Welcome back! How have you been? How are things going for you spriritually? Have you made any changes in what you believe? What new things have you learned?

larry

Hey Jargon,  I recommend this guy's blog.  I think you would find some of his entries interesting.  I think he would find your entries interesting as well.  I'll recommend you to him.  http://www.xanga.com/Schr0d1ng3rsC4T

@LSP1 - 

Welcome back!

Nice to see you too!

How have you been?

Can't complain.

How are things going for you spriritually?

I like to think I've made progress, but I lack the maturity and wisdom to do a thorough self-assessment.

Have you made any changes in what you believe?

Yes, while gone I have continued my studies into things like theology, philosophy, church history, non-theistic thinkers, etc. My worldview has underwent some alterations, but it has moved in the same direction it was heading when I left. I have read a sizable amount of sophisticated literature from a plurality of perspectives over the last few years and plumbing the depths of the Eastern Christian tradition has allowed to to discover some answers and come to terms with things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to.

What new things have you learned?

Stay tuned!

@vangelicmonk - 

Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out.

Don't mind me for following along if your going to explore some of these subjects; it should make some interesting reading.   I picked you up from my footprints earlier... Eastern Christianity has a mystical side to it that my thoroughly systematic Lutheranism probably lacks though I have read some things about it many years ago.  Anyway I hope you don't mind a voyeur subscribing...

@crimthann86 - 

I welcome all to participate here. Lutheranism certainly has a different way of doing theology, and though it is another branch on the Augustinian tree, I think its way of understanding the faith/reason distinction is closer to Orthodoxy in some respects than it is to Catholicism. For no Luterhan would attempt to do what St. Anselm did in Cur Deus Homo, that is, "leaving Christ out of view (as if nothing had ever been known of him), it proves, by absolute reasons, the impossibility that any man should be saved without him."

@mr_jargon - 

[What new things have you learned?]

Theologically, I think I'm pretty much the same. I've learned that each day, I'm one day closer to being with the Lord.

[Stay tuned!]

Amen. I will.

Hey man, I made a new blog:

http://afterdox.blogspot.com/

I would love to have you in on the conversation. Granted, this first post does not have that much material. But what it does offer is a stepping stone to later material that I'm hoping will prove interesting.

@LSP1 - 

Oh, for the record, the main purpose of this site is to cover my musings on philosophy. My main theology blog is here:

http://neochalcedonian.wordpress.com/

@mr_jargon - 

Ok. I hope you do some theology here also since I'm not on wordpress.

I have missed reading you.....

Russell writes poetry. I find myself enjoying the way he writes more than what he wrote. No one is ever going to answer these questions, you just have to choose a premise and stand on it and be as true as you can until it crumbles around you. Metaphysical Naturalism is no more provable (or disprovable) as anything else. It's what you see when you have never heard of, or seen evidence of anything else, God included. Metaphysical Naturalism for me simply proceeds from my own perceptions of the world around me, instead of the fables that others have tried (unsucessfuly) to get me to 'believe' with no perceptual evidence.

It will be interesting to read your future posts. Hopefully you can rise above the debate and put something out there in a thesis form, much like what IntellectualSpirit did. I hate all the arguing about this stuff, it devides people.

I find myself enjoying the way he writes more than what he wrote.

Same here for the most part.

Hopefully you can rise above the debate and put something out there in a thesis form, much like what IntellectualSpirit did.

Possibly, I skimmed through the last few pages of posts on there and agreed with 90% or more of it.

Metaphysical Naturalism is no more provable (or disprovable) as anything else.

That's perhaps the only blasphemy in Carrier's book. He claims to start with the absolutely undeniable and then proceed through only logically necessary steps. Interesting method, unfortunately he's not faithful to it AT ALL. I probably would agree with you on more points than many might suspect.

Good to see you're back.  wow, you took a picture with Ron Paul! :)

Your comments on DaVinci's site....you don't have a theme om your site; that is why you don't have the BOLD, italics, and Underscore box.

To so so in your comments, anyway.....I just click on control b for bold.  Control I for italics, and Control U to underline.

^^^  To Do so anyway.....(oops).

@mr_jargon - 

@ilsurvive - 

It might also be there when you go premium.

@mr_jargon - 

Welcome back.

Someone has to defend Carrier and I suppose it should be me. I'm assuming you have something other than mere “perspectivism” to offer in regards to the claims you've made about Carrier especially since you've quoted so little of him and so much of another atheist that happens to pontificate more on the material that resonates with you personally. If I'm not mistaken (from other things you've written), I would take it you feel you have to assume something more even in order to start your investigation into the world. That's a point of contention and so far you've only disagreed. That may be easy points for you here (i.e. the religious precedence of thinking otherwise), but means virtually nothing to me, for instance. (pg. 191)

I would hope the blasphemy you refer to has more qualification than merely being miffed that Carrier goes beyond the (cherry picked?) musings of the "paleoatheists." Logic is not a motivator in and of itself (pg 196). It is a tool and a servant of desire. In order to find a reason to live in a vast apathetic naturalistic machine, you have to turn inward and towards others like yourself (the self examined life, pgs. 202-207). The pattern of our values is systemic and by virtue of the fact we know of no other source of it, this is inevitable. Take it or leave it. No one can force you to be happy (hence you will never get a "kick" out of Carrier if you expect otherwise) and yet apparently there are plenty of people out there that do not require your starting assumptions, nor your divine values in order to learn about the world and be content with the moral and compassionate life for its own sake. How exactly do you know they are doing it wrong? Perhaps you can't live that way, but this is no longer an argument, but mere preference based on what you are used to (as is). Further the two quotes you juxtapose are quite compatible if Carrier’s “Meaning of Life” section is the “must find a home” continuation of Russell’s starting foundation. First quote, “Where’s my home?” Second quote (or rather all that Carrier has to say from pgs. 161-164), “Here it is.”

