On the topic of Christianity: Angels and Lucifer

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Your acceptance of IQ as some sort of total standard of a person's worth is chilling. It is a half assed statistical concept with all sorts of problems having absolutely no depth as to human values and real inconsistencies across both cultures and experiential history and specific qualities of different types of intellect. As someone who has AS this should be especially obvious. Mathematical analyses may have a certain charm but they can be as far out of rationality as any other perceptive system.

I always thought Yahweh and Lucifer were one in the same, separated for easy, distinguishable transgressioning. Depending on the research, they support and compliment each other quite nicely.

Hmm.... yeah, I do not know what you want to do with making the devils into forms though. I mean, I do not see a reason between an intelligent abstraction and an unintelligent abstraction for all practical purposes, as there is no reason to say that angels are necessarily embodied at all.

I likely spoke too generally on that, and yes - I'd agree that IQ is no substitute for people's capacity for wisdom. Still, you have many bases of whether a life is worth living; you can look at it from the achievement potential level (thought its doubtful that it can ever be truly predicted), from the level of happiness that a person can derive from the world around them as it is whether or not things can have a positive follow-through, the reason for existence itself I think still becomes rather fuzzy. I guess I'm just really trying to understand for what reason society would want to keep maybe what it would consider the lower 30 percentile, if religion is a dirty rationale to work from I'm figuring that there has to be an atheistic rationale to this.

I have spent my life with cats, dogs, seagulls, a rabbit, rats, mice,a muskrat, intellectually limited people, hedgehogs, and at present have a sparrow who brings delight to my life. IQ has little if anything to do with the pleasures of our associations. Life is full of multitudes of pleasures that have little to do with intelligence.

The train of thought I was entertaining was like this.

Observation A - Evil is a bi-product of natural law or lower instincts, almost always.
Observation B - The framework seems too predictable to really think that spirits, angels, or demons, in the realm of trying to get at someone - it seems completely unneeded.

Synthesize A + B - Likely these are different ways of regarding the same thing; angels and demons become something more of an allegory, or at least will work along some very hard and fast lines of action.

There are exceptional cases where someone does something truly exceptional in either direction but, all too often its as if their lives, their neurological wiring, they were almost custom built by life so it would seem to be either heroic or truly evil. Call it chance, providence, etc. It still seem to happen by a very natural pattern of stresses.

My tendency has been to compare the concrete world, doing my best not to detract from its concreteness or logical flow on my levels, but to see where both the supposed divine and what we can see from our observations - seem to merge. My tendency has been to think that when people who want to have faith do so in the emotional sphere and almost purely there, they're compartmentalizing it by necessity, and it would seem far more noble of a person not to do so - mainly because scientific reality should never theoretically negate truth, its an exploration of truth. My desire or need to follow that path or believe in a God - don't know, it may be subjective, largely the things I see as anecdotal proof of God's existence are the truly ridiculous things that I'll see in society at large where its difficult to imagine millions upon millions of people who can hold good jobs, even make great accomplishments, and would have the same broken mental cogs to where a child could point out what they all can't seem to see (and I'm not talking about religious values, more finite things but things that still blow my mind on how they could happen so congruently and how stupidity/delusion on many levels triumphs over truth with chorus and unanimity).

I'm not sure if that answered your question but that's about the best stab I can take at it for the moment.

Right, and I mentioned that it was probably poor communication on my part to bring up IQ as a cut and dry thing - it was more example/allegory than my core philosophy on this. So, IQ aside, what's the upshot of human existence? The cats, dogs, seagulls, rabbits, rats, mice, and quaint people account for a fraction of the sum of what reality really is, what the stresses are, what we want as a race from the world, what we can't have regardless of the diligence we're willing to put in. The cats, dogs, seagulls, and rabbits also have a way of reminding us - when we watch their lives or how various animals treat each other - that they're pleasurable to us because they're looking at something way up the food chain and almost are forced into submission by knowing that they're still alive in your presence only by your good graces; watching a nature show, for me at least, can be a pretty dark and depressing way to send an hour just because it brings to mind that this world is an incorrigible hole by the very design and mechanisms of evolution (which of course I believe are there, with or without deity).

Yes, I agree that the simple pleasures of life are good for what they are and should in fact be appreciated; but they're hardly and end in and of themselves.

BTW, I have to go - need to be up real early to travel for work. Still, I want to pick this conversation back up tomorrow night; mainly because if everyone's down to keep speaking candidly and examine themselves on questions (which I'll admit - I'll be glad to myself), and its refreshing to feel like I'm actually having a conversation here that's worthwhile again .

Well, I do not see why B is an issue. There is no reason to think that spirits will behave arbitrarily for the most part. Not only that but "angels/demons push man to do X" can easily just be allegory, as the theme isn't the biggest one. I mean, there are some references in the NT to how the devil is trying to get people, and how deceivers can come and etc, but all that is needed is good and evil, and these exist without appeal to or lack of angels. I mean, there are examples of evil that exist without appealing to a demonic cause, and those that do could just insert that in there to anthropomorphize the evil.

