It's a shame that atheists dismiss it like this because the book really does have some amazing and corroborated (by other ancient sources) ancient history in it — BitconnectCarlos

No question. Most scriptures from world religions are fascinating documents which contain historic and cultural narratives.

But my point is not about atheism - it is about theologians and Christians who are non-literalists.

I could not believe that anyone who has read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in every literal word was the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God. Have these people simply not read the text? Are they hopelessly misinformed? Is there a different Bible? Are they blinded by a combination of ego needs and naïveté?

Bishop John Shelby Spong

I think it is a good quesion to ask such believers - which bits matter and which bits do not and how did you determine why?

The Spiderman comment is a simple distillation of the idea that even if a book contains valuable information about history and culture, this does not mean the entire book is true. This is actually a quip I first heard from a Jesuit Priest.

New York is a real place, this doesn't mean Spiderman is real. I'm not getting into the weeds about what bits in the Bible may be historical and which bits are legends and myth. Plenty of that stuff on line already.

:up:

There are many Christians who consider the Resurrection to be a myth. The story does not need to gain its power from being literally true. Some religious thinkers who held views along these lines include - Paul Tillich, Don Cupitt, Rudolf Bultmann, John Shelby Spong, David Friedrich Strauss. I grew up within the Baptist tradition and was sent to a religious school. We were taught to read the Bible as allegorical. Of course, none of this will stop some Christians from considering such views as blasphemous or 'not truly Christian.' But should we care about that? The history of Christianity is one of acrimonious sectarian divisions and differences, with the followers of Christ often trying to murder each other in the name of brotherly love.

1) If Jesus did not rise from the dead, can there be a rational belief in Christianity? and 2) If one is not sure if Jesus actually rose from the dead, can they still have a rational belief in Christianity? — Brenner T

Yes. There are Christians who are not even certain that the Jesus of the New Testament even lived. Perhaps the Jesus story was based on some radical teacher after whom a mythology was built. They see the narrative and tradition as providing lessons and a way of life through allegory. Belief is complex.

This reminds of one of Ashleigh Brilliant's sayings: "My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can't do anything about".

Perhaps the philosophers' biggest problem is what to say about all the things they cannot say anything about. — Janus

Nice.

As I noted, for me, high-fallutin language grasps for an exalted level of significance, which I reject. — T Clark

Maybe I misunderstand this point. By high-fallutin do you mean technically complicated language, such as that used by educated professionals? Or do you mean bullshit masquerading as insight?

They refused to accept his lie or to let him off the hook for it. That we need across the board. We should have started with his claims that his first inauguration was "larger" than his predecessor's first. An obvious and absurd lie. — tim wood

Yes! I was also trying to pinpoint when the bullshit began and I came to the same conclusion. He was let off the hook. But the old saying that if you give them enough rope, they'll hang themselves has not applied. Here, if you give them enough rope, it's us who hang...

Nice.

"Post truth" suggests we are done with truth. With bullshit, there are still truths, they are just denied for expediency. — Banno

I think this crystallises it.

That's hilarious. Great song. I was going to post Cohen's Everybody Knows.

I think the phrase obscurantist terrorism is indeed true,like politicians or priests trying to appear profound. And because of this I exercise my discretion.One has to believe in oneself! It's often the writer not the reader who is at fault. We don't need to defer because of reputation. — Swanty

Unpacking this I would say that we still need to identify what counts as merit and the issue of complexity (baroque prose) in itself can't be grounds for dismissal. Nor can a subjective trust in one's personal 'bullshit detector'.

I certainly read based on my personal reactions and taste, but I don't confuse this with an objective assessment about the work I privilege or detract. Thoughts?

I'm not sure what it even means to be without limits? Is this a capacity we have for reinvention, redefinition and ceaseless change, or does it refer to some transcendental factor? Or something else?

Nietzsche once wrote that bad writers write ALL their thoughts rather than just the final "percolated" product.[/quote]

Not coming from a background in the subject, I find most philosophical writing either dull or incomprehensible. That's mainly on me. Wish I could do better.

I find Nietzsche fairly unreadable too - having read 4 of his works and unable to get much from them.

Hume and Schopenhauer are readable. But I don't associate readability with highest quality. That argument sounds a bit like Orwell's famous polemical essay about politics and language.

I'm suspicious of long winded writers,it's like a long list of apologies and overwrought justifications,showing how the writer is unsure of his ideas! — Swanty

There's a significant prejudice ageist writers we find difficult as we tend to assume the fault lies with them, not our abilities to comprehend.

