Answering the Big Questions of Life

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bigquest.html ^ | Sue Bohlin

[DittoJed2]

Answering the Big Questions of Life

Sue Bohlin

Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker with Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 25 years. She serves as a Mentoring Mom for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers), and on the board of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those wanting to leave homosexuality. She is also a professional calligrapher and the webservant for Probe Ministries; but most importantly, she is the wife of Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two college-age sons.

One of the most important aspects of Probe's "Mind Games" conference is teaching students to recognize the three major world views--Naturalism, Pantheism, and Theism--and the impact they have both on the surrounding culture as well as on the ideas the students will face at the university. Because we come from an unapologetically Christian world view, I will be presenting the ideas of Christian theism, even though Judaism and Islam are both theistic as well.
In this essay I'll be examining five of the biggest questions of life, and how each of the world views answers them:

Why is there something rather than nothing?
How do you explain human nature?
What happens to a person at death?
How do you determine right and wrong?
How do you know that you know?(1) Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?

The most basic question of life may well be, Why is there something rather than nothing? Why am I here? Why is anything here at all?
 
Even Maria Von Trapp in the movie The Sound of Music knew the answer to this one. When she and the Captain are singing their love to each other in the gazebo, she croons, "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could."
But naturalism, the belief that says there is no reality beyond the physical universe, offers two answers to this basic question. Until a few years ago, the hopeful wish of naturalism was that matter is eternal: the universe has always existed, and always will. There's no point to asking "why" because the universe simply is. End of discussion. Unfortunately for naturalism, the evidence that has come from our studies of astronomy makes it clear that the universe is unwinding, in a sense, and at one point it was tightly wound up. The evidence says that at some point in the past there was a beginning, and matter is most definitely not eternal. That's a major problem for a naturalist, who believes that everything that now is, came from nothing. First there was nothing, then there was something, but nothing caused the something to come into existence. Huh?
Pantheism is the belief that everything is part of one great "oneness." It comes from two Greek words, pan meaning "everything," and theos meaning "God." Pantheism says that all is one, all is god, and therefore we are one with the universe; we are god. We are part of that impersonal divinity that makes up the universe. In answering the question, Why is there something rather than nothing, pantheism says that everything had an impersonal beginning. The universe itself has an intelligence that brought itself into being. The "something" that exists is simply how energy expresses itself. If you've seen the Star Wars movies, you've seen the ideas of pantheism depicted in that impersonal energy field, "The Force." Since the beginning of the universe had an impersonal origin, the question of "why" gets sidestepped. Like naturalism, pantheism basically says, "We don't have a good answer to that question, so we won't think about it."
Christian Theism is the belief that God is a personal, transcendent Creator of the universe--and of us. This world view showed up on a T-shirt I saw recently:
"There are two things in life you can be sure of.
There is a God.
You are not Him." Christian Theism answers the question, Why is there something rather than nothing, by confidently asserting that first there was God and nothing else, then He created the universe by simply speaking it into existence. The Bible's opening sentence is an answer to this most basic of questions: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." How Do You Explain Human Nature?


Another one of the big questions of life is, How do you explain human nature? Why do human beings act the way we do? What it really boils down to is, Why am I so good and you're so bad?
During World War II, a young Jewish teenager kept a journal during the years she and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret apartment in a house in Amsterdam. Anne Frank's diary poignantly explored the way she tried to decide if people were basically good or basically evil. Acts of kindness and blessing seemed to indicate people were basically good; but then the next day, Anne would learn of yet another barbarous act of depravity and torture, and she would think that perhaps people were basically bad after all. After reading her diary, I remember carrying on the quest for an answer in my own mind, and not finding it until I trusted Christ and learned what His Word had to say about it.

Naturalism says that humans are nothing more than evolved social animals. There is nothing that truly separates us from the other animals, so all our behavior can be explained in terms of doing what helps us to survive and reproduce. Your only purpose in life, naturalism says, is to make babies. And failing that, to help those who share your genes to make babies. Kind of makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning, doesn't it?

