Is there perception that can't be scientifically perceived? What does that mean? — Marchesk

No. But I said that to clarify a possible objection from people who would take emotions, feelings, etc. to be perceived for example.

Empirical is perception only. — Marchesk

Yeah, empirical is anything that can be scientifically perceived to be even more accurate.

tied to our aesthetic intuition. — sime

This is false, since language is social and collective, not individual.

Grammar, empirical fact and value aren't three independent things. — sime

What does this mean?

It was true to say that our considerations could not be scientific ones. It was not of any possible interest to us to find out empirically that, contrary to our preconceived ideas, it is possible to think such-and-such -- whatever that may mean. (The conception of thought as a gaseous medium.) And we may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. And this description gets its light, that is to say its purpose, from the philosophical problems. These are, of course, not empirical problems, they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognize those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — PI §109

It is its arbitrariness that makes both the emperor and the peasant grateful, and makes both of them not take their positions for granted.

No autocratic/blood/tribal rule can be just regardless of how well ordered, because such rule is always arbitrary. — Cavacava

Existence is arbitrary though. That is precisely part of its beauty. Not to be arbitrary is to be monotonous - it is what Nietzsche would call being nihilistic.

Do you really want to live in an empire? Under the arbitrary rule of people who have flat out misconceptions of what it is to be poor and struggling....eat the rich. — Cavacava

Everyone else profits from empires, because they create lasting order, when well-administred.

in my opinion over time this creates an aristocratic class of non productive, landed gentry. — Cavacava

That is why they will lose their empire, obviously.

Like Hopi and English? — Marchesk

Sure. So that means they have both already learned conceptual grammar. When they learn each other's language, they merely learn new words that will be assigned to the concepts that they already know.

But we weren't talking about feral children. I brought up anthropologists and different language speakers meeting for the first time, like the Europeans in the new world.

Somehow they still manage to learn to speak each other's languages. I'm guessing the don't start off with grammar. — Marchesk

Do they both speak one different language before meeting? Yes or no?

And in fact Wittgenstein is right - feral children and similar cases who have NOT learned conceptual grammar, struggle mightily to learn any language whatsoever.

So that's why most of the Anglo world misunderstands Wittgenstein, as if Wittgenstein was talking about some petty linguistic things that are actually of no interest to philosophers at all.

So languages even if they are different often have the same concepts. The concept of red is the same as the concept of rouge in French. The language, however, is different. So in other words, the language is irrelevant, whether it's known or it's unknown. What is relevant is whether I have learned to use the concept, not the word. Concepts are across languages. Both English and French have the same concepts (by and large). The words, of course, differ. What we're talking about here is learning the conceptual grammar - which you learn only once, when you learn your very first language. All other future languages don't involve you learning conceptual grammar at all, since you already know it from the first language you learned.

Yeah, but you're not going to know the grammar for an unknown language. — Marchesk

No, you misunderstand what grammar means. Grammar doesn't mean what you've been taught it means in school in this case. It has nothing to do with linguistic grammar. We're talking about conceptual grammar here. Conceptual grammar can be the same even though linguistic grammar is different.

after maybe giving your name? — Marchesk

So take this one. The grammar of the concept of "name". For you to easily understand that when I point at myself and say "Agustino" and then point at you I mean that "My name is Agustino, what is yours?" you must already have understood the grammar of name (ie how names are used, what kind of things they refer to, etc.). You must already have understood that name - whatever you call it in your language - is used in such and such a way.

I think you are misunderstanding what grammar means.

"red" in English is the same as "rouge" in French. The grammar of the two concepts is virtually identical, even though the languages are different. For example, you can't have "red jealousy" or "jalousie rouge" in French. That's part of the grammar of the words.

So once I understand the grammar of - say - English, it's much easier to learn French by pointing me to stuff.

There are many times in history when humans have encountered groups they had no previous contact with, with individuals from both learning each other's languages. — Marchesk

Yes, why does that surprise you? Did I ever suggest it wouldn't be possible?

But then how do anthropologists go about learning an unknown language from some tribe in New Guinea upon first contact? — Marchesk

They already know the grammar of (any) language. Not grammar in the common understanding - I was actually talking to someone about this last night - but grammar in Wittgenstein's understanding - ie the possibilities and rules governing the sense of the particular concept or class of concepts.

You can point to apple and say "apple", then point to something red and say "red", then back to apple and say "red". — Marchesk

That wouldn't work because red could again mean a thousand and one things. For example, red could refer to the group of things made by apple and whatever else you point to. It could refer to any object. For example, how would you teach the concept of "object" compared to the concept of "red"? If you tried to teach them both concepts and you only had red objects around, what would you do?

So it would take a lot of experiments to learn. And the person who is trying to learn would be punished for failures to use the word adequately. And those failures would inform future use, until it molded into the use that corresponds to what the concept actually means. Hence why Wittgenstein argues that no private language is possible, since this practical and social correction in use needs to be possible for words to have meaning.

One of the recent trends is "assortative mating," in which upscale professionals mate and create privileged offspring. We have rampant inequality, worse even than the gilded age of the 1920's. — fishfry

As far as I'm concerned, that is a good development. It means that we (the middle class) are spared of golddiggers - who would want to marry a golddigger anyway?

