Jesus Loves Me!

[Totenkindly]

Bushranger's comments seemed like a one-sided cynical commentary on the typical interplay of social politics in any sort of religious faith organization. If it's part of a discussion, I suppose it's worth hearing once; if it was meant to be the totality of the discussion, it's like trying to define something by looking merely at its big toe.

 

[wildcat]

I don't have time to comment right now, but there is probably not much I can add to that. I thought the entire post a good summary of "zoe" Christianity vs Christian religion.

Try to die at the opportune moment then.
Should you fail God will not love you.
It is all about timing.
Watch the clock.

tic tic tic...

 

[Totenkindly]

Try to die at the opportune moment then.
Should you fail God will not love you.
It is all about timing.
Watch the clock.
tic tic tic...

Ah, a regression to the "second version" that was being described.
Thank you for the apropos but somewhat redundant example. Very good.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

I was feeling a bit down and lonely yesterday, so I decided to go into town (Oxford) and visit as many pubs as I could.

As I came out of one pub and headed for another, a man smiled at me and said:

"Jesus loves you my friend."

"Who me?" I said, nearly stumbling over.

The guy gave me some leaflets from "The Redeemed Christian Church of God" with info about special events and programmes etc...

I hate religion - all religions. I spent a great deal of my life in a religion and I want NOTHING more to do with any of them.

But for a moment I felt like going with him to whatever meeting. Just so that there might be some people who would be interested in me, give me some attention, affection, and even love.

Don't laugh - I know it's so stupid.

Of course that's what attracts many people to religion - lost lonely and unhappy souls, looking for attention, to be part of a group and of course - the love of Jesus.

I too, have lost my faith recently.

I believe, however, that one can find meaning in life without religion. Philosophy is the answer, not submission to authority, regardless of how long it has been established for or how politically influential it is.

That is the thesis that I am arguing in the book that I am writing as we speak. Poverty of Conventionalism is the title. The basic purport is that reason puts us onto the path to spirituality and not convention. Every person is autonomous (able to discover spirituality, or what Kierkegaard called personal truth) in his/her own right and does not need religious authority for legitimation.

Spinoza (my avatar), one of the leading figures on the scene that I have set up in the book, and one of my salient philosophical influences once wrote in his diary 'when a Jew loses his faith, he loses his citizenship'. That was a subjective sentiment, as he never wanted to be part of the Jewish community and only wanted citizenship so it would be easier to get his ideas out to a larger audience. But, nonetheless it rang very true, and I can personally relate.

My co-author is a religious zealot, I have not told him about my recent loss of faith, but based on the writings I have sent him over the last few weeks and our private talks, its pretty obvious. Now he has this strange superstition about how I will be saved because I just can't believe in things that aren't supported with logic. And I just smiled at that. I stood firmly by my principles to the very end and he made little effort to oppose that, as he likely knew this'd be useless.

I have another ENTP friend who is a senior pastor at a pentacoste church who was laughing all the way through as I turned his religion into an absurd joke of a kind. He even confessed that he is fascinated with chaos theories and all the contradictions in the bible, and just loves making a mess in the minds of SJs while passing himself off as a fellow fundamentalist. We connected a lot better after I confidently asserted that reason is the judge of all things and I am not going to take anything on faith, regardless of what heaven or hell matter we have going on.

I do think, though, that religion serves the primary purpose of establishing security in society. Inquisitive people have difficulty accepting faith and often struggle, much like Mother Theresa had, because they are haunted by demons of external obligations. It was a terrible burden to bear, and I've decided that it should be no more.

For all of those who have lost your faith and feel alieanted because of external social circumstances, I know of nothing better than going back to the internal principles that caused you to leave and standing by them fiercely and consistently. That sense of being true to yourself is always all the more rewarding than some hollow external gratifications you may come by.