Another answer from naturalism is that we are born as blank slates, and we become whatever is written on those slates. You might mix in some genetic factors, in which case human nature is nothing more than a product of our genes and our environment.
Pantheism explains human nature by saying we're all a part of god, but our problem is that we forget we're god. We just need to be re- educated and start living like the god we are. Our human nature will be enhanced by attaining what pantheists call "cosmic consciousness." According to New Age thought, the problem with humans is that we suffer from a collective form of metaphysical amnesia. We just need to wake up and remember we're god. When people are bad, (which is one result of forgetting you're god), pantheism says that they'll pay for it in the next life when they are reincarnated as something less spiritually evolved than their present life. I had a Buddhist friend who refused to kill insects in her house because she said they had been bad in their previous lives and had to come back as bugs, and it wasn't her place to prematurely mess up their karma.

The Christian world view gives the most satisfying answer to the question, How do you explain human nature? The Bible teaches that God created us to be His image-bearers, which makes us distinct from the entire rest of creation. But when Adam and Eve chose to rebel in disobedience, their fall into sin distorted and marred the sacred Image. The fact that we are created in God's image explains the noble, creative, positive things we can do; the fact that we are sinners who love to disobey and rebel against God's rightful place as King of our lives explains our wicked, destructive, negative behavior. It makes sense that this biblical view of human nature reveals the reasons why mankind is capable of producing both Mother Teresa and the holocaust.What Happens after Death?

In the movie Flatliners, medical students took turns stopping each other's hearts to give them a chance to experience what happens after death. After a few minutes, they resuscitated the metaphysical traveller who told the others what he or she saw. The reason for pursuing such a dangerous experiment was explained by the med student who thought it up in the first place: "What happens after death? Mankind deserves an answer. Philosophy failed; religion failed. Now it's up to the physical sciences."
Well, maybe religion failed, but the Lord Jesus didn't. But first, let's address how naturalism answers this question.
Because this world view says that there is nothing outside of space, time and energy, naturalism insists that death brings the extinction of personality and the disorganization of matter. Things just stop living and start decomposing. Or, as my brother said when he was in his atheist phase, "When you die, you're like a dog by the side of the road. You're dead, and that's it." To the naturalist, there is no life after death. The body recycles back to the earth and the mental and emotional energies that comprised the person disintegrate forever.

Pantheism teaches reincarnation, the belief that all of life is an endless cycle of birth and death. After death, each person is reborn as someone, or something, else. Your reincarnated persona in the next life depends on how you live during this one. This is the concept of karma, which is the law of cause and effect in life. If you make evil or foolish choices, you will have to work off that bad karma by being reborn as something like a rat or a cow. If you're really bad, you might come back as a termite. But if you're good, you'll come back as someone who can be wonderful and powerful. New Age followers sometimes undergo something they call "past lives therapy," which regresses them back beyond this life, beyond birth, and into previous lives. I think it's interesting that people always seem to have been someone glamorous like Cleopatra and never someone like a garbage collector or an executioner!

Christian Theism handles the question, What happens to a person at death, with such a plain, no-nonsense answer that people have been stumbling over it for millenia. Death is a gateway that either whisks a person to eternal bliss with God or takes him straight to a horrible place of eternal separation from God. What determines whether one goes to heaven or hell is the way we respond to the light God gives us concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. When we confess that we are sinners in need of mercy we don't deserve, and trust the Lord Jesus to save us from not only our sin but the wrath that sin brings to us, He comes to live inside us and take us to heaven to be with Him forever when we die. When we remain in rebellion against God, either actively disobeying Him or passively ignoring Him, the consequences of our sin remain on us and God allows us to keep them for all eternity--but separated from Him and all life and hope. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31). But it is a delightful thing to fall into the arms of the Lover of your soul, Who has gone on ahead to prepare a place for you! Which will you choose?How Do You Determine Right and Wrong?

