Donnadogsoth

“A society without strong beliefs,” declared Regis Debray in his interview with J.P. Enthoven in Le Nouvel Observateur, (October 10, 1981), ” is a society about to die.” Modern liberalism is particularly critical of nationalism. Hence, the question needs to be raised: Can modern liberal society provide strong unifying communal beliefs in view of the fact that on the one hand it views communal life as nonessential, while on the other, it remains impotent to envision any belief – unless this belief is reducible to economic conduct? --Alain de Benoist and Tomislav Sunic, “Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft”: A Sociological View of the Decay of Modern Society

Probably something relatively simple, like "Hardness! Grrr!" They wouldn't be self-aware, but might experience sensations when broken or melted.

Mindlessless is inconceivable. What is it like to be dead and lacking all consciousness? That which is inconceivable is inadmissible to argument. Ergo, no substance can lack mind.

Natural law is merely the description of the action of a power. Since no power can be without mind, the timeless power acting to engage natural law must be mental as well. At this point we are talking about the Creator.

You yourself said “if you are to keep a "virtue score" based on what you have listed, it seems like a tie to me.” I'm saying that if it is a tie, we should go with the most popular, if “virtue archetype” is what we are going for as opposed to truth. I concede your point that non-Western cultures will develop their own non-Western interpretations of Christianity, some of which are repugnant. There is a white identity that has interpreted Christianity a certain way, but at the cost of its own identity. When Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." he did not mean that we should make it such that there are no distinctions between people--no men or women, for example. But the defense of personal and group identity is lacking in the Bible, because the passages are vulnerable to liberal interpretation. Let's say we agree that Jesus is worth keeping, but there is the “wisdom and strength of men” gap. How do you propose to bridge that gap without destroying the rationality and virtue of Jesus, of man being made in the image of God, without merely creating a new Pantheon?

I'm saying that Jesus has a huge amount of what accounting calls "good will" or the intangible value of an asset, such as the popularity of McDonalds or Ronald McDonald, which have their own goodwill values attached. Paganism is enjoying a minor renaissance with the New Age movement, but still faces an uphill battle. Why buck the tide if Jesus is just as good? As I wrote earlier, the advantage Jesus has over the pagan gods is that Jesus actually existed and thus has priority. Add to that the universal rationality that Christianity developed out of Jesus, which paganism has no analogue for, and the final judgement. Jesus also offers--and this is seen in the behaviour of the original Christians--a way out of fear, guilt, and selfishness, three impediments to happiness.

Jesus embodies rationality, power, and love, while explaining at once why the universe is beset with decay and pain, what the nature of human beings is, and whence cometh ultimate justice and mercy. The universe is what it is not due to his design but due to a wilful falling away from the proper path. Rationally, the universe is made to be intelligible-in-principle, which humans, made in his image, gain power over through discoveries of principle. Beyond the universe, at the end of days, man can expect to be judged according to his conduct and character, and thus all historical wrongs will be righted and everyone receive what he deserves. Jesus is also love incarnate, and so in him power and goodness rationally converge. He both wills to do good, and has the power to do good. Jesus is thus the ultimate role model for virtue, especially love, honesty, and piety. He also drove the money-changers from the temple thus giving a divine benchmark for the use of tempered force against evil. He did not kill the money-changers, he merely drove them away. Jesus also has the advantage of being the most well-known figure in the Western world, and so jump-starting his influence has a greater chance of success than does reviving pagan figures.

You still have an inner understanding of the principle of identity that you are using to clarify and confirm what your senses are telling you. You can have a logical mind and not know the first things about the discipline of logic. Developing logic into an explicit discipline is another matter.

Then I ask again, wouldn't it be better to base one's conduct on an actual role model rather than an archetypal one? As you say, So much the better with a real man who was also God, who presents an impossible standard for man to follow, and who promises judgement of souls.

No man willingly dies for what he knows is a lie. Many were martyred after seeing the risen Christ. The martyrs who came after and had no way to check the story died by faith alone, but the martyrs like Peter died for something they actually saw. That something is the virtue and power of Christ.

