ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
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I wouldn't push it too far no, but if you hold that the atemporal cannot be experienced by temporal beings, you'd have a hard time explaining how a man can experience Math.
That's an interesting example. One might say that what one experiences - if one "experiences" anything - is a particular mathematical act. For example, I experience the act of adding two and two. This is temporal, but it allows me to experience, indirectly, the atemporal fact that 2+2=4.
On the other hand, I'm not sure whether many theists would be willing to push the analogy between the eternal truths of mathematics and the eternal God too far. Maths may be atemporal but it's abstract. There isn't a thing out there called maths which exists atemporally, at least not in the same sense in which most theists think that God does.
L
You will note that my first assertion was that atemporal phenomena cannot be experienced. While I hold this to be self-evident, I'll explain however why: we lack the senses to experience anything atemporal, and, by extension, the instruments to do so. Any phenomenon we can experience/measure is temporal. Now, assuming a person does experience God, this does not automatically prove that we can experience atemporal phenomena. Rather it proves God isn't atemporal at all.
Have you heard of the movie Zeitgeist? If so, what do you think they got the most right or wrong about religion?
See this thread for that very discussion:I wouldn't push it too far no, but if you hold that the atemporal cannot be experienced by temporal beings, you'd have a hard time explaining how a man can experience Math.
That doesn't prove either assertion. Even if we assumed that we cannot experience anything atemporal, we could just experience a temporal projection of the atemporal God. Or in other words, the temporal effect of the atemporal being, which has to be there unless you postulate God to be totally removed from and totally without effect on the universe
Have you heard of the movie Zeitgeist? If so, what do you think they got the most right or wrong about religion?
Leaving aside that mathematics is a human construct (which breaks the analogy as the sun analogy did), we can only 'experience' math after we have learned it. Assuming a person does not know math and having 2 eggs he gets 2 more, all he knows is he now has more eggs than before. Now, not assuming that God is a human construct, how can we experience God if we not already know God? (It's here that the analogy is an improvement on the sun analogy. We know the sun exists, as we can see it. Which is the basic tenet for any experience. However we cannot see God. Moses tried and was nearly blinded* - by the way another interesting analogy with the sun, but equally irrelevant here.) Also, math is not atemporal: there was a time math did not exist; reasoning back we assume that the laws of mathematics have always worked.
Summing up I've seen no valid argument why it would be possible to experience atemporal phenomena. (Plotinus merely asked how I know it to be true.) Ergo, the problem is as yet unsolved.
You will note that my first assertion was that atemporal phenomena cannot be experienced. While I hold this to be self-evident, I'll explain however why: we lack the senses to experience anything atemporal, and, by extension, the instruments to do so.
Not sure if it's been asked before, but what positions do you, Plotinus, take on issues of philosophy or theology that you think are probably contrary to popular opinion or common wisdom within your field of expertise?
The first is just a repetition of what Plotinus said: an effect of a nontemporal phenomenon could be experienced by temporal beings. But why would this be so? My point is that all humans can experience/measure are temporal phenomena. How would one make certain that any temporal effect results from a nontemporal phenomenon? That's just the problem.
(One might even argue that temporal phenomena have no effect on nontemporal phenomena - since they are outside of it, i.e. out of time, so to speak.
And one might ask why timely phenomena - such as we ourselves are - should concern a nontemporal being, such as God is supposed to be.
However, according to the bible, timely events do affect God, and God actively responds to them. That suggests temporal attributes rather than nontemporal ones. What need would a nontemporal phenomenon have for temporal attributes?)
The first is just a repetition of what Plotinus said: an effect of a nontemporal phenomenon could be experienced by temporal beings. But why would this be so?
My point is that all humans can experience/measure are temporal phenomena. How would one make certain that any temporal effect results from a nontemporal phenomenon? That's just the problem. It's a matter of human limitations.
I don't know if this has previously been discussed (it likely has) but:
How does Christianty reconcile the Triune God (three parts) with the monothiestic idea of their being no god but the one God? It seems more like Henothiesm like Hinduism than monothiesm.
If you took a poll among experts (church historians, archaeologists of that time period, etc. etc. etc.), what percentage do you estimate would agree with each of the following:
1) The Resurrection is consistent with what we know about the history of that time period.
2) The history of that time period supports the thesis that the Resurrection occurred.
