Holy Sugar for Healing History

Holy Sugar for Healing History (love, wisdom, savvy, and an interfaith Higher Power) in Gandhi´s and J-Y Cousteau´s Wi-Fi Co-op Juice Bar &&&&&&&&&&&&

Human Beings Need Spiritual-Religious Orientation. Sci Rationalism is an Attempted Subtitute, and Not Sufficient

Utkarsh Srivastav Mark Rego Monteiro "So, if you can´t even distinguish Creationist literalists enough to recognize archeological legitimacy, that´s my focus." Except I am recognising archaeological legitimacy. What I am rejecting is supernatural embellishments. Your focus is a smokescreen for sneaking in the supernatural. "The "supernatural embellishments" then raises other issues, which you lump without acknowledging the power and importance of spiritual-religious experiences, which is often easier to begin grasping from anthropological insights." Again, I am doing no such thing. I never said a word about this topic. We can definitely say that there is a psychological impact of such beliefs and practices. We can discuss the psychological perspective of such beliefs and w can also discuss the anthropological perspective. None of them however leads us to the conclusion that the supernatural is real. "Your view is focused on the scientific, and neglects the archeological, as I pointed out, not to men tion the transpersonal-spiritual. " As if archaeological isn't scientific lol. I never denied the fact that there have been floods in human history. You seem unable to stick to a point. There is archaeological evidence of a local flood. There is no archeological evidence that the flood was global and resulted in death of all life. That is the only point I made. There is also no archeological evidence of anything spiritual or supernatural. "Noah´s covenant with God, Hebrew or pre-Hebrew, is a powerful testimony to chronology and continuity." This is a religious person talking, not an anthropologist. What god? How are you defining the god? Is it a testimony now? After we have agreed that it is not a factual representation of events but an exaggerated one? "Human beings need spiritual-religious orientation. scientific rationalism is a divergence and attempted substitute, but not sufficient." Do we really need that? What are you basing this conclusion on? Reply 5h Utkarsh Srivastav Derek Pignataro "But what about us, who aren't anthropologists?… See more Reply 5h Mark Rego Monteiro Ut Sri "'Human beings need spiritual-religious orientation. scientific rationalism is a divergence and attempted substitute, but not sufficient.' Do we really need that? What are you basing this conclusion on?" Indeed, excellent question. That final point is central. Even without addressing the full specifics of the powerful First Cause-Kalam Cosmological argument, you are demonstrating a major fallacy that is simply a knowledge domain fallacy, ie an epistemological fallacy, with phenomena, real world epistemics, in question. Assuming "science´s" ie natural philosophy´s, methodological naturalism, is a crass fallacy, rampant as it is and typical of ideologues in modern times. As widespread as sci-tech is, the attempt to DENY or INVALIDATE other phenomena and knowledge domains is a crass and badly misinformed, fallacy nonetheless. "Science´s´" popularity and widespread use does have interesting implications, in CORRECTING some kinds of errors, in religious doctrines, folk superstitions, etc. However, in changing the nature of reality and truth, "science" is only helping its own central discipline, PHILOSOPHy in full integrity of what that means, MULTIDISCIPLINARY PHILOSOPHICAL TRUtH(s) , not "science and naturalism is the best and only, and final word on truth." "Science" is a term that actually has degraded natural philosophy to a technicians´ task of filling in blanks in preformed equations, and mistaking "scientific theory" as all powerful technicians´ idea-making. As if it weren´t a revival of science as natural form of philosophical human logical reasoning in a full spectrum of philosophical disciplines. However, "science" as a label and technophile orientation never ended its philosophical nature, it just obscured it and mystified it. Developing new concepts like Dark Matter and Energy was like what Einstein classically demonstrated in his "theoretical" work, ie natural philosophical work. Einstein also showed nascent superficial insights by commenting on epistemology, acknowledging Jesus´ empirical quality, and showering admiration on Gandhi, "Who would believe....?!" A powerful introduction to the issue in the cauldron and midst of Descartes´ "mind-body split" legacy is G Vico´s observation from that time of "verum factum (we make the truth)." One part stated more precisely emerged in response to A Comte´s logical positivism, that "science" "describes, predicts, and controls." Social philosopher Max Weber et al finally responded adequately with antipositivism/interpretivism in the 1920s. That is, Human symbolic behavior requires understanding. That much you seem prepared to acknowledge. However, it has further implications. In brief reveiw, Philosophy´s role is primary, and the fallacy of overgeneralizing methodological naturalism beyond science. Human behavior requires a new level of complexity, including symbol use. The supernatural isn´t the only issue. When you say "Is it a testimony now? After we have agreed that it is not a factual representation of events but an exaggerated one?" you mistake Fundamentalists´ literalist plus kind of confusion for what I have taken pains to identify as a scholar, "science" as philosophical and limited, and the empirical reality of multiple disciplines, including transpersonal psy and spiritual-religious phenomena like the transcendental supernatural. Moses´ experiences including the Exodus are a clearer example, with impressive physical events combining with Moses´ spiritual-rel. visions. Returning to the modern angle and focus, in Jesus´ legacy to be clear, we can recognize human minds and personalities are actual multidisciplinary entities using symbols, and not merely "cognitive", nor