Now bear in mind I am an atheist and have no special fondness for religion or faith. — Tom Storm

and yet, you defend these views well. Have you ever thought about the possibility that, deep down, you are either a latent believer or a dormant believer? :smile:

That is, faith is not "weak knowledge," but the highest form of existence,
in which a person enters into a direct relationship with the Transcendent, without intermediaries—neither logic nor morality.

Indeed, it is a necessity for developing a relationship with the transcendent.

If God (gods) were to appear before us, how would we know that it was God? Would he(or she) say I am God and we would believe it and know it to be true? Would he give us a sign, of his power, such that we know it to be true? How would we confirm that it really is God and not some hallucination, or imposter?*

Perhaps we would recognise God, this presumes that we have already formed an image, or idea of God. Something that we have developed a faith in. But what if this image doesn’t match the God before us? Does our strength of faith carry us past this doubt, until we can accept God?

Or perhaps a part of us is God, that we have nurtured through faith. That this part of us which is already God, reaches out to the God before us, that we know intimately in good faith that we are encountering God.

* There is a logical argument that it is impossible to know, or recognise God intellectually.

Have you ever thought about the possibility that, deep down, you are either a latent believer or a dormant believer? — Astorre

No. But I think you’re asking that because you can’t conceive of how my response could be rational, and so you assume it must belong to the realm of magical thinking. :wink:

No, rather, the point is that I've met many people who call themselves believers who don't possess even the slightest degree of the ethicality that permeates every one of your answers.

The average person, unable to justify ethics other than through religious imperatives, is nowhere near as honest. But you, calling yourself an atheist, therefore have reasonable ethical foundations. Now I'll ask you to provide them, as they are very valuable to me.

Perhaps we would recognise God, this presumes that we have already formed an image, or idea of God. Something that we have developed a faith in. But what if this image doesn’t match the God before us? Does our strength of faith carry us past this doubt, until we can accept God? — Punshhh

Here's the thing: by creating any image of God in our heads, we're trying to fit something into our heads that's incomprehensible, a priori. This is convenient for us, since it corresponds to our ways of knowing everything. But in this case, we're dealing with something that's impossible to fit into our heads, to know, or to create an image of. Feeling, experiencing, and sensing—I think it's possible.

And perhaps people are a bit confused here: after all, red is impossible to describe, but it can be imagined. God, however, is impossible to imagine, describe, or comprehend.

I'm inclined to believe that if we meet Him, we'll certainly recognize Him.

Note how preaching to outsiders is not common to all religions; only the expansive religions (such as Christianity and Islam) preach to outsiders. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, for example, do normally not preach to outsiders.
— baker

This resonates perfectly with Kierkegaard: Faith is a personal act. Faith is silent. — Astorre

??
Not at all.

It's not possible to convert to traditional Judaism or Hinduism; one has to be born into those religions in order to be a member. For them, neither the notion of conversion nor the notion of preaching to outsiders exist.
In Buddhism, conversion is possible, but they preach only to the person who comes kneeling to them begging for instruction.

You subtly distinguish expansive preaching from intra-denominational preaching, and that's a great addition. The idea of ​​the post is to identify the preacher's paradox in an expansive religion/belief. I think this is an excellent clarification. But I'd like to identify the paradox without reference to labels, but to the preaching of faith as such (no matter what it is, even belief in aliens).

I know religious/spiritual people who would comment to you along the lines of, "Why should I pretend not to know when I do know? Just to spare your fragile ego? No, I'm not going to do that!"

Well, I’m not convinced that you don’t see orange everywhere. But let's not speak in code; my point is you tend to frame most ideas in a negative light, with a focus on what you see as abuses of power. — Tom Storm

That's your projection.

I've always talked about the *uses* of power. But somehow, the Western PC discourse rules out any talk of power, as if any talk about power is talk about the abuse of power. The politically correct vastly underrate (or deny) how much in life is actually about power.

And "negative" is another word used by Pollyannas -- and the poltiically correct -- to denote an absence of the naiveté they so keenly exhibit.

You may not have been going for smug or patronising, but it could be read this way.

So given your response above about seeing "orange" I could use the same device. If I can identify authoritarianism, then presumably I can identify when it isn't there too.

But none of this really matters, right?

IIRC, we've had this conversation before. I went to some lenghts to describe authoritarianism to you, and was surprised that you don't notice it. I assumed that working in the field of mental health, you'd surely had some seminars on the topic, especially on the modes of communication. Alas ...

Do you think it is impossible for a Christian preacher to be non-authoritarian in their approach?

As long as they teach Christian doctrine, they can't be anything other than authoritarian. Because Christianity is based on an argument from power, it can only be authoritarian.
It really doesn't help if the first thing people imagine upon hearing "authoritarian" is Stalin or Mao or Hitler. Authoritarianism is very common, it's the mode in which most people operate every day. Just because they don't go around killing, raping, and pillaging doesn't mean they're not authoritarian.

