The Political Divide from A Theistic Perspective.

[soulsurvivor]

Fewer guns will no doubt help lessen disorganized crime. And yet disorganized crime is literally a laugh compared to organized, legalized, government sponsored murder.

Fewer person have been murdered by a rouge gunman in the whole of the history of the USA than Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, murdered in less than a decade. And the Germans were a more cultured, less likely to go that direction, nation, by far, than the USA. Those who think our government would never round up "terrorists" (say mothers who reject Critical Race Theory) to save the nation, killing them by the thousands, or millions (how many people voted for the Orange Menace?) are living in a dream.

The genius of our founding fathers is partly their understanding that the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, is likely a right that will be grasped and held precisely by those who hold the same, or similar politics (right of center) to the founding fathers. Which is to say that should the Left desire a wholesale change to the right-ness of the founders, and those who follow in their footsteps, they will find the Second Amendment stands squarely in the way of their desire to Stalinize, or Hitlerize, basically to vaporize, their opponents by means of the FBI, the DOJ, and weaponized IRS, after they've undone the Second Amendment and confiscated the means the founders intended to stop them in their tracks.



John

Will be very interesting to see what the Christ thinks of all this when he returns.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

Fewer guns will no doubt help lessen disorganized crime. And yet disorganized crime is literally a laugh compared to organized, legalized, government sponsored murder.

Fewer person have been murdered by a rouge gunman in the whole of the history of the USA than Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, murdered in less than a decade. And the Germans were a more cultured, less likely to go that direction, nation, by far, than the USA. Those who think our government would never round up "terrorists" (say mothers who reject Critical Race Theory) to save the nation, killing them by the thousands, or millions (how many people voted for the Orange Menace?) are living in a dream.

The genius of our founding fathers is partly their understanding that the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, is likely a right that will be grasped and held precisely by those who hold the same, or similar politics (right of center) to the founding fathers. Which is to say that should the Left desire a wholesale change to the right-ness of the founders, and those who follow in their footsteps, they will find the Second Amendment stands squarely in the way of their desire to Stalinize, or Hitlerize, basically to vaporize, their opponents by means of the FBI, the DOJ, and weaponized IRS, after they've undone the Second Amendment and confiscated the means the founders intended to stop them in their tracks.

Anyone with an IQ above 50 would be wise to fear anyone who's less fearful of an armed government trying to disarm law abiding citizens than they are of a random act of violence performed by a rogue gunman. Which is perhaps a dead-giveaway about the political biases of the writer since everyone here knows a majority of the Democratic Party is more afraid of guns (in general) than they are of an armed government trying to disarm law abiding citizens.

Perhaps not a majority of Leftists, but nearly so, would let the gunman go if the gun were subjected to a public and humiliating lynching. Random, rogue, gunmen, are no threat to Leftist. It's law abiding citizens armed to the teeth that keep Leftist up at night scheming to wrench guns from the dead, frozen, fists, of American patriots.

So to hide the true target of their violent hate, they attack the gun not the gun owner, as they attack the gun, not the rogue gunman. The left's hatred of the "gun" is sublimation for their hatred of the gun owner, the Right, the Republican, i.e., their law abiding neighbor who happens to be so arrogant that so long as he has his dirty guns he refuses to be bullied into redistributing his wealth equally amongst his disarmed, and dishonest, Leftest, poor, neighbors, so that the poverty of their economic ideas can be hidden behind redistribution schemes as their hatred for gun owning neighbors is hidden behind their Freudian hatred of guns.



John

My, my…..
You seem to have bought into that propaganda hook, line and sinker!

So much for

That's what I'm trying to examine as objectively as I can.

 

[John D. Brey]

My, my…..
You seem to have bought into that propaganda hook, line and sinker!

Or perhaps I've unleashed a Right-wing diatribe in an attempt to get the juices, and the thread, moving again? Sometimes a devil's advocate can be like a divorce councilor trying to get both parties to experience a healthy catharsis by expressing their deepest emotions, fears, and sound, or silly, versions of reality.

Maybe you've bought into the propaganda that what you read is propaganda? See how hard true objectivity can be? Lie down on that comfortable cot right there and tell me what you felt when you read the words probably propagated as propaganda?



John

 

[Dao Hao Now]

See how hard true objectivity can be?

Only when approached from a theistic prospective,
where subjective reality takes a primary position over objective reality.

Or perhaps I've unleashed a Right-wing diatribe in an attempt to get the juices, and the thread, moving again?

Sorry, I’m not buying it.
It is fairly evident that you were instead exposing your personal opinion, or at least opinions that you concur with and extol.

You have demonstrated repeatedly within this thread your misunderstanding of science, history, philosophy, law, sociology, etc..
I would venture an educated guess that the basis of those misunderstandings is your viewing them through the lens of your preconceived dogmatic theistic perspective rather than objectively.

Maybe you've bought into the propaganda that what you read is propaganda? See how hard true objectivity can be? Lie down on that comfortable cot right there and tell me what you felt when you read the words probably propagated as propaganda?

Sorry, I’m not susceptible to gaslighting precisely because I don’t prioritize subjective reality over objective reality.

Are you calling my hand so soon? I'm hoping the fact that I'm a better poker-player than that will give this thread at least the patina of historical, scientific, philosophical, objectivity.

This is where I came in…..
With the inclusion of the smiley face, I took it as a tongue in cheek sign of humility and that you were looking for honest interaction in order to either learn something new or offer a suggestion toward reconciliation of the political divide.

I realize now that it is simply a confused diatribe poorly attempted to be hidden behind a very thin facade.

