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Was Jesus rational? If you are a modern Christian, this is a question that probably sounds intentionally offensive or unintentionally ignorant. It suggests the person asking the question thinks Jesus was insane. Calling Jesus a crazy person therefore could sound deliberately provocative. On the other hand, someone asking the question could simply be ignorant. Only someone unfamiliar with Scripture or Christian theology could suggest that God’s only son was a lunatic.
This is not a question that would have offended early Christians, however, because they had a different relationship with faith and reason. The gods of the ancient world were not the defenders of logic and reason. Often, the gods were the greatest offenders of logic and reason, using tricks and magic to bring down the hero, even though the hero was acting rationally. After all, the tragic hero is often the man who does the rational things but is brought low despite his reason.
The ancients did not look at reason like modern man. They had to solve problems like all humans, but they did not worship reason like a god. In fact, reason was often viewed as a hinderance to understanding the gods. Understanding the gods and their relationship to man started with the understanding that the gods operated outside of the rationality of mankind. They had their rules, man had his rules, and the story of man was the interplay between these two worlds.
Of course, there was that sense that the fate of men and the individual man was controlled by things beyond human comprehension. It was not just the capricious gods who tripped up men, but that sense that there was something else going on to determine the outcome of life, something that was well outside the domain of man, a thing called fate. Just as the tragic hero was undone by fate, the hero was the man who recognized and submitted to his fate.
For most of human history, the key to making any sense of life was in accepting the mystery of the natural world and man’s place in it. That acceptance never meant understanding it, much less conquering it. The natural world was not a thing to be conquered or even challenged. It was a thing to be accepted. Therefore, for the early Christians, the irrationality of Jesus and his life would have made far more sense to them than the far more rational version of this age.
The phrase, “Athens and Jerusalem”, which turns up in certain parts of American conservatism has its roots in this question about the rationality of Jesus. The second century Christian writer Tertullian famously asked, “what has Athens to do with Jerusalem” in response to those trying to make sense of faith. The absurdities within the story of Jesus are what gives power to faith, because the truly faithful believe the message despite the absurdities.
As an aside, “Athens and Jerusalem” was reintroduced to us by Strauss, who used it for a series of lectures and essays. No one knows what he meant by it as the main project of his students is to make themselves and their mentor as incomprehensible as possible on the assumption that “Straussian” is code for incoherent. Others have picked up the phrase as a way of weaving their ancestors into your family tree, thus making Western civilization the fruit of the Greeks and the Jews.
It is debatable as to whether Strauss clipped this phase from Tertullian in order to open the gates to ideas outside of Christianity. In the hands of lesser minds, it has led to idiotic concepts like “Judeo-Christian.” Tertullian would have happily lit the fire underneath the heretics promoting such an idea. Like the other Christian writers of his age, he was hostile to the Jews and wrote polemics against them. For their part, the Jews have never forgiven him for it.
That aside, there is little doubt that Christianity, as it spread throughout Europe, became a vehicle to introduce Greek thought to Europe. Not only did the Church preserve and reproduce ancient works, including the Greeks, it began to absorb the rationality that Tertullian would have found difficult in the organization of the Church and its relationship with the secular authorities that evolved in the Middle Ages. The irrationality of faith planted the seeds of the rational rejection of faith.
Therein lies the problem for the modern Christian. He has grown up in a world that worships reason to the exclusion of mystery. The point of human thought is to locate every mystery and strip from it all of its irrationality, so that it is reduced to a mechanism explained by mathematics. Reason is the hunter who poses with his kill for a picture he can use on his internet profile, because the beauty he sees in the image is him posing next to the kill, not the bit of nature he harvested.
The Christian who bristles at the “absurdity” the question posed at the beginning is a Christian forced to explain faith by the rules of reason. It is a hopeless project, which is why the churches have emptied out across the West. If the churches are to fill up again or new churches are to be founded, the modern Christian must confront the fact that the god of this age is rationality. That god must be overcome in order to be restored to his proper place alongside the mystery of life.
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The savages running the French Revolution replaced the altar at Notre Dame with an altar devoted to Reason. Well, isn’t that all you need to know?
And the savages the French elite invited into France burned down Notre Dame a few years ago. That’s all I need to know.
Satanic verses bastards are still torching curches all.over not only europe but in the US as well. Particularly in the PNW.
This is done by irrational 80 iq
wierd crosses of taliban anarchist types. Ya just can’t understand crazy.
Can’t understand someone putting “taliban” and “anarchist” as mutual descriptors in the same sentence, myself.
This whole mass migration thing has the normiecon Israel boosters in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand they are up in arms about foreigners coming into their towns and taking over, driving out the locals, yet that’s exactly what the Jews are doing in Israel. I don’t see how they can reconcile this in their own heads, but I think consistency here will go a long way to bringing some clarity and common sense to the issue. And if I thought Mr Derbyshire read the comments in here, I wanted to ask for his take on this… Read more »
Consistency? Clarity? Common sense? Here is the parallel you have drawn. (1) Palestinian Muslims = North Americans fanatically opposed to the existence of the U.S.A. and eager to commit violence against U.S. citizens anywhere, at any level, any time to destroy the hated nation; supported by most other nations, most particularly by two nuclear superpowers for Great Game reasons and by near-nuclear secondary powers for religious reasons; generously financed by revenues from worldwide taxation; in a neighborhood with many ethnic and religious cousin nations they might live in, most unfortunately poverty-stricken despotisms ruled by gangsters. (2) Zionists = Mexicans, Venezuelans, Haitians,… Read more »
I think he’s talking about ethnic cleansing, Zionism roughly parallel to America being turned into the world’s flophouse. Palestine belongs to the Jews, America belongs to the whole world, and screw you if you’re already there. Refugees up!
If you don’t have a State religion (and La Belle France has abandoned hers) you will get one imposed on you by invaders…Islam is deadly serious…
An alter devoted to reason doesn’t seem very logical to moi
1 Corinthians 1 23-25: “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Rationality is entirely based on priors, either derived from logic or experience. To the Greeks, the idea of God dying for his love of humanity is irrational, as it completely contradicts their implicit assumption of what it means to be a god. Our… Read more »
Try explaining that to your plumber. Yet another problem with Christianity: it relies too much on IQ to sustain it’s complicated doctrine. Put another way, if you can’t explain this stuff to a 90-IQ individual without recourse to “magic”, you have to resort to fear. Fear is not a good path to enlightenment.
The IQ problem explains the rise of Islam, its the perfect religion for Africa and other low IQ areas. Expect rapid growth of Islam and Europe in the years ahead
You’ve hit upon a great point. Creating an archaic, brutish religion amongst archaic, brutish men was a brilliant strategy on Satan’s part,
Except that Christianity, of all flavors is also in direct competition for Islam for the hearts of Africa.
Islam has never appealed to the European soul and it’s unlikely to do so even in it’s rejection of Christianity.
Tell that to the shade of Ibrahim Pargali.
John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That’s all he needs to know. Understandable to anyone.
Understandable to anyone. Ok, but you don’t understand it. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son The god’s omnipotence implies that it could have had two, three, or more sons if it so chose. So why didn’t it do so? Lack of imagination? Lazy mindedness? No omnipotence? Notice that several “eternally begotten” sons could have been incarnated, and at least one could have been left behind on Earth to teach the masses. Meanwhile the first begotten incarnated son would return to Israel’s imaginary heaven (like Superman?) for his kingly power. Why isn’t such… Read more »
“The god’s omnipotence implies that it could have had two, three, or more sons if it so chose. So why didn’t it do so? Lack of imagination? Lazy mindedness? No omnipotence?” That wasn’t for His benefit, but for man’s. He was dragging men, kicking and screaming, away from sacrificing things to Him into who He created us to be. From the polytheistic gods who did rather arbitrary things to people into something quite different, and still barely recognized by the best of us. Honestly, if He had, say, My three Sons, wouldn’t you still be saying, “Why 3? Why not… Read more »
Z writes a post about how the psycho god of this age is rationality, which exterminates all mystery and has landed us at this unhappy spot.
