It's called Appeal to nature, Moliere. It's a fallacy. And yes: Jesus Christ preached that truth when he was alive.

You say that like there's something wrong with it. Is there? Philosophically speaking. — Arcane Sandwich

Only that it indicates to me that the point of the story isn't literal.

That is, to treat the text like its spelling out philosophical truths about God or Jesus seems erroneous to me. It's literature. It requires interpretation.

What would the atheist tell you? — Arcane Sandwich

No, we are not worthy of worship.

Who says that we have to get along? Creatures kill each other. We are creatures. Why should we not kill each other? — Arcane Sandwich

That's sort of the central bit I'd start with in talking about the divine: to me life is sacred, but we must kill eachother on this world. So, we live by an earthly ethic, even if individuals pursue heavenly aims like pacifism.

But that desire to be more than human? That's very human. And, as you can see from the state of the world, we don't even live up to that. "getting along" includes killing. It demands it. Those who ignore their duty to note kill are deluded, by this ethic, living in the clouds.

I'll tell you why: because it would be a naturalistic fallacy to suppose that creatures ought to do what creatures are.

Do you know who preached that truth, among other people?

Yeah. They call him "Jesus Christ".

They call him "Jesus Christ", sure. And they call Gandalf Gandalf.

The truths that are there aren't literal, if they are truths at all. I'd be more inclined to call Biblical truths so-called truths and the deeper meanings of Tolkien as somehow lesser, but in what way are they?

With respect to the naturalistic fallacy -- "We have to get along" ought not be read as making a claim on moral truth. We certainly can, and will, go extinct.

But that general collective spirit is what I tend to think of in terms of what people want and do. People like to survive, and we can't do that by ourselves, so we have to get along insofar that we want to delay extinction.

No, we are not worthy of worship. — Moliere

I'm an atheist. Am I forced to agree with you? Do I have to "get along" with you, as you yourself say?

That's sort of the central bit I'd start with in talking about the divine: to me life is sacred — Moliere

Then it is worthy of worship, by the literal definition of the word "sacred".

"getting along" includes killing. It demands it. — Moliere

No, it does not. You're wrong. For a creature is not obligated to do what it does not want to do. And a creature ought not do what a creature is not. And being a creature, it ought not do what it is.

Those who ignore their duty to note kill are deluded, by this ethic, living in the clouds. — Moliere

They call him "Jesus Christ", sure. And they call Gandalf Gandalf. — Moliere

What's wrong with living in the clouds? That's where many creatures live. Birds, for example. Are you against birds, now?

I'll tell you what I'm against. I'll let Psalm 22 tell you about it. It's also the difference between Jesus and Gandalf:

6
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
7
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
8
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”

9
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10
From birth I was cast on you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

11
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

12
Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
13
Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
14
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
15
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16
Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
17
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
18
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

19
But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20
Deliver me from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen. — Psalm 22:1

I'm an atheist. Am I forced to agree with you? Do I have to "get along" with you, as you yourself say? — Arcane Sandwich

Nope, not at all.

Then it is worthy of worship, by the literal definition of the word "sacred". — Arcane Sandwich

Truth by definition?

No, I think it means it's what I care about, but no one else need to -- and many don't.

What's wrong with living in the clouds? — Arcane Sandwich

Absolutely nothing. It's where I see a meaningful life. But I think we have to look up to them, meaning staying grounded, and that's a lot of where I'm coming from in treating the sacred texts as literature.

It's not a move of denigration, but elevation. It's just not scientific truth, or historical truth as I see it.

It's just not scientific truth, or historical truth as I see it. — Moliere

Then what is it? It's not "just literature", I can tell you that much.

Right! It's literature, not just literature.

Care to explain the difference?

If only I had a very good distinction, then I'd have started there.

Tolkien I'd be inclined to call "just literature" -- a story for fun.

The difference as I see it is in how we approach the text. So in some future perhaps Tolkien's works could form the basis of a religion after the reality of the text's production are long forgotten.

Also I see value in trying to understand the past which we came from, so that alone makes the Bible more valuable -- it's one of the early documents. It sheds insight into human nature just by that fact.

But when we approach the Bible we approach it like it has some hidden wisdom within, and derive meaning from that reading. I think it's much the same as how we read poems and watch plays -- it's a deep interpretation between ourselves and the text. With Tolkien we treat the exercise in imagination as a game, but not so with the Bible.

Arcane Sandwich
If only I had a very good distinction, then I'd have started there.

Tolkien I'd be inclined to call "just literature" -- a story for fun.