As such, I see nothing to be gained here and will take this opportunity to bow out and leave you to your intransigent subjective “reality”.

 

[Truth in love]

Recent political events have magnified the political divide in America to a degree probably unseen since the Civil War. In various threads on politics here in our forum (most notably Predictions of how Trump supporters will react if he's arrested and indicted) dialogue has reached not just a fever pitch, but people on both sides appear to be pitching the dissolution of dialogue with the other side altogether. Worse, they're implying that the other side is beyond hope and must be eliminated rather than finding a middle-ground or reaching some kind of democratic consensus.



John

We are at a point with many cannot accept basic facts of history, law, and recent events.

Lacking that common ground it’s impossible to have a good faith negotiation.

 

[KWED]

Recent political events have magnified the political divide in America to a degree probably unseen since the Civil War. In various threads on politics here in our forum (most notably Predictions of how Trump supporters will react if he's arrested and indicted) dialogue has reached not just a fever pitch, but people on both sides appear to be pitching the dissolution of dialogue with the other side altogether. Worse, they're implying that the other side is beyond hope and must be eliminated rather than finding a middle-ground or reaching some kind of democratic consensus.
John

With regards to The Big Steal proponents, yes, many are beyond help. Their position has descended into blind dogma.
When evidence, reason and logic have been abandoned, there is not much one can do. Talking to such people is pointless. It's probably better to just let them rant and people can see them for the swivel-eyed delusionists they are.

 

[KWED]

From simply an abstract, or objective standpoint, we could say there's one side who believe strongly that the current President in no way stole the election,

Wrong. There is one side who accept the incontrovertible evidence that it was not stolen.

and another side that implies the election was stolen.

Wrong again. They do not "imply" it. They unequivocally claim it - but have zero evidence to support their claim.

what is the criteria for determining the truth concerning matters of such grave import?

Erm, the criteria already used. Hard evidence. It's already been done and dusted. If there are butthurt snowflakes who don't like what the evidence shows, then boo hoo. If they take illegal action again, they will be arrested and charged, again. It's kinda how society works.

 

[KWED]

Very well stated. And I wholly agree with you. Nevertheless, without meaning to sound too kerygmatic, I still think we should take a stab at truth, even if we miss the heart and hit it where the blood that comes out isn't, perhaps, deemed worth of a holy grail, and yet could nevertheless ornament a Torah scroll without offending anyone too much.
John

This is supposed to be satire, yes?

 

[KWED]

Thank you for adding the quotation I was responding to. It's rather brilliant in light of this thread. I wanted to quote it but in the past I got in trouble using a quotation from another thread to start a new one. So I'm very glad you added the very quotation I wanted to use.

I actually agree with you on an important level. I would in no way demonize your statement even though it really is right out of Mein Kampf. I've spent half a century trying to fully understand and digest the arguments in that book, and thus the argument found in your quotation.

This thread is not about demonizing your statement. Far from it. It's refreshing to see someone spell out how they ---and to a degree---- all or most of us feel, when backed into the corner that our Nation is being backed into.




John

Unfortunately, your dishonest misrepresentation of their position means that you cannot be regarded as debating in good faith.
Oh yes, and Godwin's law.

 

[KWED]

I was insinuating that atheism is a branch of theism;

Ooh, you were so close there.
Actually, theism is a branch of atheism, because every theist is an atheist more than they are a theist.

 

[KWED]

Fewer guns will no doubt help lessen disorganized crime. And yet disorganized crime is literally a laugh compared to organized, legalized, government sponsored murder.

Fewer person have been murdered by a rouge gunman in the whole of the history of the USA than Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, murdered in less than a decade. And the Germans were a more cultured, less likely to go that direction, nation, by far, than the USA. Those who think our government would never round up "terrorists" (say mothers who reject Critical Race Theory) to save the nation, killing them by the thousands, or millions (how many people voted for the Orange Menace?) are living in a dream.

The genius of our founding fathers is partly their understanding that the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, is likely a right that will be grasped and held precisely by those who hold the same, or similar politics (right of center) to the founding fathers. Which is to say that should the Left desire a wholesale change to the right-ness of the founders, and those who follow in their footsteps, they will find the Second Amendment stands squarely in the way of their desire to Stalinize, or Hitlerize, basically to vaporize, their opponents by means of the FBI, the DOJ, and weaponized IRS, after they've undone the Second Amendment and confiscated the means the founders intended to stop them in their tracks.

Anyone with an IQ above 50 would be wise to fear anyone who's less fearful of an armed government trying to disarm law abiding citizens than they are of a random act of violence performed by a rogue gunman. Which is perhaps a dead-giveaway about the political biases of the writer since everyone here knows a majority of the Democratic Party is more afraid of guns (in general) than they are of an armed government trying to disarm law abiding citizens.

Perhaps not a majority of Leftists, but nearly so, would let the gunman go if the gun were subjected to a public and humiliating lynching. Random, rogue, gunmen, are no threat to Leftist. It's law abiding citizens armed to the teeth that keep Leftist up at night scheming to wrench guns from the dead, frozen, fists, of American patriots.

So to hide the true target of their violent hate, they attack the gun not the gun owner, as they attack the gun, not the rogue gunman. The left's hatred of the "gun" is sublimation for their hatred of the gun owner, the Right, the Republican, i.e., their law abiding neighbor who happens to be so arrogant that so long as he has his dirty guns he refuses to be bullied into redistributing his wealth equally amongst his disarmed, and dishonest, Leftest, poor, neighbors, so that the poverty of their economic ideas can be hidden behind redistribution schemes as their hatred for gun owning neighbors is hidden behind their Freudian hatred of guns.