I offer to publish my book (as a download I presume), on this forum as soon as I get the copyright. I think it may be off help to many of us here, as the problem of religious tyranny is a perennial issue in our society that has much afflicted INs. In the Faith of a Rationalist (the climax of the book), I argue that spirituality could be obtained with pure reason(founded on Spinoza's doctrine of Intellectual love of God) alone and religious convention is not only inadequate but stultifying to one's quest for meaning in life. In the chapter the follows next, the Basis of Christian morality, I have a critical exposition of the New Testament and what Biblical Ethics become in face of candid philosophical inquiry as well as evince to what extent the Institutional Church (conventionalism), has debauched their integrity. In the concluding chapter, I will give a thorough account of how a general intelligent person (one that many INs in our community could well identify with) can deal with the multitude (religious conventionalism), and how one can carry through life following their highly individualistic spiritual path. One that is insulated off religious orthodoxy and thoroughly devoted to the quest for the highest possible attunement with the inner being.

I will have the script completed by the end of November, at the latest.

(For those who are still with me on this one, that is managed to read this far in my post, here is the Outline of the Book) And in chapter 2, I believe I have concocted a very effective demolition of ethics of Biblical literalism that leaves us with no authority to be led by to salvation.

Preface

Chapter 1-Outline of conventional religious thought
Chapter 2-Why Religion needs philosophy


Chapter 3- Enemies of the church
Hume
Spinoza


Chapter 4-Why philosophy needs religion-Interplay of philosophy and religion
Chapter 5-Science and its relation to philosophy and religion
Chapter 6-On man's need for mysticism




Chapter 7-Problem of Evil
Chapter 8-Jung's inquiry into human nature


Chapter 9-Existentialism and Problem of Irrationalism
Chapter 10-Synthesis of Beauty and Truth
-Schopenhauer and Salvation through depth of feeling


Chapter 11-Theological-Scientific cosmology (1)
Chapter 12-Faith of a Rationalist and the true road to Salvation(2)
Chapter 13-Basis of Christian Morality
Chapter 14-Paul Tillich and emancipation of theology from religious orthodoxy

Chapter 15-Conclusion

 

[reason]

If you can't believe anything without the support of logic, then why do you believe in logic?

(Interesting choice of words, you say 'can't' as though you are not making a choice, but then I wonder who or what is making that choice? It would seem you have yet to cast off the shackles of authority afterall).

Edit: Incidently, I have been thinking about writing a book too, though do not expect I ever will. It would be called The Logic of Rational Investigation, and among its many implications, would show that your "reason" for rejecting faith is itself, irrational).

 

[SolitaryWalker]

If you can't believe anything without the support of logic, then why do you believe in logic?

(Interesting choice of words, you say 'can't' as though you are not making a choice, but then I wonder who or what is making that choice? It would seem you have yet to cast off the shackles of authority afterall).

Edit: Incidently, I have been thinking about writing a book too, though do not expect I ever will. It would be called The Logic of Rational Investigation, and among its many implications, would show that your "reason" for rejecting faith is itself, irrational).

Appears to be that we all necessarily use logic to get the answers about the world that we get. A blind follower of a religion does so likely without realizing it. When we point out that one of his claims is false and force him to explain his reasoning, he will reply; 'It is written in the Koran, therefore it must be true'. He relied on authority instead of his own thinking to get him the answers to the questions about the world, but his thought process/acceptance of authority could very much be charted out with hard logic. B(truth) is an entailment of A(Koran), his error consisted not in acceptance of an improper authority but in abusing logic. He presupposed a connection between A and B when there wasn't one.


In the end, we can't not use logic, even if we go to state our justification for disbelieving in it , we would still be using logic. Believing in logic means being aware of the process of using it.

I shouldn't have said 'cant', rather that I chose not to believe in anything that is not supportable by sound(and not just valid) argument in order to have as few false beliefs as possible.

 

[ygolo]

<post including info. about his new book>

Do we get free versions of your book? Or are we to pay you through PayPal or something?

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Hopefully it will be available for download here. In that case, you'd be able to access the book from this site for free, though you'd have to pay for the hard copy.

 

[reason]

In the end, we can't not use logic, even if we go to state our justification for disbelieving in it , we would still be using logic. Believing in logic means being aware of the process of using it.

In the end, this argument is circular i.e. begging the question.