Just to sum up, the contenders for timelessness amount to various aspects of Natural Law. This Natural Law is timeless, unlike the Universe, which changes continuously. But, how can a law exist outside of a mind? The atheist will reply that the word “law” is a metaphor. Natural law just describes how the Universe is, it doesn't imply a consciousness the law is in. Here we find a brute fact: “Natural law just is”. Since this violates the principle of sufficient reason, we can ignore it, and proceed to the only rational conclusion, namely a Creator who contains the timeless Law.

Erwin, Wouldn't it be better to have a role model who actually existed?

Neither brains nor the concepts they think about are timeless, then? If not them, what? As I said, universal law? But in that case, in which timeless book are these universal laws--or Law--written? In other words we need a mind to retain this Law, or else why would it work when we're not thinking about it?

Do you suppose sounds waves are timeless? I submit they are not, as they are ever-changing, just like the rest of the Universe. Would you agree that universal law and mathematics are timeless?

Are you saying there are constants in the Universe, like the speed of light in a vacuum, or the cosmological constant, or the rules of chemistry?

Do you see any examples that (as per Boss) "The universe has timeless attributes that do not change."?

The colour yellow and the idea of a banana can be considered timeless, but where do they exist? How does "yellow" or "idea of banana" exist outside of a mind?--and given that they can't exist timelessly within temporal minds, they must exist in a timeless mind.

Atheist: Where did the Universe come from? Believer: From the Creator. A: Where did the Creator come from? B: The Creator is timeless and has always existed. A: Why couldn't the Universe be timeless and always existed? B: Because the Universe changes and mutable things cannot be timeless, by definition.

I'm saying I disagree with this statement. I'm saying that logic and empiricism go hand in hand.

If Paleolithic Man stubs his toe on a rock, does he not gain a higher awareness of the identity of rocks? On your second question, yes.

I can't see how they could arise separately from one another. Paleolithic Man sees Sabre-Toothed Tiger. If he doesn't accept the evidence of tiger, he will die. If he doesn't accept identity of tiger, he will die. Empirical evidence and logical confirmation go hand in hand.

A hammer accords in some fashion with the way the Universe really is. It has the virtue of hammering things; the Universe, in other words, is predisposed to obey the will of the wielded hammer by suitably flatting or moving in response to said will. Is logic not similar, in that the Universe built in some fashion as to accord with logic? Not totally, of course, the Universe is not penetrable solely by logic; creative hypothesis and empirical experimentation are required to bridge the gap, but the principle of identity is necessary at some point in order to check our findings.

Then why does logic work?

Logic is a concept that we apply to being. Would you agree that logic is a reflection of the coherence of being? The Universe as exists coherently and therefore is vulnerable to logic?

I think we largely agree. Yes, our understanding of the physical world is based on our cache of principles, plus associated axioms, which together form a “lattice” or “grid” constituting our “state of scientific understanding," to be written up in classroom textbooks. This understanding is necessarily incomplete, and the introduction of an ontological paradox into the grid forces either a wilful ignorance to isolate the paradox, or else it triggers empirical investigation leading to work through it through hypothesis and proof-of-principle experiment to discover a new universal physical principle. At this point the grid shatters and a new grid must be built from the newly increased cache of principle. Excellent. I agree. When you say, “logic is a result of a biological construct,” however, that's dangerous territory, for it suggests that we are biologically programmed to have a logic, not the logic. Or, at least, it doesn't explain where having the logic came from and thus makes logic itself suspect. If we were to agree that human mentation is made in the image of God and therefore intended to have the logic, I would agree that the logic we have (again, the logic) is the result of a biological construct. Logic is an inevitable part of the process of discovery of truth, for without the principle of identity (A=A) how could we establish any truth as being true? To deny empiricism is to imagine the Universe can be “solved” using pure mathematics. This creates a deterministic scientific world similar to the political-economic world of Marxism, which claimed to have “solved” history in terms of its deterministic dialectical materialism. I agree logic is a concept that we apply to being. Would you agree that logic is a reflection of the coherence of being? The Universe as exists coherently and therefore is vulnerable to logic?