Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 8

"As a dog returneth to his vomit..." Why plans for making people happier/the world better - inevitably go nowhere

 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. 

Proverbs 26:11. 

Every day our speech and writing, our conversations and media; the world of academia, medicine, officialdom, news and education... are such all replete with analysis, reforms and strategies for making the world "a better place", or making some class of people happier, or less miserable - or whatever...

Oh so many "good intentions" from so many directions, and unrelenting. 

Yet it all adds-up to a Great-Big Nothing-Burger...    

Indeed, things overall keep getting worse, the decline being actively fuelled by the endless affected-attempts at betterment.

Why? 

Because our fundamental understanding of the world is false. 

In other words: 

When our basic understanding of the nature of life and the universe is qualitatively-wrong; then no amount of quantitative activity will make a dent in things.

When deep understanding is wrong; then our sense of the purpose and meaning of life will be wrong, feeble... or (mostly) absent. 

Socio-psychological therapy and reform constitutes no more than patterns of evanescent ripples that sweep and swirl across the surface of an oceanic swell. 

When our basic understanding of oceanic reality is that the universe is purposeless, meaningless, and (mostly) dead - then this underpinning assumption is the vomit to which the dog shall inevitably return; again, and again, and again. 

When Men have become such fools as to pretend that they can have purposeful and meaningful mortal lives without anything to underpin this in fundamental and ultimate reality; such folly will always  undercut all and any superficial efforts at betterment.

   

The outrageous imposture of Christian Churches as gatekeepers of Heaven

Looked at retrospectively; it seems extraordinary that all the major Christian churches went down the path of claiming to be the gatekeepers of Heaven: of claiming that the eternal salvation of every individual Man depended on the say-so of a church on earth. 

It is not really difficult to understand this in terms of sociological advantage; in terms of how a church - which is a mortal, material, human institution - can enable itself to grow, survive and expand. 
It is clearly an advantage in this-world, if an organization can persuade enough people that it is essential for resurrected life in the world-to-come. 
This applies even when the fundamental basis of the Christian religion is one of the primacy of each individual person's spiritual relationship with the ascended Jesus Christ. 

While there are insufficient historical records concerning the mainstream Christian churches, the trajectory can be seen for the Mormon church (CJCLDS). 
Mormonism was built around assertion of the primacy of personal revelation (a direct spiritual relationship between each person and the divine), and a conviction that salvation to a kind-of Heavenly state was the default outcome for all but the most depraved persons. 
But the church rapidly developed a gatekeeping role analogous to (although not identical with) the mainstream Christian churches; in that access to the highest levels of eternal Heavenly exaltation after death; were asserted to depend upon church membership and the performance of particular rituals on this mortal earth. 

I suppose that something similar applied to the mainstream churches. For example, the individual and non-church family-like Christianity described in the Fourth Gospel ("John"), lost out to the organizational church by which salvation was institutionally mediated. To be "a Christian" soon became a matter of formal membership of (and submission to) a defined institution, and participation in official and prescribed procedures.  

Such gate-keeping claims as churches make, elide the distinction between earth and Heaven. Of course anyone can claim anything, and we need to ask why such claims were accepted. 
I think the ability of churches to make this elision probably rests on a capacity to provide - albeit briefly and partially, but with some degree of sureness and reliability - experiences of Heaven while still on earth.
It has been the progressive decline, since Medieval times, of Western churches ability to provide to the mass of people such "religious experiences" (e.g. by means of their earthly symbolism, ritual, scriptures, and spiritual training); that has perhaps done more than anything to erode belief in the necessity of any particular church to salvation. 

And when a person "sees through" the false claims of any Christian church to gate-keep Heaven; this involves a recognition that the church is constructed upon a lie. 

At this point, most people seem to give-up on both church and Christianity, together and altogether. 
But the proper conclusion is to separate church from Christianity. 
And then to choose Christianity, while recognizing that any particular church is secondary - maybe helpful to our salvation, but maybe (and more often!) not helpful...  

But responsibility for our salvation after death is always primarily our own; and a matter of our spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. 
My (or your) decision to be or not to be a Christian, and to choose to follow Jesus to eternal salvation, should not be mediated.
And cannot be blocked, by any earthly church...
Unless you choose to make it so. 

Mega fake page views on blogs, coming from Vietnam, Brazil, Singapore, and Hong Kong - what's going-on?

As William James Tychonievich notes; these four countries (but, for me, especially Vietnam) have been the sources of millions of fake "page views" on at least three Blogger blogs.

I could speculate; but does any reader have any solid insight into why these places, and what's going-on? 

Q: Do you believe in God? A: What do you mean by "God"?

If somebody asks: Do you believe in God? 

Then the true answer depends on what is meant by "God" - and there are very wide divergences indeed between understandings what is meant by "God" - even among Christians. 

The only valid answer would be some version of: First; what do you mean by God? 

So, you cannot, and indeed should not, answer the question without getting clarification of what the enquirer is assuming about (what he is calling) God.