An authoritarian parent represents a somewhat milder version of this, emphasizing discipline, order

Not necessarily. They can be totally chaotic and still authoritarian.

, and compliance.

Dermanding compliance is key. Seeing oneself as above the other person, as the authority over the other person is what makes one authoritarian. External expressions can very greatly.

I've always talked about the *uses* of power. But somehow, the Western PC discourse rules out any talk of power, as if any talk about power is talk about the abuse of power. — baker

I don’t think this is accurate. Isn’t the discourse of power one of the most common topics in Western PC circles? Isn’t that exactly what they’re often satirised for: the Foucauldian obsession with power?

IIRC, we've had this conversation before. I went to some lenghts to describe authoritarianism to you, and was surprised that you don't notice it. I assumed that working in the field of mental health, you'd surely had some seminars on the topic, especially on the modes of communication. Alas ... — baker

This feels more like a personal attack, with a passive-aggressive flourish. “Alas...” really? “You’d surely had some seminars”? I don’t understand why you need to make such snide comments.

As I said, I’ve experienced some Christian preachers who do not evoke a discourse of power. What you describe isn’t present in any "modes of communication". Your comment, “was surprised you don’t notice it” seems more like a jibe.

As long as they teach Christian doctrine, they can't be anything other than authoritarian. Because Christianity is based on an argument from power, it can only be authoritarian. — baker

Say more about that, since the opposite is the more common argument. And yes, before you say anything, I’m well aware of the history of Christianity. I’m more interested in your idea that there’s no possibility Christianity can be anything but authoritarian.

I'll try to explain what "faith" is in Kierkegaard's understanding, as best I can. — Astorre

I think Kierkegaard is quite useless here. A hopeless romantic. That's not how religious discourse works.

I'm inclined to believe that if we meet Him, we'll certainly recognize Him. — Astorre

But by then it will be too late. Failure to choose the right religion while there was still time results in eternal damnation.

In this thread, the question seems to be: is it ethical to propagate something you don't fully understand or something you believe in without foundation (for example, if you've simply been brainwashed). A "preacher" in this context isn't necessarily an imaginary priest of some church, but anyone who advocates something. — Astorre

People do this all the time. Some do it under the motto "Fake it 'till you make it" or "We learn best by teaching others".

I don't think it's ethical, but it's not like there is a galactic court with which I could file my complaint.


I've been around long enough to have witnessed some very let's call that "vocal" preachers fall away from what they preached. A Buddhist monk who preached in a fire-and-brimstone mode and then a few years later disrobed. Another one who committed suicide. A Christian preacher who eagerly threatend me with eternal damnation, but who, after some back-and-forth, said, "But I'm a seeker just like you".
Then the more secular examples, like Marie Kondo.

Such incidents left me with a bitter taste. Many of these preachers have directed so much hatred and contempt at those they preached to -- and for what?

I don’t think this is accurate. Isn’t the discourse of power one of the most common topics in Western PC circles? Isn’t that exactly what they’re often satirised for: the Foucauldian obsession with power. — Tom Storm

Such a discussion of power is a way to distract from the actual power issues.

IRC, we've had this conversation before. I went to some lenghts to describe authoritarianism to you, and was surprised that you don't notice it. I assumed that working in the field of mental health, you'd surely had some seminars on the topic, especially on the modes of communication. Alas ...
— baker

This feels more like a personal attack, with a passive-aggressive flourish. “Alas,” really? “You’d surely had some seminars”? I don’t understand why you need to make such snide comments.

It's factual. If you had read any of the links I provided earlier, you'd see.

As I said, I’ve experienced Christian preachers who do not evoke a discourse of power. What you describe isn’t present in any "modes of communication". Your comment, “was surprised you don’t notice it” seems more like a jibe.

It's the you-mode of talking that is auhoritarian. I've referred to this many times, many times.

As long as they teach Christian doctrine, they can't be anything other than authoritarian. Because Christianity is based on an argument from power, it can only be authoritarian.
— baker

Say more about that, since the opposite is the more common argument. And yes, before you say anything, I’m well aware of the history of Christianity. I’m more interested in your idea that there’s no possibility Christianity can be anything but authoritarian.

"You've got to do right by God, and you've got to do it while you're still alive, or you will burn in hell for all eternity."
This is the essence of Christianity. Sure, some people call that "love" -- after all, God is giving you an out even though you deserve to burn just for being born.

Someone like Pope Francis might seem like an all-round nice guy, but he still believed, and preached, eternal damnation for everyone who doesn't live up to the RCC's standards.

And Christian preachers from other Christian denominations preach the same, just in favor of their own respective denomination.

Such a discussion of power is a way to distract from the actual power issues. — baker

How so?

It's the you-mode of talking that is auhoritarian. I've referred to this many times, many times. — baker

Like the comments presented by baker when arguing?

