So do people here like the cosmos, whether supernatural or not, they believe they inhabit?
I’m afraid I don’t really know how to answer the question. I simply don’t think in terms of “liking” the cosmos we inhabit. It simply is.
To paraphrase Samwise Gamgee about the Elves, it seems a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak. It doesn’t seem to matter what I think about it.
Oh, I agree about that—but I’m thinking mainly about the people who think there is no God, supernatural, free will, intrinsic meaning, and/or related things
Are you expecting answers from people who don't believe in any of those things? Because I'm not sure that more than one person qualifies from those who have answered so far.
I’m genuinely surprised by that.
Is that just reflective of an unconscious assumption that all those things go together (you kind of flag that anyway with your 'and/or related things' -- as it turns out people differ on which things they consider related)
No, it’s (in my view) a very conscious understanding of those things; your and others’ mileage may vary.
Right, but then why the surprise? That would seem to pre-suppose a rather more solipsistic starting point.
So do people here like the cosmos, whether supernatural or not, they believe they inhabit?
I’m afraid I don’t really know how to answer the question. I simply don’t think in terms of “liking” the cosmos we inhabit. It simply is.
To paraphrase Samwise Gamgee about the Elves, it seems a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak. It doesn’t seem to matter what I think about it.
Oh, I agree about that—but I’m thinking mainly about the people who think there is no God, supernatural, free will, intrinsic meaning, and/or related things
Are you expecting answers from people who don't believe in any of those things? Because I'm not sure that more than one person qualifies from those who have answered so far.
I’m genuinely surprised by that.
Is that just reflective of an unconscious assumption that all those things go together (you kind of flag that anyway with your 'and/or related things' -- as it turns out people differ on which things they consider related)
No, it’s (in my view) a very conscious understanding of those things; your and others’ mileage may vary.
Right, but then why the surprise? That would seem to pre-suppose a rather more solipsistic starting point.
I don’t know why; I assume that everyone else here is real, and not an illusion in a world in which I’m the only being.
The surprise is because—and maybe this is because I’ve encountered too many anti-supernaturalists of the “aggressive anti-theist” type who genuinely want all religious beliefs to simply stop existing, someday in a more “rational” future in which religion is looked at as a terrible thing from the past that humanity has finally “gotten over”—I thought the general options were either being happy they don’t believe in all that silliness, especially if they were raised in some terrible or cruel version of Christianity, or being wistful, like the way some people remember believing in Santa Claus/Father Christmas as children, when the worlds seemed more “magical.” Or, as I think @Martin54 suggests, some of both.
I was genuinely surprised that one person wished they could disbelieve in their religion, but that seems more about specific doctrines rather than theism or supernaturalism as a whole.
What spurred this whole thing on was the “free will” thread. When I was reading it, it came into my mind that—from my point of view—I could not imagine holding some of the beliefs expressed on the thread and even wanting to get up in the morning, or for that matter go on living in such a universe as some people appeared to me to believe in. I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.) So I have been wondering what it’s like, at least on an emotional level. Again, I kind of thought “at last I and many others are free of those ghastly irrational religious ideas” or “ah, it was nice while it lasted, but one must grow up” or a mix were the likely options. (Maybe those people haven’t felt like weighing in. It seems to me that there are many more atheists/ materialists on the Ship, proportionately, than back in the old days, at least from what I can tell on various threads, but I could be wrong.) I suppose I expected some sort of emotional feelings about this stuff—I have feelings about everything from aardvarks to quantum physics to potato chips, and definitely about various notions of reality. But I might be weird (I certainly am in various other respects…).
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.)
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
It would have been, I think. Or “worldview” as I rephrased it. Or “view of reality,” perhaps. I suspect that to most of us, “cosmos” meant exactly what you were trying to avoid meaning.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
If I didn't like my worldview, it would be because of one of two things:
1. It made less sense to me than some other worldview. Then I'd change it to one I did like.
2. The available evidence leads to two or more conclusions that form a contradiction. Then I'd probably talk to others who have a worldview somewhat close to mine, or used to, and ask them if I'm missing something.
What spurred this whole thing on was the “free will” thread. When I was reading it, it came into my mind that—from my point of view—I could not imagine holding some of the beliefs expressed on the thread and even wanting to get up in the morning, or for that matter go on living in such a universe as some people appeared to me to believe in. I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal.
It seems to me that holding a worldview not because it makes the most sense of the evidence but because it appeals is the quintessence of argument to emotion. I can't imagine determining what I believe based on how it makes me feel. If that were the case I'd have long ago converted to Sufism.
I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.)
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
Oh no, I do agree—it is Reason rather than emotion, an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to. (The author was C. S. Lewis, by the way, so he had definitely read Corinthians. I agree with Puddleglum’s speech, though if I was genuinely convinced, with no hope for an alternative, of atheistic materialism, I don’t know how well I could hold off complete despair myself.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
If I didn't like my worldview, it would be because of one of two things:
1. It made less sense to me than some other worldview. Then I'd change it to one I did like.
2. The available evidence leads to two or more conclusions that form a contradiction. Then I'd probably talk to others who have a worldview somewhat close to mine, or used to, and ask them if I'm missing something.
Er…. So can I ask, again, when you ceased to believe in Christianity, you had no emotions about the change at all? No sense of relief or no sense of loss or combination thereof or something else?
What spurred this whole thing on was the “free will” thread. When I was reading it, it came into my mind that—from my point of view—I could not imagine holding some of the beliefs expressed on the thread and even wanting to get up in the morning, or for that matter go on living in such a universe as some people appeared to me to believe in. I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal.
It seems to me that holding a worldview not because it makes the most sense of the evidence but because it appeals is the quintessence of argument to emotion. I can't imagine determining what I believe based on how it makes me feel. If that were the case I'd have long ago converted to Sufism.