Because they imagine repeating this statement ad nauseum is somehow clever.1) Why do people bring up the idea that Jesus was a Jew? Maybe I'm unclear about what defines "Christian," but didn't Jesus believe he was the son of God, died for peoples' sins and was resurrected after he died? Or do people mean that he was ethnically Jewish? In which case I don't understand why it's brought up at all
If you took a poll among experts (church historians, archaeologists of that time period, etc. etc. etc.), what percentage do you estimate would agree with each of the following:
1) The Resurrection is consistent with what we know about the history of that time period.
2) The history of that time period supports the thesis that the Resurrection occurred.
I just completed reading "The Alchemical Keys To Masonic Ritual" by Timothy Hogan and it discusses how throughout the Bible there are many references to Alchemy. As an example, when Jesus stated that those that came before Him baptized in water and air, whereas He baptized in fire.
The 666 shekels (sp?) paid to King Solomon annually for 'bread', which the Greek word can also be translated as manna, the white salt, or an essence (not sure if I got that last part right). I realize this is the opinion of an alchemist, but after explaining the basic process of alchemy, it does sound very interesting.
Another book I'm currently reading "The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas brings up the idea, or theory of a living resurrection, rather then a literal resurrection. Their arguments are interesting, though I'm not sure I agree to them.
1) Why do people bring up the idea that Jesus was a Jew?
Maybe I'm unclear about what defines "Christian," but didn't Jesus believe he was the son of God, died for peoples' sins and was resurrected after he died?
My moreorless real question:
2) Where does religion go from here? Is organized religion doomed to go through the motions until faith is gone or a new religion takes its place? Has religion expanded at all lately? I know it's "evolving" in the sense that is forced to address contemporary culture and the modern environment, or face extinction (exaggeration), but has religion "grown" at all in recent times? From what I can see (maybe biased), religion is being forced to backpedal and blur some tenets in the face of increased scientific knowledge and evolving morals. Is that all that the church or any other organized religion has to look forward to?
To Plotinus,
I wanted to know whether you consider Platonism to actually be as compatible with Christianity as is widely claimed, and if you could recommend soome texts on Neo-Platonism, as the ideas they have seemed to roughly conform to conclusions I've come to, but they are probably much more intelligable.
Also, I've stumbled upon lectures of a mister William Lane Craig, and what he says seems quite reasonable, and I was wondering if you're aware of him and if you have any thoughts on him?
Yes, I realized there would be a problem once he ventured into Biblical History. I'm by no means an expert in that field, but he certainly made claims that stretched the use of the Historical Imagination, and his repeated refferences to the Gospels and Letters to the Corinthians as "Independent Sources" made me cringe.Yes, he is a prominent philosopher of religion and apologist for Christianity, at least in America. I don't know a great deal about him though as he doesn't really do quite the sort of thing I'm so involved in. He is a prominent proponent of the "Reformed epistemology" position also associated with Alvin Plantinga and William Alston (which, in a nutshell, argues that Christian beliefs are properly basic - that is, they don't require justification on the basis of other beliefs - because they are guaranteed by the Holy Spirit). Despite rejecting evidentialism he also argues for God's existence quite vociferously, particularly using the kalam cosmological argument (which holds that it is impossible that the universe has always existed, and the only thing that could have started it off is God). As I understand it, he defends a pretty conservative evangelical understanding of Christianity, which means that he rejects an awful lot of modern biblical criticism, liberal theology, and stuff of that kind. Personally I find it rather hard to engage constructively with this kind of thinking, because it basically involves defending Christianity by means of arguing against a great deal of scholarly knowledge. Of course, scholarly knowledge is not infallible, but I have a lot more sympathy for the kind of defence of Christianity which accepts contemporary scholarship and does not expect the reader to become a raging iconoclast. So while someone like Craig is an able apologist and a good philosopher, I don't have much sympathy for his general position or approach. I think it plays into the hands of people like Richard Dawkins, because it involves agreeing with them on the fundamental belief that modern secular culture, including modern science, scholarship, and liberal learning and values, is at heart incompatible with Christian faith. Once you've accepted that belief, it's just a matter of which side you fall on. I don't agree with that belief, which means that from my point of view Craig (and his ilk) and Dawkins (and his ilk) are not only equally wrong, but wrong about the same thing and in the same way.