... f God.
But, according to the Bible at least, God is spirit—i.e., decidedly spaceless.[/b]
I just want to pursue the following as a series of question for consideration—even if it appears to be statements:
I had the impression that RJ was not placing god inside of space, but positing (at least a metaphysical notion of) space as an aspect of god that then is extended as part of the creation.
Now this could be an expression of pantheism, but I doubt that in RJ’s case it is. I am, as you know, generally very careful about terms such as pantheism and monism, since they are at least sometimes used in ways that express particular notions of non-dualism per se—notions that I personally reject.
In this case, though, I am wondering if RJ’s idea could be expressed in terms of a panentheism—which you might also consider to be “non-orthodox”, but which has had a place within what I would normally (historically) construe as “orthodoxy”. Among Protestants (as opposed to the Roman Catholics and Orthodox—capital “O” ), a kind of panentheism might be part of the viewpoint of process theology (which you really ought to take a look at). But, outside Protestantism, folks such has Meister Eckhart (RCC) and St. Gregory of Nyssa (Orthodox) are not considered to be outside the pale (and I intend a pun there!) of orthodoxy (small “o” ).
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It seems to me that appeals to a putative “orthodoxy” (small “o” ) are a lot like “no True Christian™” arguments; I don’t pay much attention—especially having done some study of the historical development of various Christian “orthodoxies”. Many of those with whom you disagree call themselves “orthodox”, and you “heterodox” (at best)—and I don’t take their appeals to the authority of a putative orthodoxy any more seriously than I take yours here (no offense intended).
With that said, I do think that it is historically pretty clear that an oral “tradition” ran parallel to the development of a canon of scriptural “tradition” during the post-apostolic period, from the very beginning—picking an end-point is likely arbitrary (I think 600 C.E. is often used). But I have always found the notion, that often seems to be implied by Protestants, that there were no “True Christians™” during the first century or so of the post-apostolic period—or that the writings that we do have, of folks such as Justin Martyr, are already heretical; or that there was no “oral tradition”, which subsequently became the “tradition(s) of the fathers, and which was likely going on already during the apostolic period—I find all of that kind of stuff to be so unhistorical as to have no merit whatsoever. I would recommend Jaroslav Pelikan’s opus, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine—especially volumes 1 and 2. I would also recommend The First Christian Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Church, edited by G.R. Evans. And I think that Olivier Clement’s The Roots of Christian Mysticism is an absolute classic. (All of this pertains mostly to the period prior to the “great schism” of 1054.)
Now, I think that rejection of early Christian thought—and the notion of (what I take to be the fact of) an immediate oral tradition running parallel to, and interpreting, the evolving scriptural tradition (evolving in the sense of determining a canon, the content of which is not my focus here)—based on the concept of sola scriptura, which appears to have little if any expression prior to the 16th century, would represent a kind of deliberate ignorance. I also think that the idea of recognizing the oral tradition, but insisting that it be interpreted (and accepted or rejected) based on scripture—worse, even on strictly post-Reformation interpretations of scripture—is just backwards. [That is, of course, debatable; I realize that.] Also, as you well know, (with or without my non-dualism) I have always had a radically anti-idolatry position, and I think that some expressions of sola scriptura approach idolatry (I am not saying where the line is crossed, or that anyone here is crossing it). Further, insistence upon certain firmly “graven” ideas as doctrinally necessary can also approach idolatry (and this is based on longstanding Jewish understandings of idolatry, that go beyond the limited idea of an idol as a physical representation). I think that the Orthodox understanding of icon—as opposed idol—can be at least helpful for trying to see where the boundaries might be.
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I have argued all of the above many, many times over the years on here—even before your time! 🙂 I am not going to enter those lists again. To folks who have not been here for that long, that may seem like a cop-out. If so, so be it. I just laid out the above as a rough background—well, really almost as a free association in response to RJ’s suggestion and your response to that. Simply put, RJ may be outside the Pale (a hint with that capital “P” ) of what you consider to be orthodoxy, but he is certainly not outside the pale of what I would consider orthodoxy (and did back when I called myself a Christian, in the face of many, and often vicious, denunciations on here for not being a “True Christian™”.)*
And so I raise the possibility of a version of panentheism, a viewpoint that is never really addressed in any of these discussions (and which I might consider as a subset of non-dualism per se).
Be well.
* Which is not why I eschew the label: I eschew all the other “True ___________ ™” labels as well.