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Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:39 am
by Interbane
Lol Penny!

Thomas: "The winter solstice or the moment of birth are hardly human constructs."

Just like two lilies aren't human constructs. But we use the abstraction of that "instance" of two and do wonders with it.

If a traffic camera took a picture that just so happened to have six cars perfectly aligned and all the same color in each of a street's six lanes, that would be a beautiful coincidence. We could name that instance "vehicular ground zero", and take an abstraction of that event and use it as a point of demarcation for much 'meaning-deriving' and prophetic predicting.

It is easy to ridicule that scenario, but not so much so with orbiting celestial bodies, since they have an elegance and grace we can barely describe, and are of a magnitude removed from our everyday reality so appear to be perhaps instilled with divinity. It is a poetic desire in a sense to make use of such points of demarcation. We must consider coincidental arrangements of separate entities, with the birth of a human most certainly isn't.

I have to go to work, I'll reply to you later today or tomorrow Robert.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:46 am
by Thomas Hood
Interbane wrote:If a traffic camera took a picture that just so happened to have six cars perfectly aligned and all the same color in each of a street's six lanes, that would be a beautiful coincidence. We could name that instance "vehicular ground zero", and take an abstraction of that event and use it as a point of demarcation for much 'meaning-deriving' and prophetic predicting.
So instead of believing that God is love you believe that God is coincidence? Coincidence is the principle that underlying everything? Life is a slotmachine in which configurations emerged for no reason at all. The slotmachine, though, is programmed.

Tom

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:04 pm
by Interbane
Thomas: "So instead of believing that God is love you believe that God is coincidence?"

No, I believe God doesn't exist, and that coincidence is coincidence.

Thomas: "Coincidence is the principle that underlying everything?"

No, it's merely a word we use to help us understand reality.

Thomas: "Life is a slotmachine in which configurations emerged for no reason at all."

Configurations emerge, humans apply or derive the reason.

Thomas: "The slotmachine, though, is programmed."

I place a lot of stock in mechanistic worldviews, yes.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:41 pm
by Penelope
Please ignore my tag hereafter...I'm gonna change it tomorrow!!!

I like discussing co-incidence.

Coincidence is something that takes you up short and makes you think and doubt.

It makes you think that we might not be amid absolute chaos.

It is patently not wishful thinking.....

Very recently....there have been the most heartstopping coincidences happening....small things......books being there....on the desk....when people come to the serving counter (not the desk)...to ask for them, by name and author. I am not making patterns,Interbane.....the patterns are there.....

Granted...in small and insignificant occurences....but definitely there....Am I attracting them?

I wouldn't lie to you, I promise.

I would really like to discuss this issue, of coincidence....I would really like to compare our experiences....of synchronicity.

Because, it is, honestly happening....and it may or may not be important....but it would be interesting to compare notes.

It might be irrelevant anyway...I might be completely bonkers....in which case....I will pretend to be an adult.

Pen
x

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:55 pm
by Interbane
Penelope: "I am not making patterns,Interbane.....the patterns are there...."

Well, you're speaking here of a coincidence, and I trust you when you say there are strange coincidences happening to you. There is a bit of psychology in how these coincidences are emphasized as well. They are so memorable, so much more so than the millions of non-coincidental events that happen all day every day.

We should start another thread about coincidence.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:03 pm
by Interbane
RT: "I reject supernatural explanations as incompatible with science, and yet feel there is a power within the archetypal myth that must come from somewhere greater than the human imagination alone."

I feel this too at times. My recognition of it is different than yours however, though it has survived from my transition as a believer to an atheist. I believe it only ‘feels’ to come from somewhere greater than our mental construction, but that feeling is false, it follows from a desire to believe. This area of introspection is rife with the pitfalls of self deception.

RT: "If imagination is grounded in a cosmic harmony, it has a purchase that a free floating fantasy would lack."

A scientific based fantasy would be more appealing, I agree.

