why so angry?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
What rubbish. Animals can do the same thing, anything that is cognescent has the ability to do it.

Free will is a misleading term by the way. You are not free to defy gravity, you are not free to stop eating. You are not free to breathe underwater. You are not free to kill me.

What rubbish. Animals can do the same thing, anything that is cognescent has the ability to do it.

To do what......?...make a choice for which no determining cause exists?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Then prove that one exists. A photograph would do nicely.

You just seem to follow me around with one liners these days , what's going on ? Am I to consider myself "stopped" by your shots from the hip?

Originally posted by knightmeister
What rubbish. Animals can do the same thing, anything that is cognescent has the ability to do it.

To do what......?...make a choice for which no determining cause exists?

There is always a cause for a choice. If I'm standing in the centre of a room, I can decide to stay where I am or move. If I move, I can decide left or right, forwards or back.

All of those choices have a cause - I don't have free will to do neither stand still or move.


Perhaps, you are saying that if I throw a ball for a dog then it has to chase it, jump up and catch it in it's mouth?

Originally posted by knightmeister
What do you think St. Paul meant by his en emoi Christos? That Jesus was inside him? VISTED

Obviously he was refering to Christ Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit. This Christ Jesus is within us all waiting to emerge , but the NT is the story of how it got there. I don't think Paul doubted the divinity of Jesus.

Obviously he was referring to Christ Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit.

First, I think he was referring to the Christ here, not the Christ as Jesus (in the Greek, the definite article may be implied; nevertheless, Christ is not simply another name for Jesus).

Second, from a Trinitarian viewpoint, I’d be a bit cautious about conflating the Spirit and the Christ, let alone Jesus. In the Nicene view, the three hypostases share the same divine ousia, but are nevertheless distinct hypostases. The language of Chalcedonian Christology applies here as well, I think: “the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union.”

__________________________________________

This Christ Jesus is within us all waiting to emerge...

The logos tou theou, from which all things are engendered, is the eikon tou theou in humanity. That is, the image reflects the logos. Fully realized and actualized (emergent) this is the Christ. That is why Jesus was the Christ, but the Christ is not just Jesus. When Jesus points to himself, he is pointing to the Christ-manifest, not to his material person—if you wish, you could say, I think, that while the logos became sarx, it is not his sarx that Jesus is pointing to, but the logos that engenders that sarx. What he is pointing to is the logos hypostasized.

That is what it means to be called “the image (eikon) of the invisible God, existing before (or, firstborn of) all creation...” (Colossians 1:15) “Existing before” because the logos is en arche.

Logos = the Christ = the son, which, by putting confidence in the logos (as manifest by Jesus), we are empowered to become—which is the eikon/image that we are all along, but which is obscured by the existential condition called “the fall.” (I am remembering your comment here about not unnecessarily reading the biblical texts literally.)

Jesus was viewed as ho Christos (and “son” ) because he was (or came to be) seen as the exemplar (or sacrament) of the logos tou theou manifest in human form. monogenes, often translated as “only-begotten,” really means unique, as opposed to exclusive (“only-begotten” would be monogenete).

Because we are all imaged in that same logos, we all are empowered to be uion tou theou (“sons of God” ) and teknon tou theou (“children, people or inhabitants of God” ). That is the message of the incarnation, as described by St. Gregory of Nyssa (4th century):

“That God should have clothed himself in our nature is a fact that should not seem strange or extravagant to minds that do not form too paltry an idea of reality ... that God is all in all; that he clothes himself with the universe, and at the same time contains it and dwells in it.

“If then all is in him and he is in all, why blush for the faith that teaches us that one day God was born in the human condition, God who still today exists in humanity?

“Indeed, if the presence of God in us does not take the same form now as it did then, we can at least agree in recognizing that he is in us today no less than he was then.” (My bold.)

In Orthodox Christianity, the “fall” represents impairment (largely due to illusion) to our likeness to God, but not our being in the image of God. The Orthodox soteriology of sanctification is based on salvation as healing (the root of soterias is soza, meaning to cure or make well), as opposed to the juridical concepts prominent in the west.

Gregory again: “The logos, in taking flesh, was mingled with humanity, and took our nature within himself, so that the human should be deified by this mingling with God; the stuff of our nature was entirely sanctified by Christ....”

All this is a “high Christology,” reminiscent of the early church, which has never been abandoned except perhaps in some forms of Protestantism.

As an aside, here are some quotes by early church fathers:

“God became man so that man might become God.” (St. Athanasius)

“By participation of the Spirit, we are knit into the Godhead.” (St. Athanasius; my bold)

“The son of God was made man so that man might become son of God.” (Irenaeus of Lyons)

“The Logos of God had become man so that you might learn from a man how a man may become God'' (Clement of Alexandria, c. 140-220)

“Christ is the first-born of God, his Logos, in whom all people share. That is what we have learned and what we bear witness to ... All who have lived in accordance with the Logos are Christians, even if they have been reckoned atheists, as among the Greeks Socrates, Heraclitus and the like.” (Justin Martyr; d. 165 C.E.)

