Philosophically Speaking, "Is Suffering a Challenge to God's Existence?"

Ugh! (not the lady-- the song).

Here's a Leonard Cohen song I actually do like (the only one):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX0CfFdk-jw

Can we go back to Joni Mitchell now?

This one's about instinct and spirit, I think. Its resolution isn't exactly dualistic, but it plays with a lot of dualistic images, and it's a song about dualism. The "coward...coward...coward" business is about people who think like me (and in the song, either herself or a lover or both of them); but maybe it's about materialists, too. It's an interesting coincidence in terms of our discussion that they are described as "caught between yes and no." :)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vzGHOucTxY8

Great song by Cohen there, 'course it's not surprising because he wrote a lot of great songs.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nAK9Pj5-QXY

Anyway this one nearly makes me cry every time I listen to it, mostly because of some associated memories. Still, good song.

You know, I figured you'd like that song. It has a real Canadian feel to it (plus a "Clopin's sensitive side" feel).

This was my theme song 30-35 years ago when I was traveling around the world:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bulwl46vz9s

And this is how I ended up (so beware!):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=igj20M84hbo

"River" is one of my favorite songs as well.

I was not familiar with "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter". I was confused by the lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/don-juans...-mitchell.html

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Originally Posted by YesNo

"River" is one of my favorite songs as well.

I was not familiar with "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter". I was confused by the lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/don-juans...-mitchell.html

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See this is my problem with the poetry contests. It's all, "Um, that one was about hawks killing mice, right Pompey?" :) Anyway, this one seems pretty straightforward to me. What if the eagle/airplane images were about spirit/heart and the snake/train images were about instinct/body? Note that it's not something obvious and Freudian like: snakes are for boys and eagles are for girls. The narrator (presumably Mitchell herself) starts by owning her serpent:

But the split tongue spirit laughed at me
He says, "Your serpent cannot be denied."

I think the split tongue spirit is a lover (so in part the snake image is about sexual desire); or maybe it's just the fact that the tongue points in two directions: spirit and instinct. I think the two lovers may be traveling simultaneously by plane and train, or maybe that's just more symbolism (or maybe it's both). The spirit speaks in images (later referred to as spectrums) that show spirit and instinct separately, or in a kind of congress or dualistic relationship. So it's:

He says:
"Snakes along the railroad tracks."
He says, "Eagles in jet trails"
He says, "Coils around feathers and talons on scales
Gravel under the belly plates"
He says, "Wind in the Wings"
He says, "Big bird dragging its tail in the dust
Snake kite flying on a string."

You see? So maybe the lovers have quarreled and they are going apart from one another by plane and train; or maybe the "coward...coward" business is Mitchell berating herself for not being able to choose between the the instinctive and the spiritual (and in settling for giving into sexual feeling against her better judgement).

You're a coward against the altitude
You're a coward against the flesh
Coward, caught between yes and no
Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes!

The dualism is later made explicit as a kind of human (or at least American?) condition:

We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards
Of some duality
Of restless multiplicity.

So symbolically:

Behind my bolt locked door
The eagle and the serpent are at war in me
The serpent fighting for blind desire
The eagle for clarity
What strange prizes these battles bring
These hectic joys-these weary blues
Puffed up and strutting when I think I win
Down and shaken when I think I lose

Then back to the lovers in their separate vehicles:

There are rivets up here in this eagle
There are box cars down there on your snake
And we are twins of spirit
No matter which route home we take
Or what we forsake

The resolution, which was anticipated by some of the original split tongue spirit images, is that the serpent and the eagle--spiritual and the instinctive must join and be equally acknowledged. This, as a Christian, is where I get off the train (or parachute from the plane). I think the eyes of clarity are the eagles bright eyes of spiritual light, while the beads of guile are the serpents beady eyes of materialist pragmatism/trickery. Note that the lovers must go up and come down:

We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style

That idea continued in a more sexual context (with some nice playful-sounding poetry):

I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin

And the conclusion, which expresses various forms of the lovers' duality (and the final synthesis). I love "Crawl and fly." I wish it had been the title.