Then this fedora goes off on his rationalistic demands that Christians explain their faith according to his understanding of reason. And do it RIGHT NOW!
There is no helping some people.
We can do some this, more than we have. Part of it is just being patient with the extremely poor logic shown in the post. Atheists tend to worship rationality. Only the Christians tend be rational most of the time.
Your theory denies the omnipotence for the most part, despite getting part of it correct.
Jesus if fully human and fully Divine, one of the mysteries of Christianity. Jesus does not need redemption because he has two natures in one person.
Yes, God’s omnipotence suggests he doesn’t need to send His son only or otherwise. But He did, so let’s contemplate that as something both rational and a mystery. Your characterization of the OT stories is way off.
Christianity is like what linguists call a “funnel language”. Easy to get into (i.e. simpler grammar) and communicate on a basic level but as you go deeper into it, it requires more rules and compliance to speak it well.
English is a funnel language by the way. So is French and Chinese.
Christianity, because it’s European, has a very deep and convoluted theology if you wish to learn it. But you can also just quote John 3:16 or some other favorite passage and communicate well to 95% of Christians.
It doesn’t have a deep and convoluted theology because it’s European. It has a deep and complex theology because that’s like life. Europeans in particular are not going to be able to convince themselves that Thor is worth the worship worthy. (Neither will they be able to do so for Mohammed.)
There is a Christianity that most people will able to follow most of the time and get right. And it will be reasonable simple. A theology that covers all of human experience however, will be complex.
Nonsense. Most Christians through history were illiterate. The clergy trained academics to read and interpret the bible for them and they paved the way for the most powerful nations on earth. Britain alone controlled 3/5 of the globe. The faith encouraged and grew by extolling the value of good judgement, harmony, peace, duty and loyalty. It succeeded in doing that in a world filled with mortal enemies. One also has to wonder what (hork, spit) “enlightenment” is. For some, an enlightened society lets women make the decisions which has resulted in mass abortion, pedos chasing your kids around the public… Read more »
Free will and lack of impulse control explains a lot-
To one of your minor points, isn’t it amazing that women got the right to vote and their most important issue by far is the right to kill their own children?
The point of Christian clerics is not to read and interpret the Bible. That’s a modern framework talking. The early Church didn’t have a Bible. It’s an oral tradition and complex one. Being illiterate does not make one stupid. It just cuts off a method of communication.
Saint Jerome translated the bible into the Latin Vulgate not long after the Catholic Church pronounced what books shall go into the Bible under their authority.
Vulgate means “common”. This means that he translated into the common language spoken.
Many where literate in Rome, regardless they were read the bible in the language they spoke (not the Kings Latin)…
The Church brough the word of God to the lowest peoples as best they could.
One of the most dynamic bastions of Christianity is Africa. You don’t have to be a genius to understand the message. It is not that complicated.
Exactly. For most people, the message is so simple as to be a serious problem. The rejection is usually about knowing what they would need to do to start practicing the faith. It can get complex, which is part of the issue when people are interacting specifically with Catholic bishops. They’re talking about the 0.001% of cases because the rest is settled and everybody is like “What?”
Little Green Man from Mars 10K Foot View: 90 IQ (and lower) individuals have no problem with Christianity. To wit: The Philippines. Papua, Hill Tribes of Golden Triangle, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc., etc. They simply do not need the Big-Brained Aquinas stuff or the witty Chestertonian paradoxes in order to believe. Half their luck (seriously). For the rest, it’s easy enough for mid-wit Muh Science types to reject the whole Christian caboodle. Mid-wits aren’t going to bump into the any of the contractions and pitfalls of Reason. You could turn Mid-wits back into believing Christians with the right kind of censorship/propaganda… Read more »
“Our modern priors are based on a strong empiricism that demands not only that something is experienced, but is reproducible.” Well then, let’s see the atheists reproduce the creation of a single celled organism, let alone explain how order came from chaos and life came from non-life. Or how the infinitely complex human brain was created by 11 simple inorganic elements (oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium), which decided on their own to self organize in ever more complex structures. That would take more magic than believing in God.
The fault in your logic is in thinking it had to happen all at once.
/me struggles to figure out where the “all at once” appeared in DLS’s post.
Why is that a fault – why is thinking it didn’t have to happen all at once just as faulty? Seems you are just making assumptions.
I know. The atheists as I say can’t even make their own beds but they think they can grasp what it takes to make an entire universe
Atheism makes no claim about the world, except a negative one; thus it is perfectly consistent to be an atheist who doesn’t believe in evolution, heliocentrism or Big Bang theory. But because Christians feel their beliefs threatened by science more than anything else, they conflate atheism and scientism and attack scientism to disprove atheism: “So scientists can’t explain life, the universe and everything? Then that must logically mean talking snakes and virgin births!” The irony here is, that by making scientism the antithesis to religion, you elevate science to be the arbiter of last resort: you implicitly acknowledge that if… Read more »
Sorry to break it to you, but scientism is a scam. Science is the real deal, sure, as it’s an attempt to understand the inherent rationality of the universe. Science just assumes rationality, rather than bothering with trying to figure out why it is rational.
Scientism makes the positive statement that science is the best or possibly the only way to understand the world, which is a statement based on faith alone. Since science does not even attempt to explain why things seem rational, it cannot possibly be a means to understand the “why”.
Sorry to break it to you, but scientism is a scam.
It’s not a “scam”, it’s a logical fallacy called “reification” – the confusion of a model for the reality it models, but thanks for the heads-up.
Since science does not even attempt to explain why things ‘seem rational, it cannot possibly be a means to understand the “why”.
Nobody claims otherwise.
“Nobody claims otherwise.”
Except scientism.
Yeah, but we just agreed that scientism is a fallacy.
Hello? You are the one who brought up scientism? I wouldn’t have bothered replying otherwise, as I more or less agree with the rest. For probably 30 years I had views really close to what I think you are talking about. Eventually, there was just too much that didn’t quite add up. Might it in the future? Maybe, and if I’m still around at that point, I’ll re-evaluate.
Hello? You are the one who brought up scientism?
But not approvingly.
“…it cannot possibly be a means to understand the ‘why’…” Who the hell says?
“But because Christians feel their beliefs threatened by science more than anything else, “ Felix, there’s a bit of a broad brush here as well. I for one have never had a problem with science as verses religion (Christianity). To cite one example, evolution. Never had a problem with it. I won’t drag this on, just to say your broad brush seems to conflate certain historical fundamentalist objections that are not necessarily the beliefs/teachings of other Christian denominations. For example, I was taught Darwinism—if you will—in Catholic grade school. True, they left out the conflicting intersections we love to recite to… Read more »
Yes, but the “more than anything else”, though… I’d wager you don’t feel your faith threatened by anything.
But it seems to me religious people hate atheism more than they do competing religions and, I suspect, that stems from the hatred of scientism.
I can’t speak for everyone but I don’t hate atheism. I feel sorry for people, although I mostly avoid the irrational conversation these days. The hate I suspect, is mostly projection. It’s no fun believing that everyone is just a lump of dust with an expiration date and no meaning to the suffering of this life. It also means there’s no consequences for obviously evil people that surround us. And honestly, Catholic Church invented science study as we know it today. The list of early pre-Industrial revolution scientists who were monks is insanely long. The father of genetic study was… Read more »
The hate I suspect, is mostly projection.