The difference as I see it is in how we approach the text. So in some future perhaps Tolkien's works could form the basis of a religion after the reality of the text's production are long forgotten. — Moliere

No, Tolkien was a Catholic.

Also I see value in trying to understand the past which we came from, so that alone makes the Bible more valuable -- it's one of the early documents. It sheds insight into human nature just by that fact. — Moliere

With that in mind, look at this part:

21
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen. — Psalm 22:1

It's talking about a memory as ancient as the Paleolithic, when everyone was a nomadic hunter-gatherer. This makes it more ancient than anything anyone else has to say. Bring your favorite poets to this discussion, quote Emily D. for all I care. I believe what Psalm 22:1, part 21 says: There was a time when lions were our natural predators, there was a time when the wild oxen could kill us when we were just minding our own business.

But when we approach the Bible we approach it like it has some hidden wisdom within, and derive meaning from that reading. I think it's much the same as how we read poems and watch plays -- it's a deep interpretation between ourselves and the text. With Tolkien we treat the exercise in imagination as a game, but not so with the Bible. — Moliere

I don't know what that means.

It's talking about a memory as ancient as the Paleolithic, when everyone was a nomadic hunter-gatherer. This makes it more ancient than anything anyone else has to say. Bring your favorite poets to this discussion, quote Emily D. for all I care. I believe what Pslam 22:1, part 21 says: There was a time when lions were our natural predators, there was a time when the wild oxen could kill us when we were just minding our own business. — Arcane Sandwich

Right! I agree with this perspective. That's part of the awe.

But you know that's not all that's in there. There's more to it than the Psalms. There are histories, mythologies, family trees, -- it's the very stuff of human imagination and care.

I don't know what that means. — Arcane Sandwich

It means that how we read a book makes the meaning different, and the reader is where I'd be inclined to pinpoint the difference.

No, Tolkien was a Catholic. — Arcane Sandwich

Does that mean some 2000 years later people couldn't read his work in awe of the imagination of the people of the 21'st century? Say the Catholic church dissipates in that time.

That's part of the awe. — Moliere

The awe of what, if not the divine? The Cartesian res divina, instead of the res cogitans or the res extensa.

But you know that's not all that's in there. There's more to it than the Psalms. There are histories, mythologies, family trees, -- it's the very stuff of human imagination and care. — Moliere

And you don't think that any of that is of a divine nature?

It means that how we read a book makes the meaning different, and the reader is where I'd be inclined to pinpoint the difference. — Moliere

Then you haven't understood Ibn Arabi's , then.

Does that mean some 2000 years later people couldn't read his work in awe of the imagination of the people of the 21'st century? — Moliere

Only to the extent that human imagination has a divine nature, not a physical nature. The imagination of the res cogitans is only the secular version of the imagination of the res divina.

Say the Catholic church dissipates in that time. — Moliere

Who cares? The Catholic church is just an institution. It's a human construct. Divinity is not.

The awe of what, if not the divine? The Cartesian res divina, instead of the res cogitans or the res extensa. — Arcane Sandwich

Awe of us imagining what it was like then, of relating to a person thousands of years distant from you through writing and getting a sense for an entirely different lived world that is, somehow, still something we come to understand.

Who cares? The Catholic church is just an institution. It's a human construct. Divinity is not. — Arcane Sandwich

I mean that people would not dismiss Tolkien's works as a story only because he was a Catholic. The text can be read as an allegory and treated as the sacred texts are. People today wouldn't treat them like that. But the phenomena has happened as recently as the early 1800's when Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon and created a religion -- the book reads like the fan fiction of the Bible that it is.

And yet, people derive meaning for their entire lives from it and connect to the Divine.

What's different there? The lack of a spokesperson for the text as divine, for one -- Tolkien does not say his text is divine. But you can surely see how if not Tolkien some work of fiction, today, could become a sacred text tomorrow because that's already happened before.

Then you haven't understood Ibn Arabi's ↪point, then. — Arcane Sandwich

Fair.

Only to the extent that human imagination has a divine nature, not a physical nature. The imagination of the res cogitans is only the secular version of the imagination of the res divina. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm not sure about that. What if the reason people adopt a text has more to do with who controls the grain? Seems common that religions spread with conquest.

The aid or presence of the Spirit does not usually suggest divinity though. The "Holy Spirit," the "Spirit of the LORD," etc. comes to/upon prophets throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The support of the Spirit, or its "rushing/descending upon," someone, or aiding them, need not imply anything like even Arianism (i.e. Christ as the "first creature," through which and for which all things are created) let alone the Trinity (i.e. the Son/Logos as fully God). Hence, this need not be contradictory at all.