Why doesn't Any Kid, USA succeed? — Bitter Crank

Well, from my experience, most entrepreneurs do not come from families with money, quite the contrary. Usually "wantrepreneurs" from families with money don't do very well, since they have other interests (sex, drinking, partying, you get the idea). They are like Trump - not great, but they have the support of an already existing empire, which can afford a lot of mistakes. It's good to work with such people, since many times they are stupid with money >:) - they don't realise the value of money.

Any kid could succeed, provided that he really wanted this, and kept at it for long enough. Success in these matters seems to be somewhat elusive - a large share of it seems to be social, just being able to pull sufficient strings. A large part of it also seems to be in the knowledge of which strings to pull. So it takes a lot of trial and error before you really "get it". Like any other practical thing really. It takes time to learn tennis, why wouldn't it take time to learn to be a successful entrepreneur? The hard thing with entrepreneurship, unlike say, tennis, is that no one can really teach you here. There are not many great resources around. It's something you pretty much have to learn on your own. If you can't learn by yourself, well, tough luck.

Wow, I just saw this thread.

Ack! I almost lost my coffee reading your post Cavacava!
If MY choice is to work my entire life, to leave my family set on finances, who the f*#& are you to decide that outside of my spouse, my children will only be entitled to $1 million dollars of my PERSONAL estate, that might be worth well over $20 million? Who is the recipient of the remaining money?

What motivation would there be for me to work that hard in life, pay taxes on that work in life, pay property taxes for the land I own and run my ranch on, which the government will be happy to tax me on while I am living, only to have it taken from me upon my death?
Talk to me about the motivation to work hard enough to employ others, only to have the government take away their very jobs, when I as their employer dies and my estate is decimated.
I am listening.... — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I agree with you. Btw, congratulations for your family's new purchase of a car! (Y)

Limit the amount of inheritance outside of spouse to a maximum, say $1 million dollars for entire estate. — Cavacava

Empires are built on blood, since loyalty is only extracted, in the last instance, through blood relations. Limiting inheritance is not a good thing.

What should be limited (or eradicated), should be the possibility for making money out of financial speculation (non-productive activities), or hoarding money without a plan (not putting it to use, above a certain sum of course).

Who is the recipient of the remaining money? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Government bureaucrats who never worked a day in their lives X-)

No, nihilism results in those who demand that life must have a ready-made meaning and who are no longer able to believe the master narratives that supplied that ready-made meaning.

Nietzsche was not himself a nihilist, but saw nihilism as being inherent in the Christianity of his day.

As I said earlier nihilism is not a claim, but a disposition. — Janus

Pretty well as per what Nietzsche said, although he was part of the problem rather than part of the solution. — Wayfarer

And Nietzsche was right. It was Christianity that first brought the scientific attitude into the world and justified it as understanding God's laws. It was Christianity that extolled reason and its supremacy over the passions - man the rational animal, most like God, who is rational. Christianity was responsible for the eradication of superstition, sacrifices, violence, and the whole plethora of means of keeping the world enchanted. Violence played a foundational role in human societies, and Christianity rendered this foundational mechanism impossible or worse - ineffective. Nihilism is now the unavoidable conclusion for those who reject the Kingdom of God that Jesus offered.

Violence allowed meaning to be injected into the world from the outside. When one slayed one's enemies and founded a kingdom upon their corpses, it was meaningful - meaningful for everyone else. Now such meaning is impossible - the only meaning can come from inside now, not from outside. God is no longer out there, throwing lightning bolts and slaying our enemies, completely external of us. Such has been revealed to be a superstition - by Christianity itself.

Convinced that Nietzsche's analysis was accurate, for example, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1926) studied several cultures to confirm that patterns of nihilism were indeed a conspicuous feature of collapsing civilizations.

And he was correct too.

I instantly thought of Pierce regarding signs and semiotics. Our values are really just symbols that remain dependent on either, but we have given them properties that separate it and ultimately translate this separation by giving it meaning as something representative of other than what it actually is. It doesn't mean that everything is neither empirical nor conceptual. His picture-theory is a 'correspondence' and while he doesn't really offer a solution, I like this: "[a] pictorial view on the connection between the word (or sign) and the world (or object) partakes of indexicality (or secondness) in addition to iconicity. If the word is supposed to refer immediately outside itself to its alter ego, the object signified, this pointing function renders the representation clearly indexical. This is also implied in Wittgenstein's "ostensive definition" (eg PI:1:38)," — TimeLine

I think Wittgenstein proved quite definitely that the idea of an isomorphism between language and reality, or that language can act as a picture for reality is nonsensical, and one of the prime sources for metaphysical confusion. There always is some non-discursive element of practice to the use of language. If I point you to a red apple trying to teach you what red is, I might say "This is red". But how will you know if by that I refer to the color, the shape, the fruit, etc.? Language never refers outside of itself, it is a tool, like a computer desktop, that makes the practical navigation of the world easier. There's nothing particularly interesting about it.