I’m not talking about holding a worldview because of the appeal to emotion, though I am certain that many people do this out there in the world. I’m talking about how people feel about their worldviews, particularly if they had a charge in beliefs. Lots of people who are religious who had a conversion feel very good about it. I get the impression that a fair number of atheists from fundamentalist backgrounds are relieved that the notion of God they held (the “bastard,” as @Martin54 says) is not true. That doesn’t mean that either change was due to emotion, though I’m sure with some people it is.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
It's nothing to do with Armstrongism. What are your sources? Pantheism (which is not what is proposed) accommodates monotheism just fine. Judaism 'Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time.' Christianity 'Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of "Christian Panentheism".' here.
The bible doesn't say that of course. It is fallaciously inferred from the text of Genesis 1:1. God creating something from nothing rather than from Himself is a distinction without a difference. And then there are His omnis of course. Where do they reach from?
Nature is eternal, infinite in four dimensional spacetime. The infinity of universes come and go. Any God would have to transcend that. Panentheistically.
...
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
That doesn't seem entirely orthodox to me - from Colossians 1:
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I understood this to mean that if creation was ever to be completely separate and distinct from God, it would cease to hold together.
If I didn't like my worldview, it would be because of one of two things:
1. It made less sense to me than some other worldview. Then I'd change it to one I did like.
2. The available evidence leads to two or more conclusions that form a contradiction. Then I'd probably talk to others who have a worldview somewhat close to mine, or used to, and ask them if I'm missing something.
Er…. So can I ask, again, when you ceased to believe in Christianity, you had no emotions about the change at all? No sense of relief or no sense of loss or combination thereof or something else?
Certainly. But I think the emotions were due to the loss of friendships and comforting surroundings and habits. I didn't have sad feelings about abandoning poor Jesus because I didn't (and don't) think poor Jesus exists (except perhaps as the dust of a first century preacher). And certainly not about something as abstract as "belief in God."
<SNIP> I’m not talking about holding a worldview because of the appeal to emotion, though I am certain that many people do this out there in the world. I’m talking about how people feel about their worldviews, particularly if they had a charge in beliefs. Lots of people who are religious who had a conversion feel very good about it. I get the impression that a fair number of atheists from fundamentalist backgrounds are relieved that the notion of God they held (the “bastard,” as @Martin54 says) is not true. That doesn’t mean that either change was due to emotion, though I’m sure with some people it is.
I have heard/read about/watched people say they felt a great relief on deconverting, or like a burden was lifted, or whatever. I didn't even realize I had stopped believing except in retrospect. I can't say on what day I stopped believing. I looked inside to find my faith in its usual place, and discovered it was gone. This was greeted not with emotion but with curiosity. But my atheistic state has not caused me any particular joy, nor any distress except as noted above.
I had existential dread the moment I realised. My God was not a bastard. He had fully emerged with Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. And Armstrong's God was a pragmatic all but universalist. He'd wipe you out to save you, 'Hi, Amorites! Welcome. Sorry about that : ) Had to be done, but here you are, safe and sound'. I lost Love. That hurts. Till death do us part.
...
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
That doesn't seem entirely orthodox to me - from Colossians 1:
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I understood this to mean that if creation was ever to be completely separate and distinct from God, it would cease to hold together.
It is created and maintained by God, absolutely, but not part of God. Yes, He maintains it in existence, but that’s absolutely not the same thing.
...
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
That doesn't seem entirely orthodox to me - from Colossians 1:
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I understood this to mean that if creation was ever to be completely separate and distinct from God, it would cease to hold together.
It is created and maintained by God, absolutely, but not part of God. Yes, He maintains it in existence, but that’s absolutely not the same thing.
Bit like my back yard. So there's infinite, eternal, nature; from and for forever and ever in space and time, that is not part of God. Kinda makes them equals doesn't it?
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
It's nothing to do with Armstrongism. What are your sources? Pantheism (which is not what is proposed) accommodates monotheism just fine. Judaism 'Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time.' Christianity 'Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of "Christian Panentheism".' here.
The bible doesn't say that of course. It is fallaciously inferred from the text of Genesis 1:1. God creating something from nothing rather than from Himself is a distinction without a difference. And then there are His omnis of course. Where do they reach from?
Nature is eternal, infinite in four dimensional spacetime. The infinity of universes come and go. Any God would have to transcend that. Panentheistically.
We’re going to disagree on much of this. I find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have not understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve misinterpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
...
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
That doesn't seem entirely orthodox to me - from Colossians 1:
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I understood this to mean that if creation was ever to be completely separate and distinct from God, it would cease to hold together.
It is created and maintained by God, absolutely, but not part of God. Yes, He maintains it in existence, but that’s absolutely not the same thing.
Bit like my back yard. So there's infinite, eternal, nature; from and for forever and ever in space and time, that is not part of God. Kinda makes them equals doesn't it?
Good Lord, no. Compared to God all of Creation, whatever worlds there may be, in any and all dimensions, is infinitely small—and that’s arguably an understatement. Even analogies of size fall apart. It’s like—again, a poor analogy but no analogy will be perfect—like a story made up by a human writer, whose reality is not only infinitely more than, but of a radically different kind, than any or all of the characters in the story.
If I didn't like my worldview, it would be because of one of two things:
1. It made less sense to me than some other worldview. Then I'd change it to one I did like.
2. The available evidence leads to two or more conclusions that form a contradiction. Then I'd probably talk to others who have a worldview somewhat close to mine, or used to, and ask them if I'm missing something.
Er…. So can I ask, again, when you ceased to believe in Christianity, you had no emotions about the change at all? No sense of relief or no sense of loss or combination thereof or something else?
Certainly. But I think the emotions were due to the loss of friendships and comforting surroundings and habits. I didn't have sad feelings about abandoning poor Jesus because I didn't (and don't) think poor Jesus exists (except perhaps as the dust of a first century preacher). And certainly not about something as abstract as "belief in God."
<SNIP> I’m not talking about holding a worldview because of the appeal to emotion, though I am certain that many people do this out there in the world. I’m talking about how people feel about their worldviews, particularly if they had a charge in beliefs. Lots of people who are religious who had a conversion feel very good about it. I get the impression that a fair number of atheists from fundamentalist backgrounds are relieved that the notion of God they held (the “bastard,” as @Martin54 says) is not true. That doesn’t mean that either change was due to emotion, though I’m sure with some people it is.
