So you Wanna Be a Cultural Christian?

[Mr. Wrong]

I've included sections for whatever takes your fancy. Sorry it's long, but it's cool.

With the rising popularity of Jordan Peterson and his attempt to translate the Bible outside of metaphor and into the realm of psychology and philosophy and whatnot, I thought I'd show you a bit of what I know. Should be a good read.

I'll unpack just TWO WORDS for you:

 

WHY DOES THE BIBLE COMMAND US TO 'FEAR GOD'?

 

Because God represents truth. Period. Whether you believe in God or not, look at it that way. If God is what's true, he's what's real (truth irrespective of our limited understanding). That doesn't mean he's everything good and bad or nice or frightening. It only means that he's everything that is. Your interpretation of what is doesn't matter. He's only everything that has happened to you and will happen to you. There isn't any moral content there though, since it's not a matter of what ought to happen or shouldn't happen. It's what did and what does.

So do you fear the truth? Yes, you do. Why? Because you're inherently self-righteous. There is some belief you have that creates a foundation for yourself that isn't true. In fact, all beliefs are like that. Everything you believe about yourself is a lie in some fashion. You don't quite understand what you are or who you are. You have labels for things, but delve into your understanding of those labels and you'll find some gap in your understanding. So you fear God in that he threatens to reveal the untruth, the lies you have about yourself or the biases you have or whatever. But at the same time, the truth is not a malevolent threat. It merely exists. It's just an 'is' and you're afraid of it.

So then, if the truth isn't malevolent, how is it benevolent? Because it's knowing the truth that best assists you in literally everything. No matter how awful reality has become, it's understanding that reality that best equips you for it. So yeah, what's real can be awful and devastating and all sorts of bad, but it's only understanding it that will help you overcome it. Not knowing why it's happening will lead to ruin. Deceiving yourself into believing it's something other than it is will lead to ruin. So indeed, you have a fearful relationship to the truth. But you also have an adoring one, a loving one, a thankful one, an honorable one and a respectful one. Even regarding the worst thing that happens to you, it's only the truth that will allow you to overcome it. The truth of the origin of your depression. The truth of of WMDs in Iraq. The truth of which way to escape a burning building. It. Does. Not. Matter. The truth is always honest with us by definition. It's our relationship to truth that creates all these different feelings towards it.

The reason 'fear' was chosen as the ultimate phrasing for this relationship is because it allows for all the others, but also puts us in our place with regard to truth. We have to submit to it. We're nothing in comparison to it. We owe it our survival. We owe it everything. It's not terrifying in the sense that it will harm us. It's terrifying in the scope of it's power. It's the sort of terror or awe that's inspired by a power beyond comprehension. And yes, we naturally fear that. Something beyond comprehension MEANS we can't ever understand it and thus the truth CANNOT prevail us - totally. So the truth - the ULTIMATE TRUTH i.e. God, is inherently terrifying to us. But he's no threat. Like the universe or reality itself, contemplated in all it's majesty - if we could, would drive us insane. Yet, comprehending it is exactly what we must do to survive.

The reason Peterson talks of self-knowledge and death as the same thing, is because he's talking about shedding the ego such that we're able to better understand reality without bias. Christians phrase this as 'receiving God'. So as I see it, it's 'receiving truth'. Of course, there is no better way to receive the truth then when you eliminate your biases, your self-righteousness. But since the self is based on these biases, you have to 'die' in order to better receive truth. You have to give up the old biases, the old self-righteousness, and be REBORN as someone more humble. Someone less self-righteous and so more willing to understand truth. Hence the DEATH AND REBIRTH of Jesus as man's salvation.

This is impossible to do since we've all some self-righteousness by design. Descartes proved that. (Cogito ergo sum). So instead, this 'new life' is one of introspection and vigilance against the self - the ego. So now whenever you're keen to believe something or impose something as true, essentially to assume or presume something, you stop yourself. Yes, you're always going to have the tendency to assume things and you're always going to have old assumptions you didn't purge. But so long as you remain vigilant you can take on less new assumptions and remove more old assumptions and so move closer to truth.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is the EXACT same relationship we have toward truth when engaging the scientific method. We're agnostic about everything 'real' and the entire exercise is trying to prove ourselves wrong. It's trying to prove where we've got the model wrong - which is true by definition, rather than trying to prove ourselves right. The current model is always wrong. It's not 'incomplete' until you find where it was wrong. Where Newtonian Physics didn't work anymore or whatever. Then you hopefully fill in that gap (General Relativity in this case), and then you proceed to find where relativity is wrong and then determine the model to be incomplete once more.