The Hebrew Scriptures, which are also embraced by Christians, have God's Spirit (viz. the distinct person of the Holy Spirit for Christians) "rushing upon" Gideon and Sampson in the Book of Judges, for instance. Neither are God, or even particularly flawless exemplars piety and righteousness. The Apostles likewise possess the Spirit, as do those they convert. St. Paul has it that the bodies of all Christians are "temples of the Holy Spirit," (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and indeed this feeds into the theme of illumination, theosis, and adoption into deification (St. Athanasius' "God became man that man might become God."

In Acts 8, Simon Magus actually offers to pay Simon Peter to give him the Holy Spirit so that he can have more sorcerous powers. In Acts, Simon Magus is simply rebuked, and even seems like he might of learned his lesson, but in apocryphal sources he continues on and even tries to contest the Apostles. Hence the term "simony" and "simoniacs" for those who buy and sell Church offices. He's also potentially where we get the image of witches flying broom sticks, because he flies around St. Peter as he enters Rome, basically showing off his sorcery to win followers away from Peter. Peter piously prays and Simon Magus crashes from the air and plunges into the ground with only his feet sticking out (the punishment which Dante will later give to the simoniacs and Lucifer—the image of being inverted and uselessly kicking without the ability to move being a metaphor for the misdirection and impotence of sin and spiritual sickness).

I mean that people would not dismiss Tolkien's works as a story only because he was a Catholic. — Moliere

It's a Catholic story.

The text can be read as an allegory and treated as the sacred texts are. — Moliere

It's an allegory of Catholicism.

People today wouldn't treat them like that. — Moliere

Yes, they do. Catholics love Tolkien. Priests even compare Jesus to Gandalf. What Church people in general don't like, is Dungeons and Dragons (they think it's Satanic). But they like Tolkien.

But the phenomena has happened as recently as the early 1800's when Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon and created a religion -- the book reads like the fan fiction of the Bible that it is. — Moliere

For all I know, The Book of Mormon could be a holy book, and Joseph Smith could be God incarnate. It's a similar case to Haile Selassie (former emperor of Ethiopia).

And yet, people derive meaning for their entire lives from it and connect to the Divine. — Moliere

Because they believe that it is a holy book. Is it? Yes or no?

What's different there? The lack of a spokesperson for the text as divine, for one -- Tolkien does not say his text is divine. — Moliere

He doesn't need to.

But you can surely see how if not Tolkien some work of fiction, today, could become a sacred text tomorrow because that's already happened before. — Moliere

Tolkien was a Catholic. Catholicity is divine universality, as distinct from secular universality.

Then you haven't understood Ibn Arabi's ↪point, then. — Arcane Sandwich


Fair. — Moliere

Please try to understand it.

I'm not sure about that. — Moliere

Ok, you're a skeptic then.

What if the reason people adopt a text has more to do with who controls the grain? — Moliere

It would be a scientific problem to investigate.

Seems common that religions spread with conquest. — Moliere

And that would be your scientific hypothesis.

Can you prove it?

Hence, this need not be contradictory at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not even in a Hegelian way? As in:

1) Thesis, 2) anti-Thesis, 3) Synthesis.
A) Subject, B) Object, C) Absolute.
I) Mind, II) Nature, III) Culture.
i) Res cogitans, ii) Res extensa, iii) Res divina.
a) The Father, b) The Son, c) The Holy Ghost.
.) Judaism, ..) Christianity, ...) Islam.

Etc.

Yes, they do. Catholics love Tolkien. Priests even compare Jesus to Gandalf. What Church people in general don't like, is Dungeons and Dragons (they think it's Satanic). But they like Tolkien. — Arcane Sandwich

Do they treat it as the same as the Bible?

We can use another book because the point I'm making is it's not really the text but the reader. I thought you were saying "He's Catholic" as in to say "Look, no one will treat Tolkien like Mathew, because he's Catholic"

Yes, the story has a Catholic allegory to it. So suppose 2000 years in the future the Bible is destroyed and all we have is The Lord of the Rings. In that scenario I could see people treating The Lord of the Rings in the same manner -- it's got stories and allegories and all the rest of his beliefs interwoven into a compelling narrative of sacrifice.

There are even other texts after scattered all throughout our culture that mimic the tropes of The Lord of the Rings. Today we call it Fantasy Literature, but tomorrow we could compose an anthology of such literature by different authors and treat it exactly as we treat the Bible today.

I think this explains why there are so many religions with competing visions -- there's a basic human need to feel more than what one is, and these rituals are the means by which this is achieved.

