But all ancient cultures were built around sacrifices. Sacrifice was a way of repaying to God or the gods what man had been given or had taken. — Wayfarer

First, what you skip over is that not only was this a human sacrifice, it was a sacrifice of his own son. Second, Abram's unquestioning obedience continues to be held up to this day as the highest example of faith. Third:

You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

(Deuteronomy 12:31)

What he was about to do, and in earlier versions might have done, is expressly forbidden by God. It may be that this reflects later changes regarding human sacrifice, but this together with claims about what was then common practice relativizes and shifts from divine to human standards. The connection between the spiritual and what transcends the human is severed.

I would still like to think that the Christian religion is not inherently corrupt or wicked. — Wayfarer

My next question was going to be, which version of Christianity.

an internal struggle within the Church ... rejected by the redactors ... — Wayfarer

This understates the case to the point of misrepresentation. The Church Father's suppression of other beliefs, witnesses, testimonies, practices, and gospels was ruthless. Their methods point to a corruption that began early on. But of course from the perspective of what you call "Churchianity" the kind of spirituality you were seeking was a corruption.

I'm not going to offer an exegesis of the meaning of Abraham's sacrifice, beyond the general observation about the role and meaning of sacrifice in those pre-modern cultures. But nor do I think that the whole of Christianity deserves to be condemned on that basis. As is often remarked the Old Testament originated in a bronze-age pastoral culture, a time vastly different to our own, but I still believe that there is at least a core of perennial wisdom to be found in it.

The other point that may be worth considering is the cultural origin of the idea that all human lives are sacrosanct. There were contemporaneous cultures, for example Incan culture, where human sacrifice was conducted on a massive scale - which we rightly regard as abhorrent, also condemned in that passage you quoted. And even today, in some cultures - I'm thinking of the People's Republic of China - there is a willingness to sacrifice individual lives, or even cultural identities, for the supposed stability of the society (likewise, abhorrent), reflecting what we regard as a fundamental abrogation of human rights. So - whence this idea that every human life is sacred in the first place? I would suggest that a large part of it originated from Christian social philosophy and their doctrine of universal salvation, even acknowledging the undeniable horrors that the Church has sometimes visited on the world.

There was a massive ferment of beliefs in the early Christian era. The Gnostic Valentinus came within a few votes of being elected Pope. I think had it turned out differently, we might have a very different kind of world. That's why there has been an upsurge of the kind of alternative religious narratives that have attracted me and many others. My attitude is that there are many things wrong about Christianity and with religions generally, but that those faults are a matter of a misguided understanding - not that the truths embodied in religion are false as a matter of principle, simply because everything religious is mistaken. I understand that a lot of people are atheist or anti-religious and I generally don't try and persuade them otherwise, but in my view, the religious or spiritual dimension of life is real, and its denial amounts to a lack. It also subtly conditions what are and are not considered viable philosophical ideas.

which version of Christianity? — Fooloso4

One of the many books I read was called 'A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought ', Robin Amis. 'This book presents the esoteric original core of Christianity, with its concern for illuminating and healing the inner life of the individual. It is a bridge to the often difficult doctrines of the early church fathers, explaining their spiritual psychology, which underlies the spirituality of the Greek church.' Had I discovered that variety of Christianity earlier in life, things might have turned out differently. But I know if I started going to a local Church it would be a very, very different experience to that.

But nor do I think that the whole of Christianity deserves to be condemned on that basis. — Wayfarer

All or none thinking (in psychology known as splitting). The person who's affected by splitting fails to recognize and appreciate subtleties and nuances. Throwing the baby out with the bath water, not a wise move.

The other point that may be worth considering is the cultural origin of the idea that all human lives are sacrosanct. There were contemporaneous cultures, for example Incan culture, where human sacrifice was conducted on a massive scale - which we rightly regard as abhorrent, also condemned in that passage you quoted. And even today, in some cultures - I'm thinking of the People's Republic of China - there is a willingness to sacrifice individual lives, or even cultural identities, for the supposed stability of the society (likewise, abhorrent), reflecting what we regard as a fundamental abrogation of human rights. So - whence this idea that every human life is sacred in the first place? I would suggest that a large part of it originated from Christian social philosophy and their doctrine of universal salvation, even acknowledging the undeniable horrors that the Church has sometimes visited on the world. — Wayfarer

:clap: Excelente! Human sacrifice is still rampant (the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few/one) in modern society, only it's no longer done with a knife/sword/poison like in the good ol' days; just like how racism has taken a more subtle form in this day and age, human sacrifice happens without shedding even a drop of blood.

Update

One word, paradox, designed specifically to elicit/evoke/bring on aporia of the finest quality philosophy has to offer. There are so many paradoxes that one can even pick and choose i.e. customize one's experience of (utter) bafflement.