Otherwise, by saying "yes", you are assenting to buy a Pig in a Poke. 

For example, my understanding of God, the God in whom I believe;  is one that many/most Christians, Jews, Muslims would not consider to be actual God at all - or, at best, only a selective sliver of what they believe God to be. 

To such people, because I regard the Omni-God as false (and indeed incoherent), I am a kind of pagan - whatever my attitudes to Jesus Christ, whatever my desire for salvation.  

While to me; the Omni-God believers (insofar as they are real Omni-God believers, rather than those who are merely parroting forms of words, in obedience to the authority and doctrines of their church); are all de facto monotheists...

Monotheists whatever their Trinitarian protestations; and as such they do not really regard Jesus Christ as essential to anything (not even salvation) - nor do they believe in evil or freedom.   

And I regard all Omni-God monotheists as metaphysically indistinguishable from proponents of Oneness spirituality - and therefore their many practical differences are varieties of incoherent with their metaphysics.

I mean that the Omni-God is reducible-to/ metaphysically-indistinguishable-from the "deity" of "Deists" - which is not a person, but Just Is. Such a God-Deity is The Way Things Are.  

Answering "yes" to "do you believe in God?" therefore means very little or nothing - and a "yes" is more like to mislead than enlighten. 

Of course, in the West hardly anybody believes in God of any kind - so a negative reply to "do you believe in God?" is usual, and informative.   

But before assenting to belief in God we ought to be clear what we really mean by this - what we regard as vital to our understanding of God. 

Once someone has honestly (and without veiling-abstractions that serve to disguise incoherence or incomprehension) explained what he means by "God" - he has gone a long way towards explaining how he regards ultimate reality. 

He has also, potentially, done himself a big favour - because it may be that, once he has explained what he means by God, in terms that he himself can clearly grasp - then he will discover that this God is not really what he does believe or desire: in his heart of hearts. 

Is metaphysics important to being a Christian? Here-and-now it is Vitally important

Metaphysics is discourse concerning our fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of ultimate reality. 

It was the case through much of Christian history that disagreements about what was fundamental reality didn't make much difference to being a Christian; because all the necessary assumptions are natural to children - hence were common to pretty much all of humanity. 

But things have changed. 

In our civilization (which dominates the world) the fundamental assumption underlying all of our official and public discourse is that everything-that-is, the universe, arose without purpose as a consequence of physical "laws" plus "randomness". 

Most of this universe, the ultimate particles, elements, compounds; water and rocks and gases; are not alive...

So life, consciousness, Mankind - inhabits a dead reality that has no purpose or meaning. 

We need to be clear that these modern assumptions are neither spontaneous nor natural; all have been deliberately and elaborately inculcated and are sustained via social systems - education, employment, mass media, propaganda etc.   

This is probably the main reason why Christianity - and the other religions - is almost entirely absent from the world, and especially from The West; and feeble when it does exist.

Christianity contradicts our fundamental understanding of reality.  

In other words; Christian faith tries to survive as a thin film of psychologically-asserted purpose and meaning, life and consciousness - floating on the surface of a world-pervasive metaphysical assumption of death and nothingness.

So Christianity is rootless, unmoored, adrift; and strikes the modern person as arbitrary-believing, wishful-thinking, and/or psychological mass manipulation.  

Which would be true if modern metaphysics was valid. 

As we find it, here and now; Christianity is both rare and weak.  

The implication is that - unless we focus-upon and evaluate our fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of ultimate reality, and reject them - then Christianity will be contradicted by our deepest beliefs. 

Unless we know, reject, revise our metaphysics - Christian evangelists are wasting their time because real Christianity is doomed. 

Lacking which; even when Christianity is asserted, it will be incoherent with life and society, therefore experienced as irrational and honestly-indefensible. 

Hawkbits, Hawkbits everywhere...

This is the first year I have been aware of the Hawkbit as a dominating flower on areas of grass - city and countryside alike in July and into August; taking over as the Buttercups faded.

I have always known about these flowers, but never before found-out their name - I just used to categorize them as "looking like a Dandelion - but not". Even as a kid I realized that, while the Dandelion had a hollow stem that leaked milky sap, this similar-looking flower had a solid stalk. 

Another difference is that Hawkbits don't make a spherical seed-head like the Dandelion "clock" - and that the Hawkbit is much more sensitive to the absence of direct sunlight - with the head closing-up at night or in gloom (as does the Daisy). 

Anyway, I have gained considerable pleasure from the Hawkbit this year; often it has been the only splash of colour on the grassy areas of the city. 

Not quite as glorious as the shining and reflective masses of Buttercups (perhaps my favourite wild flower), but very welcome all the same. 

Hawkbit - Remember the name! 

Progress on the "current metaphysical problem" relating to Consciousness of Beings - personal, individual, groupish?

I think the answer to my current metaphysical problem how to picture a consciousness that is group-originating and personal - but neither individual nor abstract - may lie in the individual consciousness "receiving" consciousness.