Pierce... the fly trapped in the bottle :P

Interesting idea. Where does the value stem from, then? Internal experience? Social interaction? — Marchesk

Value has to do with one's whole being it seems. It does not stem from experience, for it lies in the very attitude we have towards experience. And it does not stem from conceptual analysis since that cannot yield anything new, anything beyond itself. So experience tells us about the world, and conceptual analysis tells us about our language and thought. But neither can tell us about value.

"In the world, everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists - and if it did, it would have no value"

You assume the child trusts that it's good, not merely that he instinctively desires it. — Buxtebuddha

That's the same thing worded differently. That he instinctively desires one thing is just the same as he trusts that it's good.

A baby's trust in its mother is not the same as one who has faith in some religious ideal. The ideals tell you that they're good, and you ought to trust them, the baby trusting its mother is blind. — Buxtebuddha

The ideals invite you to trust them, just like your mother invites you to trust her that the milk she gives you is good. You trust the one, but not the other. Why? Because in the meantime, you've learned to distrust.

Gurdjieff at 13? That is an early start! — Janus

Yes, that's what happens when your atheist father has Osho books lying around >:O .

Are these people engaged in self reflection? Anything but. Naked apes addicted to the latest distraction. — Bitter Crank

It's our culture that promotes this kind of way of life.

‘Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism.’ — Wayfarer

I disagree, since Nietzsche set it up as his task to find a way to overcome nihilism.

It's pointless arguing against convinced unbelief. It's the mirror image of the conviction that it denies. So it amounts to holding an anti-religious attitude with religious conviction. 'Beasts are driven to the pasture by blows', said Heraclitus. — Wayfarer

Pass me the whip then please X-)

And how is this religious faith, or faith in something unseen? — Buxtebuddha

Because the fact that drinking the milk will eliminate the discomfort of hunger is not an a priori given, but must be taken on faith. If the child did not have this faith, they would refuse the mother's breast, and would not drink the milk.

Yes, this is the unremarkable, mundane, and uncontroversial kind of faith. — Buxtebuddha

Yes, this unremarkable, mundane and uncontroversial kind of faith is the same as religious faith. The only difference is the object or person of that faith.

What does this have to do with what you quoted from me? — Buxtebuddha

I did not really understand what you meant by "God as a concept is not a predicate to one's doubt". So it seems I misinterpreted what you meant. Please clarify and I will respond again.

My point is that neither of you seem to be distinguishing between ordinary trust/faith and religious trust/faith. They're similar in definition, but different in practice. — Buxtebuddha

In what sense are they different in practice, apart from the faith being directed towards a different person/object?

Because it'd be presuming belief in others. — Buxtebuddha

I don't follow.

Incidentally, this is a good paper at clarifying some of the above matters.

How can the child just born have any assurance or hope or conviction in the "things" not seen? — Buxtebuddha

He has an instinctual faith which is aided and encouraged by parents to, for example, drink milk from his mother's breast in order to deal with the discomfort of hunger.

The babe in swaddling clothes doesn't come to some articulately and consciously reasoned, utilitarian decision about whether or not he ought to doubt his urge to suck his mother's teet. — Buxtebuddha

Exactly, he cannot doubt, he can just trust that when his mom throws the breast in his face and puts it in his mouth, it is good to suck on it. And by faith he sucks on it, and behold, he sees that it is good.

While it is true that we all are born to trust - to have faith - we are not, however, born with religious faith. One learns, or comes to know, about what God is said to be. God as a concept is not a predicate to one's doubt. — Buxtebuddha

We're not born with anything in the absence of society - we need society and a favourable environment to guide us.

One learns, or comes to know, about what God is said to be. God as a concept is not a predicate to one's doubt. — Buxtebuddha

I was clarifying errors in thinking that charle displays in abundance. How can she think of God if she cannot even solve basic problems of thought, such as which comes first, belief or doubt? So don't forget that my responses aren't universal, but targeted at specific people in specific situations. So the reason I answered the way I did was because I was talking to charleton - and it's not profitable to talk to charleton about God if the groundwork is not ready.

God may apply to you before you believed in him, but for the disbeliever, you cannot attribute that same hindsight to them. — Buxtebuddha

How so?

Faith is bollocks — charleton

What is bollocks?

Yes you can, and yes you must. This is your failing, and that is why you argue so poorly. — charleton

No, it is literarily impossible to doubt when you have nothing to doubt. Doubting and disbelieving is a learned process that becomes possible only after you've already learned to believe and have come to believe a thousand and one things.

To doubt, you must provide reasons for doubting, and those reasons must be stronger than whatever thing they're meant to cast into question. So those reasons that you need to doubt, they must already be things that you know. Without knowing those, you can have no reasons for doubting, and so no doubt is even possible. This follows as the night follows the day my dear charle. So stomp your feet, throw your hands in the air and shout as much as you like it, but it ain't going to change. As you told me, it would be much like the madman who expects that his car will start without any petrol.

Specious nonsense. I don't care how religion defines faith. I can tell what it is. — charleton

So you don't care what the other person says they believe - you just know what they believe anyway, no need to communicate X-)

For me faith "trust" follows evidence and knowledge. — charleton

That is impossible. When you're born, you know nothing. So what "evidence" and what "knowledge"? To even gain the first little bit of "knowledge" you must have faith.