I choose not to believe in anything that is not supportable by sound(and not just valid) argument in order to have as few false beliefs as possible.

Even if you choose it, the argument is still hopelessly flawed, since you cannot support your beliefs. If I iterate the question "how do you support that belief?" to every answer you give, we will soon find that your entire eloborate framework of beliefs is utterly unsupported.

This is the case, because every logically valid argument is circular i.e. begs he question. This logical fact, in conjunction with the standard that only supported beliefs are rational, entails that no belief is rational at all. In short, you have adopted a self-defeating standard.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

In the end, this argument is circular i.e. begging the question.

What do you propose to do about it? We certainly could say that we can apply criticism to the logical approach in itself ( as we cannot do this to authority), and then discover that it is desirable. Yet again, even then we'd be applying logic in process...

I do not see a way out of the proposition that 'using logic' and 'reasoning' are entwined. This can not be anything other than a tautology because it is one of those foundational axioms that our system rests on. A tautology by definition should be thought of as a statement that is necessarily true.

 

[reason]

Bluewing, I edited my previous post.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

In the end, this argument is circular i.e. begging the question.

Even if you choose it, the argument is still hopelessly flawed, since you cannot support your beliefs. If I iterate the question "how do you support that belief?" to every answer you give, we will soon find that your entire eloborate framework of beliefs is utterly unsupported.

This is the case, because every logically valid argument is circular i.e. begs he question. This logical fact, in conjunction with the standard that only supported beliefs are rational, entails that no belief is rational at all. In short, you have adopted a self-defeating standard.

I am not using a justificationist epistemic methodology. I am not saying that only arguments that we know to be true with apodictic certainty are to be accepted, but merely arguments that are best supported.

'Supported' was merely a linguistic convenience, there was no implication of certainty entailed to that one.

 

[reason]

I am not using a justificationist epistemic methodology. I am not saying that only arguments that we know to be true with apodictic certainty are to be accepted, but merely arguments that are best supported.

That isn't justificationism. It isn't a necessary characteristic of a justificationist methodology, that justified beliefs are also justified true beliefs, or apodictic. The error is still present in your writing, but you have just changed from an infallible justificationism, to a fallible justificationism, but it was never the infallible or fallible character of the justifier that was the problem, but the logical form of justificationism.

It is equally impossible to take beliefs and support them, as it is to certify them. Now, I realise that this sounds peculiar, but you can completely eliminate these concepts and retain everything you could want from rationality. In fact, it can be stronger. I'd love to discuss it with you now, but I have work to be getting on with.

Good luck on your book!

Regards,
Lee

 

[SolitaryWalker]

That isn't justificationism. It isn't a necessary characteristic of a justificationist methodology, that justified beliefs are also justified true beliefs, or apodictic. The error is still present in your writing, but you have just changed from an infallible justificationism, to a fallible justificationism, but it was never the infallible or fallible character of the justifier that was the problem, but the logical form of justificationism.

It is equally impossible to take beliefs and support them, as it is to certify them. Now, I realise that this sounds peculiar, but you can completely eliminate these concepts and retain everything you could want from rationality. In fact, it can be stronger. I'd love to discuss it with you now, but I have work to be getting on with.

Good luck on your book!

Regards,
Lee

What's the problem with fallible justificationism? Certainly isnt desirable to be living an illusion that we have sound knowledge.., but that is the best we've got in order to be able to move on...

In fact, I'd venture to assert that my form of mitigated justificationism (fallible) does not claim any justified true beliefs. As 'justified' implies having reached the conclusion that is not to be questioned again.

That isn't justificationism. It isn't a necessary characteristic of a justificationist methodology, that justified beliefs are also justified true beliefs, or apodictic.

Certainty is a necessary property of infallible justificationism, though not of fallible justificationism.

but you can completely eliminate these concepts and retain everything you could want from rationality. In fact, it can be stronger.

Even though we cant truly support beliefs, we must acknowledge that they have epistemic value, or otherwise we cant move on. The main point of this 'criticalism' phenomenon, as I understand it is that we should avoid falling on the bedrest of dogma by assuming that we could obtain beliefs that are never to be questioned again 'justified'. Hence, we should ask questions not to get answers, yet asking questions is an end in itself--it is an 'Unended quest'.

