Thread: What do the voices say? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=027716

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
God: Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and sacrifice him on the mountain which I will show to you.

Abraham: I'm all over it.

____________________________________

If you hear a voice claiming to be God telling you to do something that seems wrong, or contradicts what you have been taught to be right, do you obey it? Why or why not?

I'm thinking especially of IngoB's theory in which God is not moral. If God is not moral, then is the morality he commands us to arbitrary? Or merely a practicality? Can he suspend it when he wants us to do something that would otherwise be immoral, like wipe out whole towns full of innocent people?

How, then, do you decide, when the voices tell you to drown your kids in the bathtub, whether that's God speaking (after all, God can suspend the requirements of regular morality if he so desires), or Satan speaking, or mental illness, or something else entirely?

Is it conceivable that God would, in the 21st century, command somebody to do something (ordinarily considered) evil? Why or why not? If no, in what way are we different from Abraham?

Unconcluding theological postscript: Is it significant that Abraham argues until he's blue in the face trying to keep God from destroying Sodom, but acquiesces instantly on killing his son?

[ 05. August 2014, 19:55: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Having followed the discussion on the other thread somewhat, I'm not sure Abraham saw this as the stark choice between obvious good and obvious evil that it seems to us.

He appears to be in a historical context in which gods tended to require child sacrifices, in other words the demand of God would have I think been quite plausible to his neighbours. Of course Abraham must believe he has encountered The God not a god, but I can imagine it being more like a moment of confusion - 'well, that does match my idea of gods' prerogatives, but it doesn't seem like Yahweh to me...' rather than a moral no-brainer.

In that sense the comparison with somebody who hears voices telling them to drown their own kids does not stand up. The cultural context is not the same.

I think it likely that future generations will look back on some of our contemporary christian choices over which we agonise, without any additional hearing of voices, and wonder how we could possibly have envisaged some of the outcomes at all.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Mousethief wrote:

quote:
Unconcluding theological postscript: Is it significant that Abraham argues until he's blue in the face trying to keep God from destroying Sodom, but acquiesces instantly on killing his son?


Well, I guess that in the case of Sodom, God was acting accoring to the dictates of rational ethics(at least, internally rational), ie. Sodom was irredeemably wicked, so it must be destroyed.

And Abraham was also acting with that as his framework, ie. "Yes God, the wicked must be punished, but Sodom isn't that wicked, so don't destroy it."

Basically, in that case, Abraham was equivalent to a lawyer who begs a judge not to execute a convicted man, on the grounds that the crime wasn't severe enough to warrant the death penalty. (And yes, I realize the argument in the case of Sodom was about the number of wicked people. Point is, both the lawyer and Abraham are using the law as their basis for argument.)

Whereas the demand to sacrifice Isaac wasn't intended as a punishment for breaking the law, it was simply a demand for a sacrifice, which Abraham felt duty-bound to follow. There was no argument to be made about "Well, Isaac isn't that bad a guy", because God's request in the first place was not based on punitive concerns.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Eutychus wrote:

quote:
He appears to be in a historical context in which gods tended to require child sacrifices, in other words the demand of God would have I think been quite plausible to his neighbours.
One thing I recall from a class on existentialism I took was that the ancient Israelites, according to the evidence, did in fact practice human sacrifice(at least in certain contexts), a fact that may have been unknown to Kiergegaard.

If that is true, then the whole ethical dilemna of Fear And Trembling, at least insofar as it can be applied to Abraham as he actually existed, collapses. Because society would not have told Abraham that his actions were wrong.

[ 05. August 2014, 20:50: Message edited by: Stetson ]
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Indeed. The Abraham/Isaac narrative is the one that has our modern heads spinning, but when it comes to discerning voices, I'm more concerned about, say, the implications of the Ark.

Noah followed "the voices" to build an Ark that reputedly took something in the region of a century to build, presumably on dry land, without much in the way of cultural precedent.

[ 05. August 2014, 20:55: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
He appears to be in a historical context in which gods tended to require child sacrifices, in other words the demand of God would have I think been quite plausible to his neighbours.

According to my tradition, one of the reasons that idolatry was so strongly prohibited among the Israelites was that demons spoke to their worshippers through them. So the people were ruled not by idols but by demons.

Few people hear such voices today, but apparently they were common in those ancient times.

If this is true, then it is unsurprising that they would require child sacrifice and other immoral acts.

The question then is who spoke to Abraham? If it was not actually God Himself, but rather a culturally appropriate approximation, this would answer a lot of questions. This is what my tradition teaches.
 
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
I think there is a difference (nay a chasm) between a modern "the voices told me to do it." And a righteous person , devoted to God, discerning His will and acting on it. His ways are not our ways. Lead me not into the time of trial.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
This is what my tradition teaches.

I'm confused. It teaches that Abraham heard demonic voices, or a "culturally appropriate approximation"?

Plenty of people hear "culturally appropriate approximations" today that they believe to be from God and psychiatrists believe to be the product of schizophrenia.

Pyx_e, I hope the same, but don't you get the impression your local men in white coats would probably have had Noah sectioned? And that your local vicar might well do the same?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
The stories of voices say that someone's telling a story.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
And Abraham was also acting with that as his framework, ie. "Yes God, the wicked must be punished, but Sodom isn't that wicked, so don't destroy it."

Basically, in that case, Abraham was equivalent to a lawyer who begs a judge not to execute a convicted man, on the grounds that the crime wasn't severe enough to warrant the death penalty. (And yes, I realize the argument in the case of Sodom was about the number of wicked people. Point is, both the lawyer and Abraham are using the law as their basis for argument.)

Couldn't you read his argument as being about collateral damage? If there's 5 innocent people, you'll be killing them along with the guilty.


quote:
Whereas the demand to sacrifice Isaac wasn't intended as a punishment for breaking the law, it was simply a demand for a sacrifice, which Abraham felt duty-bound to follow. There was no argument to be made about "Well, Isaac isn't that bad a guy", because God's request in the first place was not based on punitive concerns.
But his argument re. Sodom was in some sense independent of the punishment context; his major premise was "God cannot do evil."

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
I think there is a difference (nay a chasm) between a modern "the voices told me to do it." And a righteous person , devoted to God, discerning His will and acting on it.

But the way Abraham discerned God's will was: he heard a voice. There may be a chasm, but if there is, you haven't shown that to be the case. What is the chasm? Why is it different now versus then?
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
If stories about Abraham are stories about an ancient ancestor who embodies the history of your people, then both the near sacrifice of Isaac and the haggle with God over Sodom represent your tribe's discovery of a new and better morality.

It becomes complicated if you think of Abraham as an individual thinking things through, and if you imagine God as a supernatural being deciding how to deal with humans as events unfold.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think this is still a problem if you don't take the story of Noah or the story of Abraham entirely literally ...

But not taking it entirely literally can help u out of the dilemma to a certain extent.

I know this view is fraught with difficulty, but so are the alternatives.

Do I believe that God 'speaks' to people? Yes, I think I still do.

Do I expect God to ask people to do things that are pretty bizarre - sacrifice their own kids, build a whopping big boat in their back yard ...

No, I don't ...
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
One thing I recall from a class on existentialism I took was that the ancient Israelites, according to the evidence, did in fact practice human sacrifice(at least in certain contexts), a fact that may have been unknown to Kiergegaard.

If that is true...

I hadn't thought about archeological evidence but Jeremiah says it's true: "they have ...built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind." Jeremiah 19:4-5 NASB

[re-attributed quote properly]

[ 06. August 2014, 05:04: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
How, then, do you decide, when the voices tell you to drown your kids in the bathtub, whether that's God speaking (after all, God can suspend the requirements of regular morality if he so desires), or Satan speaking, or mental illness, or something else entirely?

The community of believers and whether or not they believe G-d could be truly speaking through a particular action.

I'm not sure most people should really be putting themselves on the same level as Biblical characters and concluding that just because G-d may have commanded the founders of a religion to do something G-d would command a similar thing today.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
What hatless said. Abraham was righteous in his time, he obeyed the terrible command from God without hesitation - no one can accuse him of refusing, through misplaced sentimentality, to do his duty!

But then the moment of grace - the gulf between the duty to God and the love for child is erased. And in that moment we have a new idea of God sprung into life.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
One thing I recall from a class on existentialism I took was that the ancient Israelites, according to the evidence, did in fact practice human sacrifice(at least in certain contexts), a fact that may have been unknown to Kiergegaard.

If that is true...

I hadn't thought about archeological evidence but Jeremiah says it's true: "they have ...built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind." Jeremiah 19:4-5 NASB
Also Jephthah...

[corrected quote attribution]

[ 06. August 2014, 05:05: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
What Eutychus said.

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
What hatless said. Abraham was righteous in his time, he obeyed the terrible command from God without hesitation - no one can accuse him of refusing, through misplaced sentimentality, to do his duty!

Oh, I wouldn't bet on the "without hesitation" bit. There's absolutely nothing in there to suggest eagerness, and plenty to suggest a desperate man up against a stone wall.

It's worth noting that Isaac's story is among other things the font of the idea that human sacrifice is Just.Plain.Wrong.Period. and not something that should ever be done, not something that the true God wants or asks. Abraham was in a different spot than we are--he was before the Isaac story, still getting to know just what this YHWH character is like. We come way after and have the benefit of his experience.

Which means that there is no excuse for us, if we hear a similar "voice," doing the same thing Abraham did. We now know better, definitively. That course is forever ruled out. So also are things like slavery and IMHO polygamy.

And yes, I definitely believe God IS moral. "Moral" is his nature, it's basically another name for "godly." For God to behave immorally is for God not to be God. I suppose if God did evil, he would disappear in a puff of logic. It's self-contradictory for him.

Which means that if I hear any voices telling me to do something that is clearly immoral, I will go get the little pills ASAP (or call the exorcist, or whatever). If it contradicts Scripture, it ain't God.

Now as for daft things--

There I don't get off so easily.
[Eek!] God demonstrably has and does command us to do daft things (yeah, yeah, daft in the eyes of the world, yeah). Anybody who goes to communion believing in the Real Presence knows what I'm talking about, particularly if s/he's had to explain it to a nonbelieving neighbor.

So if I hear a voice telling me to do something daft like poor Isaiah (walk around naked in public) or Ezekiel (voluntary public paralysis for half a year) or Joseph (go ahead and marry your pregnant girlfriend, it's from the Holy Spirit, really!)--

well, I'd go into a total tailspin (been there, done that). I'd pray like freaking heck (been there too). I'd search the Scripture to see if there is anything, ANYTHING, relevant (and I won't kid you, I'd be looking for an excuse to get out of it). I'd consult a ton of Christian friends.

And if it still checked out?

I'd, uh, do it. [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
This is what my tradition teaches.

I'm confused. It teaches that Abraham heard demonic voices, or a "culturally appropriate approximation"?
Yes. Surely God Himself wouldn't have said many of the things that the Old Testament God is said to have spoken.

The alternative is that they did not actually hear a voice telling them to do those things, but made it up.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Plenty of people hear "culturally appropriate approximations" today that they believe to be from God and psychiatrists believe to be the product of schizophrenia.

That's right. [Paranoid]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
Since "my" theory is being mentioned in the OP, and being discussed implicitly, I feel I should explain it.

First, it is not particularly "my" theory. It is rather my adaptation of a particular interpretation of Aquinas advanced by Brian Davies, OP, (who shall not be responsible for my errors, of course) in the context of theodicy. For the unadulterated version I recommend his book "The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil".

Second, I am not saying that God is not moral, in the usual sense of those words. If we say that John is not moral, we mean that John should behave in certain ways, but doesn't; or maybe that John should know that he ought to behave in certain ways, but doesn't. I'm not saying that about God. I'm saying that God is not a moral agent. Thus there is no "how God ought to behave" for God.

The concept of something being active but not being a moral agent is far from alien to us. Take gravity and a dog, as examples. If you fall off a cliff and die, gravity killed you. Yet we do not accuse gravity of murder, even if you were innocent. If a dog bites you, we do not accuse the dog of assault and battery, even though we may have it put down. The reason is that these "agents" (one abstract, the other embodied) lack sufficient sapience and volition to operate in the moral domain.

What I'm saying about God is that He also lacks something, in a sense, and hence does not operate in the moral domain. What he lacks are ends, aims or goals, which are either dictated by a higher power to Him or a limiting feature of His nature. It should be obvious that no other power can have been dictating anything to God directly, or He would not be God. It is less obvious that there cannot be anything in His nature limiting His range of action. But if we say that His nature was shaped in such a way as to make it God's goal to do something, let's say creating bagels, then we have to ask who or what shaped God's nature that way. De facto that would be a higher power operating on God, just by indirect means, and that cannot be.

Third, how this plays with regards to theodicy explains why "God can only do good because he is all good" is not really a limiting feature in the above sense. Let's say that there is a man drowning. If we stand at the shore, are aware of this, and are able to save that man without danger to ourselves and without unreasonable effort, then we ought to do so. Otherwise we sin by omission. Now, God is omniscient and omnipresent eternally, so He is aware of all people drowning ever. Being omnipotent means that he can save all of them without the slightest danger to Himself and without any significant effort. So why does God not sin by omission concerning all the people that do drown? How can we maintain that God is perfectly good, if he fails all those people, but we would call anybody bad who does not even save a single man? That is the basic structure of the theodicy problem.

The answer offered here is that this analysis is correct. However, we never meant to say that God is perfectly good in that sense, we never meant that God is a perfect David Hasselhoff who will baywatch the universe. Rather, God is the one who creates all things, giving them existence, the key good. God is the one who structures all things so there are ways in which they are good. Good water is wet, not dry. Good lungs extract oxygen from the environment, they do not fail to do so. Good people jump into the sea to save someone else from drowning. All this is from God, hence God is the source of all goods that we see. God also does not create any evil. Though he certainly allows goods to be in conflict with each other (water filling lungs, for example), and makes creatures that have less than the usual allotment of goods.

Basically, saying that God is perfectly and entirely good is really just another way of saying that He is the Creator. He is the source of all good, its measure, its rule. He is not in the business of "doing good" as we "do good". He makes the Bay, and I guess David Hasselhoff to look after it, and in that sense is the perfection of all baywatching. But not in the sense that He is Super-Hasselhoff who does the job infinitely better than the human version. That's not the sort of perfect good we mean. Consequently, to say that God is all good and does nothing but good is not actually limiting God. It is simply affirming that God creates everything there is.

Fourth, while that neatly kills the theodicy argument, it does not in fact mean that God is now simply arbitrary in His actions. Why not? Because God is entirely unchanging, and necessarily does all creation in one eternal act. So God cannot change His opinion whether rape is good or evil. Simply because God never changes His opinion on anything, and because from the vantage point of eternity all of the universe comes into being as a whole. There is no "first rape was bad, then rape was OK" because God designed the good of sexuality all at once for the entire universe. Basically, the idea that God is perfectly and consistently moral gets replaced here by the better statement that God is eternally consistent and utterly perfect, and hence that the morals he imposes on his creation is never at odds with itself across all space and time. The outcome is basically the same, yet the reasoning is rather different.

Fifth, this way of thinking however leaves a different kind of arbitrariness, which is just God's freedom in creating. We cannot simply assume that God could not have possibly created a universe that worked completely differently, and to our eyes would perhaps appear immoral. However, that hypothetical universe would have its own definitions of good, eternally and consistently imposed by God, so its inhabitants would actually agree with us that God is all good. God's creative freedom means a kind of "universe-wide moral relativism", but it is not the sort of relativism or arbitrariness we have to worry about.

Sixth, this way of thinking means that it is a prior false to require that God Himself always act just like a good human would. That is projecting the morals made for us, to bind us to our goods, back onto God. But God is neither a moral agent nor a human being. We cannot sensibly restrict God like that, He is not Super-Hasselhoff. What we can say is that being consistent means that God cannot undermine the morals that He has imposed by constantly making creatures act against them. But that does not mean that we must be able to understand all that God does in terms of our morals. It also leaves the possibility that on rare occasion God might do something for higher reasons that does not sit easily with our regular morals. So something like the case at hand, Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac, is not necessarily required to be justifiable in regular human moral terms. It can be a "moral exception" made for some other, good reason by God.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I agree with Lamb Chopped. [Overused]
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm confused. It teaches that Abraham heard demonic voices, or a "culturally appropriate approximation"?

Yes.
I'm still confused. Does your tradition teach that demonic voices are a "culturally appropriate approximation", or are the two distinct? And a culturally appropriate approximation of what?

[ 06. August 2014, 05:10: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
God also does not create any evil.

Who created the micro-organisms that cause disorders such as rabies, malaria, leprosy, ebola virus, AIDS, syphilis and cholera?

If we say Satan made them, we are faced with the problem of dualism, ie rival creators.

If we say God created them for the greater good of punishing sin, then why is healing practically always portrayed positively (in fact, a gift from God) in the Bible?

If we say that they were originally benign organisms which became malignant after the Fall, then who else but God conceived and implemented that change?
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
God also does not create any evil.

Who created the micro-organisms that cause disorders such as rabies, malaria, leprosy, ebola virus, AIDS, syphilis and cholera?

If we say Satan made them, we are faced with the problem of dualism, ie rival creators.

If we say God created them for the greater good of punishing sin, then why is healing practically always portrayed positively (in fact, a gift from God) in the Bible?

If we say that they were originally benign organisms which became malignant after the Fall, then who else but God conceived and implemented that change?

None of the above imo.