One of the big questions in life is, How do you determine right and wrong? Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show one day. He asked the studio audience to close their eyes and point north. When they opened their eyes, there were several hundred arms pointing in wildly different directions. Then Mr. Covey pulled out a compass and said, "This is how we know which way is north. You can't know from within yourself." He used a powerful object lesson to illustrate the way Christian theism answers this big question in life.

Naturalism says that there is no absolute outside of ourselves. There is no final authority because space, time and energy are all that is. There is no such thing as right and wrong because there is no right- and wrong-giver. So naturalism tries to deal with the question of ethics by providing several unsatisfying answers. One is the belief that there is no free choice, that all our behaviors and beliefs are driven by our genes. We are just as determined in our behavior as the smallest animals or insects. Another is the belief that moral values are determined from what is; the way things are is the way they ought to be. If you are being abused by your husband, that's the way things are, so that's the way they ought to be. Even worse is the concept of arbitrary ethics: might makes right. Bullies get to decide the way things ought to be because they're stronger and meaner than everybody else. That's what happens in totalitarian regimes; the people with the power decide what's right and what's wrong.

Pantheism says that there is no such thing as ultimate right and wrong because everything is part of a great undifferentiated whole where right and wrong, good and evil, are all part of the oneness of the universe. Remember "Star Wars"? The Force was both good and evil at the same time. Pantheism denies one of the basic rules of philosophy, which is that two opposite things cannot both be true at the same time. Because Pantheism denies that there are absolutes, things which are true all the time, it holds that all right and wrong is relative. Right and wrong are determined by cultures and situations. So murdering one's unborn baby might be right for one person and wrong for another.

Theism says that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and absolute right and wrong. We can know this because this information has come to us from a transcendent source outside of ourselves and outside of our world. Christian Theism says that the God who created us has also communicated certain truths to us. He communicated generally, through His creation, and He communicated specifically and understandably through His Word, the Bible. We call this revelation. Christian Theism says that absolute truth is rooted in God Himself, who is an Absolute; He is Truth. As Creator, He has the right to tell us the difference between right and wrong, and He has taken great care to communicate this to us.

That's why Steven Covey's illustration was so powerful. When he pulled out a compass, he showed that we need a transcendent source of information, something outside ourselves and which is fixed and constant, to show us the moral equivalent of "North." We are creatures created to be dependent on our Creator for the information we need to live life right. God has given us a compass in revelation.How Do You Know That You Know?

This question generally doesn't come up around the cafeteria lunch table at work, and even the most inquisitive toddler usually won't ask it, but it's an important question nonetheless: How do you know that you know?
There's a great scene in the movie Terminator 2 where the young boy that the cyborg terminator has been sent to protect, is threatened by a couple of hoodlums. The terminator is about to blow one away when the young boy cries out, "You can't do that!" The terminator--Arnold Schwarzenegger--asks, "Why not?" "You just can't go around killing people!" the boy protests. "Why not?" "Take my word for it," the boy says. "You just can't." He knew that it was wrong to kill another human being, but he didn't know how he knew. There are a lot of people in our culture like that!

Naturalism, believing that there is nothing beyond space, time and energy, would answer the question by pointing to the human mind. Rational thought--iguring things out deductively--is one prime way we gain knowledge. Human reason is a good enough method to find out what we need to know. The mind is the center of our source of knowledge. Another way to knowledge is by accumulating hard scientific data of observable and measurable experience. This view says that the source of our knowledge is found in the senses. We know what we can perceive through what we can measure. Since naturalism denies any supernaturalism (anything above or outside of the natural world), what the human mind can reason and measure is the only standard for gaining knowledge.

Pantheism would agree with this assessment of how we know that we know. Followers of pantheism tend to put a lot of value on personal experience. The rash of near- and after-death experiences in the past few years, for example, are extremely important to New Agers. These experiences usually validate the preconceptions of pantheistic thought, which denies absolutes such as the Christian tenet that Jesus is the only way to God. The experiences of past- lives therapy have persuaded even some Christians to believe in reincarnation, even though the Bible explicitly denies that doctrine, because personal experience is often considered the most valid way to know reality.