Money back guarantee.

But nor do I think that the whole of Christianity deserves to be condemned on that basis. — Wayfarer

The whole of Christianity? The story is far older than Christianity. By the time Deuteronomy was written in the 7th century BCE human sacrifice was expressly forbidden. How this troubling story is to be understood and whether in earlier versions he was sacrificed is still in dispute.

So - whence this idea that every human life is sacred in the first place? I would suggest that a large part of it originated from Christian social philosophy and their doctrine of universal salvation ... — Wayfarer

Hillel is credited with saying:

Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.

Spiritual is a nebulous term. What I take issue with is the transfer of human concerns to the transcendent, as if we can look elsewhere to find answers to the problems of life, to a savior or to some set of rules that come from man but are regarded as having a supernatural origin. On the one hand we abdicate responsibility and on the other imbue what we are responsible for with divine authority.

Here we come back to the original topic of aporia and the Socratic problem of learning to live in ignorance. We are limited beings with limited capacities. We need to work within those capacities rather than hope for a god or book or lost wisdom that might be recovered to save us. In acknowledging our limits we should not give them false divine authority:

The muses tell Hesiod that they speak lies like the truth. (Theogony 27)

I would suggest that a large part of it originated from Christian social philosophy and their doctrine of universal salvation, even acknowledging the undeniable horrors that the Church has sometimes visited on the world. — Wayfarer

My knowledge about the history of philosophy is limited, so I can't provide a very good defense of this position, but it always strikes me that people fail to understand the extent to which Christianity provides the foundation for western culture and philosophy.

I understand that a lot of people are atheist or anti-religious and I generally don't try and persuade them otherwise, but in my view, the religious or spiritual dimension of life is real, and its denial amounts to a lack. It also subtly conditions what are and are not considered viable philosophical ideas. — Wayfarer

This is one of my primary arguments against rabid atheism. Whatever you believe about the existence of God or the effects of religion on society, there is an important sense in which religious people understand the universe more clearly than those who reject the spiritual dimension you're talking about.

I'm always surprised by how similar many of my ideas are to yours given that we come to them from such different perspectives.

The best argument against rabid atheists like Dawkins, Pinker, Harris, Hitchens, Dennet, etc. is that they don't and can't know if God exists. They have no rational arguments for asserting their claim.

My knowledge about the history of philosophy is limited, so I can't provide a very good defense of this position, but it always strikes me that people fail to understand the extent to which Christianity provides the foundation for western culture and philosophy. — T Clark

If you knowledge of the history of philosophy were less limited you would know that there is no basis for this claim. The roots on which Christianity is founded are in the Greeks and Judaism. Plato's influence on Augustine and Aristotle's influence on Aquinas is evident.

This is one of my primary arguments against rabid atheism. — T Clark

What about the mild mannered atheism of those who simply do not believe in gods?

there is an important sense in which religious people understand the universe more clearly than those who reject the spiritual dimension you're talking about. — T Clark

First of all, one need not be a theist to be "spiritual". Second, religious people often do not see eye to eye and so it cannot be said they understand the universe more clearly when throughout history their disagreement has often been deadly. Each may believe that they to the exclusion of others are in possession of the truth.

there is no basis for this claim. The roots on which Christianity is founded are in the Greeks and Judaism. Plato's influence on Augustine and Aristotle's influence on Aquinas is evident. — Fooloso4

I don't see how your statement and mine are in conflict.

Collingwood claims that western science would not be possible without a belief in a God like the Christian's.

What about the mild mannered atheism of those who simply do not believe in gods? — Fooloso4

I was not talking about them.

First of all, one need not be a theist to be "spiritual". — Fooloso4

True.

it cannot be said they understand the universe more clearly — Fooloso4

I believe it can.

throughout history their disagreement has often been deadly. — Fooloso4

The question of whether religious institutions are more warlike than secular ones has been argued here many times before without resolution.

Aporia can be interpreted as a state of readiness (imagine athletes at their starting positions in a race, legs cocked as it were, read to sprint at the signal to do so) to learn. A philosopher then is just a student, an eternal pupil, alway learning, but never, ever completing the process of absorbing information and processing that into knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom. — Agent Smith

You seem to be saying that aporia is the beginning (a state of readiness), but is it not also the middle and end?

Or could it be that we are perennial beginners? Does wisdom grow within the aporia?

It was Xenophanes who pioneered the Christian God and the unit reality thought to propagate the modern sciences:

"Xenophanes espoused a belief that "God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind." He maintained there was one greatest God."

He was dissatisfied with the plurality of the gods living their happy lives on Olympus Mountain. Too confusing. He longed for unity, and invented a new, super human, super powerful, unimaginable god, leading ultimately to the omnipotent God as found in the Bible and Koran.