God created the conditions for total freedom, so that we can have total freedom to choose. We could not love Him without that and He did all this for Love imo. Horrible those bacteria and viruses are to us, they are necessary to a system which works the way it does - freedom to evolve.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm confused. It teaches that Abraham heard demonic voices, or a "culturally appropriate approximation"?

Yes.
I'm still confused. Does your tradition teach that demonic voices are a "culturally appropriate approximation", or are the two distinct? And a culturally appropriate approximation of what?
First off, it teaches, as I think the Bible assumes, that demons are real and that it is possible for people to hear their voices.

Secondly, it's not just demons, but a whole range of spirits, good and bad.

We call this schizophrenia. The New Testament calls it demon possession. But in ancient tradition, and even in some older cultures today, these spirits could be the voice of God, or at least identify themselves that way. In many places this is considered normal, and it was very common in Old Testament times worldwide. Every cultural tradition has some version of this.

The reason I call them a "culturally appropriate approximation" of God is that the spirits were spirits from their own culture and had the same ideas about what a god would be expected to do and ask for.

So the spirit knew just what to say to Abram to make an impression. It evidently worked.

To me this completely explains why God says so many distinctly un-Godlike things in the Old Testament.

The genius of it all is that God Himself used these peculiar and beautiful tales to lead people away from the misconceptions of the past to a truer understanding of God.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
God created the conditions for total freedom, so that we can have total freedom to choose. We could not love Him without that and He did all this for Love imo. Horrible those bacteria and viruses are to us, they are necessary to a system which works the way it does - freedom to evolve.

Nice answer!
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
Saysay:
quote:
I'm not sure most people should really be putting themselves on the same level as Biblical characters and concluding that just because G-d may have commanded the founders of a religion to do something G-d would command a similar thing today.


Would this illuminate the present social needs among certain Christians to oppress women, to denigrate and attack gays, to oppress blacks, or, in the US, to continue to do human sacrifice in the form of "legal" executions, based on OT thinking? None of those are encouraged in the NT.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Since "my" theory is being mentioned in the OP, and being discussed implicitly, I feel I should explain it.

First, it is not particularly "my" theory. It is rather my adaptation of a particular interpretation of Aquinas advanced by Brian Davies, OP, (who shall not be responsible for my errors, of course) in the context of theodicy. For the unadulterated version I recommend his book "The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil".

Second, I am not saying that God is not moral, in the usual sense of those words. If we say that John is not moral, we mean that John should behave in certain ways, but doesn't; or maybe that John should know that he ought to behave in certain ways, but doesn't. I'm not saying that about God. I'm saying that God is not a moral agent. Thus there is no "how God ought to behave" for God.

Abraham certainly thinks there is ("will not the Judge of all the earth do right?") and God does not correct him. Similarly, God recoils from certain characterizations of him ("You thought I was such a one as yourself") and says "My thoughts are higher than yours, and my ways than your ways" (note: higher, not simply different). He commends Job for speaking correctly about him on a moral issue, and castigates Job's friends for attempting to whitewash the difficulty ("you have not spoken rightly of me, as my servant Job has"). There's plenty more in Scripture along this vein.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The concept of something being active but not being a moral agent is far from alien to us. Take gravity and a dog, as examples. If you fall off a cliff and die, gravity killed you. Yet we do not accuse gravity of murder, even if you were innocent. If a dog bites you, we do not accuse the dog of assault and battery, even though we may have it put down. The reason is that these "agents" (one abstract, the other embodied) lack sufficient sapience and volition to operate in the moral domain.

True to an extent, and yet the closer a creature gets to sapience, the more morally responsible it is held. Or have you never heard the phrase "bad dog!"?

I would also be wary of any analogy that depends upon God sharing a likeness with subhuman creatures. It's risky, and should act as a red flag to the arguer that you might be heading off the track.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
What I'm saying about God is that He also lacks something, in a sense, and hence does not operate in the moral domain. What he lacks are ends, aims or goals, which are either dictated by a higher power to Him or a limiting feature of His nature. It should be obvious that no other power can have been dictating anything to God directly, or He would not be God. It is less obvious that there cannot be anything in His nature limiting His range of action. But if we say that His nature was shaped in such a way as to make it God's goal to do something, let's say creating bagels, then we have to ask who or what shaped God's nature that way. De facto that would be a higher power operating on God, just by indirect means, and that cannot be.

Okay, here's your first problem. You are using the word "shaped" first to mean simply "it has these features," and then sliding into the past tense passive "shaped," which indicates shaping by another entity. You can't do that logically. it's making an unexamined assumption: namely, that all patterns or arrangements of features have been placed in that way (shaped) by a third party. Bzzzzzzt. Won't work, we would need to prove that assumption first. Try this instead: replace the word "shaped" with "exists", so: "But if we say that His nature exists in such a way as to make it God's goal to do something..." Similarly, you'd want to lose the phrase "as to make it God's goal," which assumes but does not prove that a third party has imposed something upon God. Less loaded language would be "But if we say that His nature exists in such a way that God's goal is to do something..." See?

Or you can prove the assumption, of course, and then retain your original language.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Third, how this plays with regards to theodicy explains why "God can only do good because he is all good" is not really a limiting feature in the above sense.... [snip snip]

The theodicy issue only comes up in this post because you believe you have a solution to it in your view of God's nature. As I consider your solution to be logically faulty, I'll leave the theodicy issue on the side of the plate.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Consequently, to say that God is all good and does nothing but good is not actually limiting God. It is simply affirming that God creates everything there is.

Fourth, while that neatly kills the theodicy argument, it does not in fact mean that God is now simply arbitrary in His actions. Why not? Because God is entirely unchanging, and necessarily does all creation in one eternal act. So God cannot change His opinion whether rape is good or evil. Simply because God never changes His opinion on anything, and because from the vantage point of eternity all of the universe comes into being as a whole. There is no "first rape was bad, then rape was OK" because God designed the good of sexuality all at once for the entire universe. Basically, the idea that God is perfectly and consistently moral gets replaced here by the better statement that God is eternally consistent and utterly perfect, and hence that the morals he imposes on his creation is never at odds with itself across all space and time. The outcome is basically the same, yet the reasoning is rather different.

Fifth, this way of thinking however leaves a different kind of arbitrariness, which is just God's freedom in creating. We cannot simply assume that God could not have possibly created a universe that worked completely differently, and to our eyes would perhaps appear immoral. However, that hypothetical universe would have its own definitions of good, eternally and consistently imposed by God, so its inhabitants would actually agree with us that God is all good. God's creative freedom means a kind of "universe-wide moral relativism", but it is not the sort of relativism or arbitrariness we have to worry about.

Actually, I do. If God's freedom means that he is capable of creating a universe where betrayal is a positive good, then he's not a god I want to have anything to do with, regardless of whether I ever visit that universe or not. Such a god is amoral--below morality, not above it.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Sixth, this way of thinking means that it is a prior false to require that God Himself always act just like a good human would. That is projecting the morals made for us, to bind us to our goods, back onto God. But God is neither a moral agent nor a human being.

He is both in Christ. Who did not shed his divine nature or divine morality at his incarnation.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We cannot sensibly restrict God like that, He is not Super-Hasselhoff. What we can say is that being consistent means that God cannot undermine the morals that He has imposed by constantly making creatures act against them.

...And at this point you place limitations upon God again, though what I would call morality you call consistency. In either case it is a check upon God's freedom. I have no problem with that, but you demonstrably do. I fear you've painted yourself into a corner.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But that does not mean that we must be able to understand all that God does in terms of our morals. It also leaves the possibility that on rare occasion God might do something for higher reasons that does not sit easily with our regular morals. So something like the case at hand, Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac, is not necessarily required to be justifiable in regular human moral terms. It can be a "moral exception" made for some other, good reason by God.

Now this at last I can agree with, though your phrasing sits uneasily with me. The fact is that God's morality is continuous with ours but higher than it--ours is an incomplete and corrupted echo of his, and is suitable to created beings while his is that of the Creator. But they are not simply different moralities altogether. for example, we are commanded not to murder--not to kill people except under certain exceptional circumstances (self-defense, defense of others, just war--there are arguments about exactly which exceptions are legitimate, but it seems to me that virtually everyone agrees there ARE exceptions. God too is barred (bars himself) from wanton killing; but the exceptions open to him are rather more extensive than ours, as his wisdom and knowledge are perfect, his motives absolutely pure, and we are his creation. Still, he cannot/may not come down to the city square and just start randomly zapping people for no reason. It's against his nature to do so--against his morality.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
And now for a positive statement of my own position. God is moral, certainly. This moral code is not something imposed from an outside entity upon him, yes, I agree to that. Rather, God's morality is an expression of who God is--it IS his nature, "I am who I am." As God's nature does not change, neither does morality, regardless of how many universes he creates. Betrayal will always be evil, benefiting one's fellow creature will always be good. Even if the particular shape that takes in a faraway universe is a strange-looking one, the principle will always be the same.

It is no check on God's freedom to say that he must be moral or must be consistent--rather, that is simply to say that God must be God. It is to say that A = A, that God is himself, that we are in the land of sense and not of nonsense when we consider him.

It is no check on my freedom to say that LC is LC, that whatever LC does, that is an LC thing, and that LC is incapable of doing things that LC does not do. That is simply to speak sense--to state a tautology, to agree that a thing is itself. To be truly oneself is not slavery, for slavery is imposed from the outside. Rather, it is true freedom.
 
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Saysay:
quote:
I'm not sure most people should really be putting themselves on the same level as Biblical characters and concluding that just because G-d may have commanded the founders of a religion to do something G-d would command a similar thing today.


Would this illuminate the present social needs among certain Christians to oppress women, to denigrate and attack gays, to oppress blacks, or, in the US, to continue to do human sacrifice in the form of "legal" executions, based on OT thinking? None of those are encouraged in the NT.
Hard to say. I've never met a Christian with a need to oppress women, denigrate and attack gays, oppress women, or perform human sacrifice. I've met some ignorant folks who have no idea how their words and actions are going to be interpreted outside their region (and I've been one of them myself), but I'm not convinced that's the same thing.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

It's worth noting that Isaac's story is among other things the font of the idea that human sacrifice is Just.Plain.Wrong.Period. and not something that should ever be done, not something that the true God wants or asks. Abraham was in a different spot than we are--he was before the Isaac story, still getting to know just what this YHWH character is like. We come way after and have the benefit of his experience.

Some web page I bumped into said Abraham was surrounded by child sacrifice cultures. If sacrificing a child was normal, he may have suspected he was supposed to do that. So God gives a culturally expected command - not a welcome one but one Abraham wouldn't question because everyone does it. And God uses the expectation to teach a new lesson (as Lamb Chopped says) - NO child sacrifice!

And yet Jeremiah indicates the tribe didn't catch on. [Frown]

What else are we assuming God approves because it's culturally expected, but it's actually opposed to God's values?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
So God gives a culturally expected command - not a welcome one but one Abraham wouldn't question because everyone does it. And God uses the expectation to teach a new lesson (as Lamb Chopped says) - NO child sacrifice!

I think that's exactly right.

The question is HOW He gave Abraham this expected command.

Did He Himself really talk? Or did He allow some spirit to call himself God and issue the same commands that similar spirits were issuing to Abraham's contemporaries?
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
What else are we assuming God approves because it's culturally expected, but it's actually opposed to God's values?

Great question.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The question is HOW He gave Abraham this expected command.

Did He Himself really talk? Or did He allow some spirit to call himself God and issue the same commands that similar spirits were issuing to Abraham's contemporaries?

At a healing group conference of mainliners (Order of St Luke the Physician) several decades ago a psychiatric nurse mentioned in her talk that God speaks to you internally, in your mind, which is why we need to really get some guidance is it God or just my own imagination and "If you hear an external voice you are psychotic."

At that point several people politely but firmly corrected her saying they had heard God's voice externally, and others pointed out it happens in the Bible, to the child Samuel for example. (I admired the courage of those willing to say it happened to them in spite of the nurse having already labeled any such person psychotic). The nurse immediately backed off, and then went on with the rest of her talk.

Anyway, not sure if y'all are concerned about whether God ever (even if rarely) speaks to people in a movement of wave lengths picked up by the ear, or only into the mind (which way did God speak to Moses? To Saul a few days before he was Paul?).

Or is the question: does God sometimes communicate directly with people or does God delegate that to angels to do? (We are told God sometimes delegates the role of communication - angel telling Mary she'll be pregnant, angel in dream guiding Joseph to marry her, angels at the empty tomb). I've wondered when people see a being of light (one example, in some Near Death Experiences) and say "it was an angel" or "it was Jesus" do our brains interpret according to expectation, or are different people seeing different beings?

Maybe (as to all the questions) some of both?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
At that point several people politely but firmly corrected her saying they had heard God's voice externally, and others pointed out it happens in the Bible, to the child Samuel for example. (I admired the courage of those willing to say it happened to them in spite of the nurse having already labeled any such person psychotic). The nurse immediately backed off, and then went on with the rest of her talk.

Great story! The "psychotic" label is an interesting one. Certainly Christians don't regard the biblical characters as psychotic. But I would think that most people would agree that it isn't a good sign if people are hearing voices.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Anyway, not sure if y'all are concerned about whether God ever (even if rarely) speaks to people in a movement of wave lengths picked up by the ear, or only into the mind (which way did God speak to Moses? To Saul a few days before he was Paul?).

I would say the biblical voices are not a movement of wave lengths picked up by the ear. They are always spiritual in nature, even though they sound like a normal voice to the one hearing them. The same is true of the angels that are seen by biblical characters. They would generally not be seen by others because they are spiritual.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Or is the question: does God sometimes communicate directly with people or does God delegate that to angels to do?

When God speaks in the Bible it is through what is called "the Angel of the Lord." This term is used interchangeably with "God" and various other terms.

In any case, no one can hear God speak directly. His speech is always through some medium, such as an angel who He fills with His spirit. This is why it is such a miracle that Jesus is God's direct and immediate presence with us. Before Him no one had seen God at any time.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
There's the additional problem that quite normal, sane people may and do hear voices that sound external and have nothing to do with God. For example, plenty of people have heard someone calling their name (and yet there's nobody there, which is unsettling when you realize it). People who are grieving often hear the voice of the person who died--not necessarily speaking to them or giving any message, it's apparently just an auditory hallucination. Like hearing your dead grandmother singing in the kitchen, and then you suddenly realize she's gone. Or swearing that you just heard your dead cat meow.

I think it was last week I heard my husband's voice and thought to myself, now how can that be, when he's 50 miles away?

So these kinds of experiences also muck up the question, as they are very common and neither divine nor signs of mental illness.

[ 07. August 2014, 01:24: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
it's apparently just an auditory hallucination.

I wouldn't put it down to hallucination, myself. [Smile] Indeed, even when the person is alive there are things that can happen, I believe.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I'm pretty sure that's what Dr. Oliver Sacks calls it in his book Hallucination. And yes, he makes the point that these things are very common, need not involve the dead, and do not point to mental illness. They're just weird things that happen.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm pretty sure that's what Dr. Oliver Sacks calls it in his book Hallucination. And yes, he makes the point that these things are very common, need not involve the dead, and do not point to mental illness. They're just weird things that happen.

But how does Sacks distinguish between hallucinations and actual paranormal experience?
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
(Not to mention, of course, that perhaps neurological things may make us more open to real metaphysical perceptions, like using peyote for a vision quest or the like.)
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
God also does not create any evil.

Who created the micro-organisms that cause disorders such as rabies, malaria, leprosy, ebola virus, AIDS, syphilis and cholera?

If we say Satan made them, we are faced with the problem of dualism, ie rival creators.

If we say God created them for the greater good of punishing sin, then why is healing practically always portrayed positively (in fact, a gift from God) in the Bible?

If we say that they were originally benign organisms which became malignant after the Fall, then who else but God conceived and implemented that change?

None of the above imo.

God created the conditions for total freedom, so that we can have total freedom to choose. We could not love Him without that and He did all this for Love imo.

What is the connection between God's creating horrible diseases and a. total freedom b.motivating human beings to love God?
quote:
Horrible those bacteria and viruses are to us, they are necessary to a system which works the way it does - freedom to evolve.
I am neither a doctor nor a scientist.

Please explain why these particular micro-organisms are necessary.

Does this mean that if a programme were developed which could eliminate all or any of them, we would be ill-advised to implement it?
 
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm pretty sure that's what Dr. Oliver Sacks calls it in his book Hallucination. And yes, he makes the point that these things are very common, need not involve the dead, and do not point to mental illness. They're just weird things that happen.

If you hold up your hand in a pitch dark room in front of your face you will see something even though there is no light to bounce off your retina. The reason being, AIUI, that when your mind expects to be perceiving something and nothing is there it will provide the stimulus even though none actually exists. I suspect that the same is true of auditory hallucination. If you have heard your late wife's voice, say, for fifty years its understandable that your mind will provide it when your actual wife falls silent for the last time.

Personally, I think the most sensible thing to do is to assess visions and voices and whatnot by their content. Most of them are harmless; a few are benign and a few are positively harmful. We are not Abraham for whom this whole faith business is terra incognita. We have the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel. If you hear the voice of St. Mildred of Chiswick and it makes you a better person then good for you. If she tells you to go round killing people then we have just the secure facility you need. I suspect that in the majority of cases the neurologists have an adequate explanation for both phenomena but AIUI God isn't fussy and can use the misfiring of our synapses if He feels so moved.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
God created the conditions for total freedom, so that we can have total freedom to choose. We could not love Him without that and He did all this for Love imo.

