egotheistic pantheism revealed...

Well, that is the idea... If you believe good and evil are both 'uniquely absolute' and in 'conflict for the title of God,' you are indeed a dualist. But you are not a Christian.Christians are monotheists. They do not see God as a contestant for the job of God. They believe God is God already. He is in charge of everything that happens. Christians believe God has been the incumbent for a long time and has never had any serious competition for the job.Christians thus believe in one absolute power, not two. They do not regard God/Good and Satan/Evil as equal and opposite forces throwing elbows in a tug-of-war contest for control of the universe. (Many aspects of your picture would please a Gnostic, however.)On the basis of your dualistic creed, with both sides equal, you have no grounds other than favoritism to declare that one side or the other will 'win.' Declaring a winner between the two sides would invalidate your whole dualistic premise. Without evil there is no good and vice versa. The concepts are defined by each other, like wet and dry or hot and cold. Eliminate one side of each pair and you have eliminated the pair.Either you are not a true dualist, or you are not a true Christian.But I have good news. Your habit of thinking in extreme dichotomies has led you to oversimplify the range of your choices. You are not really stuck with a choice between pantheism on the one hand and dualism on the other, with atheism looming as the potential crasher of your party. Other possibilities exist.Consider panentheism.Panentheism enjoys a long and respected tradition in both Judaism and Christianity. Isaac Luria, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart... good company.A few places to explore:Page not found – The Wild Things of God
http://websyte.com/alan/pan.htm
Panentheism - Wikipedia__

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

No charge. Just don't bow to me. Panentheism, as you can see from the material I shared, bears a key resemblance to trinitarianism and the Anselmic doctrine of satisfaction. Like those great ideas, it elucidates texts and beliefs intrinsic to Christian beliefs at the outset. Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant.One could say mainstream Christianity is panentheistic--just as one says it is monotheistic.As there are probably more panentheists in the world than pantheists, it would be good if you could address this subject a bit. What did you think of the internet material I showed you?Just so everyone knows:

pantheism = 'All Things are God'
panentheism = 'All Things are in God'

___Edited by Archer Opterix, : title.Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

The passage you quote is itself panentheistic.Maybe you should find out what the idea is before trying to bash it.Right now you're faking it so badly that I suspect this is your first experience of the idea. You clearly haven't read yet any of the material I showed you. Your tone is peevish and resentful, and you are using Scripture cut-and-pastes to hide from the discussion rather than further it.It might be time to take a break. Get some air. Brew some tea. Doubletalk like Scottnessian Dualism? With its bookend gods, Good and Evil, duking it out every day to see who will get the top job once the dust clears?No, I guess he didn't.But then, Jesus never argued with a Psalm, either.____

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

No, the lack of sound logic proves invalidity. The conclusion is not based on reason.An irrational conclusion may still be true. Its likelihood has just not been demonstrated rationally.__

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Rob Scottness stated of his position: 'Truthful' is an interesting word to choose. It's not really the same as saying the proposition is true, is it?I once encountered a mental patient who avoided going to the bathroom because a purple rhinoceras living in the toilet might resent the intrusion.Perhaps I should mention that he was the only person who could see this purple rhinoceras.His belief was honest. The care he took not to offend the rhinoceras was exercised at great inconvenience to himself. The exasperation he showed when others failed to discern the rhinoceras was genuine.And the patient was very, very consistent. Everyone who encountered him learned about the purple rhinoceras. Every conversation in which he took part turned, sooner more often than later, to the subject of the purple rhinoceras. And the details were remarkably the same, day after day.His proposition that a purple rhinoceras lived in his toilet was honestly and consistently stated. By Rob's criteria the idea is 'plainly truthful.'But what does that mean? About the patient. About the rhinoceras.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair.Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I offered the links mainly to get Rob started. The Wiki article on panentheism is spectacularly unrefined so far. It's not the kind of treatment you can find for related ideas. It seemed to assist the purpose of introduction, though. A book that offers an effective exploration of the subject is Breakthrough, the anthology of sermons by Meister Eckart translated and annotated by Matthew Fox.I agree with you that Rob's views are panentheistic. It would improve his truth-in-advertising quotient to learn what the word means and reflect on his own ideas accordingly. He's beating himelf to a pulp in his effort to be a dualist. But he seems to think that is the only alternative he has to the pantheism he finds unconvincing.I notice the panentheistic idea affecting two subjects in Christian theology: (1) the relationhip of good to evil, and (2) the relationship of the creator to creation. I was speaking with Rob about the former. You have introduced, as the articles do, the latter.Good and EvilIn its view of the relationship of good to evil Christianity has always been panentheistic to some degree. Traditionally it does say that evil is not a true opposite of good, but an inferior, smaller, less real thing; it gets trounced in the end. In the last analysis 'good' does not refer to good apples and 'evil' to bad apples; rather, 'good' refers to the whole barrel and 'evil' to some apples in it that have gone bad. The rotten apples get thrown out, but the apple barrel remains.Christians of all stripes and throughout history espouse this general view. This is true even if they talk about good and evil in a dualistic way when the focus of the discussion gets tighter. This is certainly true of Rob.Creator and CreationWhen it comes to the relationship of the Creator to created things I notice Christian views showing a much wider range. It appears one can be a panentheist on the subject of good and evil and be nothing of the sort when it comes to material creation.Traditionally Judaism and Christianity insist on clear distinctions between creator and creation in the effort to avoid 'worshiping created things rather than the creator.' You take care to make this distinciton as well. Early medieval theologians--following Paul's 'flesh and spirit' dichotomies--went so far as to equate 'material' with moral evil and 'spiritual' with moral good.In time this association presented problems. Scholatics had to explain how a good God creates such a repugnant universe. And does not the Bible itself show that spirits can be 'unclean' and God's material creations 'good'?The growing philosophical distinction between substances and morals began to have its effect. By late medieval times Eckhart suggests created things are 'meltings' or 'outflowings' from God in which God, being infinite, loses nothing in the outpouring. All created things thus contain some drop of divinity--even those created beings that deny it. Eckhart's picture is remarkably similar to the image presented by Jewish kabbalist Isaac Luria about the 'shards of God' trapped inside every created thing, and the need for good people to 'repair the universe' by bringing those shards into the light.Panentheism, in this realm of creation, refers to the idea that God is not synonymous with his creation (cf pantheism), but that all material things, as emanations from God, carry something of the divine gold inside the dross.Et tu, Aslan?It's interesting to note that C S Lewis was a panentheist both ways.Lewis held that evil was instrinsically less real than, and inferior to, good (Screwtape Letters, Abolition of Man). Meanwhile, his picture of Nature 'redeemed' and being made 'more herself', and of Reason being a bit the supernatural poking through the surface of the physical world (Miracles), clearly show the influence of Eckhart.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair.Edited by Archer Opterix, : added subheadings.Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I said:

quote:

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An irrational conclusion may still be true. Its likelihood has just not been demonstrated rationally.

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Rob says: Not a joke at all. An acknowledgment of reality.Let's say it is a joke, though. Is it funny?You answer yes. Your friend answers no.We now have two propositions:

The joke is funny.
The joke is not funny.

One statement represents the negation of the other. Both cannot logically be true.An observer says 'Jokes can be funny to some people and not funny to others.'But you recognize that as relativism. You and your friend are not relatives.Now you and your friend have a debate. What logical argument will you present to prove beyond all doubt that the joke is absolutely, intrinsically, manifestly 100% hilarious?After hours of debate in which all your syllogisms have been sound, your terms defined and your conclusions unrefuted, will your friend chuckle?___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I said:

quote:

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An irrational conclusion may still be true. Its likelihood has just not been demonstrated rationally.

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Rob says: Let me see if I can illustrate this again in a more straightforward way. I know you don't like a lot of adulerated sophistry.You're standing on a busy street corner. The Don't Walk sign is lit. You start to cross.A stranger grabs your arm. 'That's a bad idea!' he shouts.'Why?' you ask.'Because,' he says, 'a purple rhinoceras that lives in my toilet back at the mental hospital told me Dakota Fanning is the reincarnation of President Chester Arthur. Arthur was a Libra. That's a sign! It means you will die if you cross the street right now!''That's total nonsense,' you say.You step into the street--and are flattened at once by a speeding Peterbilt.The moral of the story:

quote:

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An irrational conclusion may still be true. Its likelihood has just not been demonstrated rationally.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Amazing, isn't it? That a mental patient could be so irrational? He'd seen enough, apparently.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Well, since you asked. Not if he's hilarious. Not if the soundest counsel he can offer is a foaming-at-the-mouth rant followed by a melodramatic bout of self-pity. They'll just laugh. No, those people will only be humoring him so he will stay calm and not hurt himself. Not as long as he's shooting himself in the foot. They will just watch in amazement, laugh, and hunt up a few bandages.__

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

This is at least the third time in a week Rob Scottness has misattributed a post.If someone regularly fails to process basic information about texts right in front of his face, what basis do we have for confidence in his claims to be able to assess texts from ancient times?___Edited by Archer Opterix, : revision.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Oh, Rob, Rob, Rob. You poor, tired, huddled mass.Let's talk. Speaking accurately about anything starts with taking care about categories.You are not 'Christianity.'And it impresses nobody when you romanticize yourself as the embodiment of an entire religion and all its martyrs combined, then congratulate yourself in the next breath on your humility.Humility starts by owning your own ideas. Others decide the worth of those ideas. That includes everyone, corporeal and incorporeal, within earshot.That's how these things work. It works that way regardless of the approach you take. No one gets to write their own myth.You may as well proceed on a reality basis. Why not just state your case as clearly as you can, and then sit back and do some listening?___Edited by Archer Opterix, : title.Edited by Archer Opterix, : brevity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Rob,I explained to you the difference between the words 'rational/irrational' and 'true/false.' A difference does exist. That's why logicians speak of the validity of their conclusions rather than automatically ascribing truth or falsehood to them.You seem to think this is some sort of personal creed of mine. It is not. I was just sharing basic Logic 101, day 1, lecture material.None of which has to do with 'blind faith' and 'seeing faith.' Those are sermon clichés.But that is the standard Rob defense mechanism: whenever new information proves bewildering, start preaching.__Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : brevity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

It will also make you proud to know that I'm not aware of preaching spherical Hindu trigonometry.___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

In reference to logicians, Rob wrote: You plainly do.Logic was a subject you introduced.You have raised the subject more often than anyone else on this thread. A logician is exactly what you have professed to be.To be sure, you provided scant evidence to support the claim. On the whole Rob talks about logic, others use it.Whenever that happens, Rob gets anxious that he is losing the contest he declared. Standard defense: start a new contest.A few hours ago you announced pride in your 'logical Christian reasoning.' Now you announce pride in your ineptitude at reasoning because it shows you are 'a fool for Christ.' You changed the game of Who Wants to be Rational? into Who Wants to be Crazy? in a single post.Like magic.___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.