John

It really isn't a difficult concept to grasp.
1. Guns are dangerous things, especially when owned by untrained, private individuals and kept in the home with no safeguards.
2. People who feel empowered by owning guns are exactly the sort of people who should not be allowed to own guns.
3. If private gun ownership wasn't un unrestricted ****show resulting in millions of avoidable deaths, then removing those guns wouldn't be an issue.
4. The evidence from around the world (of course, you could argue that US citizens have an innate propensity for lethal violence not present in other, similar nations - but if they do, then surely they shouldn't be allowed to have guns).

 

[KWED]

My, my…..
You seem to have bought into that propaganda hook, line and sinker!

So much for

It seems that for some, "objective examination" simply means "whatever seems to support my existing position".

 

[KWED]

Or perhaps I've unleashed a Right-wing diatribe in an attempt to get the juices, and the thread, moving again? Sometimes a devil's advocate can be like a divorce councilor trying to get both parties to experience a healthy catharsis by expressing their deepest emotions, fears, and sound, or silly, versions of reality.

Maybe you've bought into the propaganda that what you read is propaganda? See how hard true objectivity can be? Lie down on that comfortable cot right there and tell me what you felt when you read the words probably propagated as propaganda?



John

Ah, the "it was only a joke" defence.
Good for you!

 

[cladking]

I couldn't read the entire thread because it is so painful.

I don't believe Americans are really divided at all. I believe the division is being caused by a quisling media. We have two parties that represent only the wealthy and this status quo is self perpetuating.

The conversation is being framed by those who stand to profit by division.

As soon as people come to realize that all we have to do is vote our conscience we will all get representation and the corruption will begin to end. People keep voting their pocketbooks and for the same politicians who have created a land of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich. They keep voting for names instead of ideologies. They hold their nose and vote for the local crook. Stop it!

And voting for a third party is not throwing your vote away. It is sending a message to the power brokers and the wealthy that we've had enough. If you have to hold your nose to vote then don't vote at all. Ignore the media because they are always lying.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Apologies...due to the post length I've needed to snip some of what I was quoting from your original text. I haven't changed any of your words, just removed some of the sentences I was not responding directly to. Hopefully this doesn't impact on context.

For the sake of argument, I would use the Jewish monotheistic concept of God as a Being we know exists though we don't know how, or why we know that it, he, exists, nor do we have any facts, or proof, that he exists, outside the fact that we know he does.

My point is that God exists in potentia. The lack of a consistent and coherent understanding of what God is, over millennia, and by different cultures, and in different locales is one of many things which makes me believe an interventionist God is unlikely. Only when religion was 'exported' from a central location to the world did this lack of consistent and coherent understanding become less prevalent.
For the sake of most arguments, I'm happy to work with whichever God concept you like, and in general terms I'm more familiar with Christian concepts. But the variety of beliefs is a consideration in God's likelihood, in and of itself. Or at least an intercessory God.

That statement cause me a degree of dumb stare. Not sure how to unpack it.

No need, it was really as much joke as point. Religions...and concepts of God...have an amazing diversity. The most diverse ones I have personally seen in action are Cargo Cults. If they were my first exposure to religion, or I had not been somewhat aware of their existence before encountering them, I am sure I would have simply found them dumbfounding.

But for what it's worth, every single person in the USA is raised in a culture not only drenched in Judeo/Christian thought, word, ideation, but every single thought they have is contaminated by the truth that the very prism for their perception, the very vocabulary for their ideation, is swimming in thoughts and ideas come from Jews and Christians for thousands of years. Jews and Christians have established the very soil where every single thought grows. They are the host for non-Jewish or Christian thoughts that parasite the branch where the life of the thought must exist in order even to feign life.

Ignoring my minor quibbles with this, I largely agree that there is a profound influence of Jewish and Christian thought and history on US (and Australia, where I am) culture. I've made the point here on RF before that despite being an atheist, I live what could broadly be described as a pretty good Christian lifestyle. Take away the lack of belief, and I'd have a fair shot at making heaven, I daresay...ahem...(just a humble atheist joke).
I think where you are going too far is suggesting that this provides the basis for all thought, and whatever we build on top of them is parasitical. (I don't mean 'too far' in terms of it being insulting, or whatever. I mean 'too far' with relation to extrapolation.)

I have certainly heard this line of thinking before, and I'm happy to concede that Christian values and thoughts heavily influenced my upbringing, even apart from any specific Christian doctrine. But in almost all aspects of life we build on what has come before, or discard it, or improve it. That is true of science, philosophy...religion perhaps? In any case, I don't think of Einstein as being parasitical when improving on Newton's work.

To be clear, I don't see humans as constantly improving on what's come before in any linear fashion, in case the way I've worded all this gives that impression. But we have access to more than our ancestors did, in almost every sense of the word. In theory, that should enable more refined decision making, even if in reality we push up against our limitations as a species all too often.

In this thread, I want to examine if the same is true of Left versus Right? Is the Left or the Right the branch of political life such that the other side is parasiting the very branch it requires even to exist?

You move quickly from suggesting something (ie. that current thought is parasitical in terms of it's relation to Judeo-Christian history) to proceeding as if that suggestion is a given, and then applying it to a different situation entirely.
The Left and the Right are effectively simplistic and binary constructs. For whatever reason...and I have a few thoughts on it...we have taken more strongly than ever to identifying with one of those binary constructs, and judging everything through that lens. For me, the very root of the issue is the acceptance and promotion of binary thinking in the first place. For you, it appears you view it in a completely different fashion, instead trying to determine which of these binary positions is the leaf, and which the branch.