What is the connection between God's creating horrible diseases and a. total freedom b.motivating human beings to love God?
The conditions for total freedom involve a stable physical world governed by laws that are constant and unchanging.

This stability necessarily means that these laws will sometimes conflict with our physical comfort and safety. For example, gravity can be enormously hurtful, but the alternative of selective gravity would not necessarily be better.

This same constancy in the biological realm necessarily allows for diseases to develop. Otherwise the laws of adaptation and survival would need to be similarly selective.

Freedom can exist only within this kind of stable environment. Imagine the alternative of a physical world that varied on a case-by-case basis. A world in which good people could not stub their toes, and only the evil attracted mosquitoes.

Therefore diseases exist because God loves us, and this stability exists so that we can freely love Him.

[ 07. August 2014, 10:07: Message edited by: Freddy ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

This same constancy in the biological realm necessarily allows for diseases to develop. Otherwise the laws of adaptation and survival would need to be similarly selective.


On the other hand, it is inconceivable that these diseases would be found in an unfallen world (whether you understand the Fall literally and historically, or theologically), which means that they exist because of a decision by God to create them directly or indirectly in this world.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

This same constancy in the biological realm necessarily allows for diseases to develop. Otherwise the laws of adaptation and survival would need to be similarly selective.


On the other hand, it is inconceivable that these diseases would be found in an unfallen world (whether you understand the Fall literally and historically, or theologically), which means that they exist because of a decision by God to create them directly or indirectly in this world.
I think the 'fall' is about humans, not the whole of creation. The whole of creation works well. It works, like I said, in order to give us total freedom.

Our 'fall' is a failure to become rather than a regression from some kind of perfect state. We fail to become the best people we can be - that is our 'fall', in my view.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm pretty sure that's what Dr. Oliver Sacks calls it in his book Hallucination. And yes, he makes the point that these things are very common, need not involve the dead, and do not point to mental illness. They're just weird things that happen.

But how does Sacks distinguish between hallucinations and actual paranormal experience?
He doesn't. He's either an agnostic or an atheist, as I recall, and does not appear to grant the existence of a supernatural/ paranormal world.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

This same constancy in the biological realm necessarily allows for diseases to develop. Otherwise the laws of adaptation and survival would need to be similarly selective.


On the other hand, it is inconceivable that these diseases would be found in an unfallen world (whether you understand the Fall literally and historically, or theologically), which means that they exist because of a decision by God to create them directly or indirectly in this world.
Yes, that's a twist in what I said before.

I agree that if it were not for the fall these diseases would not exist. But the mechanism is not therefore that God created them. Rather, they are an aspect of evil itself.

The way it works is that a hidden part of the evolutionary process is a constant influence from the spiritual world. Once evil was introduced into the system, it influences the way that things change in this world. When evil is stronger it has more influence, and when it is weaker it has less influence.

There are so many apparently random variables in the origin of species and the development of organisms, including diseases, that the influence of what is spiritual cannot be noticed. But it is there, like a hidden current moving things in directions that are good or bad - depending on the individual free choices of all of humanity.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
AIUI God isn't fussy and can use the misfiring of our synapses if He feels so moved.

Like this.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The way it works is that a hidden part of the evolutionary process is a constant influence from the spiritual world. Once evil was introduced into the system, it influences the way that things change in this world. When evil is stronger it has more influence, and when it is weaker it has less influence.

There are so many apparently random variables in the origin of species and the development of organisms, including diseases, that the influence of what is spiritual cannot be noticed. But it is there, like a hidden current moving things in directions that are good or bad - depending on the individual free choices of all of humanity.

Wait, if it can't be noticed, how did you notice it?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Wait, if it can't be noticed, how did you notice it?

It's a conundrum.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
AIUI God isn't fussy and can use the misfiring of our synapses if He feels so moved.

Like this.
Amen to that. [Smile] (Of course, whether that means they are not meant to be mere misfirings is more of an ontological question then... [Biased] )

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm pretty sure that's what Dr. Oliver Sacks calls it in his book Hallucination. And yes, he makes the point that these things are very common, need not involve the dead, and do not point to mental illness. They're just weird things that happen.

But how does Sacks distinguish between hallucinations and actual paranormal experience?
He doesn't. He's either an agnostic or an atheist, as I recall, and does not appear to grant the existence of a supernatural/ paranormal world.
Then honestly I think when he says that such-and-such is "only" an hallucination he's speaking less as an expert in neuroscience and more as an amateur metaphysician. (See also Richard Dawkins re biology vs. theology.)

Re bacteria and such, as I understand the Fall, the processes which mean that we and the physical world are subject to death and predation and the like would also apply there. What they are meant to be like in an unfallen world will probably be much clearer in the New Creation, in which I suppose not only will the lion lie down with the lamb but the ebola will lie down with, er... whatever it will lie down with, and all will be well, etc. [Smile]

(We used to have a board called "Mysteries" about paranormal stuff but alas it faded away...)

[ 07. August 2014, 23:30: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
(Not to mention of course that some "mere" hallucinations with audio/visual components need not be the same thing as all experiences with non-corporeal entities (with or without audio/visual components) in the first place.)
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
IMHO he's speaking purely from a naturalist(-ic?) point of view. He's not engaging the question of whether anything exists beyond the medical and observable data. Maybe so, maybe no. What he wants to know is what is going on in the brain and nervous system, and how does that translate into experience (and vice versa).

That's probably why it didn't bother me to read his stuff. He's not drawing any sort of metaphysical conclusions at all, he's just saying, "Look, when we do this, THAT happens, isn't that cool?"

I suspect if he had been able, he would have loved to get an EEG of Paul during the Damascus experience. Which would certainly have been very interesting, medically speaking, though it would tell us nothing about the spiritual stuff involved.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:


I agree that if it were not for the fall these diseases would not exist. But the mechanism is not therefore that God created them. Rather, they are an aspect of evil itself.

The way it works is that a hidden part of the evolutionary process is a constant influence from the spiritual world. Once evil was introduced into the system, it influences the way that things change in this world.

You appear to be implying that there are evolutionary "influences", or tendencies, or laws which are somehow autonomous, ie beyond God's control.

The orthodox view of God's omnipotence and omniscience is surely that if there is a law in the universe which dictates that evil, or the Fall, produces things like rabies, ebola etc, then God has decreed that law, and therefore he has (indirectly, if you like) created those malign micro-organisms.

I am aware that that the existence of repulsive creepy-crawlies (sorry about the technical terminology) is merely a sub-section of the whole theodicy issue which is raised by the OP, and is ultimately insoluble, but possibly concentrating on something as limited, concrete and specific is a way of pushing our understanding just a little bit further.

Who am I kidding? - I'm just angry that God causes/permits horrible diseases and I want to vent!

[ 08. August 2014, 06:00: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You appear to be implying that there are evolutionary "influences", or tendencies, or laws which are somehow autonomous, ie beyond God's control.

Yes, but God has voluntarily given up this control. He could take it back, but doesn't. This because freedom is so essential to Love.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
and is ultimately insoluble

How is it insoluble? To me it seems perfectly soluble. Due to sin the world is broken. This is one aspect of it. That brokenness is horrible, yes, and to be horrified and repelled and saddened by that is a correct perception of it. But God's love goes so far beyond that bad stuff (the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time) that He is bringing healing and redemption to this broken world to a degree we cannot imagine.

I'm not pretending that this is easy to accept, especially when one is hurting, but it doesn't seem intellectually hard to accept to me. But I have my own massive blind spots (which I also trust will be repaired someday) so it probably balances out.

quote:
Who am I kidding? - I'm just angry that God causes/permits horrible diseases and I want to vent!
That I can understand too. *HUG* for what it is worth.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
To me it seems perfectly soluble.

Thanks for the hug, but do you really, seriously believe that the mystery of suffering is "perfectly soluble"?

If orthodox Christianity is correct, then most of humanity is going to suffer forever in hell.

If you believe in annihilationism, then a vast proportion of humanity is going to cease to exist after having been around just long enough to experience a lifetime of hunger, toil, disease and worse.

If you believe in universalism, what was the point of the (sometimes hideous and unspeakable) temporal and earthly agony before the eternal bliss?

I believe by faith that there are answers to these questions, but I don't believe that they are of the simplicity or obviousness evoked by the word "perfectly".

My daughter once did a unit in a Scripture Studies course on The Question of Suffering.

When asked by a friend whether she now knew the answer to the Question, she replied "No", at which a bright young man listening to the conversation announced, "I do!".

She pointedly refused to ask him to elaborate, and for years he was a standing joke in our family as The Boy Who Knew The Answer To The Question Of Suffering.

[ 08. August 2014, 09:47: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You appear to be implying that there are evolutionary "influences", or tendencies, or laws which are somehow autonomous, ie beyond God's control.

Yes, but God has voluntarily given up this control. He could take it back, but doesn't. This because freedom is so essential to Love.
That's right. Nor are they actually beyond God's control. He continually limits them. but He allows them for the sake of the greater good that is only possible with freedom.

The great thing is that it will all change as humanity comes to understand and cooperate with God - and freely return the love that He freely gives.

But yes it is true that none of this seems right when we are afflicted by the effects of evil. [Disappointed]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
To me it seems perfectly soluble.

Thanks for the hug, but do you really, seriously believe that the mystery of suffering is "perfectly soluble"?
Intellectually, yes. Not emotionally. World meant to be perfect; world broken; broken = bad things; some values of bad = deeply horrific; God loves world; God does heap big juju to fix world; heap big juju involves God taking bad things onto Himself; God fixes world. That doesn't mean that our experience--or His--of those bad/horrific things is, well, not bad or horrific. To me this makes perfect intellectual sense--it's just horrible to experience horrible things (er, kind of by definition).

quote:
If orthodox Christianity is correct, then most of humanity is going to suffer forever in hell.
If I could be a Universalist I would be. But I don't believe it is supported by what I understand of my faith--nor, honestly, by the nature of free will. If we can reject God then... well, then we can do it. I believe He makes every effort beyond our wildest imaginings to get everyone in, even those who have never heard of Him, but if we have free will then it stands to reason that at least some people will give Him their permanent "no." I find that baffling (on an intellectual level) but then I look at myself when I'm being nasty and realize how capable I am myself of clinging to my own pride and nastiness. (And in a certain sense I think evil is itself irrational--it is the thing which should not be, the only thing which does not fit, a wrong turning of the will (not of intellect or even emotion), etc.)

quote:
If you believe in universalism, what was the point of the (sometimes hideous and unspeakable) temporal and earthly agony before the eternal bliss?
I don't believe in universalism (and if I am wrong in that I will be positively elated in the world to come!!), but even if I did... I genuinely don't understand the question here. As I understand it, the brokenness doesn't have a "point" in itself--that's part of what makes it broken. But God can still bring good out of that brokenness in various ways, just as He managed to take death itself and use it to redeem the world through Christ.

quote:
I believe by faith that there are answers to these questions, but I don't believe that they are of the simplicity or obviousness evoked by the word "perfectly".
Don't get me wrong, I don't at all want to... ah... come across in that way. I do think this is actually simple (see above) but I don't think it's easy to take emotionally especially when something horrid is going on. There are things in the world going on daily that I can't dwell on for too long (see pictures of, read detailed descriptions of, etc.) or they will emotionally (but not intellectually) freak me out.

quote:
She pointedly refused to ask him to elaborate, and for years he was a standing joke in our family as The Boy Who Knew The Answer To The Question Of Suffering.
[Overused] I like that. [Smile]

(I personally recommend Lewis' The Problem of Pain but you may have already read it and not found it helpful.)
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
To me it seems perfectly soluble.

Thanks for the hug, but do you really, seriously believe that the mystery of suffering is "perfectly soluble"?
I agree with ChastMastr. The reason that it is "perfectly" soluble is that the entire system is brilliantly designed so that to extent that we cooperate with God - whether individually or collectively - the suffering goes away.

It is like the difference between floundering in the water and swimming. When we flounder everything is against us and life stinks. But when we swim, the exact same conditions come together magically and seem to do our bidding.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If orthodox Christianity is correct, then most of humanity is going to suffer forever in hell.

How can this be meaningful without an understanding of what hell is? The biblical descriptions are clearly metaphoric.

If we understand that unhappiness is inherent in evil (as opposed to divine retribution), I think the concept of hell makes more sense.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I, ah... think I should say that my position is not identical to Freddy's here. (Sorry, Freddy!)

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The reason that it is "perfectly" soluble is that the entire system is brilliantly designed so that to extent that we cooperate with God - whether individually or collectively - the suffering goes away.

Um... no, I don't really believe this, sorry... [Hot and Hormonal]

quote:
It is like the difference between floundering in the water and swimming. When we flounder everything is against us and life stinks. But when we swim, the exact same conditions come together magically and seem to do our bidding.
I really don't believe this at all. [Hot and Hormonal]

quote:
If we understand that unhappiness is inherent in evil (as opposed to divine retribution), I think the concept of hell makes more sense.
I think this is where we do have some overlapping in our beliefs; my own understanding of Hell (which might not be yours) is that it may be being immersed in God's Love but eternally (continuously) rejecting it, so that what should be joyful and wonderful is experienced as excruciatingly painful.

But the other stuff above? I'm terribly sorry, but no, we're really not on the same page there.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I, ah... think I should say that my position is not identical to Freddy's here. (Sorry, Freddy!)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your explanation was the same as mine. I only meant that I agree with what you said.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Leaving aside the creepy crawlies (and I find the entities involved in schistosomiasis a near thing to demonic in their lifestyle), God apparently allows the freewill of some human beings (or apparently human beings) to completely eradicate the free will of many other human beings without interference in any way.

As in the way that the will of some victims is modified and controlled so that they accept the malicious acts wreaked on them as their due.

So the free will of vicious psychopaths is worth more than the free will of ordinary nice people who want to get on with their lives in a peaceful way and in accord with God's ideas?

[ 08. August 2014, 11:15: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:


(I personally recommend Lewis' The Problem of Pain but you may have already read it and not found it helpful.)

It is undoubtedly a thoughtful and stimulating book ("Lay down this book and reflect for five minutes on the fact that all the great religions were long preached, and long practised, in a world without chloroform"), and Lewis had earned the right to write it (eg loss of his mother to abdominal cancer; brutal schools; horrors of the Western Front), but I think he later wondered whether it was a bit slick, and certainly a number of academics and theologians thought he had oversimplified the issues.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Leaving aside the creepy crawlies (and I find the entities involved in schistosomiasis a near thing to demonic in their lifestyle)

Ah, forgot about them--not the creepy crawlies, but the demonic--since I believe it is not only humans who have abused our free will...

quote:
...God apparently allows the freewill of some human beings (or apparently human beings) to completely eradicate the free will of many other human beings without interference in any way.

As in the way that the will of some victims is modified and controlled so that they accept the malicious acts wreaked on them as their due.

This is indeed horrible, but I don't quite think that their free will in the sense meant here--on a spiritual level--is actually eradicated. I don't even believe the lobotomized lose their free will in that sense.

quote:
So the free will of vicious psychopaths is worth more than the free will of ordinary nice people who want to get on with their lives in a peaceful way and in accord with God's ideas?
Not more than, but equal to, yes. And of course--again, as I understand Christian theology--apart from God's grace, on a very deep level, none of us are "ordinary nice people." We all need salvation, the "nice people" and the psychopaths.

I think that re Lewis it may be "slick" in terms of not focusing on the emotional aspect as much as, say, his personal experiences in A Grief Observed, but on the intellectual side I have no problems with it.

I need to re-read my Lewis. It's been too long...
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
There is no point. It's contingent. 'So.'. There is obviously no alternative.

And how can a psychopath or a nice person have free will?
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
I found Lewis's book unhelpful, shallow.

But back to voices, as I understand it the psychotic person who hears voices hears them often (and often multiple speakers), even constantly -- the agony is the voices won't shut up. You finally do what they tell you in the hope that will get them to shut up and give you peace. God (or God's angel) tends to say something once, in one voice (unless it's a choir singing to shepherds) or just often enough to catch your attention. That's hugely different from the harassment voice sufferers experience.

I ponder whether those who hear voices are missing some of the usual shield between us and spirits. I once asked a friend who worked in a schizophrenic treatment center - we hear about bad voices, are there good voices? "Oh yes!" Then he talked about a specific person who refers to his demons and his angels. The demons say terrible things that make you cringe and shudder in pain just hearing what they say, the angels say things so beautiful you cry from the overwhelming beauty of what they say.

Which doesn't answer my question about whether the voices are spirits rather than inventions of the mind, but is the answer I would expect if my pondered idea were true.

People report a mystical experience of overwhelming love, the difference being that's one time, or rarely repeated. If it were constant you couldn't do anything of real life but cry from the beauty.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
But back to voices, as I understand it the psychotic person who hears voices hears them often (and often multiple speakers), even constantly -- the agony is the voices won't shut up. You finally do what they tell you in the hope that will get them to shut up and give you peace. God (or God's angel) tends to say something once, in one voice (unless it's a choir singing to shepherds) or just often enough to catch your attention. That's hugely different from the harassment voice sufferers experience.

That's how I understand it as well.

There are some interesting studies about this phenomenon, such as this one by a psychologist at Mendocino State Hospital in California:

Wilson Van Dusen "The Presence of Spirits in Madness"

This study describes patients reporting exactly what you said - that most of the voices incessantly pestered and abused them, but that a few were very different.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
Potentially relevant:

quote:
People suffering from schizophrenia may hear "voices" – auditory hallucinations – differently depending on their cultural context, according to new Stanford research.