Suppose that the situation is one in which each being has a permeable consciousness; there is some level of awareness of other Beings' consciousnesses. 

So we begin as aware of other consciousness's (approximately, "other minds"), which are included in our stream of thinking without much capacity to distinguish what we are thinking from what they are thinking. 

And conversely, our minds are "leaky" and other Beings are aware of what we are thinking. 

To start with; we don't have much ability to distinguish any individuals around us; but experience something like a mass effect, of many consciousnesses. 

We experience a group-effect, rather than relationships with individuals. 

This experienced group-effect will operate rather like taking an average; because if we are aware of several or many other Beings with much the same relational-attitude to us, then this will be more powerfully experienced. 

 

This situation is approximated by a very young child; who does not much distinguish self from other consciousnesses, and is initially hardly aware of differences between others. 

With development, specific individuals emerge from the mass-affect - usually the mother at first, then father and any other family members who are concentrated on the child - who have relationships with the child. 

Presumably this continues with development; but there is always a background and implicit - perhaps unconscious - receptivity to the group consciousnesses that impinge upon us.  

In brief, therefore, our experience of direct awareness of the consciousness of other Beings is some mixture of individual consciousnesses; and a remnant of the primordial and undifferentiated awareness of the combined-effects of more than one (perhaps many) other persons. 

So direct mind-to-mind contact is always of Beings, of persons; but these are not always experienced individually - they may be (often are) experienced as groups.

What makes us have these experiences is our own consciousness, its degree of development - and the moment-by-moment variations we experience due to variable factors such as the direction of our attention, mood, health, and alertness/ sleepiness. 

So far this fells about right - but will require further thought and evaluation. 

 

How to be personal but not individual. Groupish but not abstract: My current metaphysical problem

Blogging has been light because thinking has been heavy.

 I've realized I don't have a clear understanding of intuition, inspiration, influence - that i neither individual nor abstract (because I haven't understood it, I can only express it negatively).

When a young child experiences his world, there is an animistic sense of the presence of other consciousnesses, but only a few are of known individuals. How can the unindividual but personal (...of beings) consciousness be pictured?

Not from a combination of individual consciousnesses, because the primal state is not as fully individualized. The egregore idea has it backwards, or at least is a late development of the medieval type of consciousness. But abstract explanations in terms such as fields, auras etc aren't fundamental, aren't really real...

I need a clear, simple, graspable picture, and I do not have one.

However this is a gap, an incoherence in my world view that needs fixing - if possible. So, that's what I'm trying to do.

Current metaphysical problem

Blogging has been light because thinking has been heavy.

 I've realized I don't have a clear understanding of intuition, inspiration, influence - that i neither individual nor abstract (because I haven't understood it, I can only express it negatively).

When a young child experiences his world, there is an animistic sense of the presence of other consciousnesses, but only a few are of known individuals. How can the unindividual but personal (...of beings) consciousness be pictured?

Not from a combination of individual consciousnesses, because the primal state is not as fully individualized. The egregore idea has it backwards, or at least is a late development of the medieval type of consciousness. But abstract explanations in terms such as fields, auras etc aren't fundamental, aren't really real...

I need a clear, simple, graspable picture, and I do not have one.

However this is a gap, an incoherence in my world view that needs fixing - if possible. So, that's what I'm trying to do.

We can choose what we want to be, but we cannot choose to be it Now

We can choose what we want to be, but we cannot choose to be it. 

This is a fundamental basis of what Jesus taught and made possible.

That we cannot, in this mortal life, be what we want to be is innate common sense and confirmed by observation and life experience... Yet it is often denied. Promises of ways of enabling our will for ourselves to be enacted in mortal life Now, are recurrently dangled...

What Jesus promised relates to what we can choose to become After Death. 

But people (including, for instance, the Apostle Paul) want what they want Now, and get Very frustrated when it does not happen Now. 

Countless numbers of people have been put off, driven away, from Christianity - because it failed to enable people to become what they wanted to become, or "ought" to become, during mortal life.

Having projected their misunderstanding onto Jesus, they then regard Jesus's "failure" to transform their mortal lives in the desired fashion Now, as a refutation.

This mortal life Now is highly relevant, vital, to choosing what people want After Death; and what we experience and learn in mortal life affects our eternal nature.

But the reason Jesus promised resurrected eternal life in Heaven After our death, is that this outcome is not possible in This Life Now.

Salvation is therefore about choosing what we want to be.... But if we want what Jesus offered -  i.e. resurrected everlasting Heavenly life; then salvation cannot be about achieving Now, that which we desire for eternity.

Indeed, if we desire salvation; we can choose to want it, but cannot be what we want to be without Jesus. 

Our job in mortal life is to want salvation, and then wanting-it, we will realize that we cannot have it except by Jesus. 

We have the innate capacity to Want salvation, but cannot be Be saved - without Jesus. 

Jesus was necessary that resurrected eternal life be possible; and Jesus is necessary that we personally can be saved.