See, any belief you have is wrong. It's incomplete - always. You have to challenge that belief to discern so in the first place, and then take on a more true perspective should you discern how it was WRONG. Then you do it again and again. It's the death and rebirth cycle of Jesus. Over and over and yes, like the bible says, it moves you closer to God i.e. truth. And people still don't understand why science erupted from Christian Europe. Good Lord.

And remember, that's TWO WORDS.

 

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE AS AN ATHEIST:

 

If you want to do this yourself:

God is reality.

Jesus is self (self-righteousness i.e. YOUR truth).

Holy Spirit is the process of attribution (philosophical individuation).

 

This probably doesn't make sense so:

God is Conclusion. (Objective) - Rock

Jesus is Hypothesis. (Subjective) - Paper

Holy Spirit is Experimentation. (Predictive) - Scissors

 

You can actually read the bible under this pretense. Read it as though the Holy Trinity represents the steps in the scientific method or the 3 states of knowledge you may possess. No matter what you pick, their relationship takes on a 'rock-paper-scissors' dynamic.

Rock is what's real. Paper is what's believed about what's real. Scissors is the means of reconciling that belief with reality. Maybe even 'Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis', if you'd like. So long as the relationships the triad have to each other are the same, it's actually the same thing you're thinking about and referencing: the operation of thought itself. Blows your mind.

 

'Rock' is immutable and permanent (truth), but we're ignorant of it. (God, The Objective)

'Paper' is mutable and constantly being replaced (belief), but it is believed due to lack of alternatives. (Jesus, The Subjective)

'Scissors' is always a methodology (action), but it determines more of 'Rock' and so alters 'Paper'. (Holy Spirit, The Predictive)

 

Finally, the whole damn thing follows the model of 'cause-effect-outcome' or 'cause-effect-purpose'. The reason outcome and purpose are necessary to this is that the 'outcome' or 'purpose' is a change in the state of reality itself. An effect doesn't exist merely on it's own but is a change in reality itself since it changes the entire universe. We don't like to think this way, but it does. This effect changes the state of the universe such that a repetition of that effect or indeed the cause of it, will actually be ever so slightly different. Think gravity, quantum threads, that sort of stuff. This theory was always embedded in our understanding of cause and effect since the 'bounds' of any subsystem of cause and effect (a thing) aren't real. As such, they alter the substrate in which such effects may occur again. So the 'outcome' of any cause and effect system alters the next iteration of 'cause' (Know more of God). In understanding the nature of that alteration, it brings with it a better understanding of the universe as you know it (Rebirth of Jesus). So you know more of the next cause and more of the prior one, since you know more of how the universe reacts to them. This is where everything becomes wonderfully and necessarily teleological as a matter of mind, though not necessarily of reality. Where attributions of purpose become necessary to any means of understanding and as a matter more of utility than truth.

It's what allows for the progressive, growing nature of understanding (Holy Spirit leading to God). Really neat.

 

GOD IS THE ULTIMATE MEME

 

And yeah, such that each of these different things have been created in the search for truth or to catalogue it, that they've managed to assist humanity in survival i.e. interacting with reality in knowledge of what 'works', they've proven their utility and, dare I say, truth. But it's the truth in their relationship that matters. God ain't real. Nor Jesus or the Holy Spirit or, depending on who you talk to, objective reality and all that. But this single triad and the relationship it has within itself crops up everywhere that people have tried to determine what was true....and managed to find SUCCESS in it. Basically, since reality didn't kill them and so their ideas with them, there was truth-content in what they believed. They operated FUNCTIONALLY with reality. They PREDICTED truth.

Understand of course that 'God' was never originally written this way. Rather, we was edited into existence. What worked was kept. What didn't was scrapped. Whichever Christian survived, physically and socially, passed on his 'wisdom of God'. Those that didn't perished and so didn't pass their untruth on. So what the Christian represents is a modern-day 'social-species' with all prior iterations representing a social FOSSIL RECORD. Get it? Memes evolve with genes according to reality and according to their purpose: survival. Hence the bible, by virtue of it's longevity, is packed full of truth regard the nature of physical reality but more importantly: social and psychological reality. Though it's all masked in metaphor - nearly a different language.

Anyway, this is how you read the bible as an atheist in an effort to become a cultural Christian.