In the United States, the voices are harsher, and in Africa and India, more benign, said Tanya Luhrmann, a Stanford professor of anthropology and first author of the article in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The experience of hearing voices is complex and varies from person to person, according to Luhrmann. The new research suggests that the voice-hearing experiences are influenced by one's particular social and cultural environment – and this may have consequences for treatment.

Of course, culturally-dependent reactions to hearing voices tends to argue against those voices being external spirits, unless we posit that spirits are also bound by local norms and customs.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Of course, culturally-dependent reactions to hearing voices tends to argue against those voices being external spirits, unless we posit that spirits are also bound by local norms and customs.

They needn't mutually exclusive--I don't believe that all experiences of voices/visions/etc. are either genuinely paranormal or not--I'm sure it's a mixture, with some genuine perception, some illusions, perhaps even a combination of things in some cases, not to mention one's own interpretation of such things--and indeed cultural context may predispose someone to a better or worse relationship with such things. Not to mention that there are different spirits! In the west I think we're more paranoid about "spooky" or "uncanny" things as well--and sometimes play with things in ways that aren't healthy either (I will not experiment with a Ouija board, myself).
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Of course, culturally-dependent reactions to hearing voices tends to argue against those voices being external spirits, unless we posit that spirits are also bound by local norms and customs.

That is really fascinating.

In the Swedenborgian system the spirits that surround a person are ones that are similar to the person. So Africans would be surrounded by African spirits and Americans by American spirits - that is, by Americans who are now spirits.

This would explain the cultural differences.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
...unless we posit that spirits are also bound by local norms and customs.

In the Swedenborgian system the spirits that surround a person are ones that are similar to the person. So Africans would be surrounded by African spirits and Americans by American spirits - that is, by Americans who are now spirits.

This would explain the cultural differences.

And/or spirits "talk" to us in the "language" we speak. (Using the concepts of talk and language broadly.) Consider visions of Mary - not uncommon among Catholic vision-receivers, extremely rare for Protestants, Mary as communicator to us is not the language of most protestants. Dreams/visions of angels often include wings for those who expect wings, they would struggle to recognize "it was an angel visited me" without the wings.

Someone once told me (true? untrue?) the British knew Joan of Arc was not hearing from God because God speaks English and she heard God in French - of course God or any other spirits speak the language of the person communicated to! Unless the purpose of the communication is to broaden that person's awareness about communication itself or God's endorsement of other cultures.

[code]

[ 12. August 2014, 16:17: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Or without words at all... depending, I suppose, on the being in question and the context.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
In the Swedenborgian system the spirits that surround a person are ones that are similar to the person. So Africans would be surrounded by African spirits and Americans by American spirits - that is, by Americans who are now spirits.

This would explain the cultural differences.

Whoops, double post - different thought and not sure if it fits at all in Swedenborg theology, but "spirits similar to the person" fits also a theory I've heard often sort of assumed and warned about but not deeply theologized about - the idea that focusing on evil thoughts attracts evil spirits who enjoy that kind of thinking, focusing on good & holy, things attracts good spirits who like hanging around that environment and repels evil spirits.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
different thought and not sure if it fits at all in Swedenborg theology, but "spirits similar to the person" fits also a theory I've heard often sort of assumed and warned about but not deeply theologized about - the idea that focusing on evil thoughts attracts evil spirits who enjoy that kind of thinking, focusing on good & holy, things attracts good spirits who like hanging around that environment and repels evil spirits.

That fits exactly with Swedenborgian theology - and I think it is a standard Christian understanding.

In spiritual terms, like attracts like. This is one of the basic characteristics of the spiritual world, and is what creates the difference between heaven and hell. In the spiritual world people automatically congregate with like-minded individuals, and are actually unable to be with those whose basic interests are discordant with their own. The result is that the good are protected from the evil.

But I would emphasize that in this system spirits are as unaware of their connection with people in this world as we are of them. Various things, however, can break down this normal barrier, such as drugs, occult practices, and mental illness. This can be hugely problematic.
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
This just in: "Hallucinatory voices shaped by local Culture" according to a Stanford researcher.

The key finding seems to be that Americans who hear voices feel that those voices are harsh and threatening, while the Africans and Indians who were questioned found that the voices could be benign or playful.

This may be something to do with one's attitudes to the people around one, in that more Westerners find themselves to be isolated and anxious about "them", IMO. Our culture has demanded that we be more independent of each other, while Africans are still accustomed to being part of their group or tribe
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
No disrespect meant. But this last exchange made me think about the scientific approach to such things.
(I'm teaching the scientific method in school, we are starting the school year)
Since learning anything new about the world is very hard, if you investigate something and believe you found a great result. The person most skeptical about it should be you. Especially if you like your result.
So if you like the idea that we are surrounded by spirits that interact with us, and you want to confirm it. You should look for alternate explanations first and if you fully account for those your explanation has a better chance of corresponding to reality.
People here have mentioned that auditory Hallucinations are commonly observed in non Psychotic patients. That not everybody has experienced them but many sane people have.
And it was mentioned that "spirits" tend to communicate in ways consistent with the local culture.
This makes it very likely that a materialist explanation of events that are claimed as the voices of spirits is the most likely since only supposes the existence of known things, cultures and brains.
A supernatural explanation in this case seems to be superfluous and in need of lots of further evidence. Information that would imply "spirits have our same culture" is better explained by we have our same culture.

If sane people can have auditory hallucinations
could fervent prayer lead to those? What about trance states? Could self induced trance states explain this?
Only if you can fully discount explanations like this is there room for the supernatural in this case.
Of course this is not a proof that we are not surrounded by highly interactive spirits.
But I cannot prove there is not a teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars either.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
But if your metaphysics already accepts that we are indeed surrounded by spirits and related beings, then that really changes the issue. This involves things that the sciences can't do anything with at all.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
This makes it very likely that a materialist explanation of events that are claimed as the voices of spirits is the most likely since only supposes the existence of known things, cultures and brains.

As ChastMastr noted, however, if your metaphysics already accepts the reality of spirits and a spiritual world then this changes things considerably. And since these are biblical phenomena as well, the existence of spirits has long been accepted in Christianity.

The real issue just comes when we try to explain any particular individual's symptoms or experiences as definitely spiritual, when it may just as well be purely imaginary.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
To put some of it another way--I was rushing in my last post...

quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:

Of course this is not a proof that we are not surrounded by highly interactive spirits.
But I cannot prove there is not a teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars either.

I think a key difference here is that the vast majority of the human race going back through all of known history, including belief systems like the Judeo-Christian ones that people now, in theory, accept with good reason, has believed in spirits of various kinds, with nary an orbiting teapot in sight. That's evidence I would not discount, especially perhaps in an era which is very willing to discount such things and throw the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater of actual superstition.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
This makes it very likely that a materialist explanation of events that are claimed as the voices of spirits is the most likely since only supposes the existence of known things, cultures and brains.

As ChastMastr noted, however, if your metaphysics already accepts the reality of spirits and a spiritual world then this changes things considerably. And since these are biblical phenomena as well, the existence of spirits has long been accepted in Christianity.

The real issue just comes when we try to explain any particular individual's symptoms or experiences as definitely spiritual, when it may just as well be purely imaginary.

Well if you already had a conclusion before you start to investigate you are not really investigating are you? Putting it another way, if you were trying to convince someone who does not start with your assumptions how would you go about it?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Well if you already had a conclusion before you start to investigate you are not really investigating are you? Putting it another way, if you were trying to convince someone who does not start with your assumptions how would you go about it?

These are the kinds of things that people either believe or not. I don't think that a person can be convinced if their beginning assumptions do not include the reality of what is spiritual.

On the other hand if someone believes in God then they necessarily believe in a spiritual reality that is not visible or tangible in a material sense.

I imagine that the best argument really has to do with the adequacy of the explanation. Materialistic explanations are based on things that no one can deny is true, because they can be demonstrated to the senses. The question is whether that is adequate or satisfactory, or whether there is more that might be known if there was a way of knowing it.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
To put some of it another way--I was rushing in my last post...

quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:

Of course this is not a proof that we are not surrounded by highly interactive spirits.
But I cannot prove there is not a teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars either.

I think a key difference here is that the vast majority of the human race going back through all of known history, including belief systems like the Judeo-Christian ones that people now, in theory, accept with good reason, has believed in spirits of various kinds, with nary an orbiting teapot in sight. That's evidence I would not discount, especially perhaps in an era which is very willing to discount such things and throw the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater of actual superstition.
My problem with this argument is that it lumps many completely different belief systems into one big lump. Are the Arab Jinn the same as the European fairies or the Japanese Yokai? What about the Orishas? Do all of these agree with the Bible? What about Vampires or Werewolves are they additional evidence for the same thing?
A lot of spirits in many world cultures are ancestral spirits. The spirits of recently deceased. Since when is Christian belief compatible with having the spirits of the dead wondering around? Aren't they supposed to be waiting for Judgment day or already in Heaven or Hell? Chinese ancestor worship is supposed to be
evidence for a Christian world-view?
The great variety of "spirit beings" seems to me to fit very well with the great variety of world cultures. We humans are very good at creating culture.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
Classical science deals with the physical measurable repeatable parts of reality. If you believe in any god, or spirits, or even in ESP, there is more to reality than classical science admits. Why not investigate it?

I've had experiences for which the best explanation I can come up with is there exist non-physical (in any classical science sense) intelligent beings who occasionally interact with (or act on) us. Many people have at least once in their life a similar event, the most common being a "visit" from a recently deceased loved person. One can argue it's all mental insanity or hallucination or teenager pranks but that sounds more like a pre-judged "my world-view is right so your facts have to be fake" than science based conclusion.

Some otherwise respected people in many cultures claim occasional encounters with non-physical beings; I haven't yet heard of anyone in any culture having an experience that lead them to believe a teapot is orbiting the earth, so there's far less evidence for that than for non-physical beings, unexpectedly surprised humans being a kind of evidence even if not conclusive evidence.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Well if you already had a conclusion before you start to investigate you are not really investigating are you? Putting it another way, if you were trying to convince someone who does not start with your assumptions how would you go about it?

These are the kinds of things that people either believe or not. I don't think that a person can be convinced if their beginning assumptions do not include the reality of what is spiritual.

I think this is the center of our disagreement I like to start with as few assumptions as possible
when trying to decide if something is "real". Of course everyone has assumptions and biases they are often unaware of and I am not claiming any special abilities in avoiding those. This is why I tend to like the scientific method, because it tries as hard as possible to eliminate such bias.
And it has a long history of success behind it.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Classical science deals with the physical measurable repeatable parts of reality. If you believe in any god, or spirits, or even in ESP, there is more to reality than classical science admits. Why not investigate it?

There have been many studies of ESP none of which have resulted in any real evidence in favor of it.

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

I've had experiences for which the best explanation I can come up with is there exist non-physical (in any classical science sense) intelligent beings who occasionally interact with (or act on) us. Many people have at least once in their life a similar event, the most common being a "visit" from a recently deceased loved person. One can argue it's all mental insanity or hallucination or teenager pranks but that sounds more like a pre-judged "my world-view is right so your facts have to be fake" than science based conclusion.

I don't start with the assumption that any
talk of spirits interacting with humans "has" to be fake. I just don't see any evidence for it, there is a difference.
In what I posted before I quoted what had been mentioned before that you can have auditory hallucinations and NOT be insane. Our perceptions are notoriously unreliable. Ask any trial lawyer about how reliable eyewitness testimony really is. So personal testimonies are just not good enough. You need more that that. For every person you mention that has had these kinds of experiences I can find people who have never had any such experiences.


quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

Some otherwise respected people in many cultures claim occasional encounters with non-physical beings; I haven't yet heard of anyone in any culture having an experience that lead them to believe a teapot is orbiting the earth, so there's far less evidence for that than for non-physical beings, unexpectedly surprised humans being a kind of evidence even if not conclusive evidence.

That is also the same kind of evidence presented in favor of UFO's. And you yourself say its not conclusive. Extraordinary results need extraordinary evidence the burden of proof lies on those who make extraordinary claims.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
I like to start with as few assumptions as possible when trying to decide if something is "real". Of course everyone has assumptions and biases they are often unaware of and I am not claiming any special abilities in avoiding those. This is why I tend to like the scientific method, because it tries as hard as possible to eliminate such bias.

You're just trading one bias for another.

Science does not assume that physical reality is the only reality. Science only deals with what can be demonstrated, and has nothing to say about spiritual things.

So a scientific approach to spirits and their voices is not to deny their existence but to place them outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.

The real questions, then, are both metaphysical and epistemological. If a spiritual world full of spirits and angels exists, then how would we know about it?

Science is agnostic on these questions. Religion claims to know these things through Divine Revelation.

It is fine to deny that there is such a thing as a Divine and Divine revelation. But it isn't the scientific method that does the denying. Rather, the denial stems from our non-provable assumptions about what is real.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Nice post, Freddy. I would say that science does not set out to describe reality at all. Of course, you can argue that science does describe it, but that is not a scientific claim, but a philosophical one.

Also, the words 'real' and 'reality' are very fuzzy; I mean they are used to describe different things, for example, an overall sense of what is real (e.g. the physical universe), and also my own breathing now seems real enough.

So there is micro and macro versions of this. Some of the interesting stuff in Eastern religions consists of demolishing some of the macro stuff - thus, for example, 'there is neither world nor self', since 'world' is a conceptual construct.

Well, it is still real, but as a concept, which is, of course, very useful, instrumentally.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Science does not assume that physical reality is the only reality. Science only deals with what can be demonstrated, and has nothing to say about spiritual things.

So a scientific approach to spirits and their voices is not to deny their existence but to place them outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.

Isn't this just assuming your conclusions? If you start with the assumption that disembodied voices (or diseases, or eclipses, or whatever) are the product of spiritual entities beyond the power of human investigation that seems like advocating deliberate incuriosity and ignorance.
 
Posted by Bax (# 16572) on :
 
The theology of Rene Girard gives a startling clarity to the account of Abraham and Issac.

A link to "girardian reflections" on this passage are at

http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper_8a.htm

(Need to look under the Genesis passage as the site is lectionary based).

For me, this theology give a startling understanding of what Gods is like and how this Old Testament Account, which to first glance by "modern" eyes may seem hard to understand, is in fact one of several pivot points in the history of man's understanding of the One True God. How utterly different this God is form any other "god", A God who in the end become our human sacrifice, so that we become the "angry deity" demanding blood and God the innocent victim.

An extract from the above link:

"It was commonplace in the ancient world for a man to lead his son up a mountain to be sacrificed to his deity. It was extraordinary for a man to come down the mountain with his son still alive. Through that ancient story, Abraham’s descendants explained why they had changed their theory or model of God, and why they dared to be different from their neighbors who still practiced human sacrifice. It wasn’t too late to challenge widely held assumptions and change their theory of God!

But they still weren’t finished. Many generations after human sacrifice was left behind forever, prophets and poets arose among Abraham’s descendants who made the shocking claim that God doesn’t need animal sacrifices, either. They realized that God could never need anything from us, since God provides everything for us. Not only that, but they realized God isn’t the one who is angry and hostile and needs appeasement. We humans are the angry ones. Our hostile, bloodthirsty hearts are the ones that need to be changed"
 
Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
God: Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and sacrifice him on the mountain which I will show to you.

Abraham: I'm all over it.

____________________________________

If you hear a voice claiming to be God telling you to do something that seems wrong, or contradicts what you have been taught to be right, do you obey it? Why or why not?


I would probably defer the decision until I have examined the matter. What does God's voice sound like, anyway?
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

So a scientific approach to spirits and their voices is not to deny their existence but to place them outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.

But if someone is hearing voices in the real day to day world is that outside the scope of Science?
Neurologists and Psychiatrists should refrain from looking at this if the person claims it is from a god or spirits?
I believe the answer to that one is no, they should not refrain from studying this because it may upset someone's preconceptions.
Should we go back in time an call all mental illness demonic possession?

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

The real questions, then, are both metaphysical and epistemological. If a spiritual world full of spirits and angels exists, then how would we know about it?


If from the outset you eliminate science from your tool set that is a very hard question to answer.


And don't get me wrong I'm not claiming that science has all the answers and that it is 100% certain that there is nothing "Supernatural".
My claim is just this: If you claim that a given
example is evidence for the supernatural, carefully ruling out all other materialistic explanations first would be good methodology if you are trying to convince anyone else.
Most skeptics about this sort of thing would actually be interested if presented with a study in which it was very clear that materialist explanations were aggressively pursued and found wanting. And a lot less interested if the authors rule them out a priori.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
My problem with this argument is that it lumps many completely different belief systems into one big lump. Are the Arab Jinn the same as the European fairies or the Japanese Yokai?

I suspect that the European fairies and the Japanese yokai are the same "sort of thing"; I am not sure about the jinn, though possibly.

quote:
What about the Orishas? Do all of these agree with the Bible?
I've never studied Orishas. And what does it have to do with agreeing with the Bible? We're told our own story there as humans, with glimpses of angels and demons, but not a systematic catalogue of everything else in Creation.

quote:
What about Vampires or Werewolves are they additional evidence for the same thing?
Possibly in some cases, possibly not. I should mention that there is a difference between thinking that there is evidence for "weird things" in legends and claimed experiences throughout history, and anything from Hollywood or novels. As Lewis points out, the usual notion of tiny fairies is more of a literary invention, and often they were considered terrifying and dangerous.

quote:

A lot of spirits in many world cultures are ancestral spirits. The spirits of recently deceased. Since when is Christian belief compatible with having the spirits of the dead wondering around?