RT: "The system I am suggesting is different from the arbitrary location of the Greenwich meridian. I am suggesting that the correspondence between major Christian symbols derives from a cosmic intuition that the shift from BC to AD actually is a turning point of time in some objective sense."

So some characteristic of the spacetime continuum has been altered at what we consider 0 AD? Show me cause and effect and evidence, that is a claim of gargantuan proportions and requires a similar amount of evidence.

RT: "In the lead up to the BC-AD moment, the constellations steadily moved towards alignment with the seasons, then went through a short period of exact harmony"

Explain to me this harmony if you can.

RT: "Pisces does have the shape of a mysterious dissipation like the end of the winter, and Aries does have the shape of a breaking open of a new year."

Just like mold on the side of a house does have the shape of the virgin mary..

RT: "Yes, true, but what I am saying is that the cyclic resonance of finite temporal structures has not been adequately factored into understanding of gravity."

Orbits and rotations have definitely been factored into the understanding of gravity, and thoroughly. If what you’re proposing is that celestial cycles create a ‘resonance’ that is an unincorporated factor, then that’s a different matter.

RT: "The difference of complexity has many orders of magnitude. I am saying the Ages are the primary mid-level structure of terrestrial time – shorter than big bang cosmology or geology but longer than ordinary history, serving as an enveloping framework for history."

They aren’t a structure of time, they are a structure by which to measure time. In all the solar systems in all the galaxies of the universe, time moves forward like an emotionless glacier. Bodies moving about within our universe have an effect on the speed of time, inversely proportional to their speed through space relative to an observer. The problem here also relates to the intuition pump in which we live in a solar system with drastically different planets with completely different orbits. You respond: “Such an event would cause extinction of all life on earth, so I would not be around to do any redefining. I see it as most unlikely, and prefer to develop predictions of what will actually happen on our planet over the next few thousand years

How obvious your evasion to this question is becomes a concern. If all you have is “I don’t know”, then I’ll pout and whine, but at least I would no longer feel that you’re deceiving yourself and evading the question.

RT: "Looking at time against this dichotomy, the cesium atomic function is a representation of time, whereas the cosmic cycles are the real tragic being, proceeding regardless of our arbitrary understanding."

Not at all, actually. Both are mechanical systems operating within the parameters of time and space and are therefore not the disclosure of the being of time. The real tragic being of time will incorporate the universe as a whole, and all of time in either ‘direction’, not just during the lifespan of our solar system.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:07 pm
by Penelope
Interbane:

Thank you. I know.....lots of non-synchronicity.....but, when it does happen, it is inclined to take one's breath away.

Probably, it is something like Morphic Resonance......

I don't, honestly, think in terms of 'supernatural'... more, that what we call 'supernatural' might be just something wonderful and 'natural' that we aren't considering.

Which I think might be what our Robert is investigating.

And remember, much more difficult for a young scientist in Australia, than for a silly old woman in England.....who doesn't give a toss what anybody (except those she calls friends) thinks anyway. :kiss:

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:19 pm
by Robert Tulip
Frank 013 wrote:(March 8 ) you seem to miss the “levels of the heavens” idea present in Paul’s writings, all of the above can still have happened up there, just like the cross. In fact Doherty did comment on those very passages…
Christ's self-sacrificing death was located "in times eternal," or "before the beginning of time" (pro chronon aionion). This is the second key phrase in 2 Timothy 1:9 and elsewhere. What is presently being revealed is something that had already taken place outside the normal realm of time and space. This could be envisioned as either in the primordial time of myth, or, as current Platonic philosophy would have put it, in the higher eternal world of ideas, of which this earthly world, with its ever-changing matter and evolving time, is only a transient, imperfect copy (more on this later). The benefits of Christ's redemptive act lay in the present, through God's revelation of it in the new missionary movement, but the act itself had taken place in a higher world of divine realities, in a timeless order, not on earth or in history. It had all happened in the sphere of God, it was all part of his "mystery." The blood sacrifice, even seeming biographical details like Romans 1:3-4, belong in this dimension. http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/parttwo.htm Also, because in order for Christ Jesus to be the prophesized messiah he had to be in David’s line, even Paul knew that from the Torah, so it is no surprise that he would have added it… even if just in the spiritual realm.