I have heard/read about/watched people say they felt a great relief on deconverting, or like a burden was lifted, or whatever. I didn't even realize I had stopped believing except in retrospect. I can't say on what day I stopped believing. I looked inside to find my faith in its usual place, and discovered it was gone. This was greeted not with emotion but with curiosity. But my atheistic state has not caused me any particular joy, nor any distress except as noted above.
Thank you—that’s the sort of thing I wanted to ask people about.
I had existential dread the moment I realised. My God was not a bastard. He had fully emerged with Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. And Armstrong's God was a pragmatic all but universalist. He'd wipe you out to save you, 'Hi, Amorites! Welcome. Sorry about that : ) Had to be done, but here you are, safe and sound'. I lost Love. That hurts. Till death do us part.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
It's nothing to do with Armstrongism. What are your sources? Pantheism (which is not what is proposed) accommodates monotheism just fine. Judaism 'Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time.' Christianity 'Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of "Christian Panentheism".' here.
The bible doesn't say that of course. It is fallaciously inferred from the text of Genesis 1:1. God creating something from nothing rather than from Himself is a distinction without a difference. And then there are His omnis of course. Where do they reach from?
Nature is eternal, infinite in four dimensional spacetime. The infinity of universes come and go. Any God would have to transcend that. Panentheistically.
We’re going to disagree on much of this. I find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have not understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve misinterpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
I find it find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve interpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
...
But I mean, not the cosmos, but the one people believe in. Do people think “I’m glad the world is supernatural/materialist,” or “I’m glad there is/is not a God”? I know what it’s like to believe in those things. It is the most extreme understatement to say that I myself would be unhappy if they were not (as I understand reality) true. For the people who don’t believe in these things here, is it a wistful “ah, those fairy tales were lovely, but one must grow up?” or “thank goodness all that awful God stuff isn’t true” or a combination or something else? Do people wish they could believe, or are they glad they don’t?
ChastMastr - by my reckoning, this is the 6th time you've asked the question on this thread (as well as several posts about not derailing the thread).
Yes, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually understood what @ChastMastr is asking. (Which is quite possibly my failure to understand.)
“Cosmos”was throwing me, because the cosmos—what I think of when I hear and use that word—simply is, as @mousethief says.
But the latest statement of the question strikes me as more “do you like or dislike the worldview you believe to be the correct worldview?”
Is that what you’re asking, ChastMastr?
Yes, exactly. I used the word “cosmos” because I was trying to get at “everything, including God/ gods/ spirits/ supernaturalism and/or the absence thereof,” rather than just “Universe” which doesn’t necessarily include things outside or transcending the universe, or multiverse, or however many worlds there may be in any and all possible dimensions.
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
It's nothing to do with Armstrongism. What are your sources? Pantheism (which is not what is proposed) accommodates monotheism just fine. Judaism 'Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time.' Christianity 'Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of "Christian Panentheism".' here.
The bible doesn't say that of course. It is fallaciously inferred from the text of Genesis 1:1. God creating something from nothing rather than from Himself is a distinction without a difference. And then there are His omnis of course. Where do they reach from?
Nature is eternal, infinite in four dimensional spacetime. The infinity of universes come and go. Any God would have to transcend that. Panentheistically.
We’re going to disagree on much of this. I find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have not understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve misinterpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
I find it find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve interpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.)
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
Oh no, I do agree—it is Reason rather than emotion, an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to. (The author was C. S. Lewis, by the way, so he had definitely read Corinthians. I agree with Puddleglum’s speech, though if I was genuinely convinced, with no hope for an alternative, of atheistic materialism, I don’t know how well I could hold off complete despair myself.
Puddleglum's speech in The Silver Chair displays C S Lewis' grasp of storytelling. Lewis is making an appeal to the reader (who stands outside the story, and thus is able to observe which reality in the story is more "real"). But Puddleglum, inside the story, can not:
Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
Puddleglum's assertion that he prefers his belief in what he can't see to the reality that he can see, seems a pretty direct appeal to faith. And given the charged atmosphere of the narrative context, it strikes me as rather more of an emotional appeal than an appeal to reason.
It's all in the beholder's eye @pease. Cultural. So, do you see it relatively separate and distinct from God?
I see it from several different perspectives. As you pointed out a couple of posts before mine, panentheism is a feature of some Christian theologies. Wikepedia on Monism:
Panentheism ... is a belief system that posits that the divine (be it a monotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force) interpenetrates every part of nature, but is not one with nature. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe.
In panentheism, there are two types of substance, "pan" the universe and God. The universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. God is viewed as the eternal animating force within the universe. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos.
A number of ordained Catholic mystics (including Richard Rohr, David Steindl-Rast, and Thomas Keating) have suggested that panentheism is the original view of Christianity. They hold that such a view is directly supported by mystical experience and the teachings of Jesus and Saint Paul. Richard Rohr surmises this in his 2019 book, The Universal Christ:
But Paul merely took incarnationalism to its universal and logical conclusions. We see that in his bold exclamation “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11). If I were to write that today, people would call me a pantheist (the universe is God), whereas I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), exactly like both Jesus and Paul.
A mixture of thoughts when contemplating the thread title.
Psalm 8: the Psalmist brought to humility by contemplating the night sky.
The Pale Blue dot. The cosmos looking back at us from still relatively close compared with the unimaginable size of the universe sees a tiny dot in a beam of light. Carl Sagan’s final reflection on the need to care for and cherish that pale blue dot.
Dire Straits iconic song “Brothers in Arms”. We have just one world but we live in different ones.
The cosmos brings perspective on our self-importance, vanity, and destructive aggression. I’m in awe of it.
Our sentient life is a gift. I remember reading that there is, or was, a placard of sorts on the United Nations building which also contains a perspective. It says, or said;
“It is a privilege to live this day and the next”.
I’m at an age and vulnerability when I’m just grateful for the gift of life and the daily privilege of being able to reflect on that gift.