Since... the beginning of the faith? You know, when Jesus is walking on the water and the disciples think it's a ghost? When Jesus is resurrected and He has to show them He's not a ghost and eats fish? The existence of ghosts seems to be assumed.

quote:
Aren't they supposed to be waiting for Judgment day or already in Heaven or Hell?
Since when? You're leaving out Purgatory as well.

quote:
Chinese ancestor worship is supposed to be
evidence for a Christian world-view?

We're not allowed to worship them; that doesn't mean they don't exist. And, as with the saints, we can even revere them in appropriate ways.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Should we go back in time an call all mental illness demonic possession?

No, only some of them. I find the approach where we go back and do the reverse, in which Jesus therefore apparently cast a case of schizophrenia into a herd of pigs, much harder to believe.


quote:
If from the outset you eliminate science from your tool set that is a very hard question to answer.
I'm the same way but with theology and tradition, including (apart from where Christianity specifically claims the opposite--for example, I don't believe in human reincarnation, as we are told that it is appointed unto man once to die; otherwise I might be open to it) the wider human traditions down through history.

quote:

...if you are trying to convince anyone else.

That might be the key. If people are already not open to such things, they may need their own experiences (and many have had them) before they become open to it.

We do, after all, in terms of spiritual things (not necessarily paranormal ones), have claims that some cannot perceive or understand things unless they are open to them--let he who has ears, let him hear; if they do not accept Moses and the prophets then they will not believe even if someone rises from the dead; and so on.

And of course perhaps for some, it might be just as well not to encounter ghosts and weird things. It might wind up a temptation to obsession, or to idolatry, or to certain forbidden occult things. Certainly in my own case I have to be careful how I deal with such matters.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
I would probably defer the decision until I have examined the matter. What does God's voice sound like, anyway?

My own perceived paranormal experiences (not the same thing as spiritual, in my view, by the way) have generally not been audial or visual at all. Maybe the occasional dream. I've envied people who get to actually see auras and the like. If I try to translate/describe the... perceptions I've had involving some things, it's not easy to put them into words any more than it is to explain sounds in terms of pictures.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
I like to start with as few assumptions as possible
when trying to decide if something is "real". Of course everyone has assumptions and biases they are often unaware of and I am not claiming any special abilities in avoiding those. This is why I tend to like the scientific method, because it tries as hard as possible to eliminate such bias.
And it has a long history of success behind it.

To me, actually, throwing out basically all of human tradition is a much more massive assumption.

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

Science does not assume that physical reality is the only reality. Science only deals with what can be demonstrated, and has nothing to say about spiritual things.

So a scientific approach to spirits and their voices is not to deny their existence but to place them outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.

The real questions, then, are both metaphysical and epistemological. If a spiritual world full of spirits and angels exists, then how would we know about it?

Science is agnostic on these questions. Religion claims to know these things through Divine Revelation.

It is fine to deny that there is such a thing as a Divine and Divine revelation. But it isn't the scientific method that does the denying. Rather, the denial stems from our non-provable assumptions about what is real.

Agreed.

Bax: I've never read Girard but that sounds awesome and seems to make sense to me.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
My understanding is that if the instruction feels peaceful or opens the heart and leads to more peace and more heartfulness then that's a good indication that it can be trusted. If we don't know what Abraham felt in response to the question, the source of the words are indeterminate. If he was disturbed, then maybe the first voiuce (issuing the instructions) was different from the second (countermanding them)?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
So a scientific approach to spirits and their voices is not to deny their existence but to place them outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.

But if someone is hearing voices in the real day to day world is that outside the scope of Science?
Neurologists and Psychiatrists should refrain from looking at this if the person claims it is from a god or spirits?
I believe the answer to that one is no, they should not refrain from studying this because it may upset someone's preconceptions.
Should we go back in time an call all mental illness demonic possession?

My thought would be that medical doctors would look at the issue according to medical science. The symptoms of a person who is hearing voices is not automatically outside of their field of knowledge. We know from research and experience that these things can be treated medically. That is what ought to happen.

What I'm saying is that the doctors don't need to have any opinion about whether the patient is really hearing the voices of spirits, whether they are purely imaginary, or whether voices are just a feature of hallucinations. These questions are beyond the reach of science, which deals with what can be observed.

All they need to do is treat the issue according to methods that lie within their field of knowledge.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The real questions, then, are both metaphysical and epistemological. If a spiritual world full of spirits and angels exists, then how would we know about it?

If from the outset you eliminate science from your tool set that is a very hard question to answer.
This is not eliminating science from the toolkit. Science does not deal with metaphysical and epistemological issues. They are two different things.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And don't get me wrong I'm not claiming that science has all the answers and that it is 100% certain that there is nothing "Supernatural".
My claim is just this: If you claim that a given
example is evidence for the supernatural, carefully ruling out all other materialistic explanations first would be good methodology if you are trying to convince anyone else.
Most skeptics about this sort of thing would actually be interested if presented with a study in which it was very clear that materialist explanations were aggressively pursued and found wanting. And a lot less interested if the authors rule them out a priori.

I agree completely. Aside from which, I don't believe in faith healing, or exorcism, anyway. When the symptoms appear on the physical level that is really where they need to be treated.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:


quote:
What about the Orishas? Do all of these agree with the Bible?
I've never studied Orishas. And what does it have to do with agreeing with the Bible? We're told our own story there as humans, with glimpses of angels and demons, but not a systematic catalogue of everything else in Creation.


About the Orishas you are missing a lot if you don't know them.

Celia Cruz Singing to an Orisha. Chango.

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:
What about Vampires or Werewolves are they additional evidence for the same thing?
Possibly in some cases, possibly not. I should mention that there is a difference between thinking that there is evidence for "weird things" in legends and claimed experiences throughout history, and anything from Hollywood or novels. As Lewis points out, the usual notion of tiny fairies is more of a literary invention, and often they were considered terrifying and dangerous.

But has anybody seen a fairy recently in a western country? Are people in England afraid of fairies? I believe there have been more UFO sightings reported. Did the fairies just go away? Or was it a cultural phenomenon?

My main point is that people in Japan don't convert to Christianity if they think Yokai are real. An I'm pretty sure Christians in Japan discourage that sort of belief. You bringing up their belief as evidence of yours sounds strange to me.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
I like to start with as few assumptions as possible
when trying to decide if something is "real". Of course everyone has assumptions and biases they are often unaware of and I am not claiming any special abilities in avoiding those. This is why I tend to like the scientific method, because it tries as hard as possible to eliminate such bias.
And it has a long history of success behind it.

To me, actually, throwing out basically all of human tradition is a much more massive assumption.


Who wants to throw out all of human tradition?
Isn't science a human tradition? I have spent 11 years practicing Zen Buddhism. I was just pointing out that science has useful things to say about hearing voices in your head. And ignoring those in favor of demons or spirits might not be advisable.
And claiming that all of human tradition leads to the same beliefs is strange to me. In my opinion a lot of human tradition leads to Science. And all spiritual traditions do not point to the same thing.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
My main point is that people in Japan don't convert to Christianity if they think Yokai are real. An I'm pretty sure Christians in Japan discourage that sort of belief.

I'm sure that's right. I had never heard of Yokai, but I was fascinated to read about them in Wikipedia:
quote:
The classical yokai represented by tsukumogami can only be felt as something realistic by living close to nature, such as with tanuki (Japanese racoon dogs), foxes and weasels. Furthermore, in the suburbs, and other regions, even when living in a primary-sector environment, there are tools that are no longer seen, such as the inkstone, the kama (a large cooking pot), or the tsurube (a bucket used for getting water from a well), and there exist yokai that are reminiscent of old lifestyles such as the azukiarai and the dorotabo. As a result, even for those born in the first decade of the Showa period (1925-1935), except for some who were evacuated to the countryside, they would feel that those things that become yokai are "not familiar" are "not very undersandable." For example, in classical rakugo, even though people understand the words and what they refer to, they are not able to imagine it as something that could be realistic. Thus, the modernization of society has had a negative effect on the place of yokai in classical Japanese culture.
That is such a unique perspective, and it is very hard for me to understand from my American middle-class perspective.

I think, though, that we are leaving out an essential element of the whole question of spirits, fairies, yokai, or whatever. This is the epistemological question. How do we know about these things?

For me it is absolutely paramount that we trust a reliable source. For me that source is the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg. Trusting those sources, I can say with confidence that spirits exist but that werewolves, fairies and ghosts do not. I also think that I "know" from these sources how spirits and angels work, how the system operates, and why it is the way that it is.

I wouldn't expect other people to accept my sources, but I would expect that they would have sources of their own that they trusted. Failing that, it is all speculation. And to the extent that it is understood to be speculation I would expect there to be little certainty about any of this. [Biased]
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And don't get me wrong I'm not claiming that science has all the answers and that it is 100% certain that there is nothing "Supernatural".
My claim is just this: If you claim that a given
example is evidence for the supernatural, carefully ruling out all other materialistic explanations first would be good methodology if you are trying to convince anyone else.
Most skeptics about this sort of thing would actually be interested if presented with a study in which it was very clear that materialist explanations were aggressively pursued and found wanting. And a lot less interested if the authors rule them out a priori.

I agree completely. Aside from which, I don't believe in faith healing, or exorcism, anyway. When the symptoms appear on the physical level that is really where they need to be treated.
I'm glad we can agree on this part which is my main point. But I believe also that if you keep examining case by case and you never find any that does not have a materialist explanation,the evidence seems to be pointing in a definite direction does it not?
But if you are saying that we could never find
any cases that will give positive evidence of the supernatural, then how could we ever learn anything about it? In which way is it useful if it does not explain anything that cannot be explained by brains and culture?
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My thought would be that medical doctors would look at the issue according to medical science. The symptoms of a person who is hearing voices is not automatically outside of their field of knowledge. We know from research and experience that these things can be treated medically. That is what ought to happen.

What I'm saying is that the doctors don't need to have any opinion about whether the patient is really hearing the voices of spirits, whether they are purely imaginary, or whether voices are just a feature of hallucinations. These questions are beyond the reach of science, which deals with what can be observed.

I'm not sure that's reasonable. If "these things" (auditory hallucinations) can be treated medically and if they're "the voices of spirits", doesn't that mean spirit haunting falls within the field of medicine? After all, if they are, as you argue, completely beyond the reach of science, we wouldn't expect modern medicine to be an effective treatment. Especially since determining what is an effective treatment requires observation, which you say is not possible in this case.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
To Hear the Angels Sing by Dorothea MacLean is also an interesting and very readable source.

Having been hanging around the edges of this zone for 25 years, I am of the firm conclusion that it's

a) best not to try to mess with what you can't sense at all

b) nevertheless this unseen world deserves awe and respect. It's powerful as well as being beautiful. We should be glad that so far it has not completely lost its rag with humans.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure that's reasonable. If "these things" (auditory hallucinations) can be treated medically and if they're "the voices of spirits", doesn't that mean spirit haunting falls within the field of medicine?

From a scientific point of view we don't know what they are. They might really be spirits or they might be something completely different, purely chemical and hallucinatory. What we know is that treating them with antipsychotic medications is effective.

So it's not that "haunting" falls within the field of medicine, but rather that the symptoms can be effectively treated, whether it is really "haunting" or not.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
After all, if they are, as you argue, completely beyond the reach of science, we wouldn't expect modern medicine to be an effective treatment. Especially since determining what is an effective treatment requires observation, which you say is not possible in this case.

The symptoms are not beyond the reach of science. Patients are troubled and hearing voices. We can deal with that without having to come to metaphysical conclusions about the real existence of spirits.

Yes, observation is the cornerstone of science, and if symptoms cannot be observed then there is not an issue, is there? So of course observations can be made. The patient is observed to be troubled and hearing voices. But if we administer a few beers and have them watch TV for a while the symptoms go away. Case solved! [Angel]

What cannot be observed is whether there really are angels and spirits involved. So science has no opinion on that question, either way.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

What cannot be observed is whether there really are angels and spirits involved. So science has no opinion on that question, either way.

But how can you have a useful opinion on something that can never be observed?
If it can't be observed and has no measurable effects what is the point? Its just like the Teapot.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
What cannot be observed is whether there really are angels and spirits involved. So science has no opinion on that question, either way.

But how can you have a useful opinion on something that can never be observed?
If it can't be observed and has no measurable effects what is the point? Its just like the Teapot.

You can have a useful opinion on it by starting from the assumption that God exists, that He reveals Himself in His Word, and that He teaches us about these things there.

This is a common assumption, and it cannot be disproved, even though it cannot be observed.

The great advantages that these assumptions have over purely materialistic ones, in my opinion, are that they are more fully explanatory of observed phenomena, they impart purpose and meaning to existence, and they give greater meaning and significance to concepts like "goodness" and "love."

Again, these are assumptions. They might be wrong. There is no evidence either way. But of course it depends on what you consider to be evidence.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

What cannot be observed is whether there really are angels and spirits involved. So science has no opinion on that question, either way.

But how can you have a useful opinion on something that can never be observed?
If it can't be observed and has no measurable effects what is the point? Its just like the Teapot.

There is a difference between an observation that classifies as being within the scientific paradigm and one that lies within the personal/subjective framework. The latter is perfectly valid provided that the observer doesn't demand that everyone believe him unquestioningly, and that the people s/he tells don't expect some kind of material proof. No measurable effects - does not mean no effects at all.
 
Posted by Jude (# 3033) on :
 
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped (refering to Jesus Christ):

quote:
He is both in Christ. Who did not shed his divine nature or divine morality at his incarnation.

This pertains to what I have to say. Going back to Abram and his almost sacrifice of Isaac, I would say that Abram came from a culture, from Ur, where child sacrifice was commonly demanded by the gods that the people there believed in. He thought that the god he had recently found also required such things, which is why he was willing to sacrifice his son. However, his new god showed him that this wasn't what he wanted. This was a major difference between God and the other gods that people then believed in.

However, some of the Christians I have known say that this story tells us that Abram was willing to sacrifice his nearest and dearest for God, and that we should do likewise. They do not take the line that Abram might have been mistaken. I think this can be a very dangerous way of thinking, especially if there are people with mental problems in the congregation.

In fact, I can attest that I was one such person. During a time when I suffered from deep depression, my then minister took me to a meeting of "Christians". I have no doubt about the sincerity of their faith, but they tended towards the Charismatic (not necessarily a bad thing) and included some who were decidedly odd (convulsing on the floor, wailing unintelligibly - not tongues - and with some very strange beliefs - well, maybe not too strange, but not Christian either, such as "the devil makes you ill, so the devil can make you well"(why on earth would he?) or that God let the devil take over the world because Adam ate the forbidden apple (quite a common theory, I know). Anyway, going to meetings with these people actually made me psychotic. I do still believe in the spiritual realm and asked at that time for the gift of discernment. That was something that I believe I'd always had, but I asked for it especially at that time, as I was concerned about some of the things I was witnessing. It was just as well, as the stuff I heard there went home with me. I heard voices, including a very insistent one that told me to do things that I cannot repeat here. Thankfully, my discerning spirit showed me that the voice was from a demon, not God.

To go back to Jesus and Lamb Chopped's post, these people seemed to think that there was a conflict between serving God and caring for your family.

It was only when I went back to mainstream C of E that I figured out that caring for your family IS serving God.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
My understanding is that if the instruction feels peaceful or opens the heart and leads to more peace and more heartfulness then that's a good indication that it can be trusted.

Certainly we are told to "test the spirits" and not trust anything that denies Jesus.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Aside from which, I don't believe in faith healing, or exorcism, anyway.

Those are not quite the same thing; exorcism is casting out a demonic entity (and I do believe in exorcism for such things, myself).

quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
But has anybody seen a fairy recently in a western country?

There are certainly people who believe that they have indeed encountered such beings, yes.

quote:
Are people in England afraid of fairies?
At least as recently in the 1950s in Ireland, yes. Lewis talks about that. There was a wood which was believed to be haunted by both a ghost and a fairy, and it was the latter that people were more afraid to run into.

quote:
I believe there have been more UFO sightings reported. Did the fairies just go away? Or was it a cultural phenomenon?
It is possible that some UFO sightings or weird encounters may be encountering the same sorts of things, but in all seriousness, if you encountered something like that, would you tell everyone?

But yes, there are indeed people who believe they have encountered things like that.

quote:
My main point is that people in Japan don't convert to Christianity if they think Yokai are real. An I'm pretty sure Christians in Japan discourage that sort of belief. You bringing up their belief as evidence of yours sounds strange to me.
What happens if they become Christians and then encounter yokai? Kind of stuck, aren't they? [Biased]

And of course it's strange. This whole topic is strange. If these things are real, then "strange" is probably the first adjective one might apply. [Smile]

Re Orishas, OH! The Loas of Vodoun! That I do know bits about. What those are may vary as well, of course. I do believe we must be careful about worshipping such beings even if they are benevolent parts of Creation--nay, even if they are archangels.

(And now "Loa" to the tune of "Lola" by the Kinks is in my head...)

quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:

And claiming that all of human tradition leads to the same beliefs is strange to me.