I think the premise is mistaken, honestly.

Wow. That's precisely what I'm trying to examine concerning the political Left, versus Right, expressly in the USA.

For instance, those who came to the USA, who established the Colonies, fought off the indigents, and eventually chose to reject the rule of law established for them by England, were mostly WASPS for whom their Protestant faith was the primary thing they came to America to defend and practice, and for which they endured the perils of the untamed land, and even fought the existing State (England) so they could practice their faith, and their belief in certain political realities, as they saw fit.

That's one way American history can be framed, although I'm assuming by 'indigent' you are referring to the indigenous? If you instead intended it as a pejorative, I'd reject it.
But sure...let's accept the basic premise for the sake of this discussion.

The MAGA crowd's very chant is to return to that beginning of greatness. The MAGA crowd are made up of the lion's share of WASPS in the Country. They now see the Left as having rigged the mechanism of the State, precisely as has happened throughout human history, such that they feel they may have to fight a new war of independence not against a foreign enemy (England), but a domestic one (the Left and its rigged State apparatus).

Because we are discussing politics, perception is of course important. No doubt there are a large number of MAGA folk who'd frame things in some way similar to what you are suggesting. There is no requirement on them to have a nuanced understanding of American history to form this opinion, of course. And there is no need for them to be right. The messaging is simple...simplistic in fact...and has resonated, because it's effectively the message of a demagogue. If you want to dig at this point, I'm happy to, but suffice to say that anyone drawing straight lines through history is ignoring history to do so. The history of American settlement is far messier than this, and there are both important highlights and lowlights that this ignores.

On the other hand, the Left doesn't see the USA as unique, glorious, an experiment that goes against everything that came before it. They see that kind of talk as the silliness of the Right. They see the USA as a host nation not fundamentally different than any other nation.

Some of the most passionate defenders of democratic institutions can be found on both sides of the political 'divide', and I think you're drawing a long bow. But it also depends what you mean by 'fundamentally different'. The US has a unique history, and there are plenty on the left who would agree with that. It's a great nation in the true sense of the word, something that is a little too subtle for the MAGA crowd, in general terms.

They never saw the USA as anything but a piece of land, like any other. For them, the USA isn't the glorious home of freedom and liberty. That's all just WASPY crap used to fire up dumb Republicans.

A lot of the people who promote the USA as the glorious home of freedom and liberty actually don't want the USA to be a glorious home of freedom and liberty, though. What they want is a team to barrack for, and to feel like they're special because they're on that team. It's just another form of binary thinking.
America can be both the greatest experiment in democratic process, and a nation that has real issues to deal with.

Point being, it's inarguable that the founders of the Country, the civilizers of the land, and the people who fought for independence, were kinda MAGAy.

How far out on this limb are you willing to go? And at which point in American history do you feel like this view ceases to apply?

They were white, Protestant, zealots for the Bible, freedom, and liberty, who saw the rest of the world as slaves to tyranny precisely because they don't understand the Bible, nor the principles it claims lead to life, liberty, and freedom.

Tell you what...to make this a little easier, pick a time period, and I might have something more concrete to address.

Who, knowing our history, could deny that the Trump supporters are directly related to the founders, while the Left is too similar to mother England to even argue against. The Left sees the USA as a member of the communal, global, community. The Right sees the USA precisely as our founding father's saw the USA.

I need you to define 'founders' I think. Are you using 'founding father's' in the common sense, as meaning the late 1700's uniters of the 13 colonies? I'm assuming yes, but would prefer to check before investing too much time on this topic.

Which, therefore, is the branch (grown out of the founding soil), and which is the "parasite" (and I use that word in the scientific sense of the opposite of the "host," the opposite of the founding soil, the other-than the creative-event) feeding off the branch till another branch (any other country) is found? The Left were just born here, rather than there. So though it would be a problem to leave, they will, rather than defend their version of the country since their version makes any other country equally acceptable but for the nuisance of relocating (as my original interlocutor has happily done). The Right believes there is no other USA. Not even close; that what was fought for by the founders, is worth giving one's life for today as it was back then. "Love it or leave it" is their cry. "Don't tempt me" is the Left's response.

John

I think the main problem I am having in responding is that on the one hand you appear to be talking about the original English settlers to what is now the USA, and at other times you're referring more to the fabric of the nation itself. Those thing are quite divorced, but I'm also aware I might be misunderstanding you when you refer to the USA, or to the founders.
So I'll hold responding to this, for now.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Absolutely. My primary point is that the Left are correct within their own personal epistemological and hermeneutical worldview. Same with the Right.

Actually, I think on both 'sides' there are people who sacrifice consistency and self-reflection for the sake of scoring points. But also...on both sides...there are people who are correct within their own worldview, as you say.

So with that in view, what seems legitimate, is to deconstruct the arguments of the Left and the Right, from the vantage-point of their undeniable epistemological and hermeneutical foundations.

When we do that, we find, almost without genuine argument, that the MAGA crowd, made up of the lion's share of the Country's white, Anglo-saxon Protestants, support, and elected Donald Trump precisely because they see the Left, as a modern, domestic, version of the very England they fought tooth and nail at the very foundation of the USA.

Okay

Point being that regardless of whether the Right's version of America is right, it is undeniably closer to the foundation of the USA than the Left's.

In the mind of the MAGA crowd? Sure. That belief doesn't actually make it so, and...a consistent them here...it's not as clear-cut as that.