Hi Frank, thanks for these comments. I read this point you cite, and found it at the weak end of Doherty’s argument. The Letter to Timothy is not by Paul, and in any case the line Doherty quotes does not say what he says it says. Rather, 2 Tim 1:9 says “God... has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” The Letter to Timothy is just saying the gift of grace from God comes through the divine eternal Christ, not that “Christ's self-sacrificing death was located in times eternal”. Christianity argues this grace was fully manifest in the man Jesus, which Doherty disputes, but his twisting of the Bible to say Christ died before the beginning of time is wrong. The whole point of Christology is that Jesus Christ has two natures, the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth and the divine nature of the eternal Christ, united in the second person of the Trinity. Doherty has got carried away with his theory of the metaphysical Christ, and ignores those points which directly contradict it, notably Romans 1:3, where ‘descended from David according to the flesh’ is most definitely not ‘just in the spiritual realm’. For Paul the cross is material, even while the event is primarily spiritual.
I think where Doherty is confused is that he makes too much of the fact that Paul saw the metaphysical ransom through the blood sacrifice as the real achievement of Christ, with any ethical teachings secondary. Hence Paul instituted a framework suitable for popular belief - ‘Christ died for our sins’ - which deliberately ignored the complexity in the message in favour of a lowest common denominator of belief. My interest is to replace this belief framework with a knowledge framework, and I recognise in doing this that Doherty may well be correct in his claim that Jesus did not exist, as the “fictional invention theory by Mark” looks hard to refute.
RT: “Reading Doherty, I get the impression there may have been a complete disjunct between Paul and the Apostolic community of Jesus. Paul was such a powerful and lucid writer that people assumed he was connected to the Jesus movement, but as Doherty points out, Paul's ideas seem to come from his own imagination rather than any tradition. So any discrepancy between the Epistles and the Gospels can be explained away by Paul's complete ignorance of and indifference to the historical story.
This is complete speculation with absolutely zero bases in evidence.
You are reading too much in to what I said here. Doherty uses Paul’s apparent ignorance of the Gospel story as evidence that the Gospels are false. My point is that the splintering of various ‘inspired’ groups soon after the time of Christ is not evidence that all of those groups were fantasists. Doherty makes his critique of Paul carry too much weight of argument. He can’t validly infer general ignorance from Paul’s ignorance of Jesus.
I also happen to see a pattern forming here… you will entertain any possibility (no matter how remote) in order to keep your precious Jesus alive… I think you might be doing the same thing with your Astro-Christianity proposition making leaps based more on your desire than on any concrete connection.
Good one Frank. Yes the thread is slender, and it is rather like the image in Paradise Lost where our universe is connected to heaven by a thin chain and to hell by a wide road. I am presenting my vision as a possible explanation of the eternal cosmic Christ through physical astronomical cycles. How far this actually equates to historical events of the Gospel age is secondary. When I said my commitment to the Gospel mythic narrative is more emotional than rational, I meant that I accept the evidence is weak, but the Easter Passion story and the parables have such archetypal power and beauty that I prefer to act as though they are true. It may well be that Mark made up the Gospel story in a sort of ‘Lord of the Rings’ fantasy epic of his day, but there is more to it than groundless fantasy. Mark is saying, ‘if the eternal Christ walked and talked on this earth, what would he have been like?’ The fantastic elements in the story of Jesus do not diminish the ethical meaning in Mark’s basic question of how we can conceptualise the eternal Christ through the imagery of incarnation.
Don’t get me wrong your version is infinitively superior to the claims of current Christianity, but I still do not see you making the distinction between what is provable and the way you want it to be. For example you need the time of the Christian movement to have been inspired by someone or something special or your Astro-Christianity proposition loses substance.
Yes, but if ‘the way I want it to be’ is possible and plausible, I will explore that until it is proven to be implausible. What I am claiming is special is that the idea of the cosmic Christ within the Bible has a hidden astronomical ground. Just last night at a Bible study group I came across another passage which underlines this agenda. In Mark 8:19-21 Jesus said “When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" "Twelve," they replied. "And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" They answered, "Seven." He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"
Interpreting this cryptic passage against my cosmic claim that the loaves are the sign of Virgo and the fishes are the sign of Pisces, marking the new Pisces-Virgo precessional age, the twelve baskets correlate to the twelve signs and the seven baskets to the seven visible planets. The blindness of those around him is a blindness to the cosmic story.
The facts of the matter seem to bother you because there really was nothing special about those times, or the many people and cultures that contributed to the core beliefs in the biblical text.
Just the fact that those times established our calendar and our dominant world cultural institutions justifies exploration of a possibility of something special. If that exploration coheres with an empirical cosmic observation then it is worth exploring further.
The ideas presented in the biblical texts were not original or fresh even then, the many people involved in the early Christian writings were (In all likelihood) very normal and not super geniuses, the stories formed over hundreds of years and were (most likely) compiled from many separate areas and people, funneled down to what exists today, this makes a central story and teacher named Jesus nearly impossible and nothing special...
Even if Mark is ordinary on the scale of Tolkien, the sense that the mythic narrative is grounded in a cosmic reality makes it something special
New evidence may shed more light on the subject and we all should be willing to accept it as it comes, we should not solidify ostentatious beliefs based on what little we actually know. Later
Fully agreed Frank, and I appreciate your reality check.
RT