That's your projection. — baker

I went to some lengths to describe authoritarianism to you, — baker

you'd surely had some seminars on the topic, — baker

But I think you're trying to argue that when you do it it's philosophical and factual...

Someone like Pope Francis might seem like an all-round nice guy, but he still believed, and preached, eternal damnation for everyone who doesn't live up to the RCC's standards. — baker

I didn't mention any popes and do not think of Francis as a good guy, just a better pope.

And Christian preachers from other Christian denominations preach the same, just in favor of their own respective denomination. — baker

Didn't Jesus preach such things too? Isn't one problem here the notion that there may be a God who is a thug and a bully? If this is the case, then those hellfire preachers are correct and tough shit, baker, we're all fucked when we die if we didn't worship this thing in the right way. And your inadequate human understandings of power or justice matter not a jot...

But I still maintain that I have encountered preachers who do not appear to peddle authoritarian ideas; their God is ineffable, with no hell or banishment and no single, right way to worship or be a person.

I've been around long enough to have witnessed some very let's call that "vocal" preachers fall away from what they preached. A Buddhist monk who preached in a fire-and-brimstone mode and then a few years later disrobed. Another one who committed suicide. A Christian preacher who eagerly threatend me with eternal damnation, but who, after some back-and-forth, said, "But I'm a seeker just like you".
Then the more secular examples, like Marie Kondo.

Such incidents left me with a bitter taste. Many of these preachers have directed so much hatred and contempt at those they preached to -- and for what? — baker

So where does this leave you? What are your conclusions?

I think many of us have seen all of the above and worse. For several decades now, I've argued that, for the most part, people interested in pursuing religion, spirituality, and higher consciousness are as flawed, careless, and ambitious as any other group of people. And the Buddhists I have known are as bungled as of them, with substance abuse, violence, and dysfunctional behaviors.

None of this tells us whether their beliefs are true or not.

Given what you say, where do you think you could find a source of benign, non-authoritarian people who meet your standards?

It really doesn't help if the first thing people imagine upon hearing "authoritarian" is Stalin or Mao or Hitler. — baker

As I noted above, you're confusing authoritarianism with totalitarianism.

And here's the thing: it seems that for people within the Western metadiscourse paradigm, authoritarianism and totalitarianism are synonymous. They both connote something "vile" and "contrary" to the values ​​of liberalism.

I'm not talking about you now, since I have no idea who you are, where you're from, or what your views are. But you've given me an interesting thought. Thank you.

As I noted above, you're confusing authoritarianism with totalitarianism.

And here's the thing: it seems that for people within the Western metadiscourse paradigm, authoritarianism and totalitarianism are synonymous. They both connote something "vile" and "contrary" to the values ​​of liberalism. — Astorre

Not to me, though. I think liberalism is both authoritarian and totalitarian in its own ways, and even worse, because it adds insult to injury (liberal rights and freedoms exist only on paper).

My issue with religion/spirituality (which, yes, I think are necessarily authoritarian) is that their picture is *not* on the money. That is, I think it would be far better if there would be a state religion, an official religion obligatory to all citizens of a jurisdiction and that the state religion would make sure that every child who is born there is automatically accepted into the religion. (I think "religious freedom" is problematic in so many ways.)

Instead, what is happening, especially in "free" and "democratic" nations is that religions fight for supremacy, all the while insisting on a separation of church and state (which is actually a religious idea and benefits the religions the most), and people who aren't by birth members of any religion are blackmailed by religions from all directions.

So where does this leave you? What are your conclusions? — Tom Storm

That we should push the religious/spiritual to sort things out amongst themselves, until only one religion/spirituality is left.

I think many of us have seen all of the above and worse. For several decades now, I've argued that, for the most part, people interested in pursuing religion, spirituality, and higher consciousness are as flawed, careless, and ambitious as any other group of people.

I'm inclined to think that the whole point of religion/spirituality is the pursuit of wealth, health, and power.

Given what you say, where do you think you could find a source of benign, non-authoritarian people who meet your standards?

I'm not looking for "benign, non-authoritarian". If anything, I want people who are straightforward and can be relied on.

Such a discussion of power is a way to distract from the actual power issues.
— baker

How so? — Tom Storm

Because they focus on some obvious and egregious point, which then allows many everyday uses of power go completely unnoticed and taboo to discuss.

It's the you-mode of talking that is auhoritarian. I've referred to this many times, many times.
— baker

Like the comments presented by baker when arguing?

You didn't read the link, did you?

Isn't one problem here the notion that there may be a God who is a thug and a bully?

Of course he's a thug and a bully. The question is only which thug and bully we're supposed to devote ourselves to!!

If this is the case, then those hellfire preachers are correct and tough shit, baker, we're all fucked when we die if we didn't worship this thing in the right way. And your inadequate human understandings of power or justice matter not a jot...

And yet some people have figured it out which god is the right one. Don't you want to be one of those people?