even "ratio-emotive." And what of minds and the transpersonal/transcendental ie supernatural? The Catholic church has studied miracle healing claims with medical exams since the 1800s, at least. William James cited Christian Science and its descendent approaches for their healing testimonies, followed by BO Flowers´ even more detailed book. Modern media has made some records, with the category "medically attested, medically impossible healings with spiritual-religious testimony." All rich in material. Centrally, however, even without responding to your desire for specific responses, is the need to engage the appropriate knowledge domains, ie epistemological ones, including the philosophy of metaphysics. Methodological naturalism doesn´t define all of "love", nor the history of modern "Science" and certainly not the spiritual-religious phenomena that shamanism itself further anchors. You think tribal shamanism, eg Black Elk´s famous testimony, justifies ideological naturalism? Hardly. And that means it justifies spiritual-religious phenomena, and all that I´m beginning to refer to. You can say you´re not ready to get into those details, but you at least are faced with the limits in the kind of reasoning you´re trying to do in negating the supernatural, or call it the transcendental, or physicist David Bohm´s explicate reality. Denying and invalidating that category of empirical phenomena, philosophical disciplinary study for knowledge, and reality is a fallacy. Not just Black Elk, but Rasputin´s famous life in Czarist Russia after 1906, no less, like Catholic medical miracle exams, William James and BO Flowers´ Christian Science-type studies, OC Simonton MD´s Healing Journey account, and C Keener´s 2011 Miracles book are some significant references, among not a few others. This testimony of Marlene Klepees´ healing from cerebral palsy was recorded at the famous Mayo Clinic, with the testimony itself then a separate psychosocial empirical account. Medical protocol uses methodological naturalism, while psychosocial records are separate in themselves. The actual spiritual-religious phenomena would then require at least a Transpersonal Psychological, and comparative religious and metaphysical, disciplinary analysis to get beyond even conventional psychosocial empirical naturalism. Not just "science," nor just psychology, with classical philosophy, educational pstchology, and Systems Theory (physics) acknowledging diverse knowledge domains and epistemologies. And I want to acknowledge you as one of the most well-spoken and scholarly-minded people I have encountered so far, although acknowledging the full implications of multidisciplinary philosophical issues is a crucial dividing line itself. Utkarsh Srivastav

"The grounding of morality is evolution" And You know, or think that how?

Br Lem · 20h · The grounding of morality is evolution. The way we tend to talk about morality is fundamentally wrong. This is not unique to either believers nor non-believers; this problem is pervasive in philosophical discussions of morality. There is an understandable intent toward abstraction in the discussion. To perhaps misuse the term, to make a foundation of morality necessarily 'transcendent' (objective) or determine that it doesn't exist at all (subjective). But as useful as methodological abstraction can be in many domains, including within the domain of morality, the grounding of morality cannot be disconnected from experience, indeed, from biology. We tend to speak of 'right' and 'wrong' as if they could even in principle be considered a different sort of Platonic ideal in the same way that numbers are 'real' in that they're not dependent on minds to 'exist' (in some sense). The entire domain of moral thought is grounded in the recognition that we tend to feel good when we do good and bad when we do bad. At it's heart, it's an observational investigation, not merely a conceptual one. As language and community was developing, we'd have noticed this pattern, and at some point tried to figure out _why_. The answer, of course, is that we evolved as a social species to tend toward a behavioral dynamic balance between selfish and altruistic behaviors toward our group. Organisms that tended too much toward selfish behavior would have either abandoned their social structures, or been abandoned by their group. Organisms that tended too much toward altruistic behaviors would not likely have survived or reproduced sufficiently to pass along those genetic tendencies. The 'grounding' of morality isn't transcendent or abstract. Neither is it non-existent. It's in evolution itself. Morality is the mechanism that the 'organism' of the community uses to continue and propagate itself. No external arbiter is required, nor even possible. Morality is a survival trait of a societal organism. MRM @ Br Lem Ah, Gandhi. And William James. Like evolutionary biology and Darwin, and AR Wallace, Gandhi emerged as an original individual with psycho-social and cultural spiritual-religious tools, including his law education and contact with interfaith theosophy. Involving enriched elements that don´t ignore Jesus except in neglect. Darwin asked, "What does Christ have to do with science, except maybe evidence?" Darwin had no clue that his own character concerned with being reasonably kind, as with his church project with wife Emma and kindness to AR Wallace and the like, opposition to slavery, distinction from credit-stealing dinosaur anatomist Rich Owens´, were all high integrity Christian behaviors, like Quaker founder G Fox 200 years earlier. D also suffered physically from his intense rational scholarship. He didn´t know about, much less seek spiritual healing with J Blumhart in Switzerland or Germany, for example. He liked hydrotherapy, but didn´t get his hydrotherapist´s insights into psychology. Darwin´s biological insights were part of his specialization, but he was not a spiritual genius, like Gandhi and William James later, or Quaker founder G Fox earlier. (see below) Same here in the OP. What does the OP´s reductionist view