Is it? Yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

No. I don't believe it is. I'd say it's lesser than the Bible or Qu'ran or various other practices and more on par with L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology. It's entirely made up for the purpose of manipulating people.

But to them? It absolutely is. And the lessons serve the same -- basically it's origin is irrelevant to its function. The literal truth of the Book of Mormon, by my lights, is it was written by a con artist who liked being in charge of others.

But that was 200 years ago. Today? Totally irrelevant to the meaning of the text when it's read in Church by a believer.

But when it's read by me? Yeah, I tend to think of it at the L. Ron Hubbard level rather than the Biblical level.

Ok, you're a skeptic then. — Arcane Sandwich

Always :). A skeptic and a realist, though -- and thereby atheist. But this gets back to another point we haven't worked out and is way off topic from what is threatening to derail a good conversation I've been reading along with. Sorry about that, I just meant to answer the one question and then we got into a back and forth.

It would be a scientific problem to investigate. — Arcane Sandwich

And that would be your scientific hypothesis.

Can you prove it? — Arcane Sandwich

If at the level of science? No, certainly not. Not even at the level of history, except for pointing to a handful of examples I'm sure we're both familiar with. And I wouldn't even expect conquest to be the main mechanism of transfer, I'm only offering one possible alternative to the existence of the divine in human beings.

I'm a little uncertain that any of this will ever be able to be cached out in terms scientific or historical.

Please try to understand it. — Arcane Sandwich

Mkay. I'll refrain from posting until then. Good exchange.

Always :). A skeptic and a realist, though -- and thereby atheist. But this gets back to another point we haven't worked out and is way off topic from what is threatening to derail a good conversation I've been reading along with. Sorry about that, I just meant to answer the one question and then we got into a back and forth. — Moliere

Derail it, since it is important. Besides, to use a metaphor: paraphrasing Ibn Arabi, your opinion is simply a drop of water from the ocean that is the Qur'an.

If at the level of science? No, certainly not. Not even at the level of history, except for pointing to a handful of examples I'm sure we're both familiar with. — Moliere

Then why should anyone, including yourself, believe in such a thing?

Because we like to has satisfactory stories that make sense to us.

It's a just-so story which goes alongside the divine just-so story. Why do we find religion everywhere? Well, in one just-so story it's because there's a divinity within us all. In another it's because those are the social organisms which survived the process of primitive accumulation.

The work of putting together the science or the history is something which no individual can do by themselves -- it's already a collective effort by the many who have come before. But I still have to live my life and in that process I tend to acquire beliefs and answer questions even if I can't attend to those at the level of scientific or historical discourse.

I just don't then go on to say that the belief is scientific or historical.

Well, in one just-so story it's because there's a divinity within us all. In another it's because those are the social organisms which survived the process of primitive accumulation. — Moliere

Hegel says it's both. And it's also a third thing, which is their synthesis.

I just don't then go on to say that the belief is scientific or historical. — Moliere

Well, technically speaking, it wouldn't be a belief either. It would be a divine revelation.

Hegel's a trip. :D

But I suspect he's basically a rationalist crank, at bottom. A very good one with great points, but as you ascertained I am a skeptic :D

My relationship w/ Hegel is love-hate.

Well, technically speaking, it wouldn't be a belief either. It would be a divine revelation — Arcane Sandwich

Or, on the other hand, a preference I have: an opinion that I care about.

Ok, then what was that point that you alluded to here?

Always :). A skeptic and a realist, though -- and thereby atheist. But this gets back to another point we haven't worked out and is way off topic from what is threatening to derail a good conversation I've been reading along with. Sorry about that, I just meant to answer the one question and then we got into a back and forth. — Moliere

Care to elaborate?

Oh I was thinking about the relationship between science and history and religion, and the place of scientism -- I can see how there's something related there, but it's not clear enough yet.

For one, we use "scientism" differently but from similar resources. And I'm still puzzling through that one. For two you prefer to start on the ontological side where my habit is to start on the methodological side.

This relates because the Bible, if we take it from the perspective of the writers, is written before "Science" was really a genre at all, or at least not recognizably so. So things like method and ontology are devices we're bringing to the text to make sense of it more than what the writers were thinking about in writing.

But that takes it up a level of abstraction and out of the more down-to-earth arguments you're dealing with here. It also makes it less philosophy of religion and goes back to philosophy of knowledge, more.

Could be. Why not? I'd like to know what @Count Timothy von Icarus thinks of your comment.