But I still maintain that I have encountered preachers who do not appear to peddle authoritarian ideas; their God is ineffable, with no hell or banishment and no single, right way to worship or be a person.

Sure. But reading, for example, Meister Eckhart or Hildegard von Bingen while not having first been baptized and confirmed into a church is like not even having completed elementary school but going to the application office at a university and demanding to be enrolled into a PhD program.

And I'm sure Eckhart and Hildegard are turning in their graves when someone who is not even baptized into the RCC reads their texts.

Faith is always pitted in opposition to knowledge, such that acts based on faith are committed without reason, and only acts based on knowledge can be directly tied to reason.

On that view of things, I can see the preachers paradox. How does someone persuade about the logically, knowingly unpersuasive?

But I don’t view faith or knowledge so narrowly.

(Remove the religious baggage. Forget God and religious faith for just a moment.)

Assume for sake of argument that knowledge is something like justified true belief.

Belief is an ingredient in knowledge.

We all know that “certain” knowledge is aspirational. We all know that we know nothing certain. So, we should always qualify our “knowledge” claims with “at least that is what I believe to be the case.” All scientific knowledge is subject to future falsification.

So then, what is “faith”?

Faith is what you live by. Faith is the knowledge you will testify to, knowing sufficiently to act upon. What you believe or have faith in is found when you are finished gathering evidence, finished reasoning about it, testing it, finished hearing others opinions, and then, finished with that process, you finally decide in faith to act, to believe, to say “this is the best of my knowledge and belief”. This is why faith is equated with a leap. Faith underwrites action. Faith bridges knowledge and action, driving acts of judgement and conclusions of understanding, where reasoning is no longer in focus.

Like when someone says they believe the pyramids were not built by Egyptians (continuing to keep God out of this). Two people see all of the same evidence. One uses reason to conclude that people did build them, and the other uses reason to conclude people could not have built them. To the one who believes people did build the pyramids, the moment he concludes this, he no longer needs to gather evidence, or apply reason to new evidence, or provide theories to explain evidence - he’s done. He believes now. Egyptians built the pyramids. This is an assertion of what he believes, of what he has faith in. “Egyptians built the pyramids.” So in faith, his action is to rest on what he now believes to be the case, to stop doing any more science, to stop seeking more knowledge and evidence and just believe in what he now already knows. Whereas the other person, in faith, must continue to seek evidence, continue to apply reasoning and logic in order to develop theories (of aliens, or ancient lost civilizations).
But faith is the immediate ground upon which both men either assert knowledge about the Egyptians, or keep digging based on what they know and find wanting further evidence and reasoning. (And if some kook concluded on the available evidence that aliens built the pyramids, I find evidence of a kook, but that’s just my belief…)

Believing begins where reasoning and knowing are finished, and we instead judge, we understand, and we act.

So faith is immediately underneath every single act. We step out into traffic on faith that we can tell how to safely cross the street, not because our knowledge demands safety is certain.

———

So the preacher talking about God merely introduces new evidence, and applies the same, one and only logic that all minds must apply, and draws conclusions subject to the same analysis, to demonstrate what he believes.

The difference between the preacher and the scientist is what counts as evidence.

The preacher can say, “it is impossible for any heavy animal to walk on water or rise from three days of death. But there was this guy who did it, witnessed by many, etc….” Using this impossible testimony as evidence, logically it might be believable to listen to this guy when he says “the guy who raised after death is God.”

The difference between what religious faith is and what scientific knowledge is has to do with what justification is employed. It’s not a difference that creates this preacher’s paradox. The preacher has to remain logical and provide evidence and make knowledge claims, just like any other person who seeks to communicate with other people and persuade them.

So really, there is no difference in the mind between a religious belief and a scientific belief - these are objects someone knows. They are both knowledge. The difference has to do with what counts as evidence, and the timing of when one judges enough evidence and logic have been gathered and applied, and it is time to assert belief and to act.

Don’t get me wrong, religious belief can be insane. Scientific belief is much safer, especially if your goal is to cross the street.

———

The key question all must ask regarding faith is not, “do I act on faith, or do I act on reason and knowledge?” No. The question of faith is simply: “what (or who) do I believe in?” All acts only occur because of a choice to believe it is time to act.

———

I don’t think this contradicts Kierkegaard as much as it sounds like it does on its face.

Faith is neither knowledge nor conviction. It is a leap into the void, without guarantees. Faith is risk, trepidation, and loneliness. — Astorre

No. The above is true of an act based on faith. The leap is an act. A act of faith is not knowledge. But faith itself is conviction. Faith itself is judgment, or the ‘belief’ in ‘knowledge is justified true belief.’

This is, as usual, rough and cursory because I am not in graduate school - offered for your more thoughtful and discerning consideration.

This is a wonderful answer (I'm just emotional right now), and frankly, I expected something like this when I started this thread. Give me a couple of days to think about everything you've written. Thank you so much.