say? What an evolutionary phenomenon! Well, that´s not irrelevant or without true info and data, but it is woefully insufficient, and in attempting to negate and deny other key elements and aspects, ideological and fallacious. Just a "societal organisms." There are none. Guess what that is? That´s an abstraction, a metaphor, a use of a concrete image word-symbol "organism" mixed with a human-psycho-social referent word-symbol "society," in which the concept of the word-symbol "biological evolution" has been developed as part of human historical and psycho-socio-cultural development. Uh oh. Take Piaget´s move from natural history and philosophy to pioneering child development work in psychology. First of all, "The 'grounding' of morality isn't transcendent or abstract. Neither is it non-existent. It's in evolution itself." As if that were a sufficiently informed view. It´s not. Do ants tugging at a leaf or big piece of sweet fruit, or big, dead cockroach, get analyzed merely evolutionarily? Hardly. One wants to tug it, then another. Individual action with biomechanics and neuronal firing, with social action perception neurons on the backburner. Evaluating how to sink in mandibles, and how to tug, in rela tion to fellow colony ants. Then the social action neurons kick in, and the fruit or cockroach starts heading to the colony in concerted actions. "I tug thus," or "I push thus" in a joint effort of ants using mandibles, etc. Evolutionary biology is part of, but not sufficient for an adequate analysis. Even in evolutionary biology, the basic principle used involves recognizing and classifying causes, Ultimate and Proximal. When you try to rule out the "transcendent or abstract", you´ve projected, since your very analysis is abstract conceptual biology, a bit transcendent in its own way, reflecting in fact other transcendent realities, aka systems, of phenomena and knowledge. Only, instead of interrelating knowledge of different levels of mechanics and human psycho social processes, you´ve fumbled the ball, after calling the ball not the elephant in the room, but "pigskin evolution," to use and mix two other kinds of human psychosocial metaphors. For s tarters, humans make American footballs in a very real psychosocial context, and "elephants in the room" has its own complexity. I got my own college degree in Bio Anthro, and began my own focus on the evolution of speech and symbol use, and on to religious ritual, "genes, brain, and behavior," and microsociology. So, as "Morality is the mechanism that the 'organism' of the community uses to continue and propagate itself. No external arbiter is required, nor even possible." Yeah, let´s get some ant physiologists in here, please. And for scholars of human behavior, a nice team including anthropologists, like a guy with a degree, me. jFirstly, morality is a human behavioral capacity, and "mechanism" is not a sufficient metaphor when ignoring interacting bio (not just evo.), psycho-social and cultural knowledge. In fact, concrete empirical references shatter ideological smoke, mirrors, and mirages. Take ancient Rome. Conquering ancient Greek Corinth in one case, and Carthage in another both in the 140s BC/E, and later Sulla sieging Athens in the 80s BC/E, the Roman generals committed much slaughter and enslavement. Interesting nuances emerge in empirical study of the details, but Sulla´s case alone is illuminating. He was besieging Athens when his own friends were arriving from Rome, where a rival general was causing violence. In Rome. Nice politicking. Sulla´s friends included some cultured folks. The Athenians were proud folks, an interesting correlate to their historical culture including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They had annoyed Sulla in their pride as they refused to submit, and Sulla was ready to act normally and massacre and enslave. His friends, however, included some who really valued Athens´ cultural status, so that they begged Sulla to spare the city and its people. Gen Sulla altered his plans a bit in response to his friends, in that case. Thank Zeus? Or Jupiter? Not really. Although Plato´s account of Socrates´ origins as a philosopher gives an account in which the Oracle of Delphi incredibly sparked Socrates. An incredible account, correlated with other, many modern, related spiritual-religious cases, suggesting transcendental intervention. And then came Jesus, and a fascinating and complex history that led to Christian post-monastic Universities, as the fruits of Christianized modern philosophy inspired new inquiries to create religious integrity, as in Luther´s inspired Reformation, and tolerance, as with Hugo Grotius, John Locke, and T Jefferson et al. That spirit of integrity and tolerance wasn´t primarily Greek, where slavery was never questioned. The end of legal slavery in Western Europe was spurred by a spiritual-religious experience based knowledge and practice community emerging in George Fox´s leading the co-founding of the Quaker-Friends. Their high integrity spiritual community in a hundred years had individuals organizing and protesting slavery in Parliament. Quaker organizing blazed centrally along with more isolated efforts to inspire University activity. One scholar-professor held an essay contest that spurred T Clarkson, who researched, wrote, and won. He became the central driving force, while W Wilberforce in Parliament had higher status and became better known. In the US, William Lloyd Garrison may be known, John Brown, and Abe Lincoln most of all, but Garrison was in association with Quakers, and so on. Just as knowledge of weapons proceeded from arrows and broadswords to cutlasses, rifles, and cannons by the Civil War, knowledge of spiritual-religious knowledge has developed through the social sciences and humanities, including shamanism and the Kalam cosmological argument. That is how philosophical scholarship uses mul ti-disciplinary empiricism and more to determine truth, not overspecialized appeals to one scientific discipline and ideological materialism.

Is the Mind Just Environmental?