 

[cosmicdancer]

'when a Jew loses his faith, he loses his citizenship'

Jews are similar to Muslims in many ways.

The sense of community is strong like Muslims.

That is one of the greatest problems I have been facing and faced by others who leave their religion.

I have moved away from my old community that I spent all my life with. Away from family friends and collegues - many of whome would be devestated angry and some maybe even violent if they found out.

I have to start again and build a new life at the age of 48.

And I am someone who came from a fairly liberal family and community - without the overbearing community that exists in some Muslim communities in the west.

So I can't imagine how difficult it is for some Muslims.

Yes I do go back to the reasons I abandoned my faith and that sustains me.

But I have to say that philosphy and reason are not enough to sustain most people through the mundane routines and trails of life and interaction etc...

And when I look at my own children - I'm not sure I wish upon them the sense of confusion, and loss that I feel - regardless of how worthy my mind tells me that is.

I would be interested to read your book.

 

[Sahara]

And when I look at my own children - I'm not sure I wish upon them the sense of confusion, and loss that I feel - regardless of how worthy my mind tells me that is.

See though, they are children, if they are not taught to believe, if they do not have belief forced on them, or their mind shaped by the parents, then why will they feel the sense of loss and confusion you or I do now?

Ours comes from having lost something, the kids don't have to lose anything in the long run so the situation could be different.

I would be interested to read your book.

Yes me too

 

[cosmicdancer]

See though, they are children, if they are not taught to believe, if they do not have belief forced on them, or their mind shaped by the parents, then why will they feel the sense of loss and confusion you or I do now?

Ours comes from having lost something, the kids don't have to lose anything in the long run so the situation could be different.

That's true.

I wish though that therev wasn't the problem of them hearing one thing from me and one thing from my ex-wife.

I feel so guilty about creating this conflict for them.

 

[Sahara]

That's true.

I wish though that therev wasn't the problem of them hearing one thing from me and one thing from my ex-wife.

I feel so guilty about creating this conflict for them.

I totally understand, I am going to have to go through that in a matter of weeks.

I feel guilty too, but at the end of the day, we just need to keep going forward and find a way to work around those constraints.

I like your approach which was less gung ho than me, and as you know it's paying off already. Little by little, and that is the best we can do.

 

[Totenkindly]

See though, they are children, if they are not taught to believe, if they do not have belief forced on them, or their mind shaped by the parents, then why will they feel the sense of loss and confusion you or I do now?

That is a good question. (Aside from people who say, "Well, if what I believe is the right thing, then I am depriving my kids of the truth, which is stupid...!")

One of us is bringing up our kids in the church, which I don't really have an issue with, but I am engaging them as well and reminding them that their faith has to be their own and that they should never be afraid to ask questions, nor should they allow themselves to settle for easy answers.

I want them to feel happy and secure, but I don't want them to feel trapped in a faith or have their whole world come tumbling down if eventually they feel they need to change something.

 

[Sahara]

That is a good question. (Aside from people who say, "Well, if what I believe is the right thing, then I am depriving my kids of the truth, which is stupid...!")

One of us is bringing up our kids in the church, which I don't really have an issue with, but I am engaging them as well and reminding them that their faith has to be their own and that they should never be afraid to ask questions, nor should they allow themselves to settle for easy answers.

I want them to feel happy and secure, but I don't want them to feel trapped in a faith or have their whole world come tumbling down if eventually they feel they need to change something.

I see that as a balance actually, and that is good, it is as you said so important for them to know that the world doesn't end if they decide faith is not for them, whereas with me (maybe even you) that's not how we saw it, so when we lost faith our entire system crumbled around us and left us feeling empty.

So you being there, as one side, reminding them of faith being totally personal, and subjective, I see as something positive.

I was a bit gung ho, guns a blazing when I first started out, but I see now that I can not impress my lack of faith on them anymore than my ex can impress his faith on them, I must achieve a balance, so that I do not fill them with the same confusion I went through.