[davidk]

minsocal, on Feb 27 2009, 02:11 PM, said:

The idea of a 'soul' has two meanings. The old meaning is that of something literally implanted by God into 'life' in synchronic real-time (proximate cause), or as a principle of creation itself, meant to evolve over time (ultimate and diachronic).

Yeah, ok- So, are you saying our choices are: that man's soul literally happened by chance; or was literally endowed by God. Or that it didn't literally happen or literally come from God?

This post has been edited by davidk: 28 February 2009 - 02:36 PM

[minsocal]

davidk, on Feb 28 2009, 11:35 AM, said:

Yeah, ok- So, are you saying our choices are: that man's soul literally happened by chance; or was literally endowed by God. Or that it didn't literally happen or literally come from God?

Others here have claimed that you do not listen very well. I will make another claim. I do not think you intend to listen. I think you know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. The problem is not epistemology (belief), the problem is desire. Your responses are very predictable. You simply take what was has long been a progressive stance and twist it into what you want it to look like. It is done on many message boards in exactly this fashion.

Progressives do not have to explain one darn thing to you. Not one. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

[minsocal]

Epistemology is not rationality. I will leave it at that.

[davidk]

minsocal, on Mar 1 2009, 06:28 PM, said:

Epistemology is not rationality. I will leave it at that.

Both sides need to be better listeners. Not wanting to explain what progressives believe runs counter to the stated purpose of the entire board.

Apparently there is some confusion about what a question does. It asks. It doesn't claim or attempt to twist anything one way or another. If the question is not clear or you think it may be making false assumptions, illuminate them so the more appropriate question can be asked.

When you had said, "Not to be taken literally, the "soul" that Paul talks about is our innate nature." and then said, "The old meaning is that of something literally implanted by God... , or as a principle of creation itself,..." ; you had left me somewhat confused whether to understand the soul as literal or not.

If ones knowing that he knows cannot be considered being rational, why should any knowledge not be considered irrational? Doesn't that seem as any knowledge of the existence of our desires would be no exception?

[minsocal]

davidk, on Mar 3 2009, 09:47 AM, said:

Both sides need to be better listeners. Not wanting to explain what progressives believe runs counter to the stated purpose of the entire board.

Apparently there is some confusion about what a question does. It asks. It doesn't claim or attempt to twist anything one way or another. If the question is not clear or you think it may be making false assumptions, illuminate them so the more appropriate question can be asked.

When you had said, "Not to be taken literally, the "soul" that Paul talks about is our innate nature." and then said, "The old meaning is that of something literally implanted by God... , or as a principle of creation itself,..." ; you had left me somewhat confused whether to understand the soul as literal or not.

If ones knowing that he knows cannot be considered being rational, why should any knowledge not be considered irrational? Doesn't that seem as any knowledge of the existence of our desires would be no exception?

The real issues here are really quite simple. If "ensoulment" occurs at conception, as some believe, you have certain ethical considerations that are at the core of the debate over abortion, etc. That would be a synchronic event, and not the process of evolution, which is a diachronic process. Paul had no understanding of evolution, nor did Plato. If both were alive today it would be interesting to see how both would respond to modern science and the simple facts of biology and physics.

This brings me to a most important point about Progressive Christianity. Where some believe that evolution preaches an anti-God stance, this is just nonsense. Progressive Christians maintain a belief in God within the context of the facts of evolution and physics. When I speak of a soul, I simply mean those positive aspects of the "God within" that have evolved over billions of "years" as set forth by God. I have previously stated, over and over, that "time" means nothing to an Eternal God. A "day" is one revolution of the planet Earth. Time is a human concept and not a God concept. If a "day" were a God concept, it would have some meaning before the planet Earth was even created, and the period of revolution for all other planets in the universe would be irrelevant.

The upshot of all this is that we humans have been far too arrogant in our assumptions about our relationship to the cosmos and to God. We tend to think that God only loved "us" into existence, when it is really the case that God loved the cosmos into existence. The facts are that we can now observe that cosmos still being created. Through the Hubble telescope and other instruments we see the magnificence of creation still happening. This does not disturb Progressive Christians. On the contrary, it can be the source of immense awe and gratitude.

[JosephM]

davidk, on Mar 3 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

(snip)
If ones knowing that he knows cannot be considered being rational, why should any knowledge not be considered irrational? Doesn't that seem as any knowledge of the existence of our desires would be no exception?

It can be 'considered' rational or irrational for that matter but as minsolcal said "epistemology is not rationality" The words have their own meaning and are not equal to each other as your taking exception to that statement seems to suppose.

Love Joseph

[davidk]

minsocal,
If one says their study of the method and grounds of knowledge is not amenable to reason, then one has no epistemology.
---
Evolution is strictly a naturalist theory, a scientific philosophy that rejects the possibility of supernatural phenomena, and is ony the impersonal- time plus chance; an undirected process. Many people don't have that viewpoint, but it doesn't change the theory.
---
It doesn't appear anywhere that Paul nor Plato would have any objection to scientific study.

Time does not exist by man but for man by God. The fact that it exists is scientific observation; it can be measured. Time existed before the earth was. The earth is merely a reference point for us to learn to measure from.

It seems you are saying no man has an individual soul. That it is only a part of the collective soul of God. If we are only a part of a whole and are not considered as individuals in spirit as well as in body, why are we here? Why would any of us have any meaning?

[minsocal]

Progressive epistemology is exactly what the name implies. It makes its appeal to progress, change, evolution, development and renewal. Something called growth.

[minsocal]

I remain a monotheist. No devil. No hell. No fall. No 'orignial sin'. All human bluff, nothing more.

[minsocal]

The human investment in arrogance, now THAT would be original sin!

This post has been edited by minsocal: 14 March 2009 - 07:24 PM

[davidk]

minsocal, on Mar 14 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

Progressive epistemology is exactly what the name implies. It makes its appeal to progress, change, evolution, development and renewal. Something called growth.

That appears to be an effort toward rationality.

minsocal said:

The human investment in arrogance, now THAT would be original sin!

BINGO!
By George, I think he's got it!
Man, powerless to rehabilitate himself from his own arrogance (autonomy, sin), is rescued only by God. This gives the Grace of God a rationally sufficient meaning. We know this because we learn it from the only place God's truth has been propositionally revealed to us, the Bible.

[minsocal]

davidk, on Mar 15 2009, 10:21 AM, said:

That appears to be an effort toward rationality.

BINGO!
By George, I think he's got it!
Man, powerless to rehabilitate himself from his own arrogance (autonomy, sin), is rescued only by God. This gives the Grace of God a rationally sufficient meaning. We know this because we learn it from the only place God's truth has been propositionally revealed to us, the Bible.

[davidk]

minsocal, on Mar 15 2009, 03:16 PM, said:

What makes it original is that there was a time before man's sin and then there is the first space-time event when man turned away from the infinite, personal God by choice, and in so doing, there was a moral discontinuity; man became something he was not, and the dilemma of man became a true moral problem rather than a metaphysical one. Man at a certain place in history, changed himself, in discontinuity from what what he was, and we have a true moral situation: morals suddenly exist. Everything hangs on the fact that man is abnormal now, in contrast to what he originally was. Man turned from trusting and obeying God to investing in himself, unduly exalting his own worth in his willful turn from God to himself.

The non-Christian philospher says that man is normal now. Martin Heidegger, perhaps the greatest of the modern non-Christian philosophers, did see that the position that man is normal leads to a dead end.