The spirit talks in spectrums
He talks to mother earth to father sky
Self indulgence to self denial
Man to woman
Scales to feathers
You and I
Eagles in the sky
You and I
Snakes in the grass
You and I
Crawl and fly
You and I

I'm confused by whom the pronouns, "you" and "I", refer to in the poem.

I don't think she is confronting a lover, but rather tensions within herself. The cowardice refers to her inability to find peace with herself. There is also a spirit talking to her who seemingly keeps pointing her in conflicting directions of accepting first the eagle and then the serpent. If she succeeds then she and that spirit (who is neither the serpent nor the eagle) become united.

For example, these lines make me think of a kundalini enlightenment process, but I don't know if she was intending such a meaning.

We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style

The kundalini serpent (or train) rises from the base of the spine which represents security and sexual desire and moves up through the chakras above the head. Clarity is reached at the top (in the airplane or eagle). In the tantric process, the kundalini must go back down as well bringing the new-found clarity back to the earth. This up and down process is both dangerous and enlightening. One could call it reckless. It is not for cowards. The spirit is telling her to stop being a coward and make the journey.

That's how I read the lyrics. Of course, I could be full of it.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I'm confused by whom the pronouns, "you" and "I", refer to in the poem.

I don't think she is confronting a lover, but rather tensions within herself. The cowardice refers to her inability to find peace with herself.

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I know what you mean. I think the "you're a coward" section is at least partly self-directed. The second person pronoun keeps it powerful, but In a certain way, I think the point is being generalized: one is a coward against the altitude (that is, the implications of spirit); and yet one is also a coward against the flesh (that is, the implications of the physical). What makes me think she is also regretting/not regretting a casual sexual episode is (among other things) the next line: "Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes."

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't think she is confronting a lover, but rather tensions within herself. The cowardice refers to her inability to find peace with herself.

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Well she is certainly doing that, but poems can work on more than one level. A lot of her songs at the time were about casual sex (it was the '70s); and the verses: "No matter which route home we take/Or what we forsake" even suggest something a bit illicit.

It also strikes me that, on the simplest level, this poem is about a woman in an airplane (casting a shadow on the plains), who is looking down on an train (also casting a shadow) and believing that her lover is on it. The touching of the two shadows resolves the duality between eagle/plane/spirit and snake/train/instinct; but it is also symbolic of their intercourse. Thus:

I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin

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Originally Posted by YesNo

There is also a spirit talking to her who seemingly keeps pointing her in conflicting directions of accepting first the eagle and then the serpent. If she succeeds then she and that spirit (who is neither the serpent nor the eagle) become united.

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Yes, the split tongue spirit is interesting. On a metaphorical level (in any case) he--that is the pronoun Mitchell uses--is a spirit, and so presumably spiritual; but this spirit had a split tongue like a snake--a symbol in this poem for the physical/instinctive. So rather than "neither the serpent nor the eagle," I would say he is both. My question is whether this (curiously male) spirit is just a spirit, or also the lover, who laughs at her protestations and says: "Your serpent will not be denied." I suppose one could take it either way.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

For example, these lines make me think of a kundalini enlightenment process, but I don't know if she was intending such a meaning.

We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style

The kundalini serpent (or train) rises from the base of the spine which represents security and sexual desire and moves up through the chakras above the head. Clarity is reached at the top (in the airplane or eagle). In the tantric process, the kundalini must go back down as well bringing the new-found clarity back to the earth. This up and down process is both dangerous and enlightening. One could call it reckless. It is not for cowards. The spirit is telling her to stop being a coward and make the journey.

That's how I read the lyrics. Of course, I could be full of it.

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That's very interesting. Mitchell probably knew about some kind of pop Tantrism (everyone did in the '70s), so she may have been alluding to something like that. The snake could also be interpreted as the tempting serpent in Eden that ultimately led to the Fall of spirit into material/instinctive existence. That's the meaning I bring to the text, although I don't know if Mitchell had it in mind. Snakes (and airplanes) turn up in Mitchell's poetry from time to time, so they seem to have had some kind of special meaning to her. But like most art, finding the interface with one's own thoughts and feelings doesn't necessarily make anyone "full of it" (except for those damned intellectuals, of course :))