Craig Volpe The mind being something independent from the physical environment made sense a long time ago, but no longer. With the advent of neuroscience and all the ways experiments manipulating the brain consistently show the mind is a product of and dependent on the physical brain, all the evidence points to the mind is of the environment. Reply 2d Mark Rego Monteiro Craig Volpe Certainly, the human mind´s relatedness to the environment has been developed with various forms of scholarship with empiricism, all philosophical in nature, to correct a bias inherent in the technophile term "science." Neuroscience has made some interesting observations, as has behavioral psychology, and most recently, eco-psychology. Yet, so has transpersonal psychology. And even ecology. Is Lovelock´s "Gaia hypothesis" merely invalidated because it´s not legitimate in scientific terms? Hardly. In fact, Buddhist and Christian uses converge in Comp Religious Studies with eco-psychology etc to provide for an argument and factual concept that people overexposed to "science" extremism in materialist ideology fail to overcome profiteering businesspeople´s propaganda and influences. No named entity? Out of sight, out of mind, in fact. Thus, for example, modern environmentalism emerged as biologist and writer-artist Rachel Carson developed along with things like some Audobon Soc. support, Audobon has done some amazing good, but Carson´s efforts raising red alerts seem more connected to how Sierra Club developed and supplied the founders of Friends of the Earth and co-founders of Greenpeace, as WWF also converged as activists. The issue thus engages with how truth gets perceived and people act more in Jesus´ spirit of "do good (even if it means breaking unjust rules)." Matt 12. With so much overexposure to mere physicalist "science," people can even become opposed to science´s own limits, nature as philosophy, and merely one kind of empiricism. Thus, Sierra Club´s roots in John Muir´s founding them is helpful, since he was an eco-spiritual post-Presbyterian. Emerson met and called Muir a prophet. Unscientific? Empirical. Emerson himself was prophetic, and perhaps slightly more scholarly. He had left Unitarianism, and as an independent studying Hinduism, proposed God as an Oversoul. Emerson also admired the Quaker-Friends. They had been founded not by any scholar, but were lead in being co-founded by Brit George Fox, with minimal formal ed there north of London by 1650. For a lowlevel ed guy, Fox brilliantly simplified worship, and identified key values in meditative worship on the Inner LIght of Christ, respecting individuals and their experiences, women, and protesting injustices. His insights reflect the application of self-awareness, a central spiritual faculty. It is a key factor in extending "Mind over Matter," that reflects more Piaget´s observing agency in child development, and even Freud´s self-analysis for therapeutic psychs in his own school, with what must be many similar apps in diverging schools. Freud´s "id, ego, and superego" were what he formulated not with a microscope, but a notepad after listening to his patients. The human mind and how it, we, humans experience reality beyond merely material sensations. Our symbolic norms, values, and concepts. Black Elk told J Neimann about his vision of sacred hoops and a holy flowering tree, Mother and Father for all beings to be united. We are more familiar in secularism with abstract concepts. Those are non-material. "Sustainability." Its physical referents have been left at more concrete levels of knowledge. The human mind. While "science" tries to objectify, Black Elk had his vision showing relationship of metaphysical issues and referents. A sacred hoop linked to a tree, etc.? And John Muir, who wrote about God while looking at nature, but not equating them. Emerson, drawing on Hinduism as an interfaith, independent Christian-based scholar. Historical, sociological, psychological, all coming into play. And George Fox more directly or explicitly still, uncovered by secular culture´s airbrushing features. Back all the way to Jesus who id´d as the Son, with Peter, Paul, et al. And now able to inspire study of Hinduism, Buddhism, shamanism, and more. James Frederick Ferrier was a philosopher who innovated the term "epistemology." He also developed an argument that human conceptual self-perception as mind is not original, but requires a template. As Thomas Aquinas revised Aristotle´s esoteric First Cause, empiricizing it, then came discussion of God´s Divine Mind, and JFF´s argument. And then we have such spiritual-religious phenomena, ie metaphysical, as medically attested, medically impossible healing with spiritual religious healing. As in OC Simonton MD´s work, L Mehl-Madrona MD´s work, C Crandall MD´s, and L Dossey´s writing about some of many Catholic account´s. So, the non-physical mind begins to become comprehensible as appropriate information is considered.