That doesn't mean the Right is right, and the Left is wrong. Far from it. It just means the Left is parasitical and the Right is the host so far as this Nation is concerned at present.

No, no...for that to be true even disregarding the value-laden nature of the language, there would need to be a single shining path along which the nation had trodden (in your case, the Right), from inception to current day. And the alternative path would need to rely on the shining path for it's very existence. Whilst there are fringe elements on the left you could somewhat sensibly describe as being contra to American founding principles, that is not true of 'The Left' in any sort of holistic sense. Nor is 'The Right' the keeper of the shining path. These are frankly just more polite ways of dehumanizing those with different political views.

At that point we would need to examine the scientific dynamics of a "host" versus a "parasite," in order to see the propitious nature of both, and perhaps attempt to evaluate if the USA the Left wants, and would engender, enriches the Country (though it may not have been the original intent of the founders or the constitution they set up), or if it is a wholesale rejection and condemnation of the founders and their constitution in the hopes of establishing a more perfect union in the blood of the founders and those who cling to the original constitution of the nation?

Personally, I have some issue with treating any constitution as infallible, nor any founding principles as timeless. But all that notwithstanding, I might change tact for a second here. The MAGA crowd...and let's assume for a moment their intent is as coherently noble as you are suggesting here...has decided to follow Donald Trump because he embodies foundational principles of the USA? Because he would be seen by the original WASP settlers as a fit leader? Because he can be entrusted with strengthening the practical mechanisms used to defend the US constitution?

For me this is a vertiginous syzygy in that I see truth in the Left's dynamics and in the Right's. Bringing them into a proper union is no easy task. And neither is it a task for anyone who demonize the Left or the Right in principle, or in their heart. When, in the thread that this one is parasiting, I claimed I considered my more Leftist interlocutor my friend, I meant that in the deepest way imaginable. I don't see the Left as enemies. I see them as gunning (and that's not a great use of the word) for the same thing as the Right. I believe the battle now beginning between Left and Right will lead to a genuinely more perfect union of all men if the battle is conducted properly. It's not about the Left winning, or the Right winning. It's about both sides of the divide using the troubled times as a crucible to burn off the chaff in their own ideology so that they can come together again in a more perfect union. It's about being baptized in the trouble waters so that we're wet enough in the head to think we can build a bridge over those troubled waters.

Imagine, in a Lennon sort of way a near-future USA where Barack Obama and Donald Trump are caught in a photograph clutched in a bear-hug both laughing uncontrollably after a round of golf. In my opinion there's a place in both of them, all of us, that wants that if it can be had?

John

I'm not quite sure I can take you at your word on this. Or at least, the way in which you see this coming to a satisfactory conclusion would be quite different from how I would see it.
But I can agree with this;

'It's not about the Left winning, or the Right winning. It's about both sides of the divide using the troubled times as a crucible to burn off the chaff in their own ideology so that they can come together again in a more perfect union.'

But then I try not to identify as either Right or Left in any holistic sense, so I guess I would.

 

[John D. Brey]

My point is that God exists in potentia. The lack of a consistent and coherent understanding of what God is, over millennia, and by different cultures, and in different locales is one of many things which makes me believe an interventionist God is unlikely. Only when religion was 'exported' from a central location to the world did this lack of consistent and coherent understanding become less prevalent.
For the sake of most arguments, I'm happy to work with whichever God concept you like, and in general terms I'm more familiar with Christian concepts. But the variety of beliefs is a consideration in God's likelihood, in and of itself. Or at least an intercessory God.

My main point on this, in this thread and other recent threads, is that there's a fundamental break in the natural dynamics of evolution, life, and thought, when human beings somehow acquire grammar, and thus a self, outside themself (that can talk to them). I've continually quoted Popper, who was agnostic or atheist, though I could quote many other serious thinkers propounding the same idea: humans don't seem to fit into the natural landscape.

It was the emerging [`emergent’ according to Chomsky] human language which created the selection pressure under which the cerebral cortex emerged, and with it, the human consciousness of self.

Karl Popper, The Self and It's Brain.

In the beginning of human self-consciousness was the first word, and that first word was "God."

John's prologue.

Aside from God, there is only one other being that is invisible and imperceptible to the senses, but whose individual reality and personal existence are nevertheless absolutely certain to each one of us. That being is our soul, our נפש. The soul that reflects on itself ["why did I do that"] is capable of grasping the real, personal existence of an invisible, imperceptible Being; aware of itself, it also knows God. Just as we are sure of our own existence, so we are sure of God’s existence [we have no choice in the matter except to use our human freedom to pretend we do].

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Deuteronomy 4:15. Bracketed comments mine.​

. . . I largely agree that there is a profound influence of Jewish and Christian thought and history on US (and Australia, where I am) culture. I've made the point here on RF before that despite being an atheist, I live what could broadly be described as a pretty good Christian lifestyle. Take away the lack of belief, and I'd have a fair shot at making heaven, I daresay...ahem...(just a humble atheist joke).

I think where you are going too far is suggesting that this provides the basis for all thought, and whatever we build on top of them is parasitical. (I don't mean 'too far' in terms of it being insulting, or whatever. I mean 'too far' with relation to extrapolation.)

Christian thought posits Christ as a "transcendental signifier." What this means is made clear in Martin Heidegger's concept that in human grammar, if you don't have a trancendental signifier, one word, concept, that's like a root, or anchor, that branches out, evolves, into the full plethora of words, sentences, languages, etc., then every word, sentence, or thought, associated with the grammar or language, is floating in something like an ether so that every sentence of thought can interact with every other sentence, or thought, without any sentence or thought being closer to the creative event that led to the words, sentences, or thoughts. You can't do careful exegesis, or semantics, in order to find out the greater truths, which, the greater truths, are those closer to the original word, if you don't believe that language, and human thought, has a transcendental signifier.