________________________________

I don't think Paul doubted the divinity of Jesus.

Neither do I. For Paul, divinity was also that in whom we live and move and have our being...

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Obviously he was referring to Christ Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit.

First, I think he was referring to the Christ here, not the Christ as Jesus (in the Greek, the definite article may be implied; nevertheless, Christ is not simply another name for Jesus).

Second, from a Trinitarian viewpoint, I’d be a bit cautious about conflating ...[text shortened]... either do I. For Paul, divinity was also that in whom we live and move and have our being...[/b]

........and your point is???

Originally posted by knightmeister
........and your point is???

What Jesus was really pointing to when he referred to “himself” as the way, the truth and the life, etc.—and that the incarnation of the logos was not viewed by the early church as strictly a one-time historical event in the human being Jesus; although they undoubtedly looked to that as historical event, their understanding did not stop there.

My earlier language of pointing to / pointing away from was somewhat sloppy, despite that fact that Jesus did point away from himself to the Father in some cases...

Originally posted by vistesd
What Jesus was really pointing to when he referred to “himself” as the way, the truth and the life, etc.—and that the incarnation of the logos was not viewed by the early church as strictly a one-time historical event in the human being Jesus; although they undoubtedly looked to that as historical event, their understanding did not stop there.

M ...[text shortened]... sloppy, despite that fact that Jesus did point away from himself to the Father in some cases...

and that the incarnation of the logos was not viewed by the early church as strictly a one-time historical event in the human being Jesus; although they undoubtedly looked to that as historical event, their understanding did not stop there VISTED

Of course ...and I would agree totally. The problem is that you split the Christ bit up from the human bit. You forget that Jesus also said he would intercede for us after his death and be present with us after his death. He said "I will be with you " Not " the christ logos will be with you " . The christ you speak of is the risen christ in jesus. He wasn't refering to some vague , generic "christ consciousness" that is present within us all , he personalised it for himself (eg " Me and my father will make our home in you" ) This is also entirely consistent with his reference to being able to judge the world and consider sins against our fellow men as sins against himself. How is this possible unless he lives in all of us? And is present with all of us. ? You say nothing about his claims to be able to judge all men at the end of time. It's not the sort of thing a man pointing away from himself would say.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I notice that many Atheists on this thread get very angry and judgemental at Theists for being self delusional , or dishonest , or brainwashed etc etc . However , if we really do have no free will then theists are just programmed to be this way. Religion is a product of nature not men. Better to get angry with evolution than the individuals. Would you ...[text shortened]... there - are you willing to either drop your anger or drop your determinism?

See my point?

I don't hate theists. I get angry at people putting unsupportable stances forward and offering either secret decoder-ring excuses, presupposing proofs, or illogical conclusions. I don't get angry at the theist for being a theist, I get angry at the idiot that may be in the theist, from time to time.

Either way, the illusion of free will is sufficient to act as if free will exists, even if we are predetermined. It makes little difference to the common sense way of living life day to day.

Originally posted by knightmeister
and that the incarnation of the logos was not viewed by the early church as strictly a one-time historical event in the human being Jesus; although they undoubtedly looked to that as historical event, their understanding did not stop there VISTED

Of course ...and I would agree totally. The problem is that you split the Christ bit up from the human b he end of time. It's not the sort of thing a man pointing away from himself would say.

Well, I think we're now just going to be reduced to repeating our positions... Against all the statements you just made, I would simply repeat my differing interpretation. Some of the people I quoted seem to be expressing a kind of middle-ground between us. But I emphasize the logos in Jesus as representational of the logos in humanity; you're emphasis seems to be the other way 'round.

Rather than "Christ consciousness" (not one of my favorite phrases), I might say "Christ nature." Again, I see an analogy here with the Buddha and Buddha-nature (though by analogy, I don't mean "same as": that, I think at least for now, would be a distorting synthesis). You think I am watering down the event, I think you may be watering down the symbolism (and I give greater weight to that than even the folks I quoted).

So I think we're just at impasse.

Originally posted by Starrman
I don't hate theists. I get angry at people putting unsupportable stances forward and offering either secret decoder-ring excuses, presupposing proofs, or illogical conclusions. I don't get angry at the theist for being a theist, I get angry at the idiot that may be in the theist, from time to time.

Either way, the illusion of free will is sufficient t ...[text shortened]... predetermined. It makes little difference to the common sense way of living life day to day.