Someone showed me how. I did not have to have any faith, since I was able to start the car in any event. — charleton

Yes, you had faith that you understood what they showed you and you could replicate it yourself.

When you learn to do math, you must have faith that 1+1=2. There is no "evidence" that can be offered or any more basic knowledge that can be used to assert it. You must accept it on faith to be able to move forward and actually start gaining knowledge.

2) Faith with a capital F which is religious faith based on fear of death and "god". — charleton

No religion defines Faith (as you like to call it my dear charle), as faith based on fear of death or "god". Apart from being circular, it would be entirely absurd, since having faith in God isn't the same as that faith being based on God.

This is the Biblical definition:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

When I place my trust in the doctor or my car starting, it does not mean I absolutely trust that the doctors advice is going to work or that the car will start. — charleton

How did you learn to start your car? You learned because you were told and shown how to do it. To really have done it yourself, you must have had faith (in the religious sense) that in following the instructions, you would achieve the same result (and in that you understood how to apply the instructions you were given). How did you learn to make all those cute arguments that you're blabbering today? You must have had faith when you were taught that this is how you use your language, and that's what this and that means, etc. For without faith, you wouldn't even have learned how to speak, much less how to start your car. You cannot start with doubt, you must start with just believing what you're told (ie, things not seen), ie faith.

Faith with a capital F means thinking the car will start without putting petrol in it. — charleton

:s - according to the religion of charle?

So, yes, if Judaism is right, Christianity is wrong in an essential, non-trivial ort of way. Do you not agree with this? — Hanover

Of course, I agree with it, but that's besides the point. It's like telling me that if Newton's laws of motion cannot predict the movement of rays of light around the Earth, then they are wrong in an essential way compared to Einstein's theory of relativity. Sure! So what?! For all this time I was trying to point out that they have an essential core in common - on Earth, they both make the same predictions.

Christianity and Judaism still have what is essentially the exact same worldview. There even are some Jews (called Messianic Jews) who have adopted the centrality of Jesus qua Messiah affirmed by Christianity.

So my point is that you are not "wrong" in any absolute sense if you follow the tenets of Judaism or Christianity - you may simply not be completely right, in an explicit manner.

That might explain someone in a leadership position who actually worries about overall numbers, but the kid in the tie on his bicycle is at my door because he thinks he has the key to truth and heaven that is lacking in whatever religion I subscribe to. — Hanover

Sure, but there are a lot of elements that go into building up that belief for him. Some of those reasons may have to do with insecurity, others may have to do with wanting to share his knowledge, others may have to do with peer pressure and social expectations, etc.

As I indicated, Mormonism is polytheistic. http://www.mormonhandbook.com/home/polytheism.html This is directly from a Mormon website. — Hanover

Right, I do not doubt that they see themselves as polytheists.

Are you now declaring Mormons non-Christian? — Hanover

If you're asking me what I personally think, then I don't think Christianity is Mormonism. I identify Christianity with the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, which were the very first organisations that arose out of the Movement created by Jesus and the Apostles. That's the original Christianity in my view.

If you're asking me what Mormons think, I think they would see their religion as a continuation of true Christianity.

There are plenty of other religions that are polytheistic. Are you still claiming that they are essentially the same as Christianity? — Hanover

With regards to their core, in many cases this is so. Organized religions arise out of man's encounter with the divine, ie hierophanic experiences OR out of internal disagreements within one religion. The latter explains the emergence of Protestant groups or the Orthodox-Catholic schism, etc. But it is the former that is of the essence, and that is universally found across different religions.

The Jesus Movement formed because, first and foremost, the Apostles and the people who knew and met Jesus saw something worth dying for in Him - they were utterly impressed by the character and the person of Christ, and saw in Him the fulfillment of the Jewish Tradition. That was an experience of the divine, including the many mystical experiences that the Apostles had such as the one of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

The Jewish religion arose out of the mystical experiences of the Jewish forefathers - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their encounter with the transcendent, which they termed and conceptualised as God, is what spawned the entire Jewish religion.

The Buddhist religion arose out of Siddhartha Gautama's dissatisfaction with life - or rather observation that life is corrupted by suffering - and search for a meaning beyond this, and it finishes precisely with his encounter with the transcendent which provided for the cure he was searching for.

You also seem to have a peculiarly legalistic understanding of belief. For example, someone says they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and someone else says they disagree, they think, for whatever reason, that it's a false belief. You will conclude they have different beliefs. I disagree. That's not what belief is, especially not with regards to religious matters. I can tell you that I believe in pink flying elephants, it doesn't mean that I really believe it just because I want to assent to that proposition when it crosses my mind. To really believe it, I must believe it in my heart, which means that I must act according to that belief.

So someone who says that Jesus is the Son of God and then proceeds to rape and murder an entire village doesn't believe it - even though he may assent to the words. And someone who says that Jesus isn't the Son of God, and he's absolutely sure of it, but behaves according to the Will of God, showing charity to his friends and enemies alike, following the moral law, etc. etc. that one does really believe in Christ, even though he does not explicitly know it or acknowledge it (hence the notion of Anonymous Christian or baptism of the heart, etc.).