Modernizing Christian Concepts, like Honor, for Progressives. It´s Multi-disciplinary, eg with Historical Sociology

(Based on a post reflecting on an interview with a Chinese woman...) Thanks to the author for another interesting interview, and opportunity to reflect on an interesting topic around the Bible and Jesus. At this progressive site, we honor progressive deconstruction of doctrines, which Jeff actually acknowledges briefly in their widespread succumbing to secular and other forms of materialism. On that issue, I noticed a while back a few things, first as I considered my spiritual identity and the possibility of becoming a Christian. I was an interfaith spiritual seeker, and perceived that Jesus taught love. Was love in any exclusionary, justify such common attitudes as "No other spiritual-religious teacher and figure matters except Jesus!"? In fact, the NT is rather sparse on many issues, and requires a lot of interpretation. In that case, it was clear to me already that love involves learning, and love thy neighbor as thyself, until thy enemy" places Jesus in a powerful interactive position. Clearly many Christians have difficulty integrating things that way, since integrating issues requires literacy in human behavior to understand processes and "open doors and windows," not just walls and labels for them. Thus, the interpretation that "love" is exclusionary is based on a historical context. Many people might find it easy to recall that the Roman Empire had conflicts between Imperial pagans and pagans in general on one side, and Christians who refused imperial worship on the other. Most people may not really have been oriented to how uniquely the Western Roman Christian church was when the Western Roman Empire collapsed as the last Emperor was replaced by a tribal commander who merely became the King of Italy. The Western Roman church was already being separated from the Eastern Constantinople church in an amazing process of contrasts. For Rome, it meant a new kind of society was being built. from a Western Christian church network with monasteries. The invading tribes were wreaking some havoc as they conquered areas. Christian missionaries were sent out with success, incredible as it seems to put it clearly: the invaders were converted by the conquered to the religion of the conquered. Aryanism lived on, despite central Western church doctrines. By the time of the Frankish king Charlemagne, his granddad Charles Martel had stopped the invading Moors in 732 AD. Charlemagne then dealt with longstanding conflicts with the pagan Saxons, and then the Aryan Lombards. Charlemagne´s reestablishment of a unified Europe for Rome didn´t revive the old Roman Empire, and it was only nostalgia prominent in the name "The Holy Roman Empire." That refers then to the church´s capital, not the political capital, in Aix-le-Chapelle (Aachen) of Charlemagne, at first. That detail began to shift in time. It was a new society, to reemphasize, in which first invaders´ tribal religions had been converted by missionaries. Later battles followed. Not Roman paganism, but tribal paganism had become most recently transformed by post-imperial Roman Christianity. Islam had higher levels of civil strife than Christian areas, and by 1150, Christians had developed monastic schools into early modern Universities, and in a hundred years, the monk Thom Aquinas accomplished the Great Synthesis, Christianizing and empiricizing Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy. The power unleashed by modern philosophical education and scholarship with empiricism led to merchants, soldiers, and politicians leading global European colonialism for "God, gold, and glory," along with the educated monk Luther´s inspired 95 Theses and the Protestant Reformation. The Enlightenment followed Descartes and Hugo Grotius et al to naturalist explanations, and to secularization to avoid denominational and general religious conflicts. Naturalist methods in and secularization of education went with colonial powers spreading it and its availability to developing peoples. That accompanied the US´s constitutional democracy and Civil Rights, Gandhi´s education and experience, and FD Roosevelt´s vision and legacy of the UN and human rights proposed to the world after WWII, and negotiated. Gandhi´s education as a lawyer channeled into his spiritual education sparked by meeting interfaith theosophists. His experience in South Africa then forged his spiritual practice and activism as a foundation for the movement he led in India. Historiography is a basic method of tracking the details of history. Sociology and psychology involve identifying processes at work as individuals operate in society, including the use and abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Transpersonal psychology as a subdiscipline represents an advance in recognizing orientations of individuals beyond themselves, as in social action and spiritual-religious activity. Piaget´s pioneering and legacy in developmental psychology help conceive how individuals are not ready-made or predestined in their development nowadays. That also applies to historical development. By watching history, we can see how modern University-based society developed as people learned things in Jesus´ legacy. We aren´t alive 2000 years ago, and naturalist and secularist methods have neglected modernizing spiritual-religious knowledge. That all goes far in extending how the author´s recognition of "honor" represents a value beyond the popular one of "freedom." In progressive Christianity, people begin the process of honoring Jesus´ commandments for God to love by grasping its modernized meaning, and well called "spiritualized" and no longer anachronistic. Thanks to the author for another interesting interview, and opportunity to reflect on an interesting topic around the Bible and Jesus. At this progressive site, we honor progressive deconstruction of doctrines, which Jeff actually acknowledges briefly in their widespread succumbing to secular and other forms of materialism. On that issue, I noticed a while back a few things, first as I considered my spiritual identity and the possibility of becoming a Christian. I was an interfaith spiritual seeker, and perceived that Jesus taught love. Was love in any exclusionary, justify such common attitudes as "No other spiritual-religious teacher and figure matters except Jesus!"