:up:

This is similar to my thoughts, but since I had already written this earlier, I'll share?

Inspired by Kierkegaard's ideas: — Astorre

I was reading Peter Harrison's "Some New World" recently, another genealogy of modernity, and one of his early chapters is on the radical changes in epistemic terminology due to the theological controversies that ended up driving the creation as the secular/naturalist/empiricist/exclusive humanist paradigm that emerges, as he has it, as an evolution of Christian theology (as opposed to a rejection of theology; others, Taylor, Milbank, etc. have made this same point).

Three changes are particularly important. "Natural versus supernatural" emerges as a new distinction. "Faith" is redefined from something like "trust," and at a deeper level, a sort of positive illumination (one inclusive of knowledge) to a something like "belief in the absence of knowledge."

Of course, part of the reason faith must now be "belief without knowledge" is because knowledge also gets redefined. It becomes something more like "justified true belief," as opposed to "the mind's grasp of being," and "justification" itself radically changes its meaning. To quote an earlier thread:

The history of "justification" as a theological term turned philosophical is itself telling here. To be "justified" was originally an internal process, a change in that which is justified. It meant "to be made righteous." With Luther, it is displaced to external divine judgement, an imputation. Then it ends up becoming a philosophical external imputation that devolves down to either the community or the individual. A "justification," of claims to be in contact with reality (in possession of knowledge) on the basis of appearances needs some metaphysics of how appearances relate to reality. If this linkage doesn't exist, I am not sure how justification ever falls into place or how truth would ever show up in our experience. But if justification is about the private and communal imputation of status in the first place, and not about a relationship between the knower and known, how could it ever bridge the gap? — Count Timothy von Icarus

These are all connected though. The idea of a wholly isolated and self-contained nature is also paired with a denial of any sort of contemplative knowledge, and eventually a denial that reason has any direct access to being (which leads towards reason becoming wholly instrumental and procedural, a computer).

My point in bringing this up?

What exactly doesn't Saint Paul know after being struck blind on the road to Damascus, being gathered up to the Third Heaven, etc? What doesn't Ezekiel know, or Abraham? For them, any doubt certainly isn't framed in terms of Kierkegaard's dialectic of the subjective and objective, with the later denoting an empirical consensus space centered around mechanistic, purposeless world where God is absent except as a "transcendent" force reaching in. So, what exactly do they doubt?

It seems to me that they might have claims to knowledge. That doesn't mean they are correct or that they lack doubts. However, their doubts might be different from our doubts if we inhabit the "closed world" of natura pura. At any rate, this "risk of being wrong" isn't particularly unique to religion.

For instance:

I was drawn to this topic by conversations with so-called preachers (not necessarily Christian ones, but any kind). They say, "You must do this, because I'm a wise man and have learned the truth." When you ask, "What if I do this and it doesn't work?" Silence ensues, or something like, "That means you didn't do what I told you to do/you didn't believe/you weren't chosen." — Astorre

This happens with fitness gurus all the time. Yet we normally don't think of "how to gain muscle" or "how to bench press more" as questions of faith. The same sort of thing might happen with creative writing, relationship advice, etc.

The modern Western retooling of epistemology tends to wholly exclude contemplative knowledge, which is a core part of all pre-modern philosophy (Eastern even more than Western even). This affects religion more than other areas, but it also affects how the physical world is viewed, aesthetics, politics, ethics, etc. These all risk becoming areas of "faith" because they aren't open to becoming a sort of reliable techne that justifies and objectifies itself in regular, reliable use. However, as the scientific anti-realists argue, this applies just as much to scientific theory (as opposed to technology).

Afterall, while the elimination of contemplative knowledge was originally argued for on the grounds that people who appeal to it contradict one another, it seems to be a fact of history by this point that empiricism and instrumental reason have led to no more agreement in the relevant areas. Nor have modern ideologies (fascism, communism, liberalism) been particularly less violent or assertive in their dogmas. Indeed, arguably Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, in at least many traditional forms, agree on more of importance than post-Enlightenment thought (which of course, has many strands that wholly deny value any true reality, or truth, etc.).

I think the paradox arises more from what Charles Taylor calls the "closed world system:"

Modernity, according to Taylor, has developed very powerful versions of phase 2. These are ‘closed’ or ‘horizontal’ worlds, which leave no place for the transcendent (or ‘vertical’) – they even render it inaccessible or unthinkable. I will give a brief picture of the contemporary western CWS.

The CWS he describes is the one most commonly held in the west today – a picture of individuals as knowing agents who build up their knowledge of the world by taking in information and forming mental pictures from which they build theories. An understanding of science often combines with this structure, and a series of priority relations tell us what is learned before what. Sense experience acts foundationally – “I must grasp the world as a fact before I can posit values.” In this CWS, any contact with the transcendent must come as an inference and “it is obvious that the inference to the transcendent is at the most extreme and most fragile end of a series of inferences; it is the most epistemically questionable.”