Do not forget that another universal feature of religions is that the consciousness of the believer must be changed by the religion. So that is what true belief is - when you become a new person as a result of the religion.

So to believe isn't the same as verbally assenting to this or that. Without the underlying mystical experiences saying that God is One, or there are three gods, etc. are empty nonsense, words without any meaning whatsoever. It is only the underlying hierophanic experiences which give meaning unto those words. So it's entirely irrelevant if one says they're a polytheist, and the other says that they're a monotheist - that's not how we're going to see if they really disagree. Those meanings must be ultimately rooted in practice and experience and life.

If you want to really rest your argument on the accidental/essential distinction, then you are going to be required to itemize the properties you find essential to Christianity and then to the various competing religions. We will then need to see what the common essence is of all religions. — Hanover

I already said what is common to all (or most) world religions. That is their foundation in hierophanic experiences, their overarching narrative (a fallen state, followed by something that allows for redemption and communion with the divine), etc. How these things are cashed out in particular symbols, according to particular cultures, languages, peoples, etc. is less relevant. Prayer, meditation, contemplation, devotion, etc. - in other words spiritual practice - are common to all religions.

The reason we can't decipher the accidental from essential property of a chair, for example, is because the distinction isn't real. A chair that cannot be sat on can still be a chair. A four legged chair with a missing leg is still a chair, even though it sits broken on the floor. A chair in a dollhouse is still a chair, even though it serves no function of being a chair. There are a set of properties that make something a chair and it's possible that two chairs be chairs yet not share a single property. In your case of transubstantiation, you even suggested that the essential property not even be empirically knowable, indicating that essence is a transcendent property, like the soul of something, imbuing it with chairness. Like I said, I reject essentialism, which might be why I consider your suggestion that all religions share an essence unsupportable. — Hanover

Right, so then there are objects like chairs which we cannot define by a single list of necessary properties without a specific context. Then there are words like triangle in Euclidean geometry which we can define by a single list of necessary properties, which is the example I've given and you've ignored. Why is that? My sentiment was always that in the one case we really mean a multitude of things by "chair" in different contexts, and because in our language we tended to use the same word for all of them, the word chair is in effect impossible to define in a consistent way in order to cover all that we mean by chair at once, across all contexts. So something could be a chair because they have properties A and B, and something else could be a chair even though they have properties D and E (which are actually contradictory to A and B) and so on. So I think the above says more about our language, and how we chose to linguistically divide our concepts than it does about reality. It's important not to confuse language with reality.

You're now rejecting essentialism and arguing Wittgensteinian family resemblance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance . If that's where you're falling on this, we're in agreement, but I think what's really happened is that you're simply recognizing the unsupportability of essentialism and you're trying to adapt to the objections being raised. — Hanover

I do not see why accepting family-resemblances would mean a rejection of essentialism.

SEP says:

"Essentialism in general may be characterized as the doctrine that (at least some) objects have (at least some) essential properties"

Wittgenstein's point with family resemblances is that what properties are seen to be essential to a concept depends on how that concept is used (ie, meaning is use). So that doesn't mean that the concept does not have essential properties, all that means is that those essential properties depend on what place it has in a language game.

So, for example, in the context (or language game) of Euclidean geometry, being three-sided is the essential property of a triangle.

Like I said, I reject essentialism, which might be why I consider your suggestion that all religions share an essence unsupportable. — Hanover

Religions have their origin in experiences of the divine. Are these experiences all different? Probably. But that doesn't make them "not experiences of the divine" because of differences they have with each other. And I don't think this requires your acceptance of essentialism to agree with. All that you need to see is that these mystical experiences are the root of religions, and it is going back to those lived experiences that is of importance and relevance. Because otherwise, there is one God, or there are three gods aren't in any way or sense different from each other - they'd be vacuous statements. So religious discourse only has meaning with reference to these foundational experiences. The defect with the atheist arguments here is that they remain at the level of discourse, thinking that that discourse has meaning, in the absence of referring to those foundational experiences.

To look at it in a different way, religions all seek to put into words something that is fundamentally affective, a matter of the heart, and cannot be shared very well through words. What words are chosen, largely depends on the context in which the religions themselves arise. The underlying experiences are by all means not the same - but they do share commonalities and resemblances. That is why some religions may be more "right" than others, in a loose sense, in that they convey experiences more or less fully. But most religions do contain truth.

I suppose if some academic or theologian really wanted to figure out the underlying basis for the Church's position, they could go back and read the original texts. — Hanover

Well if by "underlying basis" you mean how the Church came to have Transubstantiation in the first place, then it would be rooted in Apostolic Tradition and the practice(s) surrounding the initial hierophanic experiences of the earliest believers, clearly not in philosophy. There would really be no further reasons. So philosophy's job is merely the explication of those practices in a way that they can be understood as part of an overarching whole, which makes it easier to help others towards being open to and having the same experiences. When I want to share an experience with you, I tell you a story - about how it happened, what I did, how it felt, what I learned, etc. So philosophy, in this case, constructs a similar narrative that can explain the basis of the tradition. But this is not essential - the essential bit is the mystical experience and the change of heart that underlies whatever ritual is taking place.