? In fact, the NT is rather sparse on many issues, and requires a lot of interpretation. In that case, it was clear to me already that love involves learning, and love thy neighbor as thyself, until thy enemy" places Jesus in a powerful interactive position. Clearly many Christians have difficulty integrating things that way, since integrating issues requires literacy in human behavior to understand processes and "open doors and windows," not just walls and labels for them. Thus, the interpretation that "love" is exclusionary is based on a historical context. Many people might find it easy to recall that the Roman Empire had conflicts between Imperial pagans and pagans in general on one side, and Christians who refused imperial worship on the other. Most people may not really have been oriented to how uniquely the Western Roman Christian church was when the Western Roman Empire collapsed as the last Emperor was replaced by a tribal commander who merely became the King of Italy. The Western Roman church was already being separated from the Eastern Constantinople church in an amazing process of contrasts. For Rome, it meant a new kind of society was being built. from a Western Christian church network with monasteries. The invading tribes were wreaking some havoc as they conquered areas. Christian missionaries were sent out with success, incredible as it seems to put it clearly: the invaders were converted by the conquered to the religion of the conquered. Aryanism lived on, despite central Western church doctrines. By the time of the Frankish king Charlemagne, his granddad Charles Martel had stopped the invading Moors in 732 AD. Charlemagne then dealt with longstanding conflicts with the pagan Saxons, and then the Aryan Lombards. Charlemagne´s reestablishment of a unified Europe for Rome didn´t revive the old Roman Empire, and it was only nostalgia prominent in the name "The Holy Roman Empire." That refers then to the church´s capital, not the political capital, in Aix-le-Chapelle (Aachen) of Charlemagne, at first. That detail began to shift in time. It was a new society, to reemphasize, in which first invaders´ tribal religions had been converted by missionaries. Later battles followed. Not Roman paganism, but tribal paganism had become most recently transformed by post-imperial Roman Christianity. Islam had higher levels of civil strife than Christian areas, and by 1150, Christians had developed monastic schools into early modern Universities, and in a hundred years, the monk Thom Aquinas accomplished the Great Synthesis, Christianizing and empiricizing Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy. The power unleashed by modern philosophical education and scholarship with empiricism led to merchants, soldiers, and politicians leading global European colonialism for "God, gold, and glory," along with the educated monk Luther´s inspired 95 Theses and the Protestant Reformation. The Enlightenment followed Descartes and Hugo Grotius et al to naturalist explanations, and to secularization to avoid denominational and general religious conflicts. Naturalist methods in and secularization of education went with colonial powers spreading it and its availability to developing peoples. That accompanied the US´s constitutional democracy and Civil Rights, Gandhi´s education and experience, and FD Roosevelt´s vision and legacy of the UN and human rights proposed to the world after WWII, and negotiated. Gandhi´s education as a lawyer channeled into his spiritual education sparked by meeting interfaith theosophists. His experience in South Africa then forged his spiritual practice and activism as a foundation for the movement he led in India. Historiography is a basic method of tracking the details of history. Sociology and psychology involve identifying processes at work as individuals operate in society, including the use and abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Transpersonal psychology as a subdiscipline represents an advance in recognizing orientations of individuals beyond themselves, as in social action and spiritual-religious activity. Piaget´s pioneering and legacy in developmental psychology help conceive how individuals are not ready-made or predestined in their development nowadays. That also applies to historical development. By watching history, we can see how modern University-based society developed as people learned things in Jesus´ legacy. We aren´t alive 2000 years ago, and naturalist and secularist methods have neglected modernizing spiritual-religious knowledge. That all goes far in extending how the author´s recognition of "honor" represents a value beyond the popular one of "freedom." In progressive Christianity, people begin the process of honoring Jesus´ commandments for God to love by grasping its modernized meaning, and well called "spiritualized" and no longer anachronistic.

"Christianity" Needs To Be Differentiated To Grasp Holy Sacredness in History

Da Ca Christianity from its inception has laid particular emphasis upon it being a recounting of historical facts, thereby constructing a binary perception in which all other religions must be incorrect at best or Satanic deception at worst. Outright, Christianity denies the quality of truth in the vast history of human sacredness. Ma So Daniel Calvert Since it’s inception, no. Post council of Nicaea definitely. There was a vast group of early Christian sects that took the metaphorical approach, but they were killed or burned off as heretics. Da Ca Mark Souza the synoptic gospels in particular, written in the first century, do present this emphasis, and remained highly regarded pre & post Nicaea. Paul wrote in the 40 - 60 timeframe and holds no conflict with them. M S Daniel Calvert that assumes the synoptic gospels were meant to be taken literally. And it’s not clear to me at the moment if the author of Paul’s letters would have read the gospels. Mark Rego Monteiro Ma So That´s already anachronistic. Jesus´ amazing life and mission was itself an attempt first with the Jews, and showing his generosity to help non-Jews, and teaching God´s mercy and the need to "go and learn" that. Then came Peter and Paul´s wrestling with the shift to the Gentiles, including Peter´s vision. Anachronistic views of "intolerance" ignore the struggles for basic identity in conflict with imperial paganism and its holdovers. From Greek philosophy to the fall of the West to Gregory´s pro-syncretic ideas, basic threads of applying "love" with broader understanding were cooking. Mark Rego Monteiro Da Ca Good point in acknowledging the topic of "the history of human sacredness"! However, way too overgeneralized, since right wing evangelical and Catholic conservatives are the intolerant centers in Christianity, while progressive Christianity is very tolerant and aligned with US Civil Rights and UN human rights, even if all the layers aren´t yet widely grasped in combination. It becomes a question of adequate empiricism or literacy. In starting to make an intelligent observation, you succumb to a lack of adequate empirical distinctions. Empirical detail keeps a person