In any case, A and B do not argue that angels or demons do not exist, only that they are mostly irrelevant. I think that the latter position is one that most non-Pentacostals hold because many people see evil as a result of the devil's machinations, and good as a result of God's will. And the devil's machinations can also be argued as subject to God's will at times.

In any case, evil does have a unity in scripture as noted from Luke 11:17-18 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. (18) And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.

And because of that, the actions of evil can be held to just be originating from something more abstract as you already do, and lose nothing because the kingdoms are held to unity, not great plurality.

As well, the actions of the devil are something that can be argued as subject to God. (Job 1:8-12; Job 2:3-7; reproduced below)

Job 1:8-12 And the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?" (9) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? (10) Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. (11) But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face." (12) And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand." So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Job 2:3-7 And the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason." (4) Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. (5) But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." (6) And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life." (7) So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

In fact, I think that Martin Luther was quoted as saying that the devil was God's devil.

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Does this help at all?

I am most curious about what you consider a worthwhile point in living. I certainly don't consider myself particularly generous because I don't murder or consume everything within my grasp including any small animals or children who wander into my path. I am. in my point of view, only another animal, highly embedded within my local environment which consists of all the general properties of a very thin sector of the lower atmosphere of this particular planet and all the life contained within that thin skin. Animals, including our own species, have all sorts of behavior both fascinating and utilitarian and the latter requires a good deal of what I consider pretty frightful behavior. And, in general, humanity does not seem to be blessed with commendable behavior. I find I am quite satisfied living from day to day enjoying what time and circumstance presents me and doing my best to understand all of it. The idiotic fantasies of religion are as amusing as any other folklore and I do not take them more seriously, especially since those who do behave most erratically and very frequently with a viciousness not matched by any other species and for no decent reason outside of some sort of aberrant mentality.

You wouldn't have to - that's just it. The animal world seems to pretty well have that imputed into its hierarchy.



Agreed on the frightful part.



I will say this - if you can be faced with the thought that life is largely null and void including self-actualization, self improvement, the things you've felt or seen, the knowledge that you've brought with you for 70 or 80 years before you do leave the earth; if wet beach sand between your toes or sunrise in the mountains seems like it answers the question of why exist - that's a gift but its a rare one at that.

All these molecules that have learned through genetic traditions to comprise me are exceedingly happy to be aware of wet sand between my toes and a glorious sunset to complement their day. Very few molecules in the universe have that delight and it is a privilege beyond comparison. The fantasies of religion and so called "higher purposes" pale beyond the supreme happiness of awakening each morning to a roll and a hot cup of coffee and the on line issue of the New York Times or the Science News Magazine. I really cannot understand what else could complement my day more than perhaps getting laid by a beautiful and charming girl who can discuss the complexities of merely being alive and sensing light and sound and music and the various scents wafting through my window on a Spring day. But at 83 I'm afraid we molecules will have to forgo the girl and merely enjoy the coffee and roll. It suffices.

What your describing sounds like what the easterners would call practicing 'mindfulness'. Its interesting that everyone has their own set of life experiences that sets the stage in different ways, to where what one could experience or be fullfilled by the next could not and vice a versa. I'm still pretty young, 29 still about 3/4 spins from 30, and I still have the beatings pretty fresh in my memory - not so much bullying as all the influences in my life that tell me that without functioning I have no dignity, I have nothing to bring to the table, I have no right to be here. I deal with these internal pressures by taking reality in the broader sense (ie. knowing its half BS but also entertaining the reality that yes - it has a grain of truth off certain angles, conversation on what exactly that means could take a while) as well as trying to teach myself to accept that the 200% grinding myself into the floor trying to prove to myself that I'm not a weak or lesser human being - I've done that and I've at least now learned the difference between what I can and can't help, that's been an asset because by and large I'm slowly learning to let go of the things that effort means nothing toward.

I guess what people still can get pretty raw about is justice. Yes, we create that, its a whim, its what we like, it says nothing about God in and of itself but our drive to need to see it tends to feed the idea for some. For me though, I still feel that's what's behind the scenes, behind the science, behind the matter, physics, and chemistry, is something extremely sublime beyond words; my fixation could be partly that I just love the sublime and reverent whether its art, whether its music, it could be my parents, I have no idea. My structure of atoms is I guess craving a greater self-actualization (no, not bringing about some larger order outside of myself - I'd never want to inflict my inward reality outward on anyone unless it can sell by its own intellectual merits, then its a completely different story) and that self actualization is a craving to be part of a certain essence, something that seems to vibrate strongly from within me and it could be just a neurological wiring scheme, a higher than normal level of a particular neurotransmitter - still not sure even if it can be scientifically explained away that it isn't worth something. My struggle with a godless world though - I'd still feel the need to be something great in some area to rubber stamp my existence or to validate it, music comes to mind since its something I feel like I could have a gift to really make happen and since I feel like I can hear it, feel it, even see it in a way that most people can't.