Gurdjieff's teaching about finer and courser 'energies'. The latter is comprehensively set forth in Ouspensky's A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method In Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion, and Art. It must be nearly thirty years since I read that book! — Janus

I've never read Gurdjieff through Ouspensky, I've read him through Osho who commented at length on him - I must have been 13 or so back then, so it's quite a long time ago.

I also have a book called A Different Christianity by Martin Amis — Wayfarer

Thanks, I haven't come across that one yet.

I do read some of those Eastern Orthodox theologians but I have to be careful as I could easily be pulled into their orbit ;-) — Wayfarer

>:O

I think it is nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'subject' than what we understand as 'substance'. — Wayfarer

Yeah, it does cash out in terms of the interrelationship of all (one) existence. Spinoza was using the term in Aristotelian fashion anyway with slight Cartesian tints. Basically, substance was the bearer of modes and predicates (as per Aristotle's definition) and also that which had an independent existence - ie it existed in-itself and did not depend for its existence on another.

Interesting; I must do more reading into Eastern Orthodoxy. :) — Janus

This is a good book (as an introduction) if you haven't already read it.

You are conflating the idea of infinite extension with the idea of a body. — Janus

Yes, infinite extension is by default unbounded.

I think this is the distinction between appearance and reality, common to many a metaphysic, whereby 'individual particulars' are not real in their own right - that is the meaning of saying 'they do not exist'. If that was translated from Latin, it would be interesting to see what Latin phrase was translated as 'do not exist'. Because here I think the meaning is that they don't truly exist, but are only real by virtue of them being 'comprehended in the attributes of God'. — Wayfarer

With regards to the quoted bits from Part II of the Ethics, I doubt Spinoza was referring to the distinction between appearance and reality. Rather he was just referring to particular modes which don't empirically exist right now. For example, your ancestors from 5 generations ago, they don't exist right now, they are inexistent finite modes. And yet, since God exists, and their existence is a mode of God (the one Substance) it follows that in a sense they exist - in the same sense that the infinitude of possible intersecting straight lines exist given a circle:

The nature of a circle is such that if any number of straight lines intersect within it, the rectangles formed by their segments will be equal to one another; thus, infinite equal rectangles are contained in a circle. — Part II

So even if a particular set of lines are not actually drawn right now, they still exist given the nature of the circle from which they emerge in the first place.

If Christianity is right, Judaism is wrong. — Hanover

That is much like saying "if Einstein is right, then Newton is wrong". It gives entirely the wrong impression since Newton is absolutely not wrong in-so-far as we're concerned with motion on Earth, or in any given portion of spacetime that can be treated as flat.

The fact that missionaries knock on my door is evidence someone doubts the ultimate legitimacy of my beliefs. — Hanover

Well, you have to remember that missionaries don't have just a spiritual mission, but also a political and social one. So by converting you to their church they achieve political and social goals much more than spiritual ones in this case.

I don't subscribe to the idea that essences exist. There are only particular traits that once fully subtracted leave the object at nothing. — Hanover

Well, I think that it's clear that some properties are essential to an object, while others are not. For example, a three-sided figure is still a triangle regardless of the proportions of the sides, or the color of the lines, etc. So three-sidedness is an essential property of a triangle - if an object lacks those, it cannot be called a triangle, unless of course you re-define what a triangle is.

And it is not only possible, but probable, that they find the triunity an incoherent attempt to save Christianity from polytheism. — Hanover

And what is more essential to Judaism than the first commandment and monotheism, yet I am supposed to believe polytheistic religions that worship idols are essentially all the same? — Hanover

An idol is often taken to be a physical object that stands in for God, so I don't see how Christianity is worship of idols - unless you take it that, for example, icons are the same as idols. But the difference, as Jean-Luc Marion explicates it in God Without Being, is that the idol traps the gaze, not allowing it to move beyond the object. Whereas the icon moves the gaze beyond itself, unto the invisible God.

With regards to Monotheism, there is still one God in Christianity, much like one triangle is one triangle even though it has three sides. So a further explication of the inner nature of God if you will isn't a denial of monotheism - it's merely an addition to it, a continuation, a further explication. Which is exactly why I've said that you can accept the monotheism, without also accepting the Trinity, without being wrong in an absolute sense.

Which is only to point out that the word "religion" means something and there must be something similar for us to catagorize them in the same bucket. Are all rocks the same because they're all rocks? — Hanover

No, they're clearly not the same in their accidental features, of course not (and religions are also not all the same in the symbols they use, in their socio-cultural practices, and in their politics, etc.). But there must be something they have in common in virtue of which we see a resemblance amongst all rocks, and thus call them all rocks, thus grouping them together.

This sounds very much like Kabbalism and also Gurdjieff's teaching about finer and courser 'energies'. The latter is comprehensively set forth in Ouspensky's A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method In Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion, and Art. It must be nearly thirty years since I read that book! — Janus

It is also very much found in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, where the distinction is between God's energies and God's essence (refer to energy-essence distinction). As such, at the stage of theosis (or union with God), we achieve union by grace with God's energies, but not with God's essence which necessarily remains incomprehensible & hidden. So in Eastern Orthodox spirituality, spiritual development is also viewed as going from coarser aspects of reality to ever-more subtle ones.