Plato loved the man, and considering his mathematical only approximately knowable, extramundane reality, a reality encountered in modern science:

Among the few other Greek writers who subsequently mentioned Xenophanes are Plato, who said that “The Eleatic school, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier, starts from the principle of the unity of all things,”

What's aporia gotta do with this? I think it's a rather baffling observation, that two men can change the course of history that dramatically.

But: is it "aha!" or being in awe?

I don't see how your statement and mine are in conflict. — T Clark

Perhaps my mixed metaphor confused you. Judaism and Greece are the foundations of the west not Christianity. Christianity is built on those foundations.

Collingwood claims that western science would not be possible without a belief in a God like the Christian's. — T Clark

I can't comment without reading what he said in context. What is a God like the Christian's? The God Jesus, and Paul, and the disciples called Father? In that case, it is the God of Judaism. Or is it the man/god of Greek apotheosis?

The question of whether religious institutions are more warlike than secular ones has been argued here many times before without resolution. — T Clark

I did not ask or address that question. What I said was, religious people often do not see eye to eye and so it cannot be said they understand the universe more clearly. How can they both understand the universe more clearly and yet understand it so differently?

As you can see these two don't jibe with each other: on the one hand knowing is better than not knowing (2nd paragraph above) as decisions can only be made knowing what's true and what's false and on the other hand, there's this belief that we make high quality decisions when we're confused (aporia, 3rd paragraph above).
These two antipodal views both makes sense and does not is an instance of aporia (for me).
Can you help clear up the matter for me? — Agent Smith

Yes. Don't treat Truth & Falsity as "antipodal", but as a continuum between those poles.

As a recovering Perfectionist or Idealist, you need to accept that you will never know absolute Truth about anything. Nor will anyone else you encounter. That's partly due to the inherent uncertainties of the physical world, and to the intrinsic limitations of the human mind. Ironically, a common rhetorical tactic (on forums) is to present the appearance of personal Omniscience, or appeal to Authority (such as all-knowing Science), in order to manipulate confused or unsure people. Like Infinity, Comprehensive Truth is an ideal state that is never encountered in the real world.

Unkowns and mysteries are potentially dangerous, but also potentially-fruitful fields to plow . . . . carefully. Remember, Philosophy idealizes absolute Truth, but makes-do with approximate pragmatic truths, that it optimistically labels as practical "Wisdom". :smile:

Fitch’s paradox of knowability concerns any theory committed to the thesis that all truths are knowable. . . . The operative concept of “knowability” remains elusive but is meant to fall somewhere between equating truth uninformatively with what God would know and equating truth naively with what humans actually know. Equating truth with what God would know does not improve intelligibility, and equating it with what humans actually know fails to appreciate the objectivity and discoverability of truth.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fitch-paradox/

Pragmatic Truth :
Unlike correspondence theories, which tend to see truth as a static relation between a truth-bearer and a truth-maker, pragmatic theories of truth tend to view truth as a function of the practices people engage in, and the commitments people make, when they solve problems, make assertions, or conduct scientific inquiry ...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/

SUBJECTIVE TRUTH

Perhaps my mixed metaphor confused you. Judaism and Greece are the foundations of the west not Christianity. Christianity is built on those foundations. — Fooloso4

For almost 1,000 years, the only philosophers in Europe were in the church. The church was the main thing that unified the west between the end of the Roman Empire and the Treaty of Westphalia. The church brought the philosophy of Greece to the west. The church transmitted a form of Judaism to the west. Did you think I meant that 2,000 years ago, St. Paul created the entire structure of western civilization without reference to what came before. I didn't.

I did not ask or address that question. What I said was, religious people often do not see eye to eye and so it cannot be said they understand the universe more clearly. How can they both understand the universe more clearly and yet understand it so differently? — Fooloso4

You're right, I did misinterpret your comment.

In philosophy, nobody agrees with anybody. Why would you expect religious/spiritual people to be any different? If you only allow philosophies with no confusion or disagreement... well, there's nothing left. Scientology I guess. Branch Davidianism.

I'm always surprised by how similar many of my ideas are to yours given that we come to them from such different perspectives. — T Clark

You know the saying, 'many paths up the mountain' :wink:

What I said was, religious people often do not see eye to eye and so it cannot be said they understand the universe more clearly. How can they both understand the universe more clearly and yet understand it so differently? — Fooloso4

The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment, was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions.