In Christian thought, Christ is the root Word, the transcendental signifier, that makes human-style grammar, thought, thinking, possible. In this sense every single word, statement, thought, that doesn't, in St. Paul's parlance, know that it comes from the concept of Christ, the original Word, every thought that doesn't bring itself into the branch begun by Christ, is, in scientific nomenclature, a "parasite"; it lives and abides on, in, the branch of Christ, utterly and completely oblivious to the difference between it, they, and those who are the living branch upon which their very word, thoughts, ideas, rely, and require.

In science a parasite isn't technically alive since it can't exist without the source. I gave the example of homosexuality as a parasitical sexual predilection in that every homosexual was created from heterosexual sex such that homosexuality can't exist without heterosexuality, while heterosexuality can, and does, exist without homosexuality.

In the same sense, all thought is beholden to the kerygma of Christ. St. Paul said to bring every thought into submission to the root Word, concept, which is the Gospel of Christ.

I have certainly heard this line of thinking before, and I'm happy to concede that Christian values and thoughts heavily influenced my upbringing, even apart from any specific Christian doctrine. But in almost all aspects of life we build on what has come before, or discard it, or improve it. That is true of science, philosophy...religion perhaps? In any case, I don't think of Einstein as being parasitical when improving on Newton's work.

Einstein conceded that his scientific work was merely an offshoot of the thoughts of Kant and Newton. He admitted that his work is impossible without their thoughts. But both Kant and Newton were extremely and explicitly clear that all of their ideas came from a kerygmatic source, Christ. Both Kant and Newton conceded to the concept of a transcendental signifier as the root and source of all non-parasitical thought; and both of them claimed, in their writings, that their thoughts and genius were products of their acknowledgement of Christ as the root and source of their greatest thoughts.

One thing that has always struck me forcefully about this doctrine of Kant’s is that it legitimates important components of a belief which he had held since long before he began to philosophize, namely Christian belief . . . what he did unmistakably (and un-remarked on to an extent that has never ceased to astonish me), is produce rational justifications for many aspects of the religious beliefs in which he grew up. Let me put it this way. We know for a fact that long before Kant started to philosophize he was dedicated, simply as a Christian, to the belief that the empirical world of time and space and material objects, within which everything is evanescent and everything perishes, is something that exists only for us mortals in our present life; that `outside’ this world there is another, so to say infinitely more `important', realm of existence which is timeless and spaceless, and in which the beings are not material objects. Now it is as if he then said to himself: `How can these things be so? What can be the nature of time and space and material objects if they obtain only in the world of human beings? Could it be, given that they characterize only the world of experience and nothing else, that they are characteristics, or preconditions, of experience, and nothing else?’ In other words, Kant's philosophy is a fully worked out analysis of what needs to be the case for what he believed already to be true.

Oxford Professor Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

To be clear, I don't see humans as constantly improving on what's come before in any linear fashion, in case the way I've worded all this gives that impression. But we have access to more than our ancestors did, in almost every sense of the word. In theory, that should enable more refined decision making, even if in reality we push up against our limitations as a species all too often.

The problem with this statement, from my perspective, is that of late, thinkers (like Godel, Roger Penrose, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and most pronouncedly Ray Kurzweil) have begun to realize that the mind of man clearly, and undeniably, is not bound by the limitations of time, space, and thus the laws of physics, as is the case with every single material, and every other living thing on the planet. The human mind transcends physics (and I can quote the atheist Ray Kurzweil saying precisely that). It's this undeniable ability of the human mind to transcend physics that is becoming so clear that even atheists and agnostics are becoming extremely trouble by it, and starting to try to steal theological concepts from Judeo/Christianity since they see now they're foundational and correct.

The "parasite" versus "host" problem is extremely pronounced here in that a parasite that doesn't know it's a parasite appears to be endowed with a supernatural ability to be blind, truly blind, to realities that would force the parasite into acknowledgement that he, it, isn't part of the living body. In other words, a human mind, that is unaware that all its unique ability to think comes from Christ and the kerygma of the Gospels, can still be a deified kind of thinking (and is), because it drinks from the blood of Christ unknowingly, and yet takes the very power, ability, unique thought, that comes from the source, as "natural"; and since there's allegedly no transcendental signifier, this kind of thinking is infinitely blind, impervious, to "proofs" of a transcendental signifier.

There's an interesting scientific case in point. Modern Judaism leans toward the a-theistic rejection of a transcendental signifier for many pronounced theological reasons. So, we have a perfect, scientific, proof, that the parasitical mind, or theology, is utterly blind to what it can't, as a parasite, swallow.

The book of Daniel gives a perfect timeline for when the Jewish messiah must arrive. This timeline isn't merely interpretive stuff. It's fairly explicit. Unfortunately for modern Judaism the timeline ends up, though it was given hundreds of years in advance, in the first thirty years of the common era.

Similarly, hundreds of years before our day, Isaac Newton, who claimed his science was his hobby, and theology his true forte, predicted, and this is in the history books, that based on his gematrial study of scripture, something phenomenal and important would happen to Israel in the year 1948. Imagine selecting one year, hundreds of years in the future.