From the link I gave above:

In Eastern Orthodox theology God's essence is called ousia, "all that subsists by itself and which has not its being in another"[ my addition: incidentally ousia is the Greek for substance ;) ], and is distinct from his energies (energeia in Greek, actus in Latin) or activities as actualized in the world.

The ousia of God is God as God is. The essence, being, nature and substance of God as taught in Eastern Christianity is uncreated, and cannot be comprehended in words. According to Lossky, God's ousia is "that which finds no existence or subsistence in another or any other thing".[9] God's ousia has no necessity or subsistence that needs or is dependent on anything other than itself.[9]

It is the energies of God that enable us to experience something of the Divine, at first through sensory perception and then later intuitively or noetically. As St John Damascene states, "all that we say positively of God manifests not his nature but the things about his nature."[10]

All this, as you see, does bear on my reading of Spinoza, as I think Spinoza landed very close to this understanding even though it was likely not available to him by direct sources.

I would also add that there is a certain other difficulty here. The empirical self (for lack of better words) exists only in-so-far as the body exists (V.P21), since memory and imagination are both necessary for the continued existence of this empirical self:

The extent to which such causes can injure or be of service to the mind will be explained in the Fifth Part. But I would here remark that I consider that a body undergoes death, when the proportion of motion and rest which obtained mutually among its several parts is changed. For I do not venture to deny that a human body, while keeping the circulation of the blood and other properties, wherein the life of a body is thought to consist, may none the less be changed into another nature totally different from its own. There is no reason, which compels me to maintain that a body does not die, unless it becomes a corpse; nay, experience would seem to point to the opposite conclusion. It sometimes happens, that a man undergoes such changes, that I should hardly call him the same. As I have heard tell of a certain Spanish poet, who had been seized with sickness, and though he recovered therefrom yet remained so oblivious of his past life, that he would not believe the plays and tragedies he had written to be his own: indeed, he might have been taken for a grown-up child, if he had also forgotten his native tongue. If this instance seems incredible, what shall we say of infants? A man of ripe age deems their nature so unlike his own, that he can only be persuaded that he too has been an infant by the analogy of other men. However, I prefer to leave such questions undiscussed, lest I should give ground to the superstitious for raising new issues. — E.IV.P39S

So the self sub specie durationis is different from the self sub specie aeternitatis. And indeed, it is this latter self which Spinoza claims is (or can be) eternal. What sort of existence does this latter self have?

PROP. 8. The ideas of particular things, or of modes, that do not exist, must be comprehended in the infinite idea of God, in the same way as the formal essences of particular things or modes are contained in the attributes of God.

Demonstration.—This proposition is evident from the last; it is understood more clearly from the preceding note.

Corollary.—Hence, so long as particular things do not exist, except in so far as they are comprehended in the attributes of God, their representations in thought or ideas do not exist, except in so far as the infinite idea of God exists; and when particular things are said to exist, not only in so far as they are involved in the attributes of God, but also in so far as they are said to continue [ sub specie durationis ], their ideas will also involve existence, through which they are said to continue.

Scholium.—If anyone desires an example to throw more light on this question, I shall, I fear, not be able to give him any, which adequately explains the thing of which I here speak, inasmuch as it is unique; however, I will endeavour to illustrate it as far as possible. The nature of a circle is such that if any number of straight lines intersect within it, the rectangles formed by their segments will be equal to one another; thus, infinite equal rectangles are contained in a circle. Yet none of these rectangles can be said to exist, except in so far as the circle exists; nor can the idea of any of these rectangles be said to exist, except in so far as they are comprehended in the idea of the circle. Let us grant that, from this infinite number of rectangles, two only exist. The ideas of these two not only exist, in so far as they are contained in the idea of the circle, but also as they involve the existence of those rectangles; wherefore they are distinguished from the remaining ideas of the remaining rectangles. — Part II

PROP. 23. The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal.

Demonstration.—There is necessarily in God a concept or idea, which expresses the essence of the human body (last Prop.), which, therefore, is necessarily something appertaining to the essence of the human mind (II. 13.). But we have not assigned to the human mind any duration, definable by time, except in so far as it expresses the actual existence of the body, which is explained through duration, and may be defined by time-that is (II. 8. Coroll.), we do not assign to it duration, except while the body endures. Yet, as there is something, notwithstanding, which is conceived by a certain eternal necessity through the very essence of God (last Prop.); this something, which appertains to the essence of the mind, will necessarily be eternal. Q.E.D.

Scholium.—This idea, which expresses the essence of the body under the form of eternity, is, as we have said, a certain mode of thinking, which belongs to the essence of the mind, and is necessarily eternal. Yet it is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our body can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time, or have any relation to time. But, notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal. For the mind feels those things that it conceives by understanding, no less than those things that it remembers. For the eyes of the mind, whereby it sees and observes things, are none other than proofs. Thus, although we do not remember that we existed before the body, yet we feel that our mind, in so far as it involves the essence of the body, under the form of eternity, is eternal, and that thus its existence cannot be defined in terms of time, or explained through duration. Thus our mind can only be said to endure, and its existence can only be defined by a fixed time, in so far as it involves the actual existence of the body. Thus far only has it the power of determining the existence of things by time, and conceiving them under the category of duration. — Part V

So there is a sense in which this eternal self goes on existing since God goes on existing - although this existence is not of a temporal nature.