Christian Theism says that while human reason and perception are legitimate ways to gain knowledge, we cannot depend on these methods alone because they're not enough. Some information needs to be given to us from outside the system. An outside Revealer provides information we can't get any other way. Revelation--revealed truth from the One who knows everything--is another, not only legitimate but necessary way to know some important things. Revelation is how we know what happened when the earth, the universe and man were created. Revelation is how we know what God wants us to do and be. Revelation is how we can know how the world will end and what heaven is like. Revelation in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way we can experience "God with skin on."

Naturalism's answers are inadequate, depressing, and wrong; pantheism's answers are slippery, don't square with reality, and wrong; but Christian theism--the Christian world view--is full of hope, consistent with reality, and it resonates in our souls that it's very, very right.
Notes
1. These questions are taken from James W. Sire's book The Universe Next Door (Downers Grove, Ill.:InterVarsity Press), 1977.

[betty boop]

Hello A-G! I'll have some time to write later today. So will get the "Plato opener" of "What Is Man?" ready ASAP. If all goes well, I should have it posted tonight.

I got to thinking a bit more about that Kaluza-Klein Gravity article I was telling you about. Specifically, how the authors categorize the various approaches to higher-dimensional dynamics, and the assumptions behind the approaches. What they had to say was very interesting.

Basically they said there are three approaches: the compactified models (e.g., 11D Superstring theory), the projective models, and the uncompacted models.

It seems to me the root assumption of the compactified approach is that higher dimensions are "hiding from us." Therefore, this approach basically tries to explain this "hiding" by assuming extra dimensions are microscopically tiny (compact, curved back onto themselves), and that's why we never "see" them.

The projective approach basically denies the reality of extra dimensions, but finds them "algebraically useful."

The uncompactified approach, unlike the compactified, very interestingly says that the fifth dimension is not hiding from us. it's plainly there, and always has been, if one has "the eyes to see it" (so to speak). That is, it has always been conceptually "available" to the human mind in a fairly straightforward way.

This assumption may be what makes uncompacted 5D theory so simple and straightforward as compared to the compactified approaches. Among other things, it appears explaining the "hiding" requires the compactifiers to "put in matter by hand," or to have resort to extraneous algorithms to make their explanations "work." (Hence the seeming "overwroughtness" of compactified theory on my view at least.) Often they do work, depending on the problem being demonstrated. But the simpler approach of 5D works too, and the authors suggest it does so more often than the compactified.

The translation from 5D theory to 4D experience is practically a given with 5D noncompactified theory: It's like the 4D description comes along "for free." Perhaps this is because it is primarily based on Einstein's 5D field equations, and takes Newton's first law seriously.

I like it! We'll have to see how these various approaches all turn out. What an interesting time we live in! :^)

[Hank Kerchief]

Thanks for the ping.

Before I respond to your kind suggestion, I would like to comment on the article that launched this thread.

I do not intend this as unkind. This is my opinion, which anyone is free to hate or agree with.

If these five questions are what Christians, or anyone else truly believe are, "the five of the biggest questions of life," it is a wonder to me that any intelligent person would give Christianity five minutes consideration as a serious ideology. The entire article is so much insipid pap.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

The correct response to this is, "give me an example of nothing." There is no such example. Nothing is not something that can be, it is not existence. There cannot be non-existence. Nothing is a proper answer to the question, "what's in the box," if the box is empty. Nothing only means the absence of something. Emptiness and nothingness are qualities but qualities can only be qualities of something. A box or a container can have "nothing" in it or be "empty." There cannot only be nothingness or emptiness.

If you believe in God, the honest way to put this question is, Why is there a God rather than not a God. I don't expect to see that kind of honesty however, because it makes obvious the absurdity of such questions.

How do you explain human nature?

Explain what about human nature? To whom? For what purpose? Which aspect of human nature is being questioned? Their biological nature, psychological nature, what?