I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.)
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
Oh no, I do agree—it is Reason rather than emotion, an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to. (The author was C. S. Lewis, by the way, so he had definitely read Corinthians. I agree with Puddleglum’s speech, though if I was genuinely convinced, with no hope for an alternative, of atheistic materialism, I don’t know how well I could hold off complete despair myself.
Puddleglum's speech in The Silver Chair displays C S Lewis' grasp of storytelling. Lewis is making an appeal to the reader (who stands outside the story, and thus is able to observe which reality in the story is more "real"). But Puddleglum, inside the story, can not:
Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
Puddleglum's assertion that he prefers his belief in what he can't see to the reality that he can see, seems a pretty direct appeal to faith. And given the charged atmosphere of the narrative context, it strikes me as rather more of an emotional appeal than an appeal to reason.
As I say, “an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to”—like the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time. And Lewis has made up Narnia, but not trees, the sun, lions, and technically, given Who He Is in reality, Aslan Himself. There’s also a reason I capitalized Reason—the things Reason has traditionally included, as described in the Abolition of Man. I (and I believe Lewis and many, many other believers in God and meaning) would say that if someone sees nothing beyond an empty materialistic universe, yet can’t quite shake the notion that there must be something more, the latter is part of that larger, deeper Reason.
I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.)
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
Oh no, I do agree—it is Reason rather than emotion, an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to. (The author was C. S. Lewis, by the way, so he had definitely read Corinthians. I agree with Puddleglum’s speech, though if I was genuinely convinced, with no hope for an alternative, of atheistic materialism, I don’t know how well I could hold off complete despair myself.
Puddleglum's speech in The Silver Chair displays C S Lewis' grasp of storytelling. Lewis is making an appeal to the reader (who stands outside the story, and thus is able to observe which reality in the story is more "real"). But Puddleglum, inside the story, can not:
Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
Puddleglum's assertion that he prefers his belief in what he can't see to the reality that he can see, seems a pretty direct appeal to faith. And given the charged atmosphere of the narrative context, it strikes me as rather more of an emotional appeal than an appeal to reason.
It may indeed also be an appeal to faith, but faith is not an emotion.
I (and I believe Lewis and many, many other believers in God and meaning) would say that if someone sees nothing beyond an empty materialistic universe, yet can’t quite shake the notion that there must be something more, the latter is part of that larger, deeper Reason.
How is Reason being used here? Is it the sense of cause or explanation, or is it the sense of thinking and comprehension and logic. I might agree if the former is meant, but not the latter, at least not as a universal. When I’ve had those moments of doubt or even near certainty that’s there’s nothing more—and I have had them—attempts to see things otherwise by use of reason were pretty meaningless to me, if not useless. Reason isn’t what I find convincing. For me, it’s things like Beauty and Love. That might be labeled an emotional approach, but that’s not what I’d call it. I’d say more an intuitive or instinctual approach.
For me, using Reason to explain something like the existence of God is rather like using a crescent wrench to slice an onion. I fully recognize that not everybody is wired like I am, but my wiring is such that I find appeals to Reason pretty useless.
Perhaps that’s one reason (pun intended) C.S. Lewis doesn’t really resonate with me (and frankly at times really turns me off), at least not when he’s using Reason to argue for something like the existence of God.
I (and I believe Lewis and many, many other believers in God and meaning) would say that if someone sees nothing beyond an empty materialistic universe, yet can’t quite shake the notion that there must be something more, the latter is part of that larger, deeper Reason.
How is Reason being used here? Is it the sense of cause or explanation, or is it the sense of thinking and comprehension and logic. I might agree if the former is meant, but not the latter, at least not as a universal. When I’ve had those moments of doubt or even near certainty that’s there’s nothing more—and I have had them—attempts to see things otherwise by use of reason were pretty meaningless to me, if not useless. Reason isn’t what I find convincing. For me, it’s things like Beauty and Love. That might be labeled an emotional approach, but that’s not what I’d call it. I’d say more an intuitive or instinctual approach.
For me, using Reason to explain something like the existence of God is rather like using a crescent wrench to slice an onion. I fully recognize that not everybody is wired like I am, but my wiring is such that I find appeals to Reason pretty useless.
Perhaps that’s one reason (pun intended) C.S. Lewis doesn’t really resonate with me (and frankly at times really turns me off), at least not when he’s using Reason to argue for something like the existence of God.
Reason here—with the capital R—means more than people tend to use “reason” to mean today, or even in Lewis’ time. Again, a lot of this is discussed in The Abolition of Man, but basically, rather than just logic and math and such, it includes what was called “practical reason,” like the moral law, for example, and first principles as well. It’s a view from an older approach to these things. In some ways, more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian, if you see what I mean. (Given the philosophical starting points many people come from nowadays, I suspect much of this will make less sense to many modern ears.) The idea that there is intrinsic goodness and meaning, apart from human ideas of it, and that it is something we discover than make up, would be part of this. One could even argue that Puddleglum’s speech reflects the notion of perfect Forms in the Platonic sense, though I don’t know if that was Lewis’ intention—it definitely comes up (gloriously, in my view) in The Last Battle. ❤️
I believe the kind of Reason I am trying to describe here would include instinctual and intuitive perceptions, absolutely.
I (and I believe Lewis and many, many other believers in God and meaning) would say that if someone sees nothing beyond an empty materialistic universe, yet can’t quite shake the notion that there must be something more, the latter is part of that larger, deeper Reason.
How is Reason being used here? Is it the sense of cause or explanation, or is it the sense of thinking and comprehension and logic. I might agree if the former is meant, but not the latter, at least not as a universal. When I’ve had those moments of doubt or even near certainty that’s there’s nothing more—and I have had them—attempts to see things otherwise by use of reason were pretty meaningless to me, if not useless. Reason isn’t what I find convincing. For me, it’s things like Beauty and Love. That might be labeled an emotional approach, but that’s not what I’d call it. I’d say more an intuitive or instinctual approach.