That is the "critical style" of reading the Scriptures, i.e. the focus on authorial intent and cultural setting. It is quite popular, obviously in academia, but also in Protestant, and even some Catholic circles. Not too long ago I was reading Jean-Claude Larchet's _What is Theology?: An Orthodox Methodology_, and it, like many Orthodox outlooks, is critical of this approach. It sees it as breaking up the unity of the text, and taking away our ability to interpret one part of the text through another.

I think both are useful. The critical approach has some drawbacks that aren't readily apparent though. To his point, even on an entirely atheistic outlook, there is a danger here in that a focus on "the original authors" tends to occlude the very intentional decisions made in compiling the texts, preserving them, and vis-a-vis their acceptance as Canonical, all of which looked towards a certain unity. For example, some studies of Kings will spend most of their effort trying to figure out which proposed "sources" correspond to which lines, their historical setting, etc. However, such an analysis can overshadow the role of the compilers and editors of a books like I & II Kings. (BTW, no one denies it is a compilation, it makes frequent reference to its sources, which are now lost).

Second, how people of the same culture, with the same native language interpreted the same texts relatively shortly after they were set down (e.g. how the Apostolic Fathers, who knew the Apostles or those who they trained, viewed the New Testament) seems like an important witness to me. Sometimes critical approaches do privilege these, but sometimes they don't (which, IMO, is usually a mistake).

There are other difficulties here. History, as a field, is not immune to ideological currents. I've heard professors lecture on how all history should be analyzed through the "holy trinity" of "race, sex, and class," and prior to such sentiments there was also the drive to reduce history to economics and political economy. Hence, we get readings of the "David story" in the books of Samuel and the start of I Kings as "a compilation of political propaganda pieces." There is a "Sauline propaganda narrative," a "Davidic" one, and a "prophetic one" (which looks to the prerogatives of the Levites).

This sort of analysis of I & II Samuel has fallen into disrepute, because of both the unity of style and dramatic elements use throughout the books of Samuel and because, if these stories are supposed to be "propaganda," they are pretty terrible at that role. The entire second half of the David story is a tragedy, one where David's shortcomings play the key role. Things like the literary echo of David, as a now feeble old man being confused by the sound of conflict outside during the coup attempt at the start of I Kings, as recalling/echoing the situation of the priest Eli at the opening of I Samuel, seems hardly the incidental work of "splicing propaganda narratives."

Yet, I think the most obvious drawback to the critical reading technique (which may be useful in some cases) is that it is usually incredibly speculative, and even experts seem to often forget just how speculative it is. You get things like Bart Ehrman claiming to have successfully psychoanalyzed the author of Revelation through his access to the text alone, such that he can determine that the author "made Jesus God" specifically to one up Roman claims to their emperor's divinity. This is frankly, ridiculous. Or we get claims about "recovering what the Apostles really thought about Jesus when he died" from people who also claim we don't have a single letter of authentic writing from any of these people. Yes, such speculation is in part just a way to sell books, but it seeps its way into scholarship as well.

One might think that critical methods would at least acts as a bulwark against the tendency of every generation to reread old texts and "discover" that the authors of the classics all had sensibilities just like them. It probably can fulfill that function in the right hands. But it seems to get employed just as often to give us bizarre characters like "the 'secular humanist Dante' who admires the damned in Hell (who “conquer it” through the triumph of the human spirit)", or "the 'skeptical Plato' who wrote 2,000 pages of complex dialogues as a sort of ironic reminder that “all we can know is that we cannot know much of anything," and who was then immediately badly misread by all the people he spent decades teaching as well as later thinkers who shared a native language with him."


Which is all a bit of a rant I know.

So things like method and ontology are devices we're bringing to the text to make sense of it more than what the writers were thinking about in writing.

I agree on method, perhaps not on ontology. People thought about metaphysics in the era when these texts were set down. It's just that they didn't go about philosophy in the systematic way the Greeks would later start doing.

There is a (quite speculative) thesis that Plato got the idea of the forms from Egyptian Memphite theology for instance. There are similarities I'm told, and going way back it was always a story that Plato went to Egypt and studied there. Regarding the Bible, Ecclesiastes is obviously more explicitly philosophical, and parts of it feel like they could have been written in the 20th century.

In the later books, e.g. the Wisdom of Solomon, a sort of philosophy is more explicit. Here, it is often hypothesized that Stoicism and "middle Platonism" are some of the key inspirations, however it's entirely possible it could be a sort of convergent evolution, or less direct influence. But the Greeks were there, and Solon's proverb advising that we "count no man happy until he is dead" makes it in, so a direct influence seems totally possible.