It turns out she is asking about human behavior. So, the question should have been, "why do human beings do the things they do?" The answer to that question is because human beings are required by their nature to live by conscious choice. Everything a human being does they must consciously choose to do, and every choice a human being makes must be in the light of whatever knowledge they have. Since human beings are not omniscient, the degree of knowledge different people have is different. Human beings do what they do because they choose to do them and everyone has different degrees of knowledge.

But her real question is, why are so many human beings so bad. Well one reason is because most people to not bother to learn very much about the requirements of their nature or the nature of the world they live in, so most of their choices are mistakes. There are more ways to be wrong than there are to be right.

What happens to a person at death?

This is one of the five biggest questions of life? Death, for every organism, means life ceases and the organism ceases to be an organism and becomes just another non-living entity. Nothing else happens at death, but immediately after death, unless embalmed, some pretty spectacular things happen to the cadaver.

How do you determine right and wrong?

I would never trust an adult that asks this question accept in the most hypothetical manner. Any adult that does not know how to determine right from wrong or considers this a question important for anyone accept children who have not yet learned how to tell right from wrong, is essentially immoral.

Asking such a question, implying that there is some great doubt about whether man is capable of discovering and practicing moral values is very dangerous. It is the basis of moral relativism and post-modernist inclusiveness.

How do you know that you know?

What does "know" mean? If the meaning of "know" is known, then the answer to the question is known. If the meaning of know is not known, the question is meaningless.

There is a serious version of this question, however, and the answer to it is called epistemology. Like the other questions, the serious version of them cannot be answered glibly, as is done in this article, because such answers are bound to be both incorrect and simplistic, as the article clearly demonstrates.

:... HankKerchief would take on Autonomism, OWK Objectivsm.

I appreciate the invitation, but Autonomism is not an ideology or philosophy, but a characterization of certain individuals who have chosen to be entirely responsible for their own lives. I would like, therefore, to decline the offer. Since, with some minor exceptions and additions, most of my views are consistent with objectivism, OWK's input would be close enough to mine, I think.

There is another reason I am declining but have probably said enough already to bring out the irrational vitriol of the thin-skinned. So rather than explain myself, which is not necessary, I wish you success in your experiment, which is more likely to be successful without my contribution.

Hank

[Right Wing Professor]

Sorry, that was intended to be jocular. It didn't transmit.

[Right Wing Professor]

does that mean you're gonna take the gig?

I guess. What the hey, may as well add to list of ten or so articles I've promised to write and haven't gotten to yet :-)

[Alamo-Girl]

This assumption may be what makes uncompacted 5D theory so simple and straightforward as compared to the compactified approaches. Among other things, it appears explaining the "hiding" requires the compactifiers to "put in matter by hand," or to have resort to extraneous algorithms to make their explanations "work." (Hence the seeming "overwroughtness" of compactified theory on my view at least.) Often they do work, depending on the problem being demonstrated. But the simpler approach of 5D works too, and the authors suggest it does so more often than the compactified.

Great catch, betty boop!

We do live in very interesting times. And just like dark energy has mostly vindicated Einstein's cosmological constant, I expect that same dark energy to be understood (eventually) as proof of a higher, uncompactified dimension - thus actualizing Einstein's dream of transmuting the "base wood" of matter into the "pure marble" of geometry!

[tpaine]

There is another reason I am declining but have probably said enough already to bring out the irrational vitriol of the thin-skinned. So rather than explain myself, which is not necessary, I wish you success in your experiment, which is more likely to be successful without my contribution
-Hank-


Well said.
Most here who are capable of reason know full well that the offer was the real object of the 'invite'..
Sets up the sponsors as the arbiters of reason, donchaknow...

[Hank Kerchief]

Faith ... tells me the Darwinian view is false, that we have a purpose and that there is more to existence than what can be measured.

Well that's good, since most of what you say it tells you seems to be right. But that is shear luck.