I don't believe that it does; I think that it points to some things which, whatever their specific nature, may be roughly the same sort of whatsit. There seems to be a category of beings which are neither human ghosts, nor angels nor fallen angels (demons), who are sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent, sometimes quirky, and roughly pursuing their own agendas, whatever they are; they seem to be often associated with nature, or with old human items or habitations; they often seem to be able to change their appearance or vanish at will. Some are kind, some are cruel, some are predatory, but even the kind ones are held to be ... risky, dangerous, unpredictable; they don't like being treated rudely but at the same time they may actively dislike gifts. My faith as a Christian does not tell me they do not exist, and if they do exist, then they (like absolutely everything that is not God, in Christian theology) must be part of the good Creation which God has made--whether the malevolent ones, or the ones which are not always kind, are fallen in the same way we are, or like the fallen angels, or perhaps just fallen in their own way which is neither like ours nor that of the demons, I don't know. If they are tied to nature then perhaps they are merely similarly groaning in travail along with the rest of the world. Again, I don't know details like this, and I tend to personally be careful about any given theory which makes absolute claims about them.

(One reason I don't discuss such matters very often is that people who do believe in such things may often become obsessed with them in very unhealthy ways.)

What few meetings we may have with such things here on Earth may result in, I don't know, but I am confident that whatever they are, we'll get along with much better, and without danger, in the New Creation, along with... well, everything else (lions lying down with lambs, etc.).

quote:
In my opinion a lot of human tradition leads to Science.
Well, certainly, the sciences weren't just invented in the 1700s or anything like that--all cultures have made discoveries about the natural/physical world over human history.

quote:
And all spiritual traditions do not point to the same thing.
I agree, though I don't see how that's relevant.

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
For me it is absolutely paramount that we trust a reliable source. For me that source is the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg. Trusting those sources, I can say with confidence that spirits exist but that werewolves, fairies and ghosts do not.

Now this I don't understand, unless Swedenborg specifically says that the latter do not exist. Do you mean you only believe in beings which are specifically described in the OT and NT and in Swedenborg? (And if so, what do you do about human spirits in, say, the Old Testament story of the witch of Endor?)
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:

But if you are saying that we could never find
any cases that will give positive evidence of the supernatural, then how could we ever learn anything about it? In which way is it useful if it does not explain anything that cannot be explained by brains and culture?

Why would it have to be useful? [Confused] These are in theory things that we're not generally expected to interact with, though I don't think it is forbidden per se. If we were able to find some sort of magic that worked reliably, given how we've damaged the world with our misuse of scientific knowledge, can you imagine what havoc we'd wreak? If we were actually able to, God forbid, capture such a being as described here, what horrible experiments or vivisections would people perform on them?

(As it is, when I see some TV shows about people trying to hunt ghosts, some of the people seem to approach them respectfully (and even, happily, to try to encourage them to move on), but others' attitudes horrify me. In theory, in some of the cases I'm talking about, they believe that they're encountering a lost soul who is trapped after some horrible traumatic experience, and they're just interested out of curiosity in poking and prodding and provoking them, even being insulting to them to see if they can get a response. What a cruel, callous, heartless approach to what is basically imagined to be a traumatized person trapped and unable to leave. It's like going to a mental hospital and playing tricks on the patients. [Mad] )

Sorry, went off on a wee tangent there. [Hot and Hormonal] I do believe, if those are human ghosts (as a Christian, I do believe in human souls that do go on after death, of course), then God loves them and Jesus died for them, since after all they're the same as us, just not in their bodies but for some reason not able or ready to "move on." (Indeed, sometimes I look around at my possessions, which sometimes I am too focused on, and I think that if I am not careful I could wind up like that--not being willing to let go when the time comes. I don't want to be like that.) And as well, if indeed faerie folk/yokai/jinn/jo-gah-oh/etc. exist, then God made and loves them too, even the bad ones. (Interestingly, Islam (or some forms of Islam) considers jinn to be able to become Muslim and be on God's side, rather than that of Iblis.)

And back onto things about voices being from God or not (OMG THE ORIGINAL TOPIC!), many hugs to Amos for sharing your own history here. [Axe murder]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And all spiritual traditions do not point to the same thing.

Yes, but. The mystics from many very different traditions tend to say things that are very, very similar.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Note on the fairy/etc. tangent--

It is possible to be an orthodox Christian and believe in brownies, fairies, etc. etc. etc. It is the American worldview, NOT Christianity, that requires people to say "there's no such thing."

Christianity only requires us to say "If there is such a thing, it is under God just as we all are, as all creatures are." Which is why people invoke the Trinity against scary things in the dark, fairy harm, etc.

If one is of a theological turn of mind, the existence of fairies (jinn/elves/spirits/airish beasts/etc) leads to the question "How do they fit in to the grand scheme of things--are they fallen, unfallen, redeemed, amoral and not needing redemption, saved, damned? Can some be one way and some another? And how much interaction are human beings allowed / wise to have with them, if any?"

Which is all great food for argument, just as it is when considering angels and possible aliens.

But there is nothing in Christianity that specifically forbids people to believe such creatures exist within God's creation.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Trusting those sources, I can say with confidence that spirits exist but that werewolves, fairies and ghosts do not.

Now this I don't understand, unless Swedenborg specifically says that the latter do not exist. Do you mean you only believe in beings which are specifically described in the OT and NT and in Swedenborg? (And if so, what do you do about human spirits in, say, the Old Testament story of the witch of Endor?)
I assume that you are asking about ghosts and not werewolves or fairies. [Razz]

Maybe I shouldn't state it so categorically. I guess that spirits and ghosts can be said to be the same thing. I take the story of the witch of Endor literally, and I do believe that people who have died can appear and talk to people in this world, just as Samuel does in that story.

I think of ghosts, however, as people who have died and then remain in a location and haunt people who live or come there. I don't think that this is possible. Spirits are not aware of the physical world, but live in a world of their own that is contiguous to, or within, the physical world.

When spirits do become aware of their connection with a specific person it is because the state of that person has, for one reason or another, changed in such a way that the normal barrier is removed. This can happen in dreams, in times of grief or other extreme circumstances, and also because of mental illness, drugs, occult practices, or other circumstances that affect brain function, physiology or chemistry. This covers a wide variety of circumstances.

The principle is that the spiritual world is omnipresent, and that its influence is according to the state of the receiving vessel. Everything in the physical world receives life and existence from God through the spiritual world, which takes place according to the form or state of the physical thing. This is the whole point of having a physical life prior to eternal life.

I say that there are no ghosts because spirits are connected to the physical world primarily through their association with people in this world. So the popular idea of them existing in houses or graveyards isn't accurate. Instead they live normal lives in the spiritual world, a world that appears exactly like this one, and their connection with people in the physical world is as invisible to them as it is to us.

People, however, may experience spooky phenomena, and there may certainly sometimes be a genuine connection with spirits. But this is because people are vulnerable to suggestion and can work themselves into states that attract the spirits they imagine.

Another aspect of this is that, although spirits are primarily associated with people, there is a universal correspondence of everything in the spiritual world with everything in the natural or physical world. In the spiritual world malevolent spirits live in degraded environments, such as those that are dark, foul smelling, uncared for, old and falling apart. This means that in a certain sense these kinds of spirits are also associated with places in this world that fit that description. But this influence is much weaker than the connection with human states. This is why the Psalmist said things like:

quote:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me; Psalm 23

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me. Psalm 139

That is, it doesn't matter if you are in a dark cave, a derelict house, a graveyard, a rotting slum, or a sewer. God is always present, if you can receive Him. This is why I say there are no ghosts. [Angel]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Lamb Chopped: As usual, [Overused]

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I assume that you are asking about ghosts and not werewolves or fairies. [Razz]

No, actually, all of them. Seriously, what is there in the OT/NT/Swedenborg that teaches that those beings do not exist? (That doesn't mean they have to exist, just what in there means they can't?) I don't have a specific, active belief in physical Larry-Talbot-style werewolves, but there's nothing in my understanding of Christianity that tells me they can't exist.

quote:
Maybe I shouldn't state it so categorically. I guess that spirits and ghosts can be said to be the same thing.
Well, I think that would depend on the spirit; angels (and fallen angels, i.e. demons) are spirits but I understand them to be very different in nature from human spirits or other spirits.

quote:
I take the story of the witch of Endor literally, and I do believe that people who have died can appear and talk to people in this world, just as Samuel does in that story.
Then yes, that would be what I would call a "ghost"--a human soul unattached to a body and here on Earth. Whether or not souls in the afterlife and not hanging around here would count as "ghosts"... hmm, that doesn't come up a lot. Is a saint a blessed ghost in that sense? Hmmm. But that's all about terminology, not about whether or not a human spiritual essence can show up on Earth after death.

quote:
I think of ghosts, however, as people who have died and then remain in a location and haunt people who live or come there. I don't think that this is possible. Spirits are not aware of the physical world, but live in a world of their own that is contiguous to, or within, the physical world.
This is perhaps a difference in our metaphysics; I see no reason to believe that, but perhaps it is in Swedenborg?

quote:

When spirits do become aware of their connection with a specific person it is because the state of that person has, for one reason or another, changed in such a way that the normal barrier is removed. This can happen in dreams, in times of grief or other extreme circumstances, and also because of mental illness, drugs, occult practices, or other circumstances that affect brain function, physiology or chemistry. This covers a wide variety of circumstances.

I can see that being a factor, certainly.

quote:

The principle is that the spiritual world is omnipresent, and that its influence is according to the state of the receiving vessel. Everything in the physical world receives life and existence from God through the spiritual world, which takes place according to the form or state of the physical thing. This is the whole point of having a physical life prior to eternal life.

I can agree with some aspects of that but not all; I assume the difference has to do with Swedenborgian theology.

quote:
I say that there are no ghosts because spirits are connected to the physical world primarily through their association with people in this world. So the popular idea of them existing in houses or graveyards isn't accurate. Instead they live normal lives in the spiritual world, a world that appears exactly like this one, and their connection with people in the physical world is as invisible to them as it is to us.

Yes, I don't particularly believe that (Swedenborg again?).

I should note that in most ghost sightings, they don't seem to be happy being stuck here (a small number appear so, especially those of children which seem more playful and not especially miserable), and perhaps they are not really where they should be. I don't believe that everyone who dies, or the vast majority of them, wind up as ghosts on Earth--or for very long, relatively speaking. There are appearances of ghosts which are a few hundred years old but I haven't read much of, say, people running into ancient Roman ghosts or the like. Certainly I imagine that all of those Egyptian mummies would be annoyed having their bodies dug up and put on display. Perhaps eventually they finally go on, though it might be comparatively long from our point of view.

quote:

People, however, may experience spooky phenomena, and there may certainly sometimes be a genuine connection with spirits. But this is because people are vulnerable to suggestion and can work themselves into states that attract the spirits they imagine.

But what kind of spirits would those be? Human spirits, or angelic/demonic spirits, or something else?

quote:
Another aspect of this is that, although spirits are primarily associated with people, there is a universal correspondence of everything in the spiritual world with everything in the natural or physical world. In the spiritual world malevolent spirits live in degraded environments, such as those that are dark, foul smelling, uncared for, old and falling apart. This means that in a certain sense these kinds of spirits are also associated with places in this world that fit that description. But this influence is much weaker than the connection with human states. This is why the Psalmist said things like:

quote:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me; Psalm 23

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me. Psalm 139

That is, it doesn't matter if you are in a dark cave, a derelict house, a graveyard, a rotting slum, or a sewer. God is always present, if you can receive Him. This is why I say there are no ghosts. [Angel]
I... yes, I think we don't agree on the metaphysics here (nor quite all of the reasons for the psalm), not least of which because buildings that are old and decrepit and uninhabited by humans may be teeming with life. There was a wonderful video of an old abandoned house that had its own little ecosystem of foxes and birds and things, which I think would be perfectly lovely.

Er, that last bit may be a sort of tangent. Now I want to go look at pictures of adorable animals, but I must go back to the school stuff. Feh. Feh, I say.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
quote:

The principle is that the spiritual world is omnipresent, and that its influence is according to the state of the receiving vessel. Everything in the physical world receives life and existence from God through the spiritual world, which takes place according to the form or state of the physical thing. This is the whole point of having a physical life prior to eternal life.

I can agree with some aspects of that but not all; I assume the difference has to do with Swedenborgian theology.

Not only Swedenborg. I guess this is about who and what you believe and the conscious and unconscious mechanisms by which you make that distinction. The Bible is so archaic in both origin and culture that it necessarily has to be interpreted. So HOW that is done and what concussions are arrived at is open to almost infinite variation - if only mental "logical" (in the modern sense of the word) processes are engaged. Thoughts - can take you anywhere. They have no ground. No morality. No reference point. What reference point do we have? We have the felt senses in our body. Love is not a thought - it is an embodied and very deeply physiological state.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Not only Swedenborg.

Well, in this case of my views vs. Freddy's specifically, and on this one subject. But I haven't studied Swedenborg myself.

I'm pretty confident that this isn't what's meant by Sweden Borg. [Biased]

[ 15. August 2014, 09:25: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Yes, well - interesting method of deflection.

Swedenborg was the King of Sweden's chief mining engineer at a time when Sweden's power depended on its domestic mining industry. He was also probably one of the last people to be capable of knowing and being at the forefront of every branch of science of his time. One of his biological scientific treatises was state of the art for the next 150 years, and modern developments indicate that he was probably more correct than the early 20th century science that displaced him. Still only half way through his life he turned all his intelligence to the question of what it means to be a spirit living in a body - not by investigating the outside world as he had done so far, but by investigating his own internal world. I'm not in the Swedenborgian Church, but I have a lot of respect for whatever Swedenborg produced.

We always have the duty to qualify intellectual information with our internal experience. Along with that of the modern Germanic mystics - Lorber, Groening, Goethe, Sterneder, Steiner (maybe even Schauberger if we are talking about the natural world) I find the message both satisfying and congruent with my personal (subjective) experience. Ralph Waldo Trine and probably all of that 19th & 20th century tradition of writers finding God in Nature lean heavily on Swedenborg, and have their roots in his later writings. If that material is used as a guide as to how to respectfully connect with the spiritual/divine in Nature, then it starts to reveal itself in, let's say, interesting ways.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Not only Swedenborg. I guess this is about who and what you believe and the conscious and unconscious mechanisms by which you make that distinction. The Bible is so archaic in both origin and culture that it necessarily has to be interpreted. So HOW that is done and what concussions are arrived at is open to almost infinite variation - if only mental "logical" (in the modern sense of the word) processes are engaged. Thoughts - can take you anywhere. They have no ground. No morality. No reference point. What reference point do we have? We have the felt senses in our body. Love is not a thought - it is an embodied and very deeply physiological state.

That is the way that I see it too. Every denomination has its own views and doctrines through which it interprets the Bible, which is such an ancient document that it can't be used without some interpretation. Followers of one denomination or another have their own rules and reference points about how to do it - even if they see themselves as sola scriptura.

What I love about Swedenborgian theology is that it is very detailed and specific about the rules, allowing for a feeling of certainty about topics like this within a completely systematic theology. And of course it may be completely wrong - as may any of our systems.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Ralph Waldo Trine and probably all of that 19th & 20th century tradition of writers finding God in Nature lean heavily on Swedenborg, and have their roots in his later writings. If that material is used as a guide as to how to respectfully connect with the spiritual/divine in Nature, then it starts to reveal itself in, let's say, interesting ways.

Thank you for that, itsarumdo!

Late 19th century popular culture in America took up Swedenborg's thought about the afterlife, and it still tends to influence what shows up in movies, books and the average person's expectation on that topic. The late, great Robin William's movie about the afterlife "What Dreams May Come" was a fanciful adaptation mainly taken from Swedenborg - inaccurate but entertaining anyway.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I assume that you are asking about ghosts and not werewolves or fairies. [Razz]

No, actually, all of them. Seriously, what is there in the OT/NT/Swedenborg that teaches that those beings do not exist? (That doesn't mean they have to exist, just what in there means they can't?)
The issue with werewolves and fairies is that no one is saying that they are spiritual, and therefore insubstantial, beings. If they are physical beings than someone would have found them by now. But they haven't, so I don't believe they exist.

On the other hand if they are spiritual beings - ones that can disappear and reappear, for example - then that is something else. In that case they are spirits, angels, or demons.

I am happy to believe in them in that case, except that spirits, angels and demons have no ability to do anything physically. They cannot move objects, as fairies are said to do, or catch and kill people, as werewolves are said to do. They can only work within the realm of spiritual things, and affect people that way.

Swedenborg does not discuss werewolves or fairies, or elves, goblins or hobbits for that matter. But the principles are easy to apply. What he does say is that things exist in much greater variety in the spiritual world, with animals existing there such as dragons and unicorns that do not exist in this world. From that I surmise that things such as fairies and werewolves may very well exist there, though I don't know if this means that they are real or just appearances.
 
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
My sense concerning the story of Abraham and Isaac is that Abraham saw two possible outcomes: 1) that the God whom he had heard and trusted for the miraculous provision of Isaac would likewise provide the substitutionary sacrifice (as is what happened), or 2) he would in fact refuse to kill Isaac and walk away from the whole thing on the basis God being a fickle, unreliable promise breaking monster. Either way it had to go the wire though.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
...
No, actually, all of them. Seriously, what is there in the OT/NT/Swedenborg that teaches that those beings do not exist?
...

I'd go along with almost all of that very happily, but

quote:
... except that spirits, angels and demons have no ability to do anything physically. They cannot move objects, as fairies are said to do, or catch and kill people, as werewolves are said to do. They can only work within the realm of spiritual things, and affect people that way.