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

That's very interesting. Mitchell probably knew about some kind of pop Tantrism (everyone did in the '70s), so she may have been alluding to something like that. The snake could also be interpreted as the tempting serpent in Eden that ultimately led to the Fall of spirit into material/instinctive existence. That's the meaning I bring to the text, although I don't know if Mitchell had it in mind. Snakes (and airplanes) turn up in Mitchell's poetry from time to time, so they seem to have had some kind of special meaning to her. But like most art, finding the interface with one's own thoughts and feelings doesn't necessarily make anyone "full of it" (except for those damned intellectuals, of course :))

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Your interpretation works as well. That is why I don't like this song as much as I do River or Little Green. There is too much ambiguity. The line "I made my baby cry" in River is not explicit about what she did, but it is easy to guess. When little Green's parents wished her to "have a happy ending" that resolved the entire ballad very nicely. These rank for me among the greatest poems ever written.

To bring this back to the OP, you mentioned the serpent in Eden. From this story we get original sin and our freedom as a group initiating what we perceive as evil today. This is represented as a "fall", but it could be a second story of the creation of the universe after the first one at the beginning of Genesis where everything was "good".

I see this story as Eve offering to Adam sex through the apple. It is interesting that Adam does not come up with this idea to eat the apple first and offer it to Eve. There is a similar (at least to me) story of Shakti (female) trying to get Shiva (male) to stop his self-indulgent meditations and do his job and create the universe. She has a hard time convincing him, but ultimately she succeeds. My views on Tantrism and Goddesses come from Sally Kempton's Awakening Shakti although I might have misunderstood Kempton's descriptions.

So where does evil come from? It might be an illusion. If that is the case there is no need to blame someone for it. That does not mean we should not act to remove suffering and be content with meditating as Shiva was.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

To bring this back to the OP, you mentioned the serpent in Eden. From this story we get original sin and our freedom as a group initiating what we perceive as evil today.

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Another way to look at it is that the story reflects the reality of what came to be called Original Sin more than 1000 years later, and shows what the authors and redactors of that part of Genesis thought about the phenomenon.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

and our freedom as a group initiating what we perceive as evil today.

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Original Sin is more than a freedom to initiate what we perceive as evil today. Per Augustine, it is a tendency toward actually doing evil, inherited from the first human beings. Augustine viewed this as a continuation of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. As I've said, for me, it is instinct inherited from our evolutionary ancestors through natural selection. That is what I mean when I use the term.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

This is represented as a "fall", but it could be a second story of the creation of the universe after the first one at the beginning of Genesis where everything was "good".

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Well, to be very clear, I see the Fall story reflecting an ontological reality (although the version we have has obviously been worked over theologically). Although I am not a Biblical literalist, I believe that the story captures the predicament of zoe--life--imprisoned in flesh. But to take your suggestion that the Fall might actually have been more of a move upstairs, let's see where the myth goes with it:

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
16 To the woman He said:

“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”

If it's all the same to you, YesNo, I'll hold on to my downstairs office. :)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

So where does evil come from? It might be an illusion. If that is the case there is no need to blame someone for it. That does not mean we should not act to remove suffering and be content with meditating as Shiva was.

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Or it might be a moral reality. In either case, the need is to be saved, not to blame someone else. It's "Forgive me, for I am a sinner," not "Don't blame me, the devil made me do it!" (remember Flip Wilson? :)) "Removing suffering" sounds great, but human beings have a pretty poor track record on that score. And again, human evil is not an illusion to those who have to suffer it.

What other Joni Mitchell do you like?

Isn't Joni Mitchell suffering from some bizarre and gruesome disease?

And speaking of Canadian anthems and folk singers from that era, how about "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" by Gordon Lightfoot (of course it's not a Jon Mitchell song, but what is?). I blast it from the car stereo whenever I go to Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzo6Otpgj-E

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Isn't Joni Mitchell suffering from some bizarre and gruesome disease?

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I guess she had an aneurysm. I heard she was in a coma, but now I'm hearing that was just a rumor. I think she's in pretty rough shape, though.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7690018.html

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Well, to be very clear, I see the Fall story reflecting an ontological reality (although the version we have has obviously been worked over theologically). Although I am not a Biblical literalist, I believe that the story captures the predicament of zoe--life--imprisoned in flesh.