I think all these things really tend to culminate in a person. Our reality is pretty vague. Its like Michael Novak would argue, atheists and theists could easily be describing our reality from different 'blicks' as he'd put it (another word for that - paradigms, same mechanisms, different constructs) where atheists build the world as positivists where as the theists tend to get more acumenical with the negative. I think it'll be years before I'm really sold on a solid path, as in to be anything other than agnostic means that I'd have to really see a mechanism that wholly satisfies me - haven't seen it.

Well, I won't keep rambling. I've had a few drinks in the lobby and I've got a basketball game to watch.

It kind of sheds light on the notion as I as looking at it. I still would only go as far as saying that it would mean that angels and demons would work within the confines of what would create the reality that we can see (at least on this particular level, their influences on the living). To say whether something is needed or not is to assume that we ourselves are creating it to answer questions that we, usually science in this sense, can't answer. The whole struggle of atheism and the whole struggle of theism seem to be debating of who's origin religion is, if its of ours - as many atheists would attest - the only way to chase the argument is to look at it through human needs projecting themselves across culture in narratives of the like; thus, you have debaters like Hitchens or Dawkins who will even start their questions right off the start by trying to pin down the person their debating against to anthropoligical details, stipulations, things well away from the core to a believer but it shows the difference in the psychology. The believer comes from a different a priori - that a God does exist; it doesn't mean even that they need to heed the material world less or its laws, in fact it seems more like an intellectually honest believer would look at the laws of nature as laws that God meant them to follow or at least deal with - it at least helps keep the destructive/drug-like mania of extremism to the fringes because most people can't keep faith without making something pretty realistic and believeable of it; otherwise people are likely to just shrug and ignore it because it doesn't compute.

No, I don't think the atheism/theism argument will ever be resolved, not by theist obstinance or holding on the easter bunny as much as there are a lot of very big and dazzling questions about existence that still loom out there - whether its first cause, the value of the whole of the universe, what on earth conciousness is, what its worth, why we even have it, how a universe as finetuned as ours could come into existence; all of these of course stretch far beyond our scope of what we can realistically grab at. I guess I'd still have to opt for a more complex reality - one where both atheists and theists are right about what we're seeing but neither are wholly right on what's really going on or the broader structure. That may just be my own internal needs manifesting - I don't know and may never just because, it is a vacuum and any of the three - atheism, deism, or theism, are projections into a void and all require a certain degree of faith or at least admitting that one is taking a decisive stance on the unknowable.

I appreciate the depth of the attempts to resolve attitudes to facing the universe but all of our efforts are the results of taking what we know and are familiar with and trying to fit that into what we perceive which has to be resolved in some way.

As a graphic artist one of my techniques is to take colored inks and some tempera colors and apply them in random areas on a wet paper surface. When the patterns have formed and dried I stare at the results, sometimes searching for days or weeks to resolve the forms and colors into something that makes sense. This is a reasonable analogy to searching the universe for acceptable understandings. The final resolutions (and there can be many for any particular pattern) are frequently quite photographic in their resemblance to things that I know. I cannot, of course, recognize resemblances to things that I don't know since they would make no visual sense. But the patterns that I do perceive are very startling in their realities. One does not have to have artistic skills to perform this exercise but one must be a good observer in shapes and patterns of real things. It then is a simple matter to suppress unwanted patterns and bring out a particular reality which then becomes apparent to everybody else.

This visual exercise is analogous to what we each do when we explore the world. We take what we know and apply it to the unknown to create what we accept as our realities. Ancient people lived with despotic kings and their minions and therefore found, in the general universe, a god who mimicked their social orders that kindlier societies have tried to reshape into a beneficent god and the problems, as we see today, are too difficult to make any kind of real sense. I prefer to keep my patterns of the universe out of aping humanity and its social orders. I do not think the universe is anything like human society with its local problems of dealing with the problems of this extremely tiny planet and its rather unique situations. But, like everyone else, I am stuck with the baggage of my experience and that baggage creates spiders and old men in the clouds and cats and birds in bark patterns on trees. It is important that I understand my limitations and permit as much of the strangeness of reality to penetrate my wall of familiar things.

My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
John B. S. Haldane

Person for person the bright people of the late Bronze Age were just as "smart" as their counterparts living today. The main difference is that they did not know as much as is generally known today. As primates go, humans of the modern variety (homo sapien sapien) are pretty damned clever. That is true of the world of five thousand years ago as it is today.

Knowledge is cumulative. It might have been perfectly reasonable for Bronze Age gazers unto the heavens to believe in angels and demons. Our forbears and predecessors did not have much choice except to make anthropological analogies. One uses what one has. But there is no excuse nowadays for holding such beliefs. We have instruments that can see out for thirteen billion light years and instruments that can can see "in" 12 orders of magnitude our of 35 toward Planck Length. What do our instruments reveal? Certainly they do not reveal angels or demons.

ruveyn