Oh, it’s quite real, it’s all over the right-o-sphere. Not entirely surprising, considering what I said about internet atheists earlier, but it’s there. People have more time for Mohammadans than they do for atheists.
I wouldn’t say I am threatened. More so I am disappointed in atheists who seem like highly intelligent people, often, but then they can’t bring themselves to take the next step. Whether out of lack of imagination, limited curiosity, arrogance. Or rather, my position is this: whoever made the world, the trees, the sky, the moon, the oceans, and me, is by definition superior to me and supreme. Whether an entity did or some force or whatever, whatever it is is obviously superior to me. No man has created anything that compares. So for me that fits the definition of… Read more »
From a purely objective standpoint, that there is something supreme cannot be denied. Nonsense. The atheists I know, at least, and the ones I talk to online, will not acknowledge that there is something superior to them or supreme Yes, that’s sort of the whole point – indeed the only point – of atheism. But since you’re from Christian America, the atheists you talk to online are most likely misfits, spiteful mutants who get off on transgressing against societal norms – that’s why most Americans become atheists in the first place. There’s also a small number of normal guys, but… Read more »
You don’t think the force or entity that created the universe is supreme vis a vis yourself?
You are making my point for me
I don’t believe in “entities”, so it rests on the semantics of “force” and “supreme”.
Do I think gravity holds supremacy over me? Certainly, but that’s not what Christians mean by divine supremacy, is it?
You (or real Christians at any rate) believe in an anthropomorphic superbeing, an actual sky daddy with very human qualities, not some vague abstraction you can fit in between the cracks of the scientific understanding of the world.
Your lack of curiosity in this regard is part of what I am talking about.
If you don’t believe or forces or an entity, then who made it? What made it? Ignoring the question doesn’t make it go away
Ignoring the question doesn’t make it go away But I just don’t care. The double-slit experiment poses an extremely profound conundrum too, but understanding how it works is not an existential matter to me. I’d be curious to know the hows and whys about it, but I can easily live without the answers. As I said, these were things I pondered as a teenager but at one point you just shrug your shoulders and move on, as you realize you’re never going to get to the truth of the matter. Just declaring that the existence of a divine Creator is… Read more »
I never said Divine
All I am trying to get you to entertain is that whatever or whoever put you here and made the world you were introduced to one day is superior to you. Whether you choose to worship it, pray to it, whatever is a separate issue. Denying it comes off as juvenile.
You sound like the mouse claiming he’s the dominant party in the prey-predator equation as the snake swallows him
I never said Divine
So we aren’t talking religion?
And I struggle to fit the terms “superior” or “inferior” into my relationship to the Big Bang.
Correct, right now I am not talking about religion. I am only trying to establish what I think are some obvious realities
I don’t have to believe in God to accept the fact that whatever or whoever put me here and will take me away is obviously superior to me. I don’t have to deify it, I just choose to.
But if you simply do not find an interest in these things, that’s fine, but that is what I meant about atheists having a lack of intellectual curiosity.
I disagree that I was “put here” or will be “taken away” by a conscious agency because those terms DO imply religion. To speak in parables, man is a bird who has been flying through a black void for an eternity. Suddenly, he flies through a window and inside is a cosy living room with a fireplace, a set table decorated with flowers, paintings on the wall, light and music and people and laughter. And then, a moment later, you’re through the room and out the opposite window, back in the eternal void. I’m not going to waste my time… Read more »
They do not have to imply religion. It’s just a recognition of an obvious pecking order, as it were, to a man’s place on earth.
And I reject the notion that there’s a hierarchical order where you can measure man and Big Bang by the same yardstick. My person is not inferior nor superior to the Big Bang, the two are incommensurate. I don’t compare myself to Mount Everest or Saturn either.
“My person is not inferior nor superior to the Big Bang” That is preposterous. If the Big Bang is the source of your creation and existence then it is superior to you. It is greater than you. You didn’t make the Big Bang, or did you ? 😉 “I don’t compare myself to Mount Everest or Saturn either.” yeah because if you did you would have to conclude that these are things that are greater than you. And if they are greater than you, then it begs the question, is the source of their creation greater still? These are not… Read more »
“superior”
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
You’re dodging but I am going to conclude that Felix Krull, the man, imagines he is superior to the force of nature or the event that resulted in the creation of the universe and all things in it including himself. I think EMJ is right in this. Atheism operates in the realm of human psychology not theology. if an atheist can’t even bring himself to admit he is a lesser force than the Big Bang or a lesser creation than a planet that’s been around for a million years or a seven mile tall mountain that has fascinated people forever… Read more »
“And I struggle to fit the terms “superior” or “inferior” into my relationship to the Big Bang.” If the Big Bang was caused by an uncreated Creator, would cause a feeling of inferiority? What if I said remarkably that you might be created in the image (but not the exact likeness) of this uncreated Creator? What are the feelings then? The Big Bang makes no sense without a God to have done that explosion of creativity. The theory is: There was nothing and then there was everything in one moment. At the time it was published, there were worries that… Read more »
If the Big Bang was caused by an uncreated Creator, would cause a feeling of inferiority?
If that were the case, yes, I’d have to revise my stance. We have zero evidence that it was, though.
The Big Bang makes no sense without a God to have done that explosion of creativity.
The BB is not suppose to make “sense”. It either is or isn’t, that’s all.
Asking meta-questions about it is as fruitful as asking who created God – I mean if you argue that you can’t have something from nothing, that same logic goes for the Almighty too.
That’s why I say atheism is for people who fancy themselves as intellectuals but in fact are boring and lack intellectual curiosity. It’s a pose.
I am not speaking about Felix here. I think he is just playing cute, but I guess that means he’s posing lol
but how anyone can accept the premise of a Big Bang and not ask the obvious follow up question is beyond me.
That’s because you’re a Christian and Creation is a pretty big deal in your world view.
To me, creation is just an academic question and if there’s no satisfactory answer to be found, I’m certainly not going to subscribe to a highly meta and speculative one, just to have an answer.
Creation is a big deal to everyone but atheists who have a ho hum attitude about it. But that has been my point all along. Atheists tend to be dullards and not very intellectual curious or interested in anything but themselves atheism operates in the realm of human psychology, not theology but you will change. One day the light will go off and you will see that Falcone was right. There is a lot to be amazed by and in awe of in this life. . And then the questions will start spinning in your head and you will have… Read more »
“You (or real Christians at any rate) believe in an anthropomorphic superbeing…”
I think that’s probably fair through in, say, K-6 Sunday school. There are all kinds of things we simplify to try to communicate concepts at an age-appropriate level. Do some retain the sky-daddy thing well into adulthood? Maybe. I don’t personally know any, but there could be. I’d think most can figure out that burning bushes are not exactly anthropomorphic, but there may be some who can’t.
So you don’t know anyone who believe that Adam was made in the image of God?
A photograph is an image of human. Is the photograph a human?
That’s just casuistry. “Anthropomorphic” doesn’t mean “human”, it means “human-like” and a photograph of a man certainly carries the likeness of one.