For me, using Reason to explain something like the existence of God is rather like using a crescent wrench to slice an onion. I fully recognize that not everybody is wired like I am, but my wiring is such that I find appeals to Reason pretty useless.
Perhaps that’s one reason (pun intended) C.S. Lewis doesn’t really resonate with me (and frankly at times really turns me off), at least not when he’s using Reason to argue for something like the existence of God.
Reason here—with the capital R—means more than people tend to use “reason” to mean today, or even in Lewis’ time. Again, a lot of this is discussed in The Abolition of Man, but basically, rather than just logic and math and such, it includes what was called “practical reason,” like the moral law, for example, and first principles as well. It’s a view from an older approach to these things. In some ways, more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian, if you see what I mean. (Given the philosophical starting points many people come from nowadays, I suspect much of this will make less sense to many modern ears.)
Those would be my ears you’re talking about.
I’m afraid my ears and eyes glaze over when people start talking about things like “more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian” or “perfect Forms in the Platonic sense.” I took one philosophy class and absolutely hated it. It all seemed quite alien to how my brain works.
N.B., I am not saying philosophy is unimportant or a worthless pursuit. I know enough to know that it is certainly worthwhile.
But it’s a language I don’t speak, I’m afraid. I know, I know . . . . “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools.” To be honest, the lines like that in the Narnia books always struck me as preachy.
(And since I’m laying my philosophical disinterest cards on the table, I’ll go ahead and admit that the The Silver Chair was always my least favorite of the Narnia books. And a large part of the reason for that was that Puddleglum drove me up the wall; that, and that for my money, the philosophical “lessons” take over the story more than in the other books. But again, that’s just my opinion, which no one else needs to share.)
...
Reason here—with the capital R—means more than people tend to use “reason” to mean today, or even in Lewis’ time. Again, a lot of this is discussed in The Abolition of Man, but basically, rather than just logic and math and such, it includes what was called “practical reason,” like the moral law, for example, and first principles as well. It’s a view from an older approach to these things. In some ways, more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian, if you see what I mean. (Given the philosophical starting points many people come from nowadays, I suspect much of this will make less sense to many modern ears.) The idea that there is intrinsic goodness and meaning, apart from human ideas of it, and that it is something we discover than make up, would be part of this.
Here's what Lewis says about Aristotle, Plato and Reason in The Abolition of Man:
Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics: but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’
It appears that people are unable to recognise Reason unless they are educated and trained to do so. Which is an argument you could make about almost any system of thought.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
...
Reason here—with the capital R—means more than people tend to use “reason” to mean today, or even in Lewis’ time. Again, a lot of this is discussed in The Abolition of Man, but basically, rather than just logic and math and such, it includes what was called “practical reason,” like the moral law, for example, and first principles as well. It’s a view from an older approach to these things. In some ways, more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian, if you see what I mean. (Given the philosophical starting points many people come from nowadays, I suspect much of this will make less sense to many modern ears.) The idea that there is intrinsic goodness and meaning, apart from human ideas of it, and that it is something we discover than make up, would be part of this.
Here's what Lewis says about Aristotle, Plato and Reason in The Abolition of Man:
Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics: but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’
It appears that people are unable to recognise Reason unless they are educated and trained to do so. Which is an argument you could make about almost any system of thought.
Indeed, or at least that is what Plato and Aristotle would say, but that does not make it – in their view, Lewis’ view, and my view (and the views of most people at most times)– any less of an external reality to discover and learn about, rather than invent.
Though now I wonder if I’m derailing the thread myself, since there have been threads on this before (Essentialism vs Existentialism, etc.), and this is more meant to be how we feel about the beliefs we have.
I think there could be an analogy between Puddleglum and the Green Witch and Plato’s Cave but in reverse—the GW is enspelling the heroes to think that everything they love is merely a projection of things they can see in her world, so their idea of the sun is merely a bigger and better lamp, the idea of a lion is merely a bigger and better cat, and so on. But they break through and decide to find the real ones, if there are any.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
C S Lewis denied that Narnia was strictly allegorical, although in later life he did admit (in a letter written in 1961) that "the whole Narnian story is about Christ".
In any case, I suggest the boundary between our beliefs about fictional worlds and our beliefs about reality, is rather more porous than we are aware of. Also that, as children, many of us learnt about belief, at least indirectly, by reading stories about the beliefs of fictional characters.
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
In any case, I suggest the boundary between our beliefs about fictional worlds and our beliefs about reality, is rather more porous than we are aware of. Also that, as children, many of us learnt about belief, at least indirectly, by reading stories about the beliefs of fictional characters.
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
Right, I'd grant most of that; but I still don't see that leads to the idea that one should believe in something purely because its a better (or best of all possible) fantasy, and I don't think Lewis was trying to make that point either (to use your framing, he wasn't calling his readers to believe in 'Narnia' in itself or apart from its possible use as an allegory).
Well, Narnia is about Christ, but it’s not an allegory—very symbolic, yes, but that’s not the same thing. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, with characters like Reason, the Spirit of the Age, and such, is an allegory, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (I’ve read the former and really should read the latter…).
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
Absolutely. That’s how I first met Jesus, coming to Christianity wholly from outside, myself. ❤️
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
C S Lewis denied that Narnia was strictly allegorical, although in later life he did admit (in a letter written in 1961) that "the whole Narnian story is about Christ".
In any case, I suggest the boundary between our beliefs about fictional worlds and our beliefs about reality, is rather more porous than we are aware of. Also that, as children, many of us learnt about belief, at least indirectly, by reading stories about the beliefs of fictional characters.
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
Lewis had a very specific, technical definition for allegory. It involves being able to do a one-to-one correspondence with pretty much all the elements and their corresponding "real" meaning. By that definition, Narnia is very definitely not an allegory.
It may indeed also be an appeal to faith, but faith is not an emotion.
Nearly all of what all of us do from day to day is based on emotion, not reason. We are homo motus. Reasoning requires a deliberate shift of method, and even then is shot through with emotion. Actually doing/using/acting from logic is a difficult thing which most of us fail to do most of the time, self included.