There are also nature spirits - having almost been killed by one, meeting someone else who was also nearly was killed (and his horse was seriously injured) in the same place, and having heard a few more less dangerous but still physical experiences from other people, I'd say they are capable of acting very physically in some cases. Usually through either the elements (wind, water etc) or by inducing actions in people who are not fully in charge of their conscious actions for whatever reason. Werewolves - no - that goes too far. Generally the Nature spirits are neutral or benevolent - and only act up when there is some lack of respect of their territory, with the more powerful ones (that can do damage) being in mountains. The more dangerous spirits are generally stuck in one geographic location for some reason or another - either that literally is their domain, or they are not fully nature spirits and are there as the result of human thoughts and actions. I'd say anyone who goes out deliberately looking for the non-benevolent variety is one drawer short of a full sideboard. Most places easily accessible these days have been so de-natured by human presence that the nature spirits in them are (usually) no longer very powerful in this particular way.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
There are also nature spirits...

I liked what you said earlier:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I guess this is about who and what you believe and the conscious and unconscious mechanisms by which you make that distinction... So HOW that is done and what concussions are arrived at is open to almost infinite variation - if only mental "logical" (in the modern sense of the word) processes are engaged. Thoughts - can take you anywhere. They have no ground. No morality. No reference point.

My reference point and authority are the three sources I mentioned above - OT/NT/Swedenborg - which I see as being of one piece. I can't fit nature spirits into the laws I find there, so I doubt their existence.

But I have to say that the years I spent living in small villages in West Africa challenged my disbelief in physical magic. In those communities it was universally believed that sorcerers were common, and that they could do things from starting fires to killing people. I never bought it, but some of my Peace Corps friends in other parts of Togo claimed to have witnessed graphic demonstrations, and did believe it.

I still don't believe that spirits or magic can affect anything physical, although I believe that this was possible in the past.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My reference point and authority are the three sources I mentioned above - OT/NT/Swedenborg - which I see as being of one piece. I can't fit nature spirits into the laws I find there, so I doubt their existence.

The specific location - was a holy mountain - the guy who placed the altar stone on the cross at the top had come a serious cropper - his horse was lamed, the altar stone had to be cemented in in several pieces, and the locals I saw after I got back down considered me stir crazy to have even thought of going up there in the first place. I came to the conclusion that this was a holy mountain because to go up it and stay overnight (as the early Saints had done) required very powerful spiritual protection - it was a place in which trespassers would be tested, not a place that is pink and fluffy with a nice warm feel to it. There was a place I found "by accident" after having had my ankle broken (I won't go into the details) that I guess was one of the small stone beehive huts they stayed in overnight. It felt protected, safe, but it was still up the mountain. I rested there for about half an hour, and bound up the ankle, and then headed for the nearest route down. It's the only time I've ever experienced wind dragging me along the ground - towards some very high cliffs. Maybe I was let off with a warning, maybe I had the physical strength to stop this (I doubt it), maybe I was protected by something else - this stopped when I was only about 5 yards from the edge. About half way down to the bottom I once again rallied a bit of courage, stood up on my one good leg and waved my fist at the mountain, saying in Arnold Schwarzenegger fashion "I'll be back", and immediately another massive gust of wind threw me a couple of yards across the hill.

I've also had some extraordinarily profoundly beautiful experiences in similar places - with an emotional depth that I really can't explain by saying "it was a nice view".

My understanding is that Nature is ordered within the Spiritual hierarchy, so there are spirits whose task is to look after various aspects of it. Dorothea MacLean describes this very clearly. I'm sure there are passages in both the NT and OT that say this if you read them with that particular possibility in mind. I think the Torah say something like Over each blade of grass is a spirit that whispers "grow, grow"

Incidentally, there's a whole section at the back of the Koran which are prayers to invoke Djinn for specific purposes, mainly medical.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Wow, what a story! I would have been terrified.
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
My understanding is that Nature is ordered within the Spiritual hierarchy, so there are spirits whose task is to look after various aspects of it.

Very interesting.

My understanding is that there are two parallel worlds, each connected and corresponding to the other - the spiritual and the natural. So while spirits are not specifically tasked with looking after parts of the natural world they are nevertheless connected spiritually with these parts.
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Incidentally, there's a whole section at the back of the Koran which are prayers to invoke Djinn for specific purposes, mainly medical.

I believe this. This was part of all ancient worship, and was effective for healing as well as magic. But I don't think that it is effective any longer. The coming of the Lord re-ordered the relationship between the spiritual and the natural world, making it much more difficult to manipulate spiritual entities or powers for natural purposes.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:

My understanding is that there are two parallel worlds, each connected and corresponding to the other - the spiritual and the natural. So while spirits are not specifically tasked with looking after parts of the natural world they are nevertheless connected spiritually with these parts.

Yes - possible - they certainly care about the thing they are connected to. I'll file that for further investigation.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Thinking on this a little more, Freddy, Swedenborg's concepts of Cause, Effect and End with the "downward" influx and the "upward" reflux allow for the spirit world to be separate from the physical and at the same time to be intimately bound to it. With the human body, influx brings health, but if the reflux is blocked, the influx cannot function fully. Yes - it may be technically incorrect to say that nature spirits are not tasked to look after the physical world, but the two worlds correspond to each other, and the spiritual world wills that the physical world is whole(some) and express its best so that it (the spiritual world) in can be as much as it can possibly be. The Talmudic concept of an angel whispering "grow, grow" is a positive caring - "something" - a message, a thought, am urge, is passed into the physical plane.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
allow for the spirit world to be separate from the physical and at the same time to be intimately bound to it.

I am impressed with your understanding! I think you have it right! It is a miraculous connection.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I am happy to believe in them in that case, except that spirits, angels and demons have no ability to do anything physically.

I definitely don't believe this, myself--at very least I believe the stories in Scripture about angels very definitely doing physical things.

Re faeries and such, I do think they are possibly in between our categories of pure spirit (like angels/demons) and natural things in some way. But this is conjecture on my part. I find itsarumdo's experiences fascinating and certainly fit with the way I understand some thing, or at least some possibilities. I don't know that I agree with itsarumdo's specific metaphysics in all cases, and I know I am not a Swedenborgian theologically or metaphysically, but it is nice to be able to chat about such matters without being the only one open to such things. [Smile]

Though I am still a tad embarrassed at derailing the thread, which is after all more about determining whether or not it is God talking to us, not about various other whatsits! [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
IMO, to a great degree this is about God talking to us - Nature IS God, and the evil force is wilfully destructive of it as well as of us. Nature spirits are part of the spiritual hierarchy that leads form God to everything that is created, including Man. Even the unfortunate episode up the mountain was not necessarily a meeting with something evil - I had very little respect for that mountain when I went up it, and definitely learned something. To stray slightly towards a different discussion, even evil eventually leads to the good, because it can't help but do so, because it started off as the necessary destructive force that was part of creation - but by a very circuitous and painful route.

In the end, if something brings us to a sense of peaceful and loving empowerment, then it is not destructive, not evil. I think the fall was when humankind thought/were led to think that the power we felt was from us, that the love was from us, that we were slightly separate from creation and therefore from God. We started to have intellectual discussions instead of living in God, we separated enough from the natural world that we thought we could abuse it without consequence - and that separation from the food we eat to objectify it and not be thankful to it then progressed to the point we could harm other humans an dnot feel the ripples of that harm passing through our world, and then so we could hate them, despise them, not care about them or anything else of importance.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
spirits, angels and demons have no ability to do anything physically.

I definitely don't believe this, myself--at very least I believe the stories in Scripture about angels very definitely doing physical things.
I also believe the stories in Scripture in which angels do physical things. Those are miracles, however, which happen in a very specific way.

As I understand it, what happens in a miracle is that physical things temporarily take on spiritual attributes. The result is that a spiritual reality is then expressed physically. Another way to put that is that in a miracle spiritual realities are manifested physically.

This concept depends on the parallel world system mentioned before, in which every aspect of the physical world has a corresponding spiritual reality underlying it. This is the whole idea behind symbolic worship, metaphoric stories, and the enormous emotional power of things such as facial expressions and kissing.

In a miracle, therefore, physical washing with water actually becomes the thing that it represents, which is healing. When angels are involved, their touch, especially the touch of a staff, causes fire, or whatever is appropriate in context. These things can be immensely powerful, unleashing deadly plagues, slaying armies, parting seas, creating universes.

So in those cases, yes, angels can move literal mountains.

But ordinarily angels and spirits can't do anything physical. They are not even aware that the physical world exists.

Of course, I am just talking about the Swedenborgian system that I believe in. These aren't my own thoughts.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
There's a certain kind of Christianity which starts off talking about love and faith and all things good and helpful to those seeking to live a Godly life, but then inevitably descends into obsessing about devils, demons and the supernatural. I've often despaired when this happens, as I know it is the start of a shedload of trouble. And it is often introduced by those who would condemn the occult (I find it hard to tell the difference).

Playing on people's fears and paranoias, in the name of keeping them in the faith, is quite disturbing and despicable. Sadly, I actually know of someone who was sectioned for trying to stab her son, after getting too involved in believing she was doing God's will, acting out the Abraham and Isaac story. Yikes.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
IMO, to a great degree this is about God talking to us - Nature IS God

Ah. Yes, this is something on which we definitely don't agree; I believe that Nature (and all other things, corporeal and otherwise) is a creation by God but not a part of Him.

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
But ordinarily angels and spirits can't do anything physical. They are not even aware that the physical world exists.

Of course, I am just talking about the Swedenborgian system that I believe in. These aren't my own thoughts.

Yes, I am sure you can understand that this is not my own theology or metaphysics. [Smile]

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
And it is often introduced by those who would condemn the occult (I find it hard to tell the difference).

Agreed on all counts. I believe various things are real, but one can go literally crazy over real things as much as imaginary ones.

(This is also part of the reason I distinguish between paranormal experience--even positive ones which God may be perfectly happy about, even "natural" gifts that one may have that are part of the way God has made oneself--and genuine spiritual things that have to do with God, goodness, and love. To walk by "astral sight" is still walking by sight, and not by faith!)

This is another reason I don't like to talk about some of these things very often. I've known too many people who I think have had, or have, very real experiences, and then kind of make them the center of their lives. It doesn't invalidate them but it doesn't mean they should be our focus as Christians.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
[qb] IMO, to a great degree this is about God talking to us - Nature IS God

Ah. Yes, this is something on which we definitely don't agree; I believe that Nature (and all other things, corporeal and otherwise) is a creation by God but not a part of Him.
I know that's a commonly held belief, but I cannot comprehend a God who somehow makes something and stands apart from it. Where is that "apart"? Where is He if not IN creation? Creation, including the vast spaces and energies of billions of suns is part of Him - even all that maybe only a small part.

Has He restricted his presence to the gaps in the fabric of existence and for some reason decided not to be involved or take part? Or maybe retired to a large plush mansion with classical Greek columns and a large retinue of handmaidens on the shores of a planet circling Betelgeuse? Is there no trace of a hint, no lasting connection other than through 6 days in the creative design office, a few words here and there to a small tribe wondering around the eastern mediterranean, and then one unfortunately brief appearance 2000 years ago? Did He entrust everything to the continued existence of writing and the invention of the printing press? What was going on before the OT was written?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
[qb] IMO, to a great degree this is about God talking to us - Nature IS God

Ah. Yes, this is something on which we definitely don't agree; I believe that Nature (and all other things, corporeal and otherwise) is a creation by God but not a part of Him.
I know that's a commonly held belief, but I cannot comprehend a God who somehow makes something and stands apart from it. Where is that "apart"?
I don't think that any Christian would deny that God is omnipresent in creation. So there is not really an "apart." The question is how God is within nature and yet nature is not God.

I don't think that itsarundo is saying that nature is God. If I understand you right you are just saying that God is in nature, that nature is not apart from God.

Similarly I don't think that ChastMastr is saying that God is the Clockmaker who wound up the universe and stands apart from it as it unwinds. Am I wrong?

The missing concept, I think, is that of contiguity as opposed to continuity. God is everywhere present in nature, yet nature is not God. Because, although He is touching it at every point, nature is not a continuous extension of God. If it were then we would all be part of God. Contiguity allows Him to be omnipresent and within, and yet not the same as, His creation.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
What we're saying is that God has the ability to create something other than himself, and has in fact done so.

It has nothing to do with his ongoing presence. Of course, he's still present everywhere and everywhen; we call this immanence.

But the fact that he is present in all of creation does not mean that creation is him (to be ungrammatical). Consider the analogy of light shining through glass, if you like.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Thanks Lamby, that's what I was trying to say.

I expect that we all agree on this point. [Biased]
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I have no hesitation in believing that it was actually God who spoke to Abraham and told him to sacrifice his son.

Abraham didn't know God well enough - he certainly didn't know him as YHWH - to realise that this command, whilst entirely common and reasonable within a heathen context, was entirely out of charactewr with God. There was and is no way that God meant Abraham to go through with the sacrifice. As the story, of course, reveals.

So, if other religions commanded and practiced child sacrifice so much so that Abraham was prepared to join in without much of a struggle (Note also the lack of a complaint from Sarah) what indeed was the test of faith?

It cannot have been a simple act of faith in the face of impending death of his little boy. It's all inextricably bound up with the covenant promise that God would make a great nation out of Abraham's descendants - namely the son of promise, Isaac.

First Abraham was told he would have a son.
Then he was told this son would be the ancestor of millions.
Abraham then failed the first test by making his own fulfilment of the promise, Ishmael who was NOT the one to be blessed by God.
Then God fulfilled the promise and Sarah gave birth to Isaac and then Abraham was told to kill him!

The test was in Abraham trusting this God he didn't know very well to fulil the promise of millions of descendants even after he sent Ishmael away and killed Isaac.

That was the test - it had little to do with his personal feelings for his son, not for the rights and wrongs of child sacrifice. As Hebrews tells us, Abraham believed God would simply raise the child from the dead!

Of course, we know that a substitute was provided and the promise of descendants was indeed fulfilled through Isaac.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
[qb] IMO, to a great degree this is about God talking to us - Nature IS God

Ah. Yes, this is something on which we definitely don't agree; I believe that Nature (and all other things, corporeal and otherwise) is a creation by God but not a part of Him.
I know that's a commonly held belief, but I cannot comprehend a God who somehow makes something and stands apart from it. Where is that "apart"?
I don't think that any Christian would deny that God is omnipresent in creation. So there is not really an "apart." The question is how God is within nature and yet nature is not God.

I don't think that itsarundo is saying that nature is God. If I understand you right you are just saying that God is in nature, that nature is not apart from God.

Similarly I don't think that ChastMastr is saying that God is the Clockmaker who wound up the universe and stands apart from it as it unwinds. Am I wrong?

The missing concept, I think, is that of contiguity as opposed to continuity. God is everywhere present in nature, yet nature is not God. Because, although He is touching it at every point, nature is not a continuous extension of God. If it were then we would all be part of God. Contiguity allows Him to be omnipresent and within, and yet not the same as, His creation.

It's a little convoluted, don't you think? What is the purpose of assuming that God is not Creation, even though he is in it? I'm genuinely curious about this. If creation is a gift to us from God, then that allows a certain degree of wilfulness - we can dig a few holes, sweep things under the carpet, kill some living beings just because we don't like them or we fancy a bit of sport, and it's all a nice garden that we've been allowed to play in. If Creation IS God, it's a bit different.

My understanding of Swedenborg is that all the spiritual world IS God, but it is also arranged hierarchically, so when you are even a tiny spirit you ARE God, and at the same time have a certain identity, a degree of autonomy and a specific scope of influence. Some even get to wear underpants on the outside of their trousers. And the physical world, just like the spiritual one, is likewise an emanative aspect of God.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I have heard of a couple of ghost stories involving Romans. One concerned a group of legionaries marching through the basement of a building in York, only visible from the knees up - excavation showed that the surface of a road was at a depth such that if they were walking on it, that's where their knees would be. Can't vouch for this. The other was from an elderly woman who lived by the causeway that linked Mersea Island in Essex to the mainland. As she returned home at night, a Roman soldier would come out of a mound by the road and walk beside her. She found his presence comforting. Can't vouch for that either.
My feelings about both were that it seemed a bit hard to have to hang around that long.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
My understanding of Swedenborg is that all the spiritual world IS God, but it is also arranged hierarchically, so when you are even a tiny spirit you ARE God, and at the same time have a certain identity, a degree of autonomy and a specific scope of influence... And the physical world, just like the spiritual one, is likewise an emanative aspect of God.

This is not what Swedenborg writes. There is a distinction between the Creator and what is created.

Creation, however, is in the image and likeness of God, so it reflects Him in every particular. God continually flows into His creation, without which it could not exist even for an instant.

Everything in creation is good insofar as it is able to receive what comes from God - creating the hierarchy you mention.

But creation is not God, nor are we a part of God. We are His servants.

On the other hand everyone who is "on His side" is said to "rule with Christ." This is because they cooperate with His will, forsaking their own will. Everyone like this is also said to be part of the "body of Christ" or "grand man of heaven" since all of humanity, or all of heaven, appears in God's sight as a single individual.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Re God's distinction from Creation
I shall say with some elation
That indeed I am quite ready
To agree with Lamb Chopped and Freddy

I didn't know about the guys from Rome
That Penny here discusses
I hope they later make it home
Perhaps on ethereal busses

 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
thanks, Freddy and Chast: [Hot and Hormonal] [Big Grin]

As for this,

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

So, if other religions commanded and practiced child sacrifice so much so that Abraham was prepared to join in without much of a struggle (Note also the lack of a complaint from Sarah) ...