What Newton's and Daniel's predictions show (and I won't dare get into Isaiah) is that the human mind exists in, or has access to, realms outside of the arrow of time, that (the arrow time) Einstein said was an illusion since space and time are in some sense the same thing. Secondarily, we see that minds that believe they are utterly subject to the arrow of time, must ignore positive proof that there are minds not subject to the arrow of time, since that knowledge would reveal the parasitical basis for those who think the human mind is a product of the physics circumscribed within space and time.

You move quickly from suggesting something (ie. that current thought is parasitical in terms of it's relation to Judeo-Christian history) to proceeding as if that suggestion is a given, and then applying it to a different situation entirely.

The Left and the Right are effectively simplistic and binary constructs. For whatever reason...and I have a few thoughts on it...we have taken more strongly than ever to identifying with one of those binary constructs, and judging everything through that lens. For me, the very root of the issue is the acceptance and promotion of binary thinking in the first place. For you, it appears you view it in a completely different fashion, instead trying to determine which of these binary positions is the leaf, and which the branch.

I think the premise is mistaken, honestly.

My claim is that we all have a biological brain that thinks like a highly developed animal (i.e., as though we're really smart monkeys), but that even smart monkeys are starting to realize that's not the whole story: we have access to a kind of thinking that's new in the universe:

It is the glory of the human cerebral cortex that it -----unique among all animals and unprecedented in all geological time ---has the power to defy the dictates of the selfish genes.

Richard Dawkins.​

Human freedom is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species, us. The differences between autonomous human agents and the other assemblages of nature are visible not just from an anthropocentric perspective but also from the most objective standpoints (the plural is important) achievable. . . Human freedom is younger than the species. Its most important features are only several thousand years old--- an eyeblink in evolutionary history---but in that short time it has transformed the planet in ways that are as salient as such great biological transitions as the creation of an oxygen-rich atmosphere and the creation of multicellular life.

Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett, p. 305.​

This new kind of thinking implies a binary between normal, rational, logical, thought, ala the brain, versus the new kind of thought that parasites the brain, or that the brain parasites. Some people experience this binary as part and parcel of their experienced reality, while others parasite the higher ability of the brain without acknowledging the blood they're sucking in order to do, think, as they do.

My claim is that the political Left is far more likely to parasite the higher thinking and believe it is (higher human thought) natural, brain-based, thought, while the political Right, particularly MAGA, are not only made up of a majority of WASPs, and Catholics, all of whom believe in a transcendental signifier, but that this binary (between natural thought, and transcendent thought) is part of the Right's foundation, and is a parallel with the question whether Christ is the transcendental signifier of all human thought, or all human thought exists without a creative root, foundation, and is thus "natural" in a supernatural kind of way: supernatural-naturalism (humanist materialism in a nutshell).

Earlier I noted that modern Judaism, for various theological reasons, tends to view a divine transcendental signifier with suspicion, so that we tend to see, in the USA, Jews and Judaism (exempting the most orthodox Jews) siding more often with the Left and political liberalism. According to the logic I'm arguing, that's to be expected based on modern Judaism's negative relationship to the idea of a transcendental signifier.

Some of the most passionate defenders of democratic institutions can be found on both sides of the political 'divide', and I think you're drawing a long bow. But it also depends what you mean by 'fundamentally different'. The US has a unique history, and there are plenty on the left who would agree with that. It's a great nation in the true sense of the word, something that is a little too subtle for the MAGA crowd, in general terms.

It's obviously difficult to remain objective when we get down to the specifics of political beliefs we hold near and dear. Which is why most of the threads I start tend to be a/political soliloquies. As I argued earlier, there can be little serious doubt that MAGA people are very close to the feelings and beliefs of the founding fathers. In this sense, the political Left today, at least in the USA, can be thought to be attacking the foundation of the current union in order to remake the union into a more perfect union. Which is why the concept of a "parasite" and a "transcendental signifier/origin/root" is important.

My abstract argument is that a "parasite" will eat the branch right down to the root and destroy the living root/branch if not kept in check. Furthermore, the parasite is often propitious, and often necessary, for the root and branch to thrive. Therefore, my argument is that the political Right is the root and branch of the American Union, the USA, and the political Left is a propitious parasite that is necessary, and good, until it decides to attack the root and branch oblivious to the fact that it is the parasite and what it is attacking, if destroyed, will end badly for the political Left.

A lot of the people who promote the USA as the glorious home of freedom and liberty actually don't want the USA to be a glorious home of freedom and liberty, though. What they want is a team to barrack for, and to feel like they're special because they're on that team. It's just another form of binary thinking.

America can be both the greatest experiment in democratic process, and a nation that has real issues to deal with.

Agreed. And that's kinda how it's always been till now. And my argument is that the change taking place is related to the binary relationship between a living root/branch (the foundation of this great nations by our founding fathers) versus those citizens who would have fought against the ideas of the founders, and are in fact fighting against the ideas of the founder, under the belief that they can create a more perfect union than the founders but that they must first destroy the ideas of the founders, and any authority those who hold those ideas exercise in the Nation.

Earlier in the thread I discussed the difference between evolutionary change with modification, versus a speciation-event. For most of our history, the political Left has sought serious evolutionary change based on some fairly serious modifications. They are now, in my opinion, seeking a speciation-event that allows a clean break from the original species made up of MAGA-like founders, and those who are deemed arrogant and stupid enough to support and defend the original species of American citizen. Truth-be-known, they're attempting a French-like Revolution on American soil.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

I need you to define 'founders' I think. Are you using 'founding father's' in the common sense, as meaning the late 1700's uniters of the 13 colonies? I'm assuming yes, but would prefer to check before investing too much time on this topic.