Taylor uses the work of post-modern thinkers such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to deconstruct these ‘master-narratives’ of modernity and to show how they are constituted by a “massive self-blindness” – the supposed neutrality of secularity actually appears to be bogus.

Taylor explains the three aspects of a challenge to such an epistemological picture:

1. Our grasp of the world can’t be accounted for in the simple terms of mental representations of outer reality – such representations only get their meaning for us from a more fundamental process of ‘coping’ with the world as bodily, social and cultural beings.

2. This ‘coping’ activity is not primarily that of individuals, but is a social process which we are inducted into.

3. We do not deal with objects as part of the coping process, but what are called by Heidegger pragmata – the focal points of our coping, and which therefore already come to us with meaning and relevance.

The upshot of all these arguments is that they completely overturn the priority relations of foundationalist epistemology – as Taylor says, “there is no priority of the neutral grasp of things over their value”; things that are considered to be late and questionable inferences are seen to be part of our primary predicament, so that the sense that the divine comes as a remote inference is completely undercut by this challenge.

“From within itself, the epistemological picture seems unproblematic. It comes across as an obvious discovery we make when we reflect on our perception and acquisition of knowledge. All the great foundational figures – Descartes, Locke, Hume – claimed to be just saying what was obvious once one examined experience itself reflectively. Seen from the deconstruction, this is a most massive self-blindness. Rather what happened is that experience was carved into shape by a powerful theory which posited the primacy of the individual, the neutral, the intra-mental as the locus of certainty. What was driving this theory? Certain ‘values’, virtues, excellences: those of the independent, disengaged subject, reflexively controlling his own thought processes, ‘self-responsibly’ in Husserl’s phrase. There is an ethic here, of independence, self-control, self-responsibility, of a disengagement which brings control; a stance which requires courage, the refusal of the easy comforts of conformity to authority, of the consolations of an enchanted world, of the surrender to the promptings of the senses. The entire picture, shot through with ‘values’, which is meant to emerge out of the careful, objective, presuppositionless scrutiny, is now presented as having been there from the beginning, driving the whole process of ‘discovery’.”

https://mrlivermore.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/charles-taylor-secularity-and-miracles/

I will just add to the Taylor quote that what is missing is any notion that such virtues need to be cultivated. They are generally considered to be automatic. They don't require praxis or cultivation. Kant's formal freedom is always there for all. There is no "knowing by becoming" or conformity to being required. Likewise, these virtues don't seem like they should rule out contemplative knowledge, but other axioms do rule it out.

And this is how you get your tough questions for the preacher. "I did the formula, I said the rosaries, or sat on the mountaintop, etc. But the procedure didn't work. If the procedure didn't work, it is bunk, or at least ineffective for me." Such an objection is, where techne is the gold standard for knowledge, absolutely fatal (although perhaps it can be overcome if there is evidence that the "procedure" works for enough people). Yet the counterpoint from the preacher or sage is likely to be that the "procedure" is mere supporting praxis, and that one ought not expect it to work like a course of antibiotics, or changing a light bulb.

And yet some people have figured it out which god is the right one. Don't you want to be one of those people? — baker

No. I seem to be incapable of believing in any god variations. So 'right one' is not on my radar. It’s probably a matter of disposition. Are you a theist?

That we should push the religious/spiritual to sort things out amongst themselves, until only one religion/spirituality is left. — baker

I’m not sure what this means. A fight to the death until only one theism is left standing? Or a battle over first principles until only one belief system has survived scrutiny? How does this work in your view? And if one religion or spirituality remains, are you saying that this one represents the truth, or merely that it's the one that survived? And what if there are multiple paths and spiritual truths and the human urge for simplifications and reductions not applicable?

quote="baker;1018093"]I'm inclined to think that the whole point of religion/spirituality is the pursuit of wealth, health, and power.[/quote]

All spirituality? Including the aforementioned Meister Eckhart or Hildegard von Bingen?

Given what you say, where do you think you could find a source of benign, non-authoritarian people who meet your standards?
I'm not looking for "benign, non-authoritarian". If anything, I want people who are straightforward and can be relied on. — baker

Do you mean that you prefer people who aren’t hypocrites and are predictable, so that if they’re bad, it’s all out in the open?

You didn't read the link, did you? — baker

I read the I-message statement link. I also attended a seminar on this.

Great OP. :up:

Preaching faith means either not having it or betraying it. — Astorre

The preacher supposedly doesn't teach, but testifies. — Astorre

I think the idea that the preacher testifies is essentially correct. How does Moses preach in a fundamental way? By the light of his face, which reflects the light of God. He covers it to protect those who are dazed by it, but the covering still attests to Moses' stature.