Well, Narnia is about Christ, but it’s not an allegory—very symbolic, yes, but that’s not the same thing. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, with characters like Reason, the Spirit of the Age, and such, is an allegory, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (I’ve read the former and really should read the latter…).
As far as Lewis was concerned, it was a "supposal" (a what-if). Regarding his intentions (from the article Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said):
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children ... This is all pure moonshine.
...
I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency...
C S Lewis knows as well as we do that all these things are, indeed, made-up - by him, the storyteller. He also hopes that many of his readers will, at the moment when they are reading Puddleglum's speech, be believing, along with Puddleglum, in the importance of Narnia to us.
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
In any case, I suggest the boundary between our beliefs about fictional worlds and our beliefs about reality, is rather more porous than we are aware of. Also that, as children, many of us learnt about belief, at least indirectly, by reading stories about the beliefs of fictional characters.
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
Right, I'd grant most of that; but I still don't see that leads to the idea that one should believe in something purely because its a better (or best of all possible) fantasy, and I don't think Lewis was trying to make that point either (to use your framing, he wasn't calling his readers to believe in 'Narnia' in itself or apart from its possible use as an allegory).
The word I used (following Lewis) was the importance of Narnia rather than the reality of Narnia. That is, relating both to the objective reality as far as Puddleglum is concerned as well as the significance of this story to the reader's own beliefs. In that respect, I think there is a suggestion that readers should be "Narnian" in their thinking. To illustrate, it wouldn't be surprising if someone came away from the scene containing Puddleglum's speech with the thought that a Christian's faith in Christ should be like Puddleglum's faith in Aslan.
I don't think that Lewis wants us to believe in Narnia as a reality, but he does want us to believe in the aspects of Christianity that he has transplanted to Narnia. In his article (above), Lewis addresses the way that real feelings can be evoked by an imaginary world. When you create a compelling imaginary world, it shouldn't be surprising if people become attached to it.
While none of this leads us to the idea that we should believe in something because it's a better fantasy, neither does it lead us away from that notion.
To illustrate, it wouldn't be surprising if someone came away from the scene containing Puddleglum's speech with the thought that a Christian's faith in Christ should be like Puddleglum's faith in Aslan.
Absolutely, but probably not in the sense that we've spent several weeks in the company of Cleopas and his buddy.
When you create a compelling imaginary world, it shouldn't be surprising if people become attached to it.
While none of this leads us to the idea that we should believe in something because it's a better fantasy, neither does it lead us away from that notion.
Right, and I'm not arguing fundamentally with that idea, I'll bring you back to how Puddleglum was deployed on this thread:
"of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal."
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15 rules out Christianity being the equivalent of Sam's dream at the end of Brazil, after all "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
To illustrate, it wouldn't be surprising if someone came away from the scene containing Puddleglum's speech with the thought that a Christian's faith in Christ should be like Puddleglum's faith in Aslan.
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15 rules out Christianity being the equivalent of Sam's dream at the end of Brazil, after all "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
...
I'll bring you back to how Puddleglum was deployed on this thread:
"of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal."
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15 rules out Christianity being the equivalent of Sam's dream at the end of Brazil, after all "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
I wasn't expecting Terry Gilliam!
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
One question that occurs to me is whether a reader of The Silver Chair, and the other books of Narnia, would be aware of 1 Corinthians 15. I wasn't, when I first read them. I've been wondering if C S Lewis incorporated the concept expressed in these verses in some way.
A related question, particularly in the light of Lewis' intentions (in the aforementioned article), is what happens to a reader who comes to realise that the stories of Narnia are saying something about the Christian faith - how does this reader resolve the beliefs and feelings evoked by Narnia with whatever beliefs (and any associated feelings) they are otherwise learning or being taught about Christianity? In my case, looking back, I seem to have taken on board quite a lot of the "feel" of the beliefs of Narnia.
On the question of life after death, C S Lewis (as many here know) addresses the resurrection of Christ in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and returns to the resurrection of the rest of us at the end of The Last Battle (which is the book that follows The Silver Chair, in Narnia's internal chronology). By that point in my reading of the series, it had become clearer that Lewis was talking about a conception of life after death, and heaven, in contrast to what I presumed was ordinary Christian doctrine.
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Right, but then why the surprise? That would seem to pre-suppose a rather more solipsistic starting point.
I don’t know why; I assume that everyone else here is real, and not an illusion in a world in which I’m the only being.
I was genuinely surprised that one person wished they could disbelieve in their religion, but that seems more about specific doctrines rather than theism or supernaturalism as a whole.
What spurred this whole thing on was the “free will” thread. When I was reading it, it came into my mind that—from my point of view—I could not imagine holding some of the beliefs expressed on the thread and even wanting to get up in the morning, or for that matter go on living in such a universe as some people appeared to me to believe in. I could imagine someone driven, as they understand reality, by reason to conclude those things, and of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal. (I’m very much on the “Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair” side of things.) So I have been wondering what it’s like, at least on an emotional level. Again, I kind of thought “at last I and many others are free of those ghastly irrational religious ideas” or “ah, it was nice while it lasted, but one must grow up” or a mix were the likely options. (Maybe those people haven’t felt like weighing in. It seems to me that there are many more atheists/ materialists on the Ship, proportionately, than back in the old days, at least from what I can tell on various threads, but I could be wrong.) I suppose I expected some sort of emotional feelings about this stuff—I have feelings about everything from aardvarks to quantum physics to potato chips, and definitely about various notions of reality. But I might be weird (I certainly am in various other respects…).
Then you extend the word beyond its use. The cosmos has never included God. He has included it,
Well, if you can think of a single word that includes both everything that exists in what we would call “the universe or Multiverse or Omniverse” and God if He exists and so on, I’d love to know it.
Perhaps “cosmology” would have been better?
ISTM that the power of Puddleglum's speech comes from his grasp on reality. It's the speech of someone in the grip of the dark night of the soul. It's not a blanket reason for believing in something 'merely' because it is comforting (though I suspect some here understand their views somewhat differently to how you see them and the lack of 'comfort' is either merely apparent or not an issue). I'm sure the author had read Corinthians.