So you believe that free will doesn't really exist but still behave as if it does? Ultimately you must believe that theists are idiots because nature has determined them to be so (not because they have chosen to be numbskulls) Therefore , logically , your anger at them is irrational because they can do no different from what they are doing.

What's also interesting is that you confess that you live your life day to day on the basis of an illusion of free will . You thus delude yourself that you can make free choices on the basis that your common sense experience tells you this illusion exists even though rationally you admit it can't.

This would be all fine and dandy with me except for one thing. My guess is that if a theist said that the illusion of the experience of God existing was sufficient to act as if God exists (even though they rationally knew God didn't exist) you would have a fit! What am I to make of your incongruency?

You live by your delusional belief system out of step with your rationality. What right have you then to criticise a theist for having what you would no doubt call a "God delusion"?

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, I think we're now just going to be reduced to repeating our positions... Against all the statements you just made, I would simply repeat my differing interpretation. Some of the people I quoted seem to be expressing a kind of middle-ground between us. But I emphasize the logos in Jesus as representational of the logos in humanity; you're emphasis ...[text shortened]... r weight to that than even the folks I quoted).

So I think we're just at impasse.

I accept your interpretation of Jesus , the key issue is what Jesus' interpretaion of himself was. The buddha was very very careful to point people away from himself lest they saw him as anything special. Jesus did not do this. At the very least he was incredibly careless in this area. Dismiss his claims if you like but don't patronize him and try and absorb what he said into your own interpretation. He knew what he was saying and why.

Originally posted by knightmeister
He knew what he was saying .....

Ahhh, but the question is, do YOU know what he said, or only what was reported?

Originally posted by knightmeister
So you believe that free will doesn't really exist but still behave as if it does? Ultimately you must believe that theists are idiots because nature has determined them to be so (not because they have chosen to be numbskulls) Therefore , logically , your anger at them is irrational because they can do no different from what they are doing.

What's ...[text shortened]... e you then to criticise a theist for having what you would no doubt call a "God delusion"?

I think his problem is the theist saying the "free will" is a 'thing' imposed from an outside agent.

Originally posted by knightmeister
So you believe that free will doesn't really exist but still behave as if it does? Ultimately you must believe that theists are idiots because nature has determined them to be so (not because they have chosen to be numbskulls) Therefore , logically , your anger at them is irrational because they can do no different from what they are doing.

Not at all, I merely act as if they and I have free will and consequently treat them accordingly; as agents of their own destiny.

What's also interesting is that you confess that you live your life day to day on the basis of an illusion of free will . You thus delude yourself that you can make free choices on the basis that your common sense experience tells you this illusion exists even though rationally you admit it can't.

Common sense does not tell me that illusion exists, I merely revert to a common sense view, which would suggest nothing to make me think otherwise.

This would be all fine and dandy with me except for one thing. My guess is that if a theist said that the illusion of the experience of God existing was sufficient to act as if God exists (even though they rationally knew God didn't exist) you would have a fit! What am I to make of your incongruency?

There is no incongruency here. You have it backwards, I accept the illusion, you are suggesting that the illusion causes some other effect which you accept. The illusion of god's experience has no relative basis in the common sense world, to act as if it does requires acceptance of another world in which this is possible. There is evidence for my view and acceptance of an illusion is a subjective choice, not an objective claim like yours, for which you also have no evidence.

You live by your delusional belief system out of step with your rationality. What right have you then to criticise a theist for having what you would no doubt call a "God delusion"?

It is not out of step with rationality at all, it is rational to accept the illusion since it is in tune with our senses and interactive events. Even if I believe that free will does not exist and do not accept the illusion, it does not undermine the application of opinion and or reason to propositional claims.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I accept your interpretation of Jesus , the key issue is what Jesus' interpretaion of himself was. The buddha was very very careful to point people away from himself lest they saw him as anything special. Jesus did not do this. At the very least he was incredibly careless in this area. Dismiss his claims if you like but don't patronize him and try and absorb what he said into your own interpretation. He knew what he was saying and why.

...but don't patronize him and try and absorb what he said into your own interpretation.

And your view is not an interpretation? Anyone who reads it differently than you do is patronizing Jesus? If one cannot put on your spectacles, one should not bother? It took the church centuries to hammer out an understanding of Jesus that became “orthodox.” The views of the Arians were not declared heretical until the Council of Nicea. Non-chalcedonians today do not consider themselves non-Christians. Bright and devout Christians did not find the texts so simply clear...

It is of course possible to dismiss Jesus as a megalomaniac with a god-complex. Sages are not immune from that, even enlightened ones. (It would not require one to dismiss all of his teachings, however.)

I prefer to think well of him. I’m not convinced he would find that irritating or patronizing...