“You (or real Christians at any rate) believe in an anthropomorphic superbeing, an actual sky daddy with very human qualities, not some vague abstraction you can fit in between the cracks of the scientific understanding of the world.” We do not believe the first part of the statement. God the Father is an uncreated Creator with no gender. The Holy Spirit has no gender nor human form either. We have use human terms, however, in order to even have the discussion. Part of the modern issue is that most people have an impression of Christianity that is overly simplified and… Read more »
Felix, we can definitely agree that American atheists are assholes. Admittedly, I am probably biased by the types I see online and on the glowing box. Think Bill Maher. I could have a beer and enjoyable conversation with your type.
I could have a beer and enjoyable conversation with your type.
I’ve no doubt we could; I usually get along well with Christians. I’ve been married to one in fact, and I taught her Inner Mission parents to play penny Mausel. Wife’s teenage brother won about $2, he reacted like he’d pulled a jackpot in Vegas.
Felix,
when you’re out on the town, talking to the ladies, searching for the next Mrs Krull, tell them, “hey baby, I’m bigger than the Big Bang”
Ha ha. Let us know how it goes. great pick up line
My Bang is bigger than Creation.
“The question of God is simply not one you spend time on or debate with your peers, except for a few years in your moody teens when people tend towards introspection.”
In one sense, to be angry with a God that doesn’t exist shows a bit more life than to sink into a despair that lends itself to suicide on all levels.
Who said anything about despair? I will concede that religion might fill some kind of existential void, but the funny thing is that Christians think and talk a lot more about death than atheists (or Danish atheists at any rate) do.
A lot more. And I’ve never heard about anyone at a funeral congratulating the bereft mother that little Billy was lucky to only have suffered five years in this vale of woes before God took him home.
I’d add my name to those who are not threatened by science. Not least because we are told to seek wisdom. Used to be I’d bring something sciency to church from time to time. One of the biggest hits was a couple big sheets of polarizing material in the fall so people could see the wonder that is in the various colors of chlorophyll in a way that was not possible until very recently in human history. Then superimposing and rotating the sheets so people could see light itself in a way that was not possible. Evolution works on tiny… Read more »
“A man confident in his faith would argue that since mortals are fallible and God is not, the Bible must be true, and in case of incompatibility with science, the boffins inevitably wrong, no matter how compelling their arguments. That’s how Mohammadans deal with science.” The issue is that the Bible is not written as scientific work. It is a true work, but not exactly as a science paper or a strict history lesson. Thus if science produces a true statement, Scripture and it need to harmonize, but not necessarily detail each other. We can’t be Mohammedians. In fact the… Read more »
The issue is that the Bible is not written as scientific work. It is a true work, but not exactly as a science paper or a strict history lesson. Yes, but that makes the whole notion of scripture kind of slippery, doesn’t it? If it fits with what we observe, no problem that’s because the Bible is inspired by God. If it doesn’t well, it’s not supposed to be taken literally. But that also mean you can’t use Genesis as an argument because when the shoe doesn’t fit, it’s just an allegory. Did you know that there are two creation… Read more »
“Yes, but that makes the whole notion of scripture kind of slippery, doesn’t it? ” Yes, but God is like that. Science is much more slippery than most people understand as well. “But that also mean you can’t use Genesis as an argument because when the shoe doesn’t fit, it’s just an allegory.” Most people well before the 20th century saw the “plot” holes in Genesis, including 2 creation stories. I don’t need Darwinism to realize that Genesis has to involve allegory. The issue comes up without even thinking about modern science theories. “The first one is for the urban sophisticates,… Read more »
If by better, we mean unhappy, suicidal Europeans with no particular will even to defend their families or borders By “better” I mean better at explaining why there’s thunder and earthquakes and eclipses and such things, not “better” as in morally better or better for your mental health. I was hoping to stay clear of theology, but you have to torture the text in Genesis a lot to make it conform to scientific observations. The fact that you bother with such textual contortions is an expression of the aforementioned elevation of scientism to the ultimate arbiter of reality: you effectively… Read more »
It’s simple to think the “universe created in six days” is a creation myth. But this assumes the six days should be measured from the perspective of the earth. I read an interesting book by a PhD astrophysicist who measured the six days from the point in space where the big bang occurred, and translated this period to time as measured from earth. In other words, if you sent a light beam from the area of the big bang 6 days after it occurred, toward the matter that became the earth, it would take 14 billion years for it to… Read more »
But that’s very far cry from what it actually says in Genesis. And I note this explanation was only “discovered” AFTER the BB theory became commonly accepted, just like Biblical heliocentrism was discovered only AFTER Galileo was vindicated. If some guy in the Middle Ages had read Genesis and discovered BB theory with the 14 billion years history, the hot phase and the cooling and all that, you’d certainly have my attention, but this just oozes post hoc rationalization. Relating to all the exotic theories about the Great Pyramid, Italian writer Umberto Eco went to his greengrocer with a tape… Read more »
Well let’s go to the tape. Quotes from Genesis (my comments in parenthesis, which reflect the current scientific consensus), in order: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (until the big bang theory in 1927, science believed there was no beginning) “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” (earth was covered with water, heavy gases blocking the sun) “And God said, “Let there be light” (gases covering the earth recede) “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water” (creation of the atmosphere) “Let the… Read more »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
How about a “rule”? Add a line or two of why your (naked) citation should be read by the audience. Seems a reasonable way to respect our time.
My guess is Miller-Urey is not that obscure, though it makes one wonder why bother linking it at all.
“Assume an atmosphere of nitrogen, ammonia, methane, CO2, H2O, etc. (or something — don’t recall the specifics of which gases), that we don’t know whether or not existed in the early earth, at pressures we are pretty sure did not exist, and then simulate lightning with electrical sparks, and at the end of this, we get a small amount of amino acids.”
“But amino acids would have degraded in those conditions.”
“Shut up! The science is settled!”
It says scientists created amino acids, which are nowhere near life, or single celled organisms. It’s kind of like saying I could drop small pieces of metal and glass in a lake and in a few billion years someone would pull out a perfectly working wristwatch. Actually, no. A wristwatch is much simpler than a single celled organism.
The most important part, @DLS, (IMO) is that many of the essential amino acids have not been able to be produced at all by M-U type experiments, and some of them are only produced in contradictory conditions; some in weakly reducing atmospheres, others in weakly oxidizing atmospheres. We don’t have an explanation for how the earth could sustain both close enough spatially or temporally to account for those acids to build up enough to form a pool of primordial soup.
I think they are on the right track, at least in part, but probably centuries away from a semi-plausible explanation.
Good point. And there is no explanation on how the amino acids and other elements always seems to change each other in a way that increases their complexity. It’s almost as if there is order to this cold, dark, random, chaotic universe. Nah, that sounds too magicy.
I disagree with the idea that the god of this age is reason. The god of the Enlightenment was reason, and we’re still in the Enlightenment’s shadow in many ways, but here in Clown World reason has devolved into casuistry, or maybe even jesuitism — overly (and overtly) sophisticated “reasoning” that makes the forms of arguments, but with no actual truth value, and which, when you decode them, end up being invalid for any number of reasons (usually skipped steps, stolen bases, argument by assertion, and so on). E.g the “motte and bailey” fallacy, a characteristic “argument” form in Clown… Read more »
Reason is an excellent servant but a terrible master.
Especially when it is weaponized, as it is in clownworld. Of course, the other side is never held to this standard of reason.
History has the answer: those who have faith survive, the purely rational kill themselves off
You mean sacrificing your children for an AUDI isn’t rational?
An Audi no. A Bentley or a Rolls, yes.
Yes and no. Man isn’t a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal. This is why the church is falling – we see it with the idiocy coming out of the Vatican these days. Believers are flipping off the church, not the faith for the most part.