How does faith tell you what it tells you? How do you know what it tells you is correct? After all, faith tells some people to fly airplanes into skyscrapers killing thousands of people. Faith tells others to strap explosives to their bodies and to blow themselves and as many others as they can to kingdom come. It tells others to abandon all earthly values and live in a cave. It tells others to go out into the world killing everyone that does not have the same faith they have. It tells others to kill and mutilate their women. It tells others they may have as many wives as they like and abuse them in any way they choose?

How does anyone know what faith tells them is the truth? How can they tell their faith from delusion or hallucinations? What process do you use to verify what you think is faith is really faith?

How do you decide which thing to have faith in? What process do you use to determine this faith is right but that faith is wrong?

And after you have decided what you will believe in, how would you ever be able to ensure you made the right decision? After all, everyone who decides to believe a different set of beliefs from your set are just a certain their faith is right as your are that your faith is right.

Hank

[betty boop]

If you can, Professor, your participation would be most welcome.

[Phaedrus]

The correct response to this is, "give me an example of nothing."

If you can conceive of nothing, you have your example. Nothing is an absence. We all can conceive of some thing and I suggest we all can conceive of no thing.

[Tribune7]

How does faith tell you what it tells you? How do you know what it tells you is correct? . . .

I didn't communicate clearly.

Faith does not tell me what is right and wrong. God tells me (and all of us) what is right and wrong. Faith is the state of believing in God without being able to measure Him.

[Right Wing Professor]

If you can conceive of nothing, you have your example.

Example of nothing: what Hillary Clinton won't do to become President.

[betty boop]

I appreciate the invitation, but Autonomism is not an ideology or philosophy, but a characterization of certain individuals who have chosen to be entirely responsible for their own lives. I would like, therefore, to decline the offer. Since, with some minor exceptions and additions, most of my views are consistent with objectivism, OWK's input would be close enough to mine, I think.

There is another reason I am declining but have probably said enough already to bring out the irrational vitriol of the thin-skinned. So rather than explain myself, which is not necessary, I wish you success in your experiment, which is more likely to be successful without my contribution.

I dunno, Hank. You seem to want to pretend that intellectualizing the kinds of problems raised in this "insipid" article spares you the necessity of confronting critical existential issues. Case in point: What is so particularly glorious about "individuals who have chosen to be entirely responsible for their own lives?" Existentially, it really doesn't matter whether one chooses to be responsible or one refuses to be responsible. One is responsible for what one does in either case.

One dislikes seeing a person deliberately try to give offense to others -- as you clearly do with regard to Christians and Christianity. Can you find no better bete noir in this world to beat up on than Christians? Gee, that would be such a refreshing change!

You may find one day that rationalism cannot take you as far as you need to go. But I wouldn't worry about that too much. For when (or if) that day comes, you'll get the help you need -- provided you don't refuse it.

Thanks for the courtesy of writing, Hank, to inform me of your wish to decline my invitation. I'm wishing you well.

[tpaine]

How does anyone know what faith tells them is the truth? How can they tell their faith from delusion or hallucinations? What process do you use to verify what you think is faith is really faith?
-Hank-



"If its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation", the rational mind gets some clues..

But of course there is no answer to the phenomenom of excessive faith & devotion to a cause, for the irrational mind.

Koestler described it best:

The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.
We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
-Arthur Koestler-

[Phaedrus]

Example of nothing: what Hillary Clinton won't do to become President.

Agreed.

[Hank Kerchief]

One dislikes seeing a person deliberately try to give offense to others -- as you clearly do with regard to Christians and Christianity.

Well, I deliberately avoided any reference to what could be construed as "Christian" as opposed to merely religious, because all of my comments would apply to Muslims, and most other religions as well, and except for my comments on what happens "at" death, would apply to the most absurd superstition of all, secular humanism. (It's absurd because it makes a pretense of being rational and scientific.)

The article was by an avowed Christian, but if it had been written by a Christadelphian, Swedenborgianist or Gnostic, the comments would have been the same, and I suppose I would been accused of "beating up" on Christadelphians, Swedenborgians, or Gnostics. So, please explain to me why Christians are a protected group that one is not supposed express any ideas contradicting theirs, else it is beating up on them.