Nope. That relates to the cosmos.
Nope. God will have to do. God is the ultimate superset of imagined and real entities.
1. It made less sense to me than some other worldview. Then I'd change it to one I did like.
2. The available evidence leads to two or more conclusions that form a contradiction. Then I'd probably talk to others who have a worldview somewhat close to mine, or used to, and ask them if I'm missing something.
It seems to me that holding a worldview not because it makes the most sense of the evidence but because it appeals is the quintessence of argument to emotion. I can't imagine determining what I believe based on how it makes me feel. If that were the case I'd have long ago converted to Sufism.
Oh no, I do agree—it is Reason rather than emotion, an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to. (The author was C. S. Lewis, by the way, so he had definitely read Corinthians. I agree with Puddleglum’s speech, though if I was genuinely convinced, with no hope for an alternative, of atheistic materialism, I don’t know how well I could hold off complete despair myself.
According to Christian theology, creation – all of creation – is not part of God. It is separate and distinct from God.
“Worldview,” then, one which either includes or excludes God and the supernatural and so on, as well as any and all universes we might have.
Nope. Then Christian theology, wherever it says that, is wrong. Meaningless. Absurd. There is only God. Nothing is 'outside' Him.
Er…. So can I ask, again, when you ceased to believe in Christianity, you had no emotions about the change at all? No sense of relief or no sense of loss or combination thereof or something else?
I’m not talking about holding a worldview because of the appeal to emotion, though I am certain that many people do this out there in the world. I’m talking about how people feel about their worldviews, particularly if they had a charge in beliefs. Lots of people who are religious who had a conversion feel very good about it. I get the impression that a fair number of atheists from fundamentalist backgrounds are relieved that the notion of God they held (the “bastard,” as @Martin54 says) is not true. That doesn’t mean that either change was due to emotion, though I’m sure with some people it is.
Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but while maybe the kind of theology that you experienced before (I know little of Armstrongism, which I think you were raised in?) thought that everything was a part of God – which I understand to be pantheism, and not the kind of monotheism that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam hold to – but that has never been my understanding of Christian theology, ever. Some religions believe everything is a part of God, but not Abrahamic theology.
It's nothing to do with Armstrongism. What are your sources? Pantheism (which is not what is proposed) accommodates monotheism just fine. Judaism 'Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time.' Christianity 'Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of "Christian Panentheism".' here.
The bible doesn't say that of course. It is fallaciously inferred from the text of Genesis 1:1. God creating something from nothing rather than from Himself is a distinction without a difference. And then there are His omnis of course. Where do they reach from?
Nature is eternal, infinite in four dimensional spacetime. The infinity of universes come and go. Any God would have to transcend that. Panentheistically.
Certainly. But I think the emotions were due to the loss of friendships and comforting surroundings and habits. I didn't have sad feelings about abandoning poor Jesus because I didn't (and don't) think poor Jesus exists (except perhaps as the dust of a first century preacher). And certainly not about something as abstract as "belief in God."
I have heard/read about/watched people say they felt a great relief on deconverting, or like a burden was lifted, or whatever. I didn't even realize I had stopped believing except in retrospect. I can't say on what day I stopped believing. I looked inside to find my faith in its usual place, and discovered it was gone. This was greeted not with emotion but with curiosity. But my atheistic state has not caused me any particular joy, nor any distress except as noted above.
It is created and maintained by God, absolutely, but not part of God. Yes, He maintains it in existence, but that’s absolutely not the same thing.
Bit like my back yard. So there's infinite, eternal, nature; from and for forever and ever in space and time, that is not part of God. Kinda makes them equals doesn't it?
We’re going to disagree on much of this. I find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have not understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve misinterpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
Good Lord, no. Compared to God all of Creation, whatever worlds there may be, in any and all dimensions, is infinitely small—and that’s arguably an understatement. Even analogies of size fall apart. It’s like—again, a poor analogy but no analogy will be perfect—like a story made up by a human writer, whose reality is not only infinitely more than, but of a radically different kind, than any or all of the characters in the story.
Thank you—that’s the sort of thing I wanted to ask people about.
And this also.
I find it find saying that Abrahamic monotheists have understood their own religions for thousands of years up to the present day, when they’ve had the same scriptures that include the passages you think they’ve interpreted all this time, and have analyzed and interpreted them with the best minds available for those millennia, simply astonishing.
... huh??
Wikepedia on Monism: And from the wiki page on Panentheism itself:
Psalm 8: the Psalmist brought to humility by contemplating the night sky.
The Pale Blue dot. The cosmos looking back at us from still relatively close compared with the unimaginable size of the universe sees a tiny dot in a beam of light. Carl Sagan’s final reflection on the need to care for and cherish that pale blue dot.
Dire Straits iconic song “Brothers in Arms”. We have just one world but we live in different ones.
The cosmos brings perspective on our self-importance, vanity, and destructive aggression. I’m in awe of it.
Our sentient life is a gift. I remember reading that there is, or was, a placard of sorts on the United Nations building which also contains a perspective. It says, or said;
“It is a privilege to live this day and the next”.
I’m at an age and vulnerability when I’m just grateful for the gift of life and the daily privilege of being able to reflect on that gift.
As I say, “an understanding of deep reality that despite the Green Witch’s spell, he and the others can hang on to”—like the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time. And Lewis has made up Narnia, but not trees, the sun, lions, and technically, given Who He Is in reality, Aslan Himself. There’s also a reason I capitalized Reason—the things Reason has traditionally included, as described in the Abolition of Man. I (and I believe Lewis and many, many other believers in God and meaning) would say that if someone sees nothing beyond an empty materialistic universe, yet can’t quite shake the notion that there must be something more, the latter is part of that larger, deeper Reason.
It may indeed also be an appeal to faith, but faith is not an emotion.
For me, using Reason to explain something like the existence of God is rather like using a crescent wrench to slice an onion. I fully recognize that not everybody is wired like I am, but my wiring is such that I find appeals to Reason pretty useless.