This leads me to the conclusion that the ideas we have sub specie durationis cannot be the kind of ideas that exist in the infinite mind of God, but rather only copies of them as it were - and the copies are necessarily parallel to their representations as physically extended natures. If this wasn't the case, and the ideas that existed in God's mind were the same ideas we empirically had, then it would follow via the parallelism of the attributes that for our mind to be eternal, our body would have to be eternal - or in other words that there would be no ideas which don't have a current physical instantiation. And that would ultimately be an anti-Spinozist anthropocentrism since it would lead us to claiming that only our reality - that which we see and perceive empirically now, natura naturata - is real.

In the end we're dealing with a gradation of existence from the very subtle God, to God's infinite ideas, to temporal existence (the parallelism of thought and extension). So we ascend from matter and extension to thought. But thought remains in the realm of the temporal, it is of the mind. Beyond thought is that which gives birth to thought itself (and accessed via the third kind of knowledge directly, or indirectly as a copy via reason), that's the infinite ideas of God. And beyond that it is the abyss of God Himself. And of course all this is also coupled with Spinoza's acosmism, that only God really exists, and the temporal nature is (ultimately) illusory.

And so, to put it in more concrete terms, an extended thing is a less subtle form of a thought, and a thought is a less subtle form of God's infinite idea, and God's infinite idea is a less subtle form of God. In this regard, the distinction between materialism and idealism breaks, since we're just sliding across the same continuum. The difference between eternity and temporality being that in the latter only a limitation of God is given - a shadow as it were. Since God in-Himself contains both A and ~A, temporally only one at a time can be given - indeed obedience to the principle of non-contradiction is the hallmark of being in time as well observed by Schopenhauer. Eternally, mutually contradictory ideas can exist side by side.

Faith is giving up. — charleton

Quite the contrary, it takes faith to try in the first place. If you don't have any faith, you don't even try. So it's actually quite the contrary - the faithless is the one who gives up right away.

If the Scriptures are to count as evidence, then what about the Qu'ran, the Gita, the Upanishads, the Sutras, etc. — Mitchell

Yes, they absolutely are evidence. Who told you they don't count? As far as I know, both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches recognise other world religions as sources of knowledge about the divine, even if in some regards incomplete or inaccurate.

Organised religions have developed out of primary hierophanic phenomena that were codified in symbolic ways that could be understood and shared by the local cultures where they first occurred. Furthermore, organized religions also have socio-political attachments, that actually have nothing to do with religion per say - for example, each Christian church has a different "correct" baptism procedure, BUT that baptism is fundamentally a matter of the heart is universally acknowledged theologically. So everyone has a different "correct" procedure and seeks to impose it on everyone else (a power game), but that's just an attempt at answering how it's best to physically illustrate the mystical change that occurs during baptism. And there may not be one answer in this case, but a multitude of answers, depending on context. That each church seeks to impose its ways on others is just a matter of politics, survival and power.

There are far too many religions to suggest it's possible to distill a few unifying truths and to also not require discarding critical distinguishing elements. — Hanover

It is almost a given that when you're looking for the essence of something you will discard accidentals. The fact that such a universal unifying core exists is proof enough that religions have been grappling with what is essentially the same hierophanic phenomenon. So when atheists bring up the point that religions are all different and therefore they can't all be right, they fail to understand the significant portion in which religions are actually not different.

For example, sure Judaism disagrees with the Trinity. So what? It doesn't disagree at all with the overarching narrative. The Trinity is indeed a religious doctrine (not a socio-political one), but that is almost at the very peak of possible mystical experiences and direct revelations, and it's not a truth that is available to all. So it's quite possible that Judaism either has not perceived that experience in which the truth of the Trinity is grounded, or they have, but they don't express it through the doctrine of the Trinity - instead, expressing its inner meaning through a different doctrine.

That is, Judaism is not in essence Christianity. — Hanover

Sure, of course not. But they're both attempts at grappling with the relationship between man and his divine ground and do bear significant common ground with each other.

Both ardent and wishy-washy Christians get confused about this too (here speaking of the American religious experience). — Bitter Crank

That is true, although there is a slight difference here. These ardent & wishy-washy Christians usually do have a degree of epistemic humility and openness to the mystical side of religion that atheists don't.

To compose a figure of speech, the church is located in an inter-tidal swamp between God on the one hand and society on the other. Twice a day the swamp is swept back and forth by tides and drainage off the land. God and society are thoroughly mixed up in the church. — Bitter Crank

I agree.

Belief was surprisingly high (in the 40-55% range), but falling slightly since the last survey. — Bitter Crank

The problem with these religious surveys is that when people answer them, most of them don't really understand what they're answering if they answer "yes", "no", "maybe", etc. To truly understand these matters does require a degree of theological education that most people don't have. So then it quite often ends up being one of those cases where the person thinks "I know I must answer this", but aren't quite sure why.