Pilate saw Him as a harmless loon too. It’s said you can judge a man by his friends. You can judge him accurately by his enemies too. Moslems and jews are good enemies to have, if history is any guide…
I don’t think the Vatican has any Catholics in it. Vatican 2 could not have been a Catholic council, cause it contains non Catholic teachings previously condemned by the church like religious freedom. Do any one adhering to v2 falls from the faith.
I was re-reading Xenophon’s Anabasis last month and I chuckled when Xenophon made an incredibly rational, linear speech to his men on the proper strategic plan for their campaign and then sacrifice some animals to confirm or reject the same plan. The Greeks understood the two realms of faith and reason.
Reading the entrails added an essential element of unpredictability. The enemy could not assume that the other side would do the rational thing. I think we could incorporate this randomness and spirituality into modern life but I’m not sure how.
It is not so much the atheist who believes Jesus was a lunatic, as it is those who believe he was a wise teacher but not divine. “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a… Read more »
I reply with a stellar comment from the web; Athanasians have not only suppressed, but literally killed off a far more just culture when these zealots wiped out the Arianite Goths. Thus, the strident breast-beating and humblebragging: they justify their zealotry and erase their crime. The Arianite’s sin was in being able to get along with their neighbors, and in wanting to preserve Greco-Roman achievement, rather than converging it with Judaic supemacism. Rome had a hundred religions under its umbrella, yet an official code followed by the state. I say an official religion for the state, yes, but not forced… Read more »
Christians tend to be as bad as Basketball-Americans when it comes to we wuz-ing past accomplishments.
Europeans of antiquity accomplished many great things prior to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Conversely, there is a continent filled with Christians whose greatest accomplishments to this day are building large mud huts. The bloodline is the important part, not the particular vision of the unknowable that one chooses believe in.
You’ll need to cite some examples. Leave out the Southern Europeans—Rome and Greece, and you have some of the most war like primatives to ever walk the earth in Europe.
What a stupid request. Trying to understand the history of Europeans without including “Southern Europeans” is like trying to understand a plant based solely on what is above the ground.
A huge chunk of the nobility of Western Europe could trace their lineage right back to Rome, but apparently that shouldn’t count because reasons. The fact that pretty much every conversation on here, 2000+ years later, ends up referencing Greco-Roman culture should be testament enough to what Europeans are capable of even in the absence of one branch of European spirituality.
Whatever. The Arians were wrong, so they had to be corrected. And if you are wrong about the most fundamental fact of being, then what else matters?
Precisely one of the sticking points wrt Judaism and Christianity coming to terms—the worship of Jesus as god. Therefore the concept of a Trinity had to be developed, as in God the Father, God the Son…
This is not a hard question. Faith IS rational and easily explained by reason. The practice of faith exists and persists, even in this modern age, simply because it works. Religion is the embodiment of ancient wisdom and faith is the social mechanism that ensures continued adherence to this wisdom within a world of unknowns. The purpose of faith is not to be objectively accurate, but to promote adherence to ancient wisdom. Without this reinforcement, people and societies suffer and decline.
I don’t think reason has replaced Christian Faith. Rather, faith in Christ was replaced by faith in magical black people, and now the Rainbow. Think about people with hobbies. Or those who ride motorcycles for fun by choice. Both offer the ability for those with >110 IQs to turn off all the thinking for total concentration on a task at hand. Carpentry, cooking (as a hobby), other things turn off the all the extraneous thinking, and direct it into intense focus. This is something only those with higher IQs need, as the dull and low IQ live in an endless… Read more »
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
Idk, I’ve always found scripture to be highly rational. That Jesus spent so much time calling out the Jews might not be rational if one’s goal is not to be murdered by Jews. But if you’re the Messiah conquering death, it’s a rational and necessary step. I think Thomas Aquinas did a pretty good job on rationality. https://isidore.co/aquinas/ContraGentiles1.htm What we mistakenly call “Science!” today represents the abandonment of reason. The priests of the New Religion tell us what Science! commands. And like the shaman of old, the priests of the New Religion frequently bob and weave their way through the… Read more »
The phrase “liar, lunatic or Lord?” is a very common formulation in Christian circles, so I doubt it offends many knowledgeable Christians. Christian apologists from C. S. Lewis to Dennis Harris have used the formulation as a way to get to the heart of the claims about Jesus.
Most men act rationally, at least in their own minds. When you look at someone else’ behavior and see irrationality, it’s usually because you don’t understand their mindset or their goals. Their goals may be stupid and their mindset ridiculous, but to them, it’s all logical and consistent.
The Gospels make it very clear that many, many, many people, including many who followed Jesus, thought he was crazy or at the very least harbored serious doubts and questions. His followers, though, kept walking with him because they saw his miracles and trusted him, and his enemies, who always doubted him, were in the end defeated after his resurrection. I don’t think that Christianity makes much sense without this narrative, honestly, but it is also a narrative that is not often discussed or taught, even to many Christians. Yet it’s really, really important. Without this narrative, how different is… Read more »
Meh. Different times, different solutions. It’s one thing when you are living in times where we didn’t understand science as well as we do today and your audience is comprised mostly of peasants. It’s a completely different situation today with so many people being literate and understanding the logical way our world and universe was created and exists. I’ve never doubted that there is a rational explanation for what we’ve been told to accept on faith. That doesn’t negate the faith in my mind, that helps prove it to me
Exactly, well said & thank you.
Well, the claim of Christianity is that this Jesus was God and was raised from the dead in his own body. One either accepts this absurd claim or not, but not many can be reasoned into it.
Which seems bizarre to me. If you have a faith in a God who can take dirt and breathe life into it, how tough could it possibly be for Him to breathe life into a dead body?
Anyone who has qualms about the rationality of the resurrection has more foundational issues.
I’m a heretic when it comes to this issue. It doesn’t matter to me one way or another. If he was resurrected, great. If he wasn’t dead to begin with (most logical explanation) and just got a second wind, that’s also great.
This is why everyone thinks you are an idiot, Nick.
What, that I don’t blindly follow what somebody else writes down on a piece of paper? If that makes me an idiot, so be it.
Why bother with believing He became man? I’m not trying to talk you out of what you believe, just wondering why you think this thing in the Bible is true and this other thing is not?
To clarify, if you want to think some things are literal and some metaphor, sure. But what makes you think that’s the metaphor part?
I have problems with the story, that is true. I think most people do if they’re honest with themselves. But I can accept God thinking he had to have a physical manifestation down here so that people could believe. I’ve also been around a once famous, now deceased, TV preacher. You could almost see the charisma surrounding him. Sometimes, I wonder if that’s all Jesus was, just an extremely charismatic guy. We will never know. But it seems logical to me that all of this around us had to have been created by somebody or something. The specifics of the… Read more »
“the god of this age is rationality” Until about 50-60 years ago, I agree. But not anymore! If there is a god, it is *bureaucracy* – but even that god is declining (since its peak in early 2020). Aside from that – I agree with you main thesis. For people like you and me, Christianity must be rational. But Christianity must be much More rational than “science” or “academia” or “history” – because for a religion to be real in a world where all social institutions are corrupted into tools for evil – religion must be directly and personally experienced.… Read more »
Does it? Based on your understanding of .. what, exactly? Not trying to be a dink, Bruce, but…you and I comprehend maybe about 5% of known creation. Even that requires fudging like the study of chaos and disorder and shrugging at the deeper mysteries that face us.. We are limited in 3 dimensions. For the stable universe we see to exist, we need to posit the existence of ten dimensions. There is a LOT of room in that for God. What happens when you look at our world from another dimension up? Or the one higher than that? The tall… Read more »
@D – Since you address me so familiarly by my first name (from behind the shelter of your pseudonym!), I presume you must be a lurking reader of my blog? If not, then I suggest you find it and read in it, where you will discover my answers to your rhetorical questions!