What does this mean for the different, and often conflicting, belief-systems of the religions? It means that they are descriptions of different manifestations of the Ultimate; and as such they do not conflict with one another. They each arise from some immensely powerful moment or period of religious experience, notably the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, Jesus’ sense of the presence of the heavenly Father, Muhammad’s experience of hearing the words that became the Qur’an, and also the experiences of Vedic sages, of Hebrew prophets, of Taoist sages. But these experiences are always formed in the terms available to that individual or community at that time and are then further elaborated within the resulting new religious movements. This process of elaboration is one of philosophical or theological construction. Christian experience of the presence of God, for example, at least in the early days and again since the 13th-14th century rediscovery of the centrality of the divine love, is the sense of a greater, much more momentously important, much more profoundly loving, personal presence than that of one’s fellow humans. But that this higher presence is eternal, is omnipotent, is omniscient, is the creator of the universe, is infinite in goodness and love is not, because it cannot be, given in the experience itself. In sense perception we can see as far as our horizon but cannot see how much further the world stretches beyond it, and so likewise we can experience a high degree of goodness or of love but cannot experience that it reaches beyond this to infinity. — John Hick, Who or What is God

I like the notion of pragmatic truth. In my book, it's synonomous, loosely, with what's called a working hypothesis - making do with what's available instead of trying to get it perfect. A provisional truth rather than no truth at all (something is better than nothing). Looks like I'm not the only who's a perfectionist, we all are. Of course the severity of the affliction differs from person to person.

Aporia seems to be designed for those who desire perfection; for those who can manage with the messy world as it is (fuzzy logic or some other means), aporia isn't a part of their lives. Lower the bar and everything is hunky-dory! I'm somewhat happy now! We were supposed to read between the lines! :smile:

Christianity provides the foundation for western culture and philosophy. — T Clark

Fortunately, in fact, Western "culture and philosophy" has been predominantly anti-foundationalist since the late 1500s CE (re: nominalism Copernicus/Galileo, secularism, empiricism, Wallace/Darwin, pragmatism ...)

The problem is that without a verifiable ground of experience then whatever one might imagine can become a "manifestation" of the "Ultimate". Hicks does note these cultural constructs but attempts to explain them away.

Fortunately, in fact, Western "culture and philosophy" has been predominantly anti-foundationalist since the late 1500s CE (re: nominalism Copernicus/Galilleo, secularism, empiricism, Wallace/Darwin, pragmatism ...) — 180 Proof

I don't know what that means.

That's okay.

The problem is that without a verifiable ground of experience then whatever one might imagine can become a "manifestation" of the "Ultimate". — Fooloso4

that's positivism.

It is not positivism. You tend to see things that are opposed to your own view through that lens. The notion of verification is much much older than positivism.

So, what might be considered evidential for any such claims? What would constitute a verifiable ground of experience?

Incidentally, I do agree that religions don't generally 'see eye-to-eye' and that there is a huge history of conflict in that field, both between and within religions. So I'm not disputing that. John Hick is a philosopher of religion and an advocate of religious pluralism, 'based on the notion that the world is religiously ambiguous, such that it can be experienced either religiously or non-religiously, with no compelling proofs for or against any one religious or nonreligious interpretation of the world....He argues not only that the world is sufficiently ambiguous to allow it to be interpreted religiously in different ways but also that there is parity among each of the major world religions regarding their soteriological and ethical efficacy. As far as can be judged by human observation, no one religion stands out above the rest in terms of its ability to transform lives. Moreover, no one religion can lay claim to being the only context for authentic religious experiences.'

As I see it, there is a crucial difference a religious experience and whatever meaning and significance that might have for the person experiencing it and a claim that what is experienced is an experience of the "ultimate" that reaches "beyond to infinity."

Whatever you believe about the existence of God or the effects of religion on society, there is an important sense in which religious people understand the universe more clearly than those who reject the spiritual dimension you're talking about. — T Clark

Emptiness is the only spiritual concept that I think, or feel, gives me clearer understanding of the universe. True that it’s a religious concept, even though I’m anti-religious. It makes rational sense while at the same time relieves existential anxiety. I can’t imagine it not being true and yet I don’t know if it is true. Perhaps somehow things can have an essential and independent existence.

Have you come across Ietsism/Somethingism - it's just acknowledging one's vague feelings that this (the world as physical) can't be it, there's gotta be more, there hasta be something.

Preliminary analysis suggests that ietsism/somethingism is proto-religion, it is how all religions began (that feeling/intuition that reality is far richer than she lets on). Some have come to definitive conclusions (gods, souls, spirits, and so on), others tend to stick around in ietsism, unperturbed by the absence of clear-cut answers to their deepest questions.

A little to nascent to be interesting to me.

A little to nascent to be interesting to me. — Wayfarer

:sad: Too bad, I thought you might wanna sink your teeth into it. I miscalculated. Sorry.



THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH!

Not a promising title.

Here’s a boomer anthem to global awakening and one of my favorite songs.