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:25 pm
by Interbane
Penny: "I don't, honestly, think in terms of 'supernatural'... more, that what we call 'supernatural' might be just something wonderful and 'natural' that we aren't considering.

Which I think might be what our Robert is investigating
."

It may very well be. I'll keep an open mind until the fog of misunderstanding is dispelled. There are many things right now that don't fit.

Penny: "Thank you. I know.....lots of non-synchronicity.....but, when it does happen, it is inclined to take one's breath away."

Ahh, but that's the magic of bias! What better an example to use than one you'll never forget; a coincidence remains most memorable despite the many thousands of times there was no coincidence at all. I'm done with The Big Con and will start on MC tonight.

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:49 pm
by Frank 013
RT
I read this point you cite, and found it at the weak end of Doherty’s argument. The Letter to Timothy is not by Paul, and in any case the line Doherty quotes does not say what he says it says. Rather, 2 Tim 1:9 says “God... has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” The Letter to Timothy is just saying the gift of grace from God comes through the divine eternal Christ, not that “Christ's self-sacrificing death was located in times eternal”.
This still sounds a lot like a spiritual Jesus to me… and if you think like an ancient or even just an atheist and not like a person indoctrinated with modern Christianity you might see it too.
RT
My point is that the splintering of various ‘inspired’ groups soon after the time of Christ is not evidence that all of those groups were fantasists. Doherty makes his critique of Paul carry too much weight of argument. He can’t validly infer general ignorance from Paul’s ignorance of Jesus.
That is fine but it offers no evidence to the idea that you provided either.

You say…
RT
Paul was such a powerful and lucid writer that people assumed he was connected to the Jesus movement, but as Doherty points out, Paul's ideas seem to come from his own imagination rather than any tradition. So any discrepancy between the Epistles and the Gospels can be explained away by Paul's complete ignorance of and indifference to the historical story.
This is still pure speculation with no basis in evidence… it is simply a hole left open by the most current theories. It is true that it cannot be disproven but that does not mean that it is true or even likely.

Later