God shines into the world. He shines in Moses' face, in prayer, in sacrament, in truth, in argumentation, in rhetoric... There is no box that can protect its contents from God's light. The idea that faith is simply incommunicable is a false form of apophaticism. "Faith is incommunicable, therefore God cannot communicate through faith," would be a false inference. Faith is incommunicable in a certain sense, but the one who thinks he understands faith so well that he can limits its bounds and its communication is engaged in a form of (apophatic) idolatry. The temptation is to try to encompass faith, both by excluding it from certain spheres and by attempting to comprehend its mechanism.

But love doesn't guarantee the right to interfere in someone else's destiny. — Astorre

Why not?

As soon as you try to convey faith, you rationalize it... — Astorre

So long as the recipient understands that the conveyance of faith is only a shadow and a sign, there is no danger.

I think the idea that the preacher testifies is essentially correct. How does Moses preach in a fundamental way? By the light of his face, which reflects the light of God. He covers it to protect those who are dazed by it, but the covering still attests to Moses' stature. — Leontiskos

As an example, I'll give a few hypothetical judgments:

1. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful because I've seen it.
2. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful because I imagine it.
3. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful because everyone says so.
4. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful because Michelangelo worked on it.
5. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful because it encompasses diverse themes, has a harmonious color palette, and is thought-provoking.

Question: Which of these judgments conveys the speaker's belief that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful, or proves it? The answer is neither. In reality, a representative of a non-Christian religion, for example, could enter the chapel and not like the ceiling at all. Language is incapable of exhaustively expressing subjective experience: "What cannot be spoken of, one must remain silent about." Preaching (especially expansive preaching) is about instilling an idea, igniting an inner fire so that the listener can then find confirmation or experience it for themselves.

And here a paradox arises: infecting another person with an idea you don't fully understand yourself, or are naively convinced of, without sharing the responsibility for following it, seems unethical. This lies in the content of the opening message of this thread.

So long as the recipient understands that the conveyance of faith is only a shadow and a sign, there is no danger. — Leontiskos

If they understand it, they probably don't believe it.

And here a paradox arises: infecting another person with an idea you don't fully understand yourself, or are naively convinced of, without sharing the responsibility for following it, seems unethical. — Astorre

I keep trying to agree with this, but I can’t. :wink:

The argument assumes that fully understanding an idea is a moral prerequisite for sharing it. Isn't it the case that human communication and learning relies precisely on partial understanding and the exchange of ideas that are still not fully formed?

I also wonder how you can successfully “infect” another if you don’t have the germ of an idea in the first place (forgive the pun).

As I said earlier, much education and exchange of ideas happens precisely this way; through the sharing of incompletely understood notions.

Morality itself seems a good example. Most of us learn to do and not to do certain things without having a fully articulated sense of right and wrong, and without being properly explained why a given thing is right or is wrong. The lessons aren’t any less useful simply because they’re incompletely understood by our parents or teachers.

I hold any number of beliefs and views that I don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t make them any less useful.


(fixed typo)

I keep trying to agree with this, but I can’t. :wink: — Tom Storm

Excellent! This is a source of fertile discussion.

The argument assumes that fully understanding an idea is a moral prerequisite for sharing it. Isn't it the case that human communication and learning relies precisely on partial understanding and the exchange of ideas that are still fully formed?

I also wonder how you can successfully “infect” another if you don’t have the germ of an idea in the first place (forgive the pun).

As I said earlier, much education and exchange of ideas happens precisely this way; through the sharing of incompletely understood notions.

Morality itself seems a good example. Most of us learn to do and not to do certain things without having a fully articulated sense of right and wrong, and without being properly explained why a given thing is right or is wrong. The lessons aren’t any less useful simply because they’re incompletely understood by our parents or teachers.

I hold any number of beliefs and views that I don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t make them any less useful. — Tom Storm

It's all logical; this rhetorical technique is called "reduction to absurdity." The point is: remember the example of the father and son with the stolen bicycle? Responsibility. That's the point! Teach me whatever you want, I'm willing to do it, but compensate me for all the risks of negative consequences of following your teaching.

The exchange of ideas between people is something entirely different: for example, between you and me. It's the engine of progress. But there's a different nuance: we exchange premises (often with a note of subjectivity) and don't insist on the truth of our ideas or judgments. Although, of course, there are people who completely understand this world and do nothing but share their truth with everyone and know how everyone should live (but we also consider such behavior unethical, don't we?)

Here's the thing: by creating any image of God in our heads, we're trying to fit something into our heads that's incomprehensible, a priori. This is convenient for us, since it corresponds to our ways of knowing everything.

Not necessarily incomprehensible, but perhaps alien. So different that it just doesn’t make sense, or seem sensible to even consider it to be the truth.

What I’m getting at is that we in this world don’t have the apparatus, the mental language to know God. So that when God presents him/herself to us. We do not know him, recognise him, accept him as who he says he is. That if we did have the apparatus, it would not be incomprehensible at all. It would be just like meeting an old friend.

But in this case, we're dealing with something that's impossible to fit into our heads, to know, or to create an image of. Feeling, experiencing, and sensing—I think it's possible.