IMNSVHO Abraham never manned up and told Sarah before it happened, and I don't blame him. She likely would have taken his circumcision a whole lot further.

[ 17. August 2014, 19:38: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I'd like to know if the northwards marching York squaddies were only seen after people became aware of the lost Legio IX Hispana. And I suspect the Essex old lady may have summoned her protector up from her imagination, knowing the mound was a Roman barrow.

There are supposed to be the sounds of a battle at Folkestone, heard before a Jutish burial ground was found on the site.

And I live a few miles from a very worrying business involving a skull. An old manor house was bought complete with it, and the new owners decided they didn't want it, so they removed it and had it buried in the local churchyard. Whereupon all sorts of troubles descended on the place, so they had to give in and reinstall the skull. It is supposed to belong to a medieval nun who had been walking to Canterbury (odd route) when she was attacked by robbers, and rescued by the householders. They were too late to save her, but as she died, she blessed the house and told the people to keep her skull there to protect it. She is, apparently, seen walking the lane at times.

There is so much I find worrying about this story, which seems much more Celtic than medieval, and very inappropriate for a pilgrim. It doesn't seem to belong with God.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
It just shows how far away with the fairies one gets once one uncritically accepts a four thousand year old myth as a lens for seeing Jesus through.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It just shows how far away with the fairies one gets once one uncritically accepts a four thousand year old myth as a lens for seeing Jesus through.

Yes.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Yes - it may be technically incorrect to say that nature spirits are not tasked to look after the physical world, but the two worlds correspond to each other, and the spiritual world wills that the physical world is whole(some) and express its best so that it (the spiritual world) in can be as much as it can possibly be.

Just wanted to say again how much I liked this idea.

It is similar in some ways to the "Gaia Hypothesis", which imagines the planet as a single, living, self-regulating entity.

To this idea you are adding the concept of a parallel world that is the "intelligence" that does the regulating, or the means by which God's intelligence does it.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My understanding is that there are two parallel worlds, each connected and corresponding to the other - the spiritual and the natural. So while spirits are not specifically tasked with looking after parts of the natural world they are nevertheless connected spiritually with these parts.

Isn't one of the key characteristics of parallel things that they don't intersect at any point? In other words, if the worlds are parallel then there shouldn't be any connection between them, and if there are connections between them, then they aren't really "parallel".

[ 18. August 2014, 03:14: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
And only after we've seen Jesus through the lens of the literal Old Testament can we be orthodox?

That He is God the Killer on holiday?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My understanding is that there are two parallel worlds, each connected and corresponding to the other - the spiritual and the natural. So while spirits are not specifically tasked with looking after parts of the natural world they are nevertheless connected spiritually with these parts.

Isn't one of the key characteristics of parallel things that they don't intersect at any point? In other words, if the worlds are parallel then there shouldn't be any connection between them, and if there are connections between them, then they aren't really "parallel".
Very astute observation! That's exactly right.

When I say "connected" I mean connected by correspondence, which is, in a sense, not an actual connection. It is merely that things in the one world correspond to things in the other. This is why the two worlds are invisible and undetectable to each other.

Still "parallel" might not really be the best way to describe this relationship. Spiritual things are able to influence natural ones, and there is a constant flow of life from one to the other. But the way that this influx takes place through correspondence means that there is no continuity from the one to the other. The connection is really through function, a brilliant system actually!

In any case, it makes the whole issue of communication with God and spirits, and hearing "voices" a complicated one. The issue really is about what our conscious mind is, how the mind-body connection works, and how it is that our thoughts are manufactured, or received, by our physical brain.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And only after we've seen Jesus through the lens of the literal Old Testament can we be orthodox?

Not 'literal'.

Jesus and his peers had a far more nuanced understanding of scripture.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My understanding is that there are two parallel worlds, each connected and corresponding to the other - the spiritual and the natural. So while spirits are not specifically tasked with looking after parts of the natural world they are nevertheless connected spiritually with these parts.

Isn't one of the key characteristics of parallel things that they don't intersect at any point? In other words, if the worlds are parallel then there shouldn't be any connection between them, and if there are connections between them, then they aren't really "parallel".
Very astute observation! That's exactly right.

When I say "connected" I mean connected by correspondence, which is, in a sense, not an actual connection. It is merely that things in the one world correspond to things in the other. This is why the two worlds are invisible and undetectable to each other.

Still "parallel" might not really be the best way to describe this relationship. Spiritual things are able to influence natural ones, and there is a constant flow of life from one to the other. But the way that this influx takes place through correspondence means that there is no continuity from the one to the other. The connection is really through function, a brilliant system actually!

In any case, it makes the whole issue of communication with God and spirits, and hearing "voices" a complicated one. The issue really is about what our conscious mind is, how the mind-body connection works, and how it is that our thoughts are manufactured, or received, by our physical brain.

A further thought here is that Abraham would have only been receptive of a God who met His expectations. If these expectations were met, then He would be likely to obey. It obviously worked. [Biased]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Ah leo. Did they now? So Jesus didn't believe in God the Killer? Himself?
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
this command, whilst entirely common and reasonable within a heathen context...

.. it had little to do with his personal feelings for his son, not for the rights and wrongs of child sacrifice.

Whilst agreeing that a child sacrifice which would be outrageous in twenty-first century England was commonplace at this location and period of history, that points to the question of whether that context makes it morally OK. Are you the sort of moral relativist who thinks that what is morally right changes with the culture ?

Or are you saying that the act he intended was wrong but that the man genuinely knew no better ? Invincible ignorance ?

Or that it was wrong and Abraham knew it was wrong, but social expectation is a mitigating circumstance - that he was weak rather than bad ?

And whichever you choose, do you apply the same argument to wrongdoing throughout history, or across different cultures in the world today ? Or is this special pleading on behalf of a pillar of Christian history ?

You may say that's not the important part of the story. I try to use that line when I'm caught out in wrongdoing - "that's not the point, that's not the important thing about what I'm telling you". Funnily enough, people aren't often convinced...

Nothing personal - it's that the double standard between the actions of Us and Them, between those we've cast as the Good Guys and those we'd like to portray as villains, is where corruption starts.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Ah leo. Did they now? So Jesus didn't believe in God the Killer? Himself?

Of course He did. The parables are full of violent imagery:
quote:
Matthew 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
But I think that it is clear that Jesus believed in "God the killer" in a nuanced way, as Leo says, because although Jesus consistently uses violent imagery He also consistently preaches against violence.

If you don't understand hyperbole, you won't understand the Bible. [Cool]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
OK - thanks Freddy - I'm starting to get the meaning of correspondence - still some way to go [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
How does the violence of the parables (and allegory) prove that Jesus believed in God the Killer?

All it proves is that Jesus used His culture's memes.

Why didn't you quote Luke 17:26- and Matthew 24:37- ?
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
That is perhaps something to consider; if we believe Jesus is the Son of the Father in the Trinitarian, world made through Him (Jesus) sense, and He did not express recorded doubt that His Father did what is recorded in the Old Testament, and yet if we see Jesus, then we have seen the Father...

...then maybe things in the Old Testament are a bit more complex/subtle or just hard for us to understand than we might think?

Though I think this is getting a tad afield of "when hearing voices that might or might not be real and/or Divine" since we seem to be moving on to what Jesus believes. (Or believed pre-Resurrection on Earth, if His knowledge of such matters was limited in some way.)
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
How does the violence of the parables (and allegory) prove that Jesus believed in God the Killer?

I think that they show that Jesus understood these Old Testament events as metaphor.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
All it proves is that Jesus used His culture's memes.

Yes, that's a good way to put it. He completely understood the symbolic nature of Israel's recorded history.

He also understood, and expounded, the core of literal truth in those Scriptures. Nor was He shy about reinterpreting and correcting their misunderstanding of such things as the Sabbath, washing, retribution, loving the neighbor, etc.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Why didn't you quote Luke 17:26- and Matthew 24:37- ?

Those might have been better examples. What happened to Noah would be repeated. To understand this it is even more imperative for us to grasp the metaphors at play.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
As Jesus was a man of His culture and as He revealed in His belief in the Flood and therefore God the Killer and the necessity of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the transcendence, the divine nature in Him had to work with, despite, all that and more. Racism for one.

The extrapolated arc is long.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The extrapolated arc is long.

[Confused]
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The extrapolated arc is long.

But it bends towards justice. [Angel]

Jesus was not a man of His culture. He was God of the universe, uniting the human and the Divine. As such He worked with what is human and limited, including the culture and beliefs of the time.

There is no killer God in Jesus except as metaphor.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I'm now reminded of a bad horror movie idea. "Beware the vampire Jesus--He gave His blood for you, and He wants it all back right now!!"
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
That which was not assumed is not healed.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
That which was not assumed is not healed.

Can you clarify, Martin?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Jesus assumed the human in order to heal the human race.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Culture is human.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
So Jesus assumed the whole culture in order to heal it.

I guess that is one way of saying that He fulfilled the Scriptures.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Jesus assumed the human in order to heal the human race.

Is that like assuming a can opener?
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
... Can someone explain a little bit more clearly what is meant here?

[Help]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Exactly.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
... Can someone explain a little bit more clearly what is meant here?

[Help]

... pretty please with gumdrops on it??

[Confused] [Help]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary

but for everyone
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Is that like assuming a can opener?

I prefer the concept of assuming a spherical cow. (This is part of the answer to how many cows can be housed in a specific space.

Moo
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
I think that Martin is referring to the idea that by His birth into the world Jesus took on a human form from Mary.

The phrase is "assumed a human form."

Martin is pointing out, I think, that He took this on in order to heal what was human - but that this involves far more than just human bodies, and includes the culture itself.

Christ took on the sins of the world in order to heal us of them.

Martin's point, I think, is that this included the Israelitish understanding of "God the killer."

Apologies if I am interpreting Martin incorrectly. But if I'm right I think Martin should reward me by putting up two smiley faces.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
[Biased] [Biased]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Hmmmm. But lest there be any ambiguity (HA!), He had no choice but to believe His culture's defining work: The Scriptures. Not just redeem the sin of them on the cross, but believe in God the Killer, just as He believed in the necessity of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

To live in ignorance and error is human.

He lived THAT, as well as died for it.

Prince trumps toad.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Um... then at that point, how are we supposed to distinguish between "things Jesus believed but was wrong about" and "things Jesus believed but was right about"?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
By His behaviour.
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Hmmmm. But lest there be any ambiguity (HA!), He had no choice but to believe His culture's defining work: The Scriptures. Not just redeem the sin of them on the cross, but believe in God the Killer, just as He believed in the necessity of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

That's not it at all. [Disappointed]

He wrote the Scriptures, killer God and all. He believed them because He understood that the true message was not about the history and odd customs of a small nation in Palestine. He caused this history to be recorded this way, and to miraculously happen the way it did, because it could serve as a vehicle for describing - no, for facilitating - the salvation of the human race.

It is not at all about PSA but about the step-by-step process of changing the world. Those steps are symbolized in the rise and progress of Israel. The "killer God" is a step in the formation of humanity's imperfect-but-improving understanding of how reality work.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Ah, I KNEW there was ambiguity.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I think the only ambiguity is that we expect God to behave according to rules that we have constructed about how the universe works. Then complain when our rules are broken. There is no difference between this and the early mediaeval insistence that planetary orbits should be circular (because the circle is perfect). The data was available and widely known well before Bruno, Brahe and Galileo that pointed to the Sun being central in the solar system and orbits elliptical, but it was rejected on dogmatic grounds, trusting the literality of the Bible. That's not just a warning about scientific dogma being applied to the spiritual world (and natural world, for that matter), but also about literal interpretations in general.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
I'm realizing from this discussion I was taught (1950s Protestant Episcopal Church) to read the OT literally and the NT metaphorically (especially Jesus' suggestions to do things like "give away your extra coat" which were labeled "pretty but impractical")

I've made peace with the OT by reading it metaphorically and trying to ignore the questions of historical literal genocide. (And I read the NT much more literally in it's challenges on how to live!)

But - genuine ignorance here - how common was it for historical reports by any nation back then to be literally and objectively true? Or was history typically recorded in ways intended as propaganda - as the history books in my elementary school certainly were!

Not that our history books invented wars that never happened, but the "we were wholly good and pure in motives and actions while they were evil" message was intentional and clear. Some of the "absolute victories" weren't nearly as absolute. You get older you find out it the historical events were all a lot more complex. You learn to pull out the salt shaker when hearing about some past hero or current military claims of perfect targeting to prevent civilian casualties or righteousness of keeping people in cages in Cuba forever with no trial.

Did adult Jews of Jesus' day read their OT stories as literal, or as cultural myth - based in facts but not the objective complete literal truth?
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
The psyche of societies 2000 years ago was hugely different - they had a magical view of the world - spirits and gods walked amongst men and could be met at any time in any place in any form Letters,numbers and words were symbolic and rich in archetypal meaning well beyond our dictionary definitions. There was no scientific education to provide a sense of physical causality (however correct or incorrect that might be...) , life was generally short and yet people were prepared to spend vast portions of it travelling from one place to another. I don't think that there needed to be an intention to mythologise - it was in the blood. It arose out of the paper. That's why the texts are without vowels and spaces - there was a flow of numerological relationships that are not very different from the streams of digital underpinnings of the dreamed world in the Matrix.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
He didn't write The Scriptures.

He's their goal. Their 'inspiration'.

He's visible in glimpses through the dark clouds of our fantasies. In Eden. The Flood. In the Terebinth Trees at Mamre. The Exodus.

NONE of which happened and none of which were written 'once upon a time' but God's pragmatism certainly goes as far as letting us attribute US to Him.

Prince trumps toad.

Belle Ringer. Superb.

[ 22. August 2014, 05:53: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I'm not a bible historian, but think that there is some proof that the events around the exodus did happen.

And the flood myths appear to be a memory of the flooding of (what is now) the Black Sea - at one time it must have been a very fertile valley with marshes and lakes. Interesting underwater archaeology. There are also signs of flooded civilisations from about the same period on the shores of India - suggesting that the melt period and relatively rapid sea level rises after the last glacial caught out a lot of early communities all over the world.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
There is no historical or archaelogical evidence whatsoever of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea let alone lesser events like 2.2 million people wandering about Sinai for 40 years with millions of animals.

As for The Flood, none of the local and hypothetical events correlate with Biblical chronology within 500 years: The Flood was 4004 - 1656 = 2348 BC and the Shuruppak (Tell Fara, Iraq) regional flood was 2900. Biodiversity alone demonstrates the impossibility of a global flood in oooooh 30 million years at least.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no historical or archaelogical evidence whatsoever of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea let alone lesser events like 2.2 million people wandering about Sinai for 40 years with millions of animals.

2.2 million - no - but would 2.2 million have been held in Egypt? Along with their animals?

quote:

As for The Flood, none of the local and hypothetical events correlate with Biblical chronology within 500 years: The Flood was 4004 - 1656 = 2348 BC and the Shuruppak (Tell Fara, Iraq) regional flood was 2900. Biodiversity alone demonstrates the impossibility of a global flood in oooooh 30 million years at least.

Global flood - yes - coastal and low flooding - plenty of evidence. Black sea (google Black sea flood underwater archaeology). And for India look for Gulf of Cambay - less relevant, I think - but it indicates the degree of sea level rebound that affected early human civilisations after the last ice age.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no historical or archaelogical evidence whatsoever of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea let alone lesser events like 2.2 million people wandering about Sinai for 40 years with millions of animals.

2.2 million - no - but would 2.2 million have been held in Egypt? Along with their animals?

quote:

As for The Flood, none of the local and hypothetical events correlate with Biblical chronology within 500 years: The Flood was 4004 - 1656 = 2348 BC and the Shuruppak (Tell Fara, Iraq) regional flood was 2900. Biodiversity alone demonstrates the impossibility of a global flood in oooooh 30 million years at least.

Global flood - yes - coastal and low flooding - plenty of evidence. Black sea (google Black sea flood underwater archaeology). And for India look for Gulf of Cambay - less relevant, I think - but it indicates the degree of sea level rebound that affected early human civilisations after the last ice age.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
an unfortunately named website, but the information is accurate and useful - Flood Myth
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Why unfortunate? There was no Biblical Flood. Mount Everest wasn't covered. Humanity didn't collapse to 8. All the land animals didn't die to be replenished in the right biomes 4300 years ago from a boat. And the Exodus figures are derived from there being 603,550 men over 19.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I think we have a different view of how literal it's possible to be. I'm open to the general gesture being there - even if the details are not - so maybe there was a particular family who survived with their livestock when the Black Sea flooded. There is also a more symbolic interpretation. But I don't believe the original OT was completely metaphorical or just made up as a good story.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

This thread seems to be in danger of straying into the Dead Horse territory of inerrancy - or at least way off the original topic. Can I suggest either getting back on topic or starting a new thread to pursue the tangent?

/hosting
 
Posted by Jude (# 3033) on :
 
Have any of you heard about Thera? This was a massive volcanic explosion in ancient times, which some historians think may have been responsible for the parting of the Red Sea. What happened with the earlier flood of Noah is less certain, but Noah's world was not the whole world that we know now.
This story may have been influenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh.
 


© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0