Perhaps that’s one reason (pun intended) C.S. Lewis doesn’t really resonate with me (and frankly at times really turns me off), at least not when he’s using Reason to argue for something like the existence of God.
Reason here—with the capital R—means more than people tend to use “reason” to mean today, or even in Lewis’ time. Again, a lot of this is discussed in The Abolition of Man, but basically, rather than just logic and math and such, it includes what was called “practical reason,” like the moral law, for example, and first principles as well. It’s a view from an older approach to these things. In some ways, more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian, if you see what I mean. (Given the philosophical starting points many people come from nowadays, I suspect much of this will make less sense to many modern ears.) The idea that there is intrinsic goodness and meaning, apart from human ideas of it, and that it is something we discover than make up, would be part of this. One could even argue that Puddleglum’s speech reflects the notion of perfect Forms in the Platonic sense, though I don’t know if that was Lewis’ intention—it definitely comes up (gloriously, in my view) in The Last Battle. ❤️
I believe the kind of Reason I am trying to describe here would include instinctual and intuitive perceptions, absolutely.
I’m afraid my ears and eyes glaze over when people start talking about things like “more Platonic than exclusively Aristotelian” or “perfect Forms in the Platonic sense.” I took one philosophy class and absolutely hated it. It all seemed quite alien to how my brain works.
N.B., I am not saying philosophy is unimportant or a worthless pursuit. I know enough to know that it is certainly worthwhile.
But it’s a language I don’t speak, I’m afraid. I know, I know . . . . “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools.” To be honest, the lines like that in the Narnia books always struck me as preachy.
(And since I’m laying my philosophical disinterest cards on the table, I’ll go ahead and admit that the The Silver Chair was always my least favorite of the Narnia books. And a large part of the reason for that was that Puddleglum drove me up the wall; that, and that for my money, the philosophical “lessons” take over the story more than in the other books. But again, that’s just my opinion, which no one else needs to share.)
Sure, but because from the perspective of Puddleglum, Narnia is objectively real, I think he expects the reader to go along with that bit of world building. I don't think he's trying to get the reader to 'believe' in Narnia in the sense that Puddleglum - in the story - does. Ultimately he's not calling all his readers to become "Narnian" (at least not in the sense that "Mere Christianity" is intended to persuade his readers to become Christians).
Indeed, or at least that is what Plato and Aristotle would say, but that does not make it – in their view, Lewis’ view, and my view (and the views of most people at most times)– any less of an external reality to discover and learn about, rather than invent.
Though now I wonder if I’m derailing the thread myself, since there have been threads on this before (Essentialism vs Existentialism, etc.), and this is more meant to be how we feel about the beliefs we have.
I think there could be an analogy between Puddleglum and the Green Witch and Plato’s Cave but in reverse—the GW is enspelling the heroes to think that everything they love is merely a projection of things they can see in her world, so their idea of the sun is merely a bigger and better lamp, the idea of a lion is merely a bigger and better cat, and so on. But they break through and decide to find the real ones, if there are any.
In any case, I suggest the boundary between our beliefs about fictional worlds and our beliefs about reality, is rather more porous than we are aware of. Also that, as children, many of us learnt about belief, at least indirectly, by reading stories about the beliefs of fictional characters.
Putting it another way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were people on this site whose Christian belief had been influenced by reading about Narnia.
Right, I'd grant most of that; but I still don't see that leads to the idea that one should believe in something purely because its a better (or best of all possible) fantasy, and I don't think Lewis was trying to make that point either (to use your framing, he wasn't calling his readers to believe in 'Narnia' in itself or apart from its possible use as an allegory).
@pease said
Absolutely. That’s how I first met Jesus, coming to Christianity wholly from outside, myself. ❤️
Lewis had a very specific, technical definition for allegory. It involves being able to do a one-to-one correspondence with pretty much all the elements and their corresponding "real" meaning. By that definition, Narnia is very definitely not an allegory.
Nearly all of what all of us do from day to day is based on emotion, not reason. We are homo motus. Reasoning requires a deliberate shift of method, and even then is shot through with emotion. Actually doing/using/acting from logic is a difficult thing which most of us fail to do most of the time, self included.
I don't think that Lewis wants us to believe in Narnia as a reality, but he does want us to believe in the aspects of Christianity that he has transplanted to Narnia. In his article (above), Lewis addresses the way that real feelings can be evoked by an imaginary world. When you create a compelling imaginary world, it shouldn't be surprising if people become attached to it.
While none of this leads us to the idea that we should believe in something because it's a better fantasy, neither does it lead us away from that notion.
Absolutely, but probably not in the sense that we've spent several weeks in the company of Cleopas and his buddy.
Right, and I'm not arguing fundamentally with that idea, I'll bring you back to how Puddleglum was deployed on this thread:
"of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal."
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15 rules out Christianity being the equivalent of Sam's dream at the end of Brazil, after all "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
Amen, from my point of view.
@chrisstiles said
Ditto! ❤️ Again, from my understanding.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
One question that occurs to me is whether a reader of The Silver Chair, and the other books of Narnia, would be aware of 1 Corinthians 15. I wasn't, when I first read them. I've been wondering if C S Lewis incorporated the concept expressed in these verses in some way.
A related question, particularly in the light of Lewis' intentions (in the aforementioned article), is what happens to a reader who comes to realise that the stories of Narnia are saying something about the Christian faith - how does this reader resolve the beliefs and feelings evoked by Narnia with whatever beliefs (and any associated feelings) they are otherwise learning or being taught about Christianity? In my case, looking back, I seem to have taken on board quite a lot of the "feel" of the beliefs of Narnia.
On the question of life after death, C S Lewis (as many here know) addresses the resurrection of Christ in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and returns to the resurrection of the rest of us at the end of The Last Battle (which is the book that follows The Silver Chair, in Narnia's internal chronology). By that point in my reading of the series, it had become clearer that Lewis was talking about a conception of life after death, and heaven, in contrast to what I presumed was ordinary Christian doctrine.