Having followed this and many other blogs over the years, it is clear that you guys are mainly about defending the West in the context of white nationalism. The question you need to ask yourselves is how useful Christianity is to accomplishing this objective.
What would you offer as an alternative, Abe?
There are certain world-views that whites tend to subscribe to more than most others that offer competitive advantage in productive accomplishments and what not. So much so that practicing such values is derided as “acting white”. Perhaps these traits and values should be emphasized in such a society.
Abe:
So, you are suggesting that as an alternative to Christianity that we adopt “certain world views” and that we should “act white”?
There are certain traits and values that are more common to whites than other races and cultures. Would not basing a white society on these characteristics make it easier to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the human species?
I don’t know, traditional Christianity (not the modern watered down version many call “Churchianity”) served the West and White civilization quite well for centuries. Why reinvent the wheel when there is a track-record proven one just waiting to be picked up?
“If the churches are to fill up again or new churches are to be founded, the modern Christian must confront the fact that the god of this age is rationality. That god must be overcome in order to be restored to his proper place alongside the mystery of life.” How ironic as the answer is as old as the Bible itself and is plain to see if you delved into the matter. Irrationality was discussed by “God” Himself in the book of Job. Irrationality there defined more as being one of the finite mind attempting to understand the infinite mind—God… Read more »
A bit earlier in the book – God asks Job: Where were you when i laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. God then poses a series of questions to Job, whose ultimate reply is: Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth.
Yes, I was want to say that, but heck, I needed an ending and who wants me to pontificate. But those are beautiful words nonetheless.
The great English writer W. S. Maugham once famously stated that it would be impossible to live precisely as Jesus prescribed because you would not be able to reconcile the reality of this world with the otherworldly code that Christians follow. You would end up dead…or worse. Turning the other cheek rarely ends well. He actually wrote a novel, The Razor’s Edge, based on the life of a man who was totally good. The other thing I remember from my reading of Maugham was his statement that Christianity could not handle too much investigative activity because it is “all of… Read more »
It’s not nearly so otherwordly as they make it out to be. A basic assumption is that humans are supposed to be immortal in the body. The plan of salvation is about restoring this fantastic situation. The secularist bias of it all could hardly be more obvious.
So what they have there is a garbled materialism with an authoritarian ghost story. Massive egoism (Ex. 3:14) is baked into the ghost story, which is used as a smokescreen for Israel’s intense narcissism (Ex. 19:5-6).
Z’s analysis vis-a-vis faith and reason is not incorrect but it is insufficient. The best way to understand this problem is through Nietzsche’s aphorism “Christianity is Platonism for the masses.” Like Plato, Christianity creates a “Guardian class” of clergy supposedly selflessly dedicated to the truth, and personifying the virtues of temperance, prudence, fortitude and — this is important — an approximation of justice. Because the main difference between Christianity and Platonism is that the Just City proposed in Plato’s Republic is unobtainable in this world, and justice can only be achieved in the hereafter. The example of Christ crucified by… Read more »
There’s a quote from Star Trek: DS9 that seems apt here. This was the one Star Trek show that actually made religion a central pillar of its story through the Bajorans who were depicted as deeply spiritual people worshipping what they perceived as gods but could also be described as “wormhole aliens”. Anyway.
The quote, if I recall it correctly, is from the main Bajoran character, Major Kira, explaining her faith to another character:
“That’s the thing about faith. If you have it, no explanation is necessary. If you don’t have it, no explanation is ever enough.”
Russell Kirk’s “The Roots of American Order” posited three major roots: Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. The latter for the Republic, obviously a model for early America, and for the Empire that adopted Greek ideas, while imposing order through Roman laws along the roads it built throughout the ancient world.
The notion of Judeo-Christian is absurd – as absurd as National Conservatism for The Occident being headquartered in Tel Aviv or Haifa. Heck, National Conservatism when the current nation states have been so savaged and utterly deconstructed at this hour is enough to tell you this is a farce and unserious. I diverge. The most basic of History between these two peoples is the antithesis of a cooperatively shared project. It is a story of rejection. The very history of Judea is the rejection of Occidental Man. Of course, for the Jews this isn’t just the rejection of Occidental Man… Read more »
@RealityRules – that was a brilliant rant, spot on and captured the essence of the matter. Screenshotted and saved for further posting.
As I wait for approval, my view is that due to the population not being compatible with reason, the cult of reason has not replaced Christianity. Rather, something else. You can certainly see in Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, the worship of technology and logic and reason. Understandable in his case as he was brought up in a household with the sort of Folk Christianity beliefs that were thinly Christianized pagan beliefs that reading both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, terrorized him as a child. See the Death Watch Beetle, or the view that lightning would strike him for lacking… Read more »
Tocqueville- Equality of conditions persuades men to conceive an instinctive disbelief in the supernatural and a very lofty, often exaggerated, conception of human reason.
Human opinions form only a sort of intellectual dust which swirls in every direction, unable to settle or find stability.
Whatever happens, you will never come across true exercise of power among men, except by the free agreement of their wills; only patriotism or religion can carry, over a long period, the whole body of citizens toward the same goal.
Another source that must be considered in evaluating early Christianity is the First and Second Apology of Justin Martyr. In his First Apology he starts by saying essentially that Christians are saying about Jesus only what the Greeks are saying about their gods, but what Christians are saying is true. Of course, he doesn’t go on to demonstrate Christian truth versus non-Christian falsehood. Christianity may have been much closer to Greek thought from the beginning, particularly since almost all scholars regard the four canonical gospels as literature and not as history. Considered as literature, there are so many parallels in… Read more »
Choose one:
Nihilism, meaninglessness, scientism, without any sense of the numinous mystery all around us.
or
The universe is a great work of art, overflowing with meaning; complex, intelligible order. Layers of meaning that we continue to discover.
Can it truly be,that the Cosmos is the most beautiful, elegant work of art ever made…by nobody?
I see no reason to believe one way or the other.
Faith is the cause, the energy, the oomph. Reason tempers faith, directs it, makes it workable. Unchecked, reason sucks the life out of everything. See the empty churches, as Z notes. You have to let it hang out, just not too far lol. Matter is subject to both but gets its say. The flesh desires and suffers, goes the way of flesh: you get tired, hungry, happy, sad, angry, aroused, old, dead. Jesus’ Passion was His physical suffering. The Puritans weren’t wrong about subjecting the physical world to the individual’s will, but imo they went too far in thinking it… Read more »
“Faith is the cause, the energy, the oomph.
Reason tempers faith, directs it, makes it workable.”
Man, in a nutshell. I really like this.
Unchecked, faith gives you that Xhosa teenager who told her people to kill their cattle and burn their crops. /sarcasm
No need for sarcasm, I think it’s true! Like a bomb going off, or a downed power line.
“The Christian who bristles at the “absurdity” the question posed at the beginning is a Christian forced to explain faith by the rules of reason. It is a hopeless project, which is why the churches have emptied out across the West. “ It’s not an entirely hopeless project. Reason can make the leaps of faith look like something manageable and even reasonable in of themselves, rather than the Grand Canyon. The mysteries remain, but someone can trust that they are mysteries, rather than arbitrary random rules established 1000 years ago. One of the failings of the 20th century is a lack… Read more »
Jesus was proved to be for cause he performed miracles only god could perform. He also said he was god. The stuff he said that is a mystery is stuff you would take on “faith” like the trinity (even though there are logical or resonable aspects to the trinity like knowing yourself so Peregrinus that your thought becomes you, or the word)
so I just don’t get this big leap of faith talk. It’s not a leap of faith at all.