grounded in the very real struggles of history among people that helps evaporate anachronistic anti-supremacist judgmentalism. The Roman Empire´s Christianity had been in friction against pagans, not angels. The fall of the West in 476 AD wasn´t a joy ride, but it showed how an unprecedented shift occurred. The invading tribes were converted by the surviving church. By 732, Islam was using the sword viciously until Charles Martel´s savvy preparedness spared Christian Church Europe, such as it was. His grandson was Charlemagne, who faced conflicts, centrally with the pagan Saxons and the Arian Lombards. Getting beyond "binary", and even more getting to religious freedom and interfaith awareness and orientation has required specific educational and cultural advances, as in the alternative frameworks of Max Mueller´s Comparative Religious scholarship by the first Gifford Lecture, the 1893 Chicago World Parliament organized by Bonney and Barrows, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, and more. Those specific educational and cultural advances alone have involved a kind of complexity that has obscured the meaning of "Christianity" and deprived it of its driving loving integrity in Jesus´ legacy. The monk T Aquinas made a fundamental advance with his empirical arguments for God as First Cause. "Science" has been renamed from natural philosophy, and the social sciences and humanities from moral philosophy and human laws. Advances empowered European colonialism based on merchant, soldier, and political ambitions, not usually respected in balance of hindsight, but ultimately misjudged as "inhuman." The law of the jungle was carrying the kill-switch of Jesus´ integrity, which imbues the good side of colonialism in how it spread Universities, and led to Wm Jones´ Asia Society around 1790. That´s where Luther´s Reformation, anthropology, etc could all begin to develop, with Gandhi and FD Roosevelt´s Social Gospel influenced leadership after the 1929 Stock Market Crash to overcoming resistance to war preparations to envisioning the UN and human rights. Not primarily Christianity now, for all its progressive churches, but academia and profiteering business are locked in power struggles for control. Profiteers have spread economic materialism on top of scientific and secular materialism. Academia has followed that trend, while anthropologists and psychosocial studies scholars value various human rights elements. Jung´s psychology before Campbell´s own, has also been accompanied by Mircae Eliade´s thoughts on comparative religious experience, with comparative scholars H Smith and N Smart too little valued still. Later M Harner´s split from academia with his transpersonal shamanic practice legacy. Christian churches have been shaken by profiteering businesspeople in the post-WWII Cold War, in which Marx´s work was wielded for totalitarianism that profiteers exploited by aligning and amplifying militarist anti-communism. Progressive Christianity has had difficulty identifying beyond doctrinal truths because of the larger issues going on. Their position for interfaith positions can be empowered by recognizing the original spiritual Christianity in University-based scholarship. In all the steps, now progressive Christians can align with Christianity´s Jesus-legacy secret sauce of University education like anthropology and Comp Rel Stud to help coordinate a structured pluralism. "Human sacredness" has had its evil eyes and so on that have accompanied universal violence and enslavement practices. Jesus´ legacy has created a standard in UN human rights, along with its red alerts in sustainability. Ma So Author Mark Rego Monteiro I’ve seen some very good scholarly takes on both the historical vs mythical Christ, but that’s neither here nor there, that why I was assuming to operate from a historical Jesus so we didn’t get side tracked. When I use the word “metaphor” i use it as a synonym for allegory or parable which is definitely biblical language. So bearing that in mind, it can’t be anachronistic when we know this style of literacy was already being used back then. John Dominic Crossan makes the scholarly case for this in “The Power of Parable” if you need a credible source. Reply 16h Mark Rego Monteiro Ma So Well, the issue of metaphor has a few applications, as in the parables of Jesus. However, the referent to spiritual-religious phenomena still becomes a question. Crossan is a materialist. When it comes to truth claims, the issue of spiritual-religious reality isn´t something you can just brush aside. By citing Crossan, you seem to be trying to justify your position that "shuffles its feet," maybe acknowledging Jesus as historical, but then citing the materialist Crossan. You are using the term "metaphor" in general, while this discussion began with your response to DC´s assertion of Christianity "denying the sacred truth outside." My point of your anachronism involves your assumptions about the Gospel being literal or not, and then using doubts about Paul´s status. Your own position of the reality of the Christian figures is basic to your failure to identify the issues of Christians going from indigenous Jewish to relating to exogenous individuals and groups. Crossan´s kind of position is based on various kinds of assumptions. I have my own credentials, and have seen the serious neglect amongst progressives in identifying spiritual-religious reality, as if such a view is limited to current conservative evangelical exclusionism. Thus, my position is approximated by linking C Keener´s excellent 2011 work on Miracles as real and OC Simonton MD´s own patient´s testimony, ie spiritual-religious phenomena, and linking it to work like J Hannam´s History of Science and Religion. Meanwhile, most progressives do acknowledge the psychological benefits of prayer and meditation. "Metaphor" is the overuse, and misuse, of the concept that tries to cater to materialism instead of using empiricism appropriately and overcoming the metaphysical naturalism of academia and progressive culture more generally. US Civil Rights developed by T Jefferson et al up to UN human rights by FDR et al isn´t a modern "metaphorical" development, as a case in point. Neither is Gandhi, Rev MLK, et al. They can be directly linked through the University-based system to the transformative power of God´s love through Jesus and his legacy through historical sociology and psychosocial studies. Transpersonal psychology and C Keener´s work then break the issues of ideological materialist assumptions. Campbell was wrong, in fact, in his own confusing the problem of Biblical literalism with the reality of spiritual religious phenomena and Jesus´ loving integrity for God. Clearly, it´s a widespread issue, with progressive