 

TRANSLATING THE BIBLE INTO A RATIONAL LANGUAGE

 

I haven't decoded it, but I do know how to a good degree. I just need hands. I've done Genesis up to Adam's exile. Figure at this point I should start showing people. Peterson is being quite helpful, but the lens of a personality psychologist, while creating a far clearer image, is narrow in its scope. So he's very right about very little, which he admits to. Particularity is never a bad thing, but it's like understanding quantum physics without knowing anything about antibiotics - as a species. You can focus into an ever-greater understanding of just one thing, but in that way it becomes less and less integral to the whole. Better to use your knowledge of atomic structure to examine living tissue and so find and attack the bacteria we're so weak to. Something very little but also very true has great potential in other matters, but you have to know how to apply it there. So philosophy, in particular philosophical individuation (the nature of attribution and distinction) and ontology, could yield it. Stef could do it - I think. Imagine the prestige, to indulge in self for a moment.

It wouldn't be a selfish pursuit either. You'd be able to link purpose with Christians of all sorts and unite libertarians across the religious spectrum. Even better, you'd also provide an ultimate arbiter, an ultimate standard that the more rebellious libertarians would be forced to yield to as a matter of logic and principle. You know, 'Unite the Right'. I'm not speaking crap either. This is how to do it. You reveal to these different 'sects' the nature of their belief and with that the congruity between them that they can't see. Their division is an illusion. It's been a matter of mind and not action/purpose for generations. They are divided only in motivation/intention. They will yield the same outcome together, but differ in their interpretation of it. So they infight based on false pretenses. But if you reveal to them that both of their interpretations are a skewed vision of the same thing, you can generate cooperation. Neither is likely to forsake their own interpretation, but they will come to see their interpretation in their 'rivals'.

As it stands, I've found the congruity between Christians, atheists, scientists, libertarians, and MGTOW with a few hints unexplored in MRAs, 'centrists', classical liberals, ethno-nationalists, and I think a few others. It's always there, this triad - at least on the 'Right' or rather the 'Not-Insane' wing of politics. So anything but the Far-Left and hey! Wouldn't you know it? We're united on that front. Well gee-whiz. It's like we might just be standing for the same thing and not just AGAINST the same thing.

I'm excitedly rambling. I do that.

Oh yeah, I'd love to talk to Stef about this but he monologues about his own position (admit it, but it's good for the show) and this would most certainly be a teacher-student exchange that I'm not sure either of us wants to enter into. It would interrupt his flow and is, I think, something difficult to explain over Skype. Lucky for me, I'm local. I could actually meet in person too. Would love to. Imagine that?

It would be nice if you guys read this and critiqued it. Though truly, take the triad to heart and start reading the bible or listening to Jordan Peterson's work on Genesis. Watch it sync up with Peterson. It would be uncanny were it not for the nature of memes I just talked about. Though again, tip of the iceberg.

 

So such that anyone cares well, spread this around I guess. Hope it helps, if you're interested in this sort of thing.

[ofd]

Quote

You can actually read the bible under this pretense. Read it as though the Holy Trinity represents the steps in the scientific method or the 3 states of knowledge you may possess. No matter what you pick, their relationship takes on a 'rock-paper-scissors' dynamic.

The problem is that there is no trinity in the Old Testament. Furthermore, the language barrier is vast. The KJV does a pretty good job at translating, but if you want to understand what the text said you have to use an interlinear bible. The biblical stories are complex and it takes a lot of studying to understand them, if that is possible at all.

One way to do that, which takes some time is to use Eco's method of structuring, by splitting them up in a table. Every person gets a column, the first column is reserved for the verses. When a person does something you note it in the cell that corresponds with the verse and the person. You'll be surprised how much you have missed

 

[Jot]

No thanks.

I would rather be a philosopher.

[Mr. Wrong]

On 8/24/2017 at 6:30 PM, ofd said:

The problem is that there is no trinity in the Old Testament. Furthermore, the language barrier is vast.

Doesn't matter. God was edited into existence. Original context doesn't matter so much anymore, unless you want to look at the fossil record.

[Mr. Wrong]

23 hours ago, Jot said:

I would rather be a philosopher.

It appears not.

[Jot]

2 hours ago, Mr. Wrong said:

It appears not.

Care to explain what you mean?

[Gnostic Bishop]

I reject the notion that we fear to know the truth.

If that were true, Gnosis and apotheosis would not likely be possible.

Regards

DL