Why is it so difficult? Faith and Reason are “different magestaria,” in and of themselves. (I had a coverstation yesterday with a young academy-dude whose studies – get this! – revolve around the analysis of cuniform – yep! Our conversation turned to maters of teleology. I suspect this gent had NEVER encountered anyone who was comfortable with both the rational (intellectual) AND the spiritual (teleological)). Did I get minez from the Jesuits of old, or am I blessed with the apparatus that enables fluency in sight reading/notation AND “feel” for harmonix and improvisation? Alas, I suspect that our host is… Read more »
Kazoo you say.
When God isn’t not playing dice with the universe, he’s jamming on the… wait for it…
https://youtu.be/4SpWuseQGys?si=SHSfMwbkR-Ng_bBi&t=308
OK… I’ll get my coat…
I know, I know… Art of the Fugue… Fourth act of Figaro, etc.. etc. You’re not wrong. Religion and Reason are not totally orthogonal. Neither are they parallel lines. They both have their uses. It’s a peculiarly Western mental illness to try to create a synthesis or to have one or the other victorious. An East Asian might think of them as being two separate rooms. One goes into the Rational Room to do one’s Rational Stuff and one goes into the Religion Room to handle the less rational stuff and one goes to the bathroom to take a dump.… Read more »
Thanks for the nod, but I don’t think we’re quite on the same page.
(And yet: a jew’s harp jam at a navel-gazers conference: now who’d a’ thunk THAT! 😉
Straussian notions have never set right with me. Their proponents obfuscate instead of clarifying.
That could be to set themselves apart as keepers of some arcane knowledge that is beyond the ken of the average person.
Or it could be that they are arch dorks. Maybe both?
“Spinoza’s rationalism was based in a kind of religious fervor. He sounds at times like a person who had a religious conversion experience and ‘got saved.’ However, he found salvation not in the worship of God, but in the worship of reason … He was a true believer, just as much as the most dogmatic of his critics – even though his faith was in reason and philosophy instead of traditional religion.”
— Why Sane People Believe Crazy Things
Is it not likely that science and religion are separate areas orthogonal to each other? Reason is the proper cognitive tool for understanding the physical work (including human physiology). Religion is the tool for figuring out purpose, meaning, and intent. This seems the proper approach to me. However, the latter, not being based on reason, is not objective. Thus,religion must be treated as individually specific.
“Is it not likely that science and religion are separate areas orthogonal to each other?” Nope. They are complementary. But admittedly, its a bit like visualizing a hypercube. If you stretch your mind a bit, you can pretty easily picture a single vertex. With practice, two adjacent vertices, and, fleetingly, an entire face. Expanding beyond that, something I have never accomplished, should rationally be possible, but until one figures out what part of the rational world he imperfectly understands, he’s not going to be able. It’s going to have to remain a matter of faith. Blatantly stealing from Richard Bach,… Read more »
To appreciate the mystery’s of the faith we have to have both the ability to self reflect on ourselves and the ability to think about the nature of the universe. Some people have this ability, many do not, and our rulers make sure that every waking moment can be occupied with techno gadgets, sports ball, and the latest Hollywood creation or piece of information in the news cycle. It’s almost like they don’t want us thinking about a God. Mmmm. Modernity and it’s metroplex separate from nature creates an environment where God and the meaning of our lives does not… Read more »
As a mostly lapsed Anglican (the church left me, not the other way around) the question I struggle with is are there eternal human truths that exist in Christian theology that can be applied to modern society as a framework for running it, or have we changed so much that a dusty 2000 year old philosophy and religion, while aesthetically pleasing cannot serve to order modern human affairs..? I’m not talking about the basic Ten Commandment type rules, but elements of the religion specific to it that apply to this day?
And yet in the lifetime of our parents/grandparents it served well enough. It’s more the problem that today’s humans are unfit to serve a Christian world than Christianity is unfit to serve a human world.
Pathological “individualism” seems to come into play here. That, coupled with our new god, “scientism”. And here we are today.
You are misusing the term “scientism”. Scientism is an ideology that uses science to justify increased government regulation and control over individuals (climate cult, vaccine mandates). Scientism is the opponent of individualism, not the advocate of such.
Yes, the sanctity of motherhood and fatherhood.
If given a choice women in general will choose not to bare children.
Without motherhood being raised as the highest achievement we are doomed to destruction.
I should say if given a choice in a system that tells women to be a girl boss is the highest achievement why are we shocked that women choose not to have children and instead become girl boss?
Depends upon what you mean by choice, as perhaps the concept of “free will”. I really don’t think many women who give birth are “forced” to, least not in the Western world. Yet, the birth rate drops below replacement.
My personal experience has been within family that all the women, successful careerists all, have a biological “need” to have and foster children. The issue is that we have those women stopping at 1-2 children. Most likely due to advanced age, coupled with the stress of more children and outside home employment duties.
What is wrong with you? Either you believe Christ was raised and is God or else you do not. What is all this nonsense about how it applies to today’s problems and blah blah? That’s just stupid.
What’s wrong today is women’s frustrated/stifled “mothering” urges-instead of staying home with the 4th baby, they try to supervise the lives of immigrants through girrl boss activities.
The symbol of the age of rationality is the machine. The ultimate real-world machine is the one-armed, yellow-painted factory robot. By contrast, the ultimate fictional machine is the T-800, the killing Terminator created by auteur James Cameron. It is not a coincidence that the final scene in the hunt takes place in a factory full of moving one-armed gadgets. What are the attributes of any machine? It is soulless It is deathless; it can be repaired It lives off electricity, a mysterious force few understand The machine is antithetical to man. Farting, burping man, guzzling his burgers, has nothing in… Read more »
Interesting notion Greg. Not disagreeing – I am not a philosopher… but the first machines have successfully passed the Turing Test and left it in the rearview mirror. I laugh at the wanks on Blab who live to prank AI. But look at what happens – when the machine vomits – it’s because of the morons that programmed it. I recall with some hilarity when Google’s AI started barfing up pics of vibrant and diverse chinese, negro and and red Nazis. We now have machine learning… We cannot honestly pawn off the likely consequences of our foolishness on machines… I… Read more »
Right now, AI has human programmers. The ultimate intent is for AI to program itself. That may not be so “funny”. Already AI can write code upon request. What if the request is to write its own code in order to perform some second order duty/purpose?
It’s a fascinating topic for discussion and debate, C. Right now I don’t think the big worry is invincible gun bots and bloodthirsty terminator robots suddenly developing awareness and turning on their creators. I think the the threat is far more like Greg’s original thought – the Machine will swat us like bugs in any number of different ways without even being aware of us, itself or anything else. It’s like that guy that got killed by the bot on the car assembly line – the bot activated inadvertently, crushed the maintenance tech as it set about the task of… Read more »
I cannot dispute a single word you say. My AI understanding is weak, but perhaps my distrust of those in the field is spot on…. 😉
When they say “AI is dangerous” I do not think they mean it will become sentient and take over. I think what they mean is that people will use AI as an excuse to do bad things. And/or detach people from important decisions that go awry. Like with the Israelis and their use of AI to determine the best way to kill off lots of people, where to drop the bomb to cause maximal damage, etc. Similar to the FICO score. Used to be that lenders would evaluate you on your income, references, collateral, etc. Then came FICO and the… Read more »
“The Christian who bristles at the “absurdity” the question posed at the beginning is a Christian forced to explain faith by the rules of reason. It is a hopeless project,” Z-man: It’s clear the Jesuits screwed you up in high school. Reasoning the Christain faith is the first thing presented to us in John 1:1. It’s so simple. The twisted complex Jesuit modern mind has led many inter perdition from what was plaining evident those generations who have came and died before us. Let me show you: John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with… Read more »
Maybe you guys should consider starting a new religion. Why use an existing religion when you can start your own?