secular materialism linked to other forms. My reference to OC Simonton MD shows how I have used psychosomatic medical resources as a helpful approach in defining spiritual-religious phenomena. That is a modern way to justify Jesus´ Resurrection, and begin to differentiate the meaning of his words then from their development. The Enlightenment then isn´t seen as diverging from Jesus´ legacy of integrity, just from church doctrines. Jefferson, for example, was anti-clerical, but trying to sustain his Christianity as a Deist rationalist. Mark Rego Monteiro D BC I got my degree in Bio Anthro, and studying Dawkins book a bit. I can appreciate the approaches you are looking at. My work, only as an undergrad, focused on the evolution of speech and symbol use, up through religious ritual and microsociology. I identified empirical work by an anthropologist ED Chapple that built on Pavlov (ie and Watson, Jones, and Skinner)´s behavioral neurophysiology of conditioning. That also needs linking to Piaget´s developmental work, and raises the issues of cognitive-object tool use and relational-emotional-social symbol use. Thus, the evolution of "inclusive fitness" ie cooperating with relatives, has been extended beyond mere crude biological levels of local perception. That is where identifying the non-rational issues of spiritual-religious shamanic and post-shamanic experience, phenomena, and knowledge identfies their non-materialist character. Thus, the distinction of Jesus´ life, mission, message, and legacy community is full of specific events and processes of developmental significance. They underlie "biological science" itself, as part of University-based philosophical scholarship with empiricism. Jefferson etal´s Civil Rights, FDR et al´s UN human rights, and Gandhi´s satagraha thus are not limited to mere evolutionary analysis, but require psychosocial and cultural interpretation as I have started providing here. Weinstein is not clear about how his use of the term "metaphor" requires its own deconstruction and interrelation all the way to transpersonal psychology and more. You mentioned Freud, no less, and rightly. However, Freud´s early work had not yet gotten bogged in Oedipal metaphor. Jung´s work addressed new levels of insight that allowed him to start with mere "archetypes," but extend that to broader implications with his Higher Self as Jesus Christ the Imago Dei. Stan Jaki´s work on Science in Jesus´ legacy, among others, also then comes into play. In fact, while Jefferson, FDR, and Gandhi all defy mere biological indulgence, Jefferson´s more rationalist mindset is a key issue. The relevance of empirical spiritual-religious phenomena can then be emphasized by noting George Fox´s experience in founding the Quaker Friends, Sganyadiyo/Handsome Lake healing himself and others of alcoholism in Jefferson´s day, up to Rasputin´s miraculous insertion in the Czar´s circles as a monk from modest origins because he could alleviate the Prince´s genetic hemophilia condition. William James´ use of "mind-cure" testimonies in his classic book Varieties of Religious Experience is also worth noting. Empirical spiritual-religious phenomena.

The Puddle In the Whole Designed Just for It

Josh Martin I’ve chewed on this concept a lot since atheists have challenged me with it. I think it’s a considerable point but we’ve found a way to escape that puddle to look around for other puddles and still haven’t found anything capable of life like earth. Thus far we are completely unique despite discoveries far beyond our puddle. Reply 1h Jvan Lozada Josh Martin Just a little bit of research and you will find how essential are these little muddy puddles in human development a lot of people just look at them as useless but they are not just essential for your kids to play, it’s shaped their lives too, boost immune system and etc… it’s just a dumb ignorant analogy Reply 1hEdited Josh Martin Jvan Lozada I think the analogy merit’s consideration but usually when it’s used against me in regards to creation the point tends to be that of course the earth would have life because it’s suited to maintain life. But thus far (thus far the important wording) we’ve not discovered another planet like ours. There’s been the possibility of microbes, but nothing expansive and intricate like earth. People find it silly for me to say a creator specifically crafted our world when there’s so much beyond our planet. Yet we’ve not discovered intelligent life on anything else. Reply 32mEdited Josh Martin Mark Rego Monteiro Josh Martin Interesting reflections. I see it from a slightly different angle, since I´ve seen the need to address the rather willful amnesia and misguided technophile tunnelvision of "science," and ideological scientific materialism. As the analogy itself proceeds by personifying a puddle, "personification" itself isn´t merely a ´primitive behavior. It´s primarily relational instead of object-cognitive. I then take the scholarly approach of deconstructing this kind of conversation to its actual philosophical nature. Personifying the puddle here is a science advocate trying to ridicule personfication by portraying it as actually nothing more than physicality, ignoring even the very meaning of a metaphor or analogy as psychological and mental. Because, "science" is a technophile popularized term for scientific natural philosophy, the actual human activity, ie human psycho-social, cultural and mental activity. Minds at work, reflecting our meta-animal symbol using capacity that is the interface in our spiritual-religious experiences, phenomena, and knowledge. As you note our actual uniqueness, scientific materialists entrance people with multiverse as an imaginative and imaginary rationalist substitute for spiritual-religious practice and knowledge. By acknowledging our human minds at work, we can appreciate that astrophysical knowledge is a human activity, and that it requires reflecting on our condition here, as in FD Roosevelt´s Social Gospel vision and legacy of the UN proposed and negotiated with the world. Gandhi, at the same time, presented a powerful image of personal spiritual, theist living. Einstein did as well, admiring Gandhi lavishly, acknowledging Jesus´ quality in the Bible NT, and himself representing a precious personality despite his own talk of Spinoza´s "impersonal God." Rationalistically speaking as he was. Thus, from the angle of human mind and personality, we can identify the standard of philosophy in the works of "science" itself and the anchor in psychosocial reality. The issue raised by more than one philosopher, from Bishop Berkeley and made pointedly by James Fred Ferrier notes that the human mind relates to mental phenomena, and that a metaphysical First Cause-Mind is a strong argument.