Yes, something we know through our body, not our heads.

And perhaps people are a bit confused here: after all, red is impossible to describe, but it can be imagined. God, however, is impossible to imagine, describe, or comprehend.

Unless one is already acquainted with him, like how one knows an old friend.

I'm inclined to believe that if we meet Him, we'll certainly recognize Him.

This is the dilemma I’m pointing out in my response. We might know him, but deny him, or find ourselves to be blind to him. If we analyse what is being described in the bible. Interesting things are being described in ways which indicate something not normally known about in our day to day lives. So when God arrives, all the creatures of the world lift their heads, turn to him and say his name;

“Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever”
(Revelation 5:13)*

This is interesting because it suggests that the currency of language when God is present is the same for all animals and primitive animals who don’t have the apparatus to speak, or to know, do speak and do know, in that moment. That wherever on the planet they are, they see him instantaneously and respond in chorus. This tells us that God presents through the heart of being of all creatures (I would include plants as well), instantaneously. So we would know him and would respond in a transcendent, transformative way (creatures would speak, who could not speak).
That when God is present, we and all creatures are hosted (lifted up into heaven) and see through this revelation, God in heaven.

*new international version.

This is the dilemma I’m pointing out in my response. We might know him, but deny him, or find ourselves to be blind to him. If we analyse what is being described in the bible. Interesting things are being described in ways which indicate something not normally known about in our day to day lives. So when God arrives, all the creatures of the world lift their heads, turn to him and say his name; — Punshhh

You and I have quite similar ideas, apparently. I can only add to this from Kierkegaard: faith is silent.

I encountered the preacher's paradox in my everyday life. It concerns my children. Should I tell them what I know about religion myself, take them to church, convince them, or leave it up to them, or perhaps avoid religious topics altogether?

I don't know the right way. I don't know anyone who knows. I'm the father. I'm responsible for them (that's my conviction).

Question: Which of these judgments conveys the speaker's belief that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is beautiful, or proves it? — Astorre

I think this is the same error, but with beauty instead of faith. So we could take my claim and replace "faith" with "beauty": "The temptation is to try to encompass [beauty], both by excluding it from certain spheres and by attempting to comprehend its mechanism." To have the presupposition that one can exhaustively delineate and comprehend things like faith or beauty is to already have failed.

"What cannot be spoken of, one must remain silent about." — Astorre

False. And self-contradicting, by the way.

Language is incapable of exhaustively expressing subjective experience — Astorre

And, "So long as the recipient understands that the conveyance of faith is only a shadow and a sign, there is no danger." But the idea that faith is only a subjective experience is another example of the overconfident delineation of faith.

And here a paradox arises: infecting another person with an idea you don't fully understand yourself... — Astorre

"Infecting" is an interesting choice of word, no? Petitio principii?

Communicating supernatural faith is communicating something that transcends you and your understanding. If someone thinks that it is impossible or unethical to communicate something that transcends you and your understanding, then what they are really doing is denying the object of faith, God. They don't think God exists, or they don't think faith in God can or should be intended via preaching because they don't think faith is sown that way. I think the whole position is based on some false assumptions.

Preaching is a bit like introducing someone to a friend, to a living reality. The idea that one cannot introduce someone to a friend unless they have a comprehensive knowledge of the friend and the way in which the friend will interact with the listener is quite silly. In this respect Kierkegaard is a Cartesian or a Hegelian in spite of himself. His attempted inversion of such systems has itself become captured by the larger net of those systems. The religious rationalist knows exactly what faith is and how to delineate it, and Kierkegaard in his opposition denies the rationalist claims, but in fact also arrives at the point where he is able to delineate faith with perfect precision. The only difference is that Kierkegaard knows exactly what faith isn't instead of what it is. Yet such a punctuated negation is, again, a false form of apophaticism - a kind of false humility.

I was drawn to this topic by conversations with so-called preachers (not necessarily Christian ones, but any kind). They say, "You must do this, because I'm a wise man and have learned the truth." When you ask, "What if I do this and it doesn't work?" Silence ensues, or something like, "That means you didn't do what I told you to do/you didn't believe/you weren't chosen." — Astorre

But is the problem preaching, or is it a particular kind of preaching? Someone whose preaching attempts to connect someone with something that is dead (such as an idea) instead of something that is living (such as a friend or God) will fall into the incoherences that the OP points up. But not all preaching is like that. If someone tries to persuade others to believe things that one cannot be persuaded to believe, then their approach is incoherent. But not all preaching is of that kind.

I've already realized that your judgments are rooted in emotion, but asserting something false requires the speaker to possess the truth.

The ideas I've presented are a somewhat in-depth discussion of Kierkegaard (as I understand him). However, since you possess the truth, it's my duty to inquire about it. Not in a negative way (that is, through negation), but in a free, positive expression.

So please reveal the truth to us!