I think John Searle quotes Foucault about Derrida's writing as a type of 'obscurantist terrorism'. The idea being that some French post structuralists wrote deliberately complex language to appear profound. This has become a worn trope and gives us an excuse not to try to understand.

But my quesion is this: how do we tell apart the complex prose that is insightful, from that which is empty bluster? All we can really do is read and provide assessments based on some other criterion of value. I don't know how tenable it is to dismiss a writer just because of baroque or highly technical language.

Sure, but we do everything based on imaginary stories in our minds. — T Clark

And sometimes even the territory and food are imaginary.

Sorry, I was merely being sardonic. But I agree with you. :wink:

Do you think that the US might one day invade the US and impose democracy, fairness and tolerance there?

:up:

Not to run an empty, establishment candidate who runs away from every popular progressive policy there is, — Mikie

Forgot to ask - what progressive policies are you referring to?

It gets tiresome having to exclusively vote AGAINST something— that’s extremely uninspiring. Despite all the gaslighting, I never felt the so-called “energy,” and I imagine millions of others didn’t either. It all felt rather bland and formal and forced and coached. Like Hillary all over again: machine-like; robotic. I still voted against the worst, as we all should, but eventually you have to offer something as well. — Mikie

That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks. Yes, I said to a friend yesterday that there wasn't a genuine bone in her body and, perversely, by contrast, Trump appeared spontaneous and real, even if he is a carny barker and quite obviously a cunt. What do they say? Shit has its own integrity...

Today’s the day we get 4 more years of the old degenerate climate-denying corporatist con man. It’ll do irreversible damage and lock in 50 years of a reactionary Supreme Court and judiciary generally— and put the brakes on the little climate policy we managed to pass— but hey, Americans are fairly stupid and easily brainwashed, and the Democrats should have known better. The lesson they’ll take away from this is that they should move farther to the right, which is insane.
— Mikie — Mikie

Some of my friends keep telling me that Trump is what happens when the liberals have lost their way. What do you think are the lessons for Democrats here?

When did Musk become a right-wing cartoon?

I went on a Buddhist retreat many years ago, and at one of the Q&A's I put my hand up, and asked a question, along the lines, 'modern life is very complex. You have relationships, financial and work obligations, bad habits develop.' And so on. The monk replied, with a broad grin, 'I know! Why do you think we're monks!' — Wayfarer

Nice anecdote. I think a lot of folk are trying to scale back their involvement in the world. Not necessarily from a higher consciousness perspective. Minimalism can be one such path. It's like being a monk, without the ritual. I know a lot of folk who are not having kids, not pursuing careers, not buying consumer goods, not playing all the games of ambition and competition and staying out of the rat race as far as they can. It's not a solution but it's a beginning.

And now he's protected by the Supreme Court decision that he's granted immunity for 'any official acts'. The Project 2025 ideologues are lined up to purge the bureaucracy and, quote, 'take down the deep state leadership.' He's promised 11 million deportations and massive tarrifs. He has a hit list of his 'enemies within'. — Wayfarer

Isn't Trump just another celebrity, virtue signalling, identity policies wanker (albeit of the right)? Do you think that he and Vance and Musk and RFK and Bannon will be able to agree on anything and not end up derailing themselves in acrimony in a few months? Seems to me that Musk, Bannon and RFK will need to take out Trump in '25 so they can get to the real work.

I’m not an American - why do you think he won?

I think he'll call it soon .

Does having the capacity for existential self-awareness imply anything further than this fact?
That is to say, does a species of animal(s) that has the ability to conceptually "know" that it exists, entail anything further, in any axiological way? — schopenhauer1

What does existential self-awareness actually consist of? Does a recognition of mortality accompany it? When I first came to this realisation as a child my primary reaction was, why did I have to be born? In reversing the usual cliché about such matters, I often thought to myself that it might be bad luck to be born - to have to go through the laborious process of learning, growing, belonging (to a culture you dislike), experiencing loss, decline and ultimately death. It's not easy to identify an inherent benefit attached to any of this. But there's a lot of noise called philosophy and religion which seeks to help us to manage our situation.

What is anarchy and where has it worked before?

:up:

We’re all caught up in the throes of this, every day. — Wayfarer

No idea - is that what the discussion in this thread is about?