I'm referring to "founders" mostly as those men who succeeded in establishing the nation as it existed right after the Revolutionary War. As noted earlier in the thread, I believe the founders were almost carbon copies of the MAGA crowd: White, Anglo-saxon, Protestants, who viewed their own biology with suspicion as they viewed all the rest of the world with suspicion. They wanted to found a nation on principles that the left despise precisely because the principles recognize Christ, ala Protestantism, as the transcendental signifier, and thus the root and branch, of the Nation the founders wanted to found.

Since I suspect history is clearly on the side of arguing that the founding fathers would mostly align with MAGA today, the key question becomes whether it's propitious, possible, and right, to say to oneself, "Our founding was by racist white men, silly Protestants who believed things that lead to racism, bigotry, and division from the happy peaceful union of nations, such that we need to wipe the slate clean and make a truly great nations. Yes our founders were identical to MAGA. That's the origin of the problem!"




John

 

[lewisnotmiller]

My main point on this, in this thread and other recent threads, is that there's a fundamental break in the natural dynamics of evolution, life, and thought, when human beings somehow acquire grammar, and thus a self, outside themself (that can talk to them). I've continually quoted Popper, who was agnostic or atheist, though I could quote many other serious thinkers propounding the same idea: humans don't seem to fit into the natural landscape.

It was the emerging [`emergent’ according to Chomsky] human language which created the selection pressure under which the cerebral cortex emerged, and with it, the human consciousness of self.

Karl Popper, The Self and It's Brain.

In the beginning of human self-consciousness was the first word, and that first word was "God."

John's prologue.

Aside from God, there is only one other being that is invisible and imperceptible to the senses, but whose individual reality and personal existence are nevertheless absolutely certain to each one of us. That being is our soul, our נפש. The soul that reflects on itself ["why did I do that"] is capable of grasping the real, personal existence of an invisible, imperceptible Being; aware of itself, it also knows God. Just as we are sure of our own existence, so we are sure of God’s existence [we have no choice in the matter except to use our human freedom to pretend we do].

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Deuteronomy 4:15. Bracketed comments mine.​

Christian thought posits Christ as a "transcendental signifier." What this means is made clear in Martin Heidegger's concept that in human grammar, if you don't have a trancendental signifier, one word, concept, that's like a root, or anchor, that branches out, evolves, into the full plethora of words, sentences, languages, etc., then every word, sentence, or thought, associated with the grammar or language, is floating in something like an ether so that every sentence of thought can interact with every other sentence, or thought, without any sentence or thought being closer to the creative event that led to the words, sentences, or thoughts. You can't do careful exegesis, or semantics, in order to find out the greater truths, which, the greater truths, are those closer to the original word, if you don't believe that language, and human thought, has a transcendental signifier.

In Christian thought, Christ is the root Word, the transcendental signifier, that makes human-style grammar, thought, thinking, possible. In this sense every single word, statement, thought, that doesn't, in St. Paul's parlance, know that it comes from the concept of Christ, the original Word, every thought that doesn't bring itself into the branch begun by Christ, is, in scientific nomenclature, a "parasite"; it lives and abides on, in, the branch of Christ, utterly and completely oblivious to the difference between it, they, and those who are the living branch upon which their very word, thoughts, ideas, rely, and require.

In science a parasite isn't technically alive since it can't exist without the source. I gave the example of homosexuality as a parasitical sexual predilection in that every homosexual was created from heterosexual sex such that homosexuality can't exist without heterosexuality, while heterosexuality can, and does, exist without homosexuality.

In the same sense, all thought is beholden to the kerygma of Christ. St. Paul said to bring every thought into submission to the root Word, concept, which is the Gospel of Christ.



Einstein conceded that his scientific work was merely an offshoot of the thoughts of Kant and Newton. He admitted that his work is impossible without their thoughts. But both Kant and Newton were extremely and explicitly clear that all of their ideas came from a kerygmatic source, Christ. Both Kant and Newton conceded to the concept of a transcendental signifier as the root and source of all non-parasitical thought; and both of them claimed, in their writings, that their thoughts and genius were products of their acknowledgement of Christ as the root and source of their greatest thoughts.

One thing that has always struck me forcefully about this doctrine of Kant’s is that it legitimates important components of a belief which he had held since long before he began to philosophize, namely Christian belief . . . what he did unmistakably (and un-remarked on to an extent that has never ceased to astonish me), is produce rational justifications for many aspects of the religious beliefs in which he grew up. Let me put it this way. We know for a fact that long before Kant started to philosophize he was dedicated, simply as a Christian, to the belief that the empirical world of time and space and material objects, within which everything is evanescent and everything perishes, is something that exists only for us mortals in our present life; that `outside’ this world there is another, so to say infinitely more `important', realm of existence which is timeless and spaceless, and in which the beings are not material objects. Now it is as if he then said to himself: `How can these things be so? What can be the nature of time and space and material objects if they obtain only in the world of human beings? Could it be, given that they characterize only the world of experience and nothing else, that they are characteristics, or preconditions, of experience, and nothing else?’ In other words, Kant's philosophy is a fully worked out analysis of what needs to be the case for what he believed already to be true.

Oxford Professor Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher.​

John

I think we're so far apart on this post that it's somewhat pointless to do the 'break down a post and respond in piecemeal fashion' thing.

All this appears to suggest to me is that if we assume a Judeo-Christian God...and I'll ignore some degree of issue I have even with that term...then that God is central to everything. Anything that denies or sidelines that God could be considered divurgent.

That's well and good, but is effectively a tautology.