Tertullian’s opinion was in the minority. Most of the prominent early Christians believed that classical civilization was a preparation for the triumph of the Gospel. Greek rational philosophy (not Greek religion) prepared people for the Christian message of monotheism and the Pax Romana allowed the wide distribution of the Christian message throughout a large empire.
James Kunstler has been silenced. I cannot find him anywhere.
Mark Steyn links to Zman via Radio Derb
https://www.steynonline.com/14632/the-uniparty-turns-literal
A fresh rapprochement between Christian doctrine and reason is coming and has already begun, but it may be that none of us live to see its fruition. I can provide a glimpse of that. I can tell you that Genesis 1 is also a philosophical treatise on how one creates anything packaged as a narrative, and properly understood, it provides a working model that makes those hooting about Order and Chaos look like primitive shaman. I can tell you that the Bible carries an implicit understanding of evolutionary processes in describing the cultural evolution of human society (Gen 3:16 –… Read more »
You could look at including poetic narrative to your duopoly. There is more in heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy (and theology). C.S.Lewis had a little different take on this subject. He wrote about an essential core of proper living as respecting “The shape of horse and woman/ Athens, Troy, Jerusalem.”
Is it possible without rejecting science and technology?
It amuses me to no end that the people commenting here about how science is just some evil trick by Jewish pedophiles and evolution isn’t real can only do so via a fantastically complicated machine that couldn’t exist without a sophisticated understanding of Physics.
The problem with Christianity is that it’s irrational and superstitious, like all religions I suppose, but it has developed under relatively rational and high-IQ peoples. Judaism is also in the same boat, with thousands of years of smart people rationalizing what amounts to tall tales and magic. (I wonder if Shinto is the same?) Many smart and rational people from the 19th century were Christian. So I’m not sure if it’s modern rationalization that’s reducing Christianity, but I do think Z is onto something when he says people are looking for another “Way”, as the theology of Christianity is getting… Read more »
The rational atheist school of thought has to ignore the innumerable things that happen which can’t be explained by them….For example, new species suddenly emerging that have no evolutionary path…
Einstein..You can live your life “as if nothing is a miracle..or as if everything is a miracle..”
I choose Door 2….
According to the Book of Secular Analytics, there is a 99.836-percent chance Jesus Christ was a paranoid schizophrenic.
According to the Christian Book of Analytics, there is a 99.386-percent chance Christ’s divinity can be proved by consulting the works of Quine, Frege and Wittgenstein.
Now if you could express what you just said *in* a Quine, you’d be the Kwisatz Haderach and we could all just head out on a nice jihad instead of bickering in threads. Be fun.
A Christian revival must start with a proper understanding of the words “Jew” and “Gentile” which do not mean what poorly educated Christians think they do. Then proceed to understanding that God dealt exclusively with one race in the OT/NT and that was the Israelites (not jews). Judeo-Christian Universalism (aka Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal etc etc) are all versions of Babylonian Judaism NOT Christianity.
https://archive.org/details/god-made-a-racial-choice/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/originofthewordjew2/mode/2up?view=theater
Sadly, Catholicism is also a version of Judaism. Though it’s probably more accurate to call them all Chaldean Hebrewism rather than Babylonian anything. Babylonian Judaism is the parent of Pharisaic and eventually Rabbinic Judaism.
A Christian revival must start with a proper understanding of the words... Do you understand that this is a blog for nationalists who are not of Israel? How could any such nationalist have any Christianity which doesn’t corrupt his or her family tree with Israel’s patriarchy and Jacob’s alleged ancestors, uncles, and so on? How could one such nationalist, having just a bit of self-respect, tolerate Israel’s self-serving fictions (e.g the flood hoax) about the ancestors of all humans? Read again this part of the essay: Others have picked up the phrase as a way of weaving their ancestors into… Read more »
Christianity is a poorly made Psyop against Rome by Jews
Jesus nonsense fill with acceptance towards out group which only benefits Jews lived in Rome at that time
more learned about that Christianity stuff make you think it’s absurd, is it early communism or Just makes confuse on citizen of Rome
One thing is sure that it’s directly against logos, the logic from Greek philosophy
If white people read Plato instead of bible, Jews never had a chance to conquer white people
The problem with religion is not that it requires one to give up only reason. It requires you to give up self-ownership and individual liberty as well, and that I cannot and will not do.
You give up your self-ownership and your individual liberty every time you pay your property tax. Because you wisely wish to avoid the penalties of ignoring this exercise in submission to reality.
Not once you realize who He created you to be. It’s the Churchians who insist you give up self-ownership. His message is it is your life and you get to decide what to do with it.
It’s the only one you get, so choose wisely.
Yes, and I choose to be productive and to pursue my rational self-interest. Thank you very much.
You get to pursue your self interest only because you have been giving a gift of life. So who gave it to you? And who is going to take it away?
I respected and honored my parents when they were alive. But I see no reason to believe I owe anything to any other agency. I cannot owe anything to your god because I have never joined your religion.
“…so choose wisely.”
Indeed. The essential elements of your comment—free will, and judgement. Great gifts with great power.
Yes, I choose wisely. I have my “shit together” in terms of my financial and career life and take care of my self physically. If this is not an example of good judgement, I don’t know what it.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it… Read more »
This kind of stuff makes absolutely no sense to me. I honestly do not understand the attractiveness of a world-view that does not recognize self-ownership.
I bet it isn’t “self-ownership” that is your real stumbling block, because the idea that your self-ownership is meaningfully infringed by a God that grants you free will to follow him or not — as you are choosing — is ridiculous. Your real stumbling block is that you don’t like the idea that there is a moral authority up there watching you, because you know that you fail to live up to even your own imperfect moral standard, no less God’s standard. And that’s terrifying. That “stuff [that] makes absolutely no sense” to you is an explanation of the concept… Read more »
Morality is purely transactional. If I treat others well, then I am a moral person. If I treat others badly, I am an immoral person. This is essentially the non-aggression principle. This standard of morality makes both logical and intuitive sense to me. No other concept of morality makes a lick of sense to me at all. It is very easy for me to live up to my concept of morality, and I do so every day. I see no reason to be terrified of anything. Your god sounds to me like a Hitler or a Stalin. No wonder you… Read more »
You are lying to yourself.
No I’m not. My concept of morality is both logical and intuitive and thus I am able to live by it. Yours appears to be esoteric and thus incomprehensible. An incomprehensible system of morality does not strike me as being much useful. In any case, your religion might be of value to white people. But it certainly does not fly with most other people around the word. I can tell you it certainly does not fly in Japan or most other Asian countries. This alone should make you question the “universality” of any particular religion. By claims of universality, you… Read more »
Since you guys are into religion, so you have a problem with me starting a new religion and grabbing marketshare from the existing religions such as Christianity and Islam? As far as I know, there is no IP in religion. So there is nothing preventing me from starting a new religion.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
That is fine and I respect your right to do. But please do not expect me to do the same as I refuse to do so.
But that’s not true – you do follow a religion if you obey the rules of any society. even when those rules are not in your self-interest.
I said rational self-interest.
self-ownership…
Tell that to your wife, child, cat. They all get part ownership of you.
I certainly do not disagree with that, especially the cat.