It is the persistent unquestioned vestigial theistic assumption, in my opinion, that meaning and value must come from virtually the same place it did in theism or all bets are off. Naturally if that apparent idiocy persisted, theism would be a foregone conclusion. Perhaps the idea of perfection is as infinite as you may conceive of it and it maps onto our experience insofar as it actually can. Who are you to say that is not enough to live and die on (as Carrier confesses on 163) and why must someone accept your apparently wish fulfillment based assumptions when they do not appear to be necessary in a practical or logic fashion? The most charitable reading of the quote on page 161 that you emphasized is that eternity is not *the* litmus test of whether there is meaning or not and his statement should be taken in light of who his obvious audience is that so often thinks otherwise. I don't think it means that nothing about how you perceive your life changes, even a little, if you get an infinity tacked on to what you already have. I could be mistaken.

I really don't want to start some major discussion especially since all I've really presented is an agnostic case to chew on. You may take it as merely a checkpoint of what "the other side" thinks and do with it as you will. Is there anything you did like and/or agree with in "Sense and Goodness"?

ARU

Wow...Jargon's back...with a mustache to boot! ;)

Looking forward to what you have to say.

Craig (aka "Antipelagian")

ARU,

I agreed with ALOT of S&G, and I plan on quoting Carrier generously when I go over his epistemology. It's just that I think folks like J.L. Mackie, Keith Augustine and Theodore Drange do a more efficient demolition job than Carrier and that his constructive philosophy isn't all that great. Being a good demolition man doesn't make you a good architect. I've read his Why I Am Not a Christian six times and think it raises some important questions. A sophisticated Augustinian could clean up some of it and I think my perspective provides me with more options still. If the ONLY options I had were Richard Carrier & Billy Graham, then I'd probably go with the former. I do not believe that he is all-bad or wholly incompetent. He raises some questions that I can't answer, but I also think that he assumes to much and that by his own standards much of his speculation is presumptuous. Ayn Rand, for example, wrote a decent defense of capitalism, but she had many beliefs about the world that were completely nonsensical by her own standards (free will, immaterial souls, objective ethics, etc.) Another point of mine is that Carrier is just as poisonous for the ardent Russellian as he is for the Evangelical. I believe that *all* truth-claims make assumptions and presuppose a context within which they are intelligible. Unfortunately, I don't think we were able to come to an agreement even on this point.

Welcome back Mr. Jargon!  I've noticed you post here and there around xanga, so I thought you might start posting again sooner or later. 

On the topic of Carrier, I have only read his online work, but David Wood did a major review of his book here

Also, I was talking to William Lane Craig yesterday, and they might be debating next spring at the University of Missouri, though they are still working on it.  That would be interesting to see.

Glad to have you back. 

@StrokeofThought - 

The debate should be interesting, but one must distinguish between the validity of Carrier's criticisms of Evangelicalism and the merits of his constructive philosophy. Many intuitively sense that there is something wrong with the idea of an ogre-deity that punishes all who don't say a one-time two-minute prayer with infinity years of burning, & likewise with the "genie-deity" of popular prosperity & healer preachers. These theological Frankenstein's monsters certainly deserve to be shot on sight by every able-bodied individual. Under such circumstances, atheism is a virtuous act.

@mr_jargon - 

"Lutheranism certainly has a different way of doing theology, and though it is another branch on the Augustinian tree, I think its way of understanding the faith/reason distinction is closer to Orthodoxy in some respects than it is to Catholicism. For no Luterhan would attempt to do what St. Anselm did" Well I can't speak for St. Anselm as I am really not familiar with his work but I believe he tried to make a rational argument as did the scholastics for the existence of God and that is definitely counter to what Lutheranism teaches in any of its varied forms. Martin Luther and the other reformers within his evangelical movement taught the biblical premise that belief in the saving Grace that comes through Christ runs counter to any rational philosophy of men so by this view to try and make a proof of God's existence through any methodology such as one would find through Aristotelean logic is a fools errand as the flesh necessarily rejects Grace therefore it will defy any human logic. In it's most basic form Lutheranism teaches that one must see that man is sinful and thus is convicted by the law and only then will someone's eyes be opened by the Holy Spirit as to our desperate need for his Grace.  All of which of course comes through the Word in Law and Gospel. Luther was very much influenced by Augustine as he was a Monk in the Augustinian order in the first place but I think what Luther did was simply take what Augustine did and moved it further leaving no room for human works to have any effect on salvation all of which really goes back to Saint Paul anyway. So rather than view Lutheranism as another branch of that Augustinian tree I view it as a Pauline theology which can be found particularly in Romans, Galatians, and the letters to the Corinthians. There are things however about my own Lutheranism that are simply ignorant of the mysticism that exist within Eastern Orthodoxy that must have some value particularly to people like my wife as well other people who respond to things perhaps differently than I do. I am so ignorant of this side of the Christian religion that I don't even know how to express it in words. I just know, for example, that my wife is more of a mystic than I am and she sees that incarnation of Christ in things that I do not as I always tend to focus on the total corruption of nature as Luther did but it is also plain to see that God also made creation good and was pleased by what he did and though I don't dwell in these mysteries I seek to understand them better if not for my sake then the sake of others than I know and love.