If the argument is that gods and religions are 'invented' to help us manage reality in some way, I see no reason why we would only invent comforting stories. Happy bedtime stories are not the only way to make meaning.

Sounds like Calvinism to me. — Wayfarer

Could be. But knowing Calvinists, it's hard to argue that they don't derive succour and meaning and purpose from their beliefs.

He's talking about Calvinism, a religious movement which turns God into a total psychopath. — BitconnectCarlos

Know it well, it's the religion of my father's family. But execrable gods are a dime a dozen. I fail to see how this worldview doesn't provide people with purpose and explanatory power. No matter how horrendous the religion's tenets, people always find a way to integrate them into how they make sense of the world at large.

But the idea that this is an "adaptive coping mechanism," then makes no sense in terms of some later religious developments, because they make the world both terrifying and unintelligible, the result of an unfathomable God who is beyond all human notions of good and evil, totally obscured by total equivocity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not entirely sure why you've ended up here or which god you are thinking of but I wouldn't arrive at this conclusion. A god may be irascible or capricious and above human comprehension, but simply knowing this is the case and having an identity for this god, a knowledge of its presence and some imperfect rituals to assist us in pleasing such a god, as best we can, is surely enough?

This is not only not reassuring, it makes man entirely helpless, and it makes all of reality bottom out in the completely unintelligible and unfathomable. Through the obsession with divine sovereignty, all of existence becomes a pantheistic expression of the divine will, which is itself beyond comprehension. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which god/s are you thinking of that work like this?

How does this explain, say, Calvinism where man has to be constantly worried about whether or not he is elect or destined to eternal damnation? Generally, in this religion, one has absolutely no ability to determine whether one will be saved or not, and one also knows that the overwhelming odds are that one is destined for eternal torment. There are also, traditionally, no ways to know for sure if one is truly elect.

Or how does it explain the many early religions in which the Gods are largely capricious and cruel? I am not sure how believing in an extremely powerful sky rapist who likes transforming into animals before committing his infamies is "reassuring." — Count Timothy von Icarus

You raise salient points. Although I don’t fully accept the original post, it could be argued that humans have an innate desire to understand and create a framework for supernatural realities—even if those frameworks are harsh. This need can provide reassurance by offering a way to make sense of our experiences and establish guiding principles for navigating the world. If our deities are perceived as cruel and unpredictable, might that not reflect the inherent harshness and unpredictability of nature itself? Our dream life doesn't have to be all sweetness and light for us to find reassurance, purpose, and a sense of predictability in the world.

There is a correlation between philosophers who reject abortion and accept only classical logic. What to make of that? — Banno

That is interesting.

Is there a correlation (from what you have seen) between those philosophers who privilege the classical tradition (ancient Greeks) and conservative politics?

Thank you.

The one area where identity might still be an issue is age. I liked being young and able much more than I like being old and unable. — BC

Yes, that's an interesting one. The kids at work now seek me out as a relic of a pervious era - 'What were the 1980's like, Tom? They must have been really cool.' I've never felt young, only inexperienced. Now I realise ignorance is forever and don't mind so much.

Was I born damned or only after I became an atheist?

Actually on reflection, from the position of some thinkers and the religion I was brought up in, the soul starts pure and good, so I guess I’m probably wrong about it’s essential nature.

. Also, immortality is an attribute, an eternal attribute. — praxis

The soul may be immortal, but that says nothing about whether it is damned or not. The soul's essential nature is subject to change - that's the bit I think you are missing. It's immortality is incidental. And for me it's the most relevant given the above discussion since the soul is not essentially saved or good. But I get your point.

To what extend do you feel you have been aware of, or preoccupied by your identity/ties over time? Is identity just a given that you don't really consciously explore, or is it something which you often think about? Personally I don't really have a strong sense of self unless I end up stuck at a function or dinner party and am made aware of how little I share with others - in terms of interests and inclinations.

Yes but the immortality is just one aspect of the soul - which can change and has no essential attributes. Freewill and all that. Anyway it doesn't much matter since I suspect neither of us actually believe in souls. Essentialism tend to mean that there are fixed attributes - such as biological essentialism on gender. The soul, if the literature is correct, can be corrupted or redeemed.

interesting- I’m not sure an immoral soul equates with essentialism unless you are saying that the nature of the soul is unchanging. Isn't the theory that souls can and do change - can be lost or redeemed, etc? I'm not in the soul business so this is entirely about the storytelling of such matters.