Do you think you are "beating up" anyone who happens to disagree or is offended by the beliefs you express? Do you consider the disparaging remarks you make about autonomists, beating up on them? Do you consider Objectivists, your bête noire and is that why you criticize them and use them as examples of what you disagree with. Or, do these just happen to be the ones that make the arguments you disagree with, and so are the correct targets of your own arguments.

A question. If there is one thing you know, and did not arrive at that knowledge by a process of reason, how did you acquire that knowledge, and how do you know it is true? You can disparage reason if you like, but I can explain how I know everything I claim as knowledge. If I am mistaken, I know exactly the process I used to arrive at that mistake and can therefore correct it. If what one believes is true is not by any identifiable process, how could a mistaken view be corrected? Or are mystic sources of knowledge infallible?

(You are the only one I know who accuses me of "beating up" Christians. There are probably others with that same opinion, but, most understand I give Christian views a great deal of latitude and have great respect for those Christians who have sincerely sought to understand their religion, especially those who understand two Biblical principles and live by them, "you cannot do wrong and get away with it," and "it is a sin to do less than your best." The Christians who get upset with me are usually these whose Christianity is nothing but a cover for violating one or both of those two principles.)

After all, it is the, "eyes of our understanding," God promises to open (Eph. 1:18), not the throats of our credulity (Mat. 23:24), by which anything can be swallowed (including camels). The invitation of God is, "Come let us reason together." (Isa.1:18)

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

"If its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation", the rational mind gets some clues..,p> Well of course, but then, faith is not going to be a problem for a rational mind is it.

We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.

Yes, and the reason is, most men are absolutely terrified of thinking for themselves and being responsible for themselves and it seems so much safer and easier just to go along with whatever everyone else, especially your leaders say, and when someone sees that "security" threatened, then they become defensive, or even aggressive.

Hank

[betty boop]

So, please explain to me why Christians are a protected group that one is not supposed express any ideas contradicting theirs, else it is beating up on them.

I didn't say they were "a protected group," Hank. I was commenting on your manners.

[betty boop]

You have paid me a huge compliment -- and have asked me to undertake a huge endeavor -- but I hesitate for several reasons, one of which is that it IS a huge endeavor. Rather than flatly decline your request, however, I will refer you to a sometime poster here on FR for whom I have very high regard: pariah. He is brilliant, eloquent, and may be willing to "fill your category" if available and so inclined.

Yes Phaedrus, it was asking for a huge endeavor. Maybe now isn't the right time; but someday, I truly would love to have your thoughts on this subject.

I agree pariah would be a most welcome addition to the forthcoming discussion! If he is free to attend....

[tpaine]

So to say that mysticism is a "bad thing" is simultaneously to impugn such traditions as: the Jewish Kaballah, Platonic speculation, the Christian Dispensation, and even modern secular humanism.
The modern, "enlightened" projects seems to require that such inquiries are quite futile. Don't even try.
Thus the substance of human existence has deliberately been left without a leg to stand on.
-BB-

Reduced to understandable english betty, you seem to be saying:

Those who say that mysticism is a "bad thing" impugn such traditions as: the Jewish Kaballah, Platonic speculation, the Christian Dispensation, and even modern secular humanism.
Don't even try. -- the substance of human existence has deliberately been left without a leg to stand on. [if you do so]
____________________________________


I didn't say [Christians should be] "a protected group," Hank.
I was commenting on your manners.

[Hank Kerchief]

Hank. I was commenting on your manners.

Well that's kind of you, but my Honey and my kitties think my manners are fine, and I like their opinion best. You would too.

My kitties (two) usually sit/lie/sleep (mostly the latter) at my desk helping me write, one on my printer and one on my monitor. I explain everything I write to them and neither has ever disagreed with me. (Although one does rather insolently walk off, occasionally, while I'm in the middle of an explanation. I told her she didn't bother me. I was used to insults. I post on FR.)

Hank