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I pick and choose what parts I want to accept much like the Redactor did. I don't even mind modifying them.

Harold Bloom thought J (or Bathsheba, as he suggested) was a comic author. I can see that in the way David Rosenberg translated the fall in "The Book of J". Yahweh took a rib from Adam and created Eve. After they ate the fruit, she was punished with "pain increasing, groans that spread into groans: having children will be labor". That didn't stop her from seeing the bright side of things. After she had her first son, she didn't complain about the pain as Yahweh predicted, but remarked with an evident sense of accomplishment, "I have created a man as Yahweh has." (page 65)

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What other Joni Mitchell do you like?

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I mainly know the album "Blue". There is "Both Sides Now" from an earlier album and "Help Me" From "Court and Spark" that I remember.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Your post, Virgil, is about what you believe to be God's plan for our "worthiness" via suffering, and your belief that our suffering is a gift from God, and using St. Therese's writings as a foundation…but to a non-believer that is not compelling evidence for God's existence,

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I didn't say that was evidence for believing in God's existence. My point was that it was not proof that God didn't exist. That's the claim: because suffering is in the world God is ether malicious or doesn't exist. That does not follow and is incorrect.

If you already come at this as a non-believer, and no argument is going to change your mind, then why are you having this discussion?

I always hated the religious threads here at Lit Net. It's a waste of my time.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What other Joni Mitchell do you like?

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I've started listening to other Joni Mitchell albums. Yesterday's was "Both Sides Now" (2000)

The best songs on this album were the two she wrote: "A Case of You" and "Both Sides, Now". The others were old love songs. She was singing them in a bluesy-jazzy way that made me realize that what I like about her songs is not the music so much as the lyrics.

Another thing that struck me is that she seemed to think these songs fit together in terms of quality or why would she put them into one album? That made me wonder if she felt the same way about her songs as her fans do. I would not have matched these songs together.

And that brings me to the OP. Do we really know what someone else is suffering? There are some cases where it seems obvious, but in most cases I wonder. Do we really know suffering at all?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I didn't say that was evidence for believing in God's existence. My point was that it was not proof that God didn't exist. That's the claim: because suffering is in the world God is ether malicious or doesn't exist. That does not follow and is incorrect.

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Isn't that what we have been saying on this thread for some time, Virgil?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

If you already come at this as a non-believer, and no argument is going to change your mind, then why are you having this discussion?

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That's hardly fair to Melanie, if that is who you are talking to. She, YesNo, and I all believe in God, and Ecurb, who says that he does not, is open to argument and more theologically informed than many believers. Melanie and I disagree strongly in many aspects of our approach, but she is an extremely devout Christian, and so am I.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I always hated the religious threads here at Lit Net. It's a waste of my time.

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You of course are the best judge of that. Hate, though, can be a disagreeable traveling companion. I may be wrong, but I get the feeling you are judging us without having read much of this thread. Another approach (and in my opinion, a better one) would be to give it a try. You are welcome to join us in any case. :)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I pick and choose what parts I want to accept much like the Redactor did. I don't even mind modifying them.

Harold Bloom thought J (or Bathsheba, as he suggested) was a comic author. I can see that in the way David Rosenberg translated the fall in "The Book of J". Yahweh took a rib from Adam and created Eve. After they ate the fruit, she was punished with "pain increasing, groans that spread into groans: having children will be labor". That didn't stop her from seeing the bright side of things. After she had her first son, she didn't complain about the pain as Yahweh predicted, but remarked with an evident sense of accomplishment, "I have created a man as Yahweh has."

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It seems to me that our approaches differ in this way: I am saying, Well, there's the story, I wonder what they were referring to; while you are saying, Well, there's the story, I wonder where I can take it from there in terms of other stories I find meaningful (as you say, leaving out and modifying what you like). A third approach would be literalist: that story is clear and self-interpreting; accepting it as historical is the same thing as having faith (and since justification is by faith alone...figure it out). A fourth would be doctrinal: Well, there's the story, now what do the church authorities say it means (or even dogmatic: what do church officials say I must believe it to mean)?

There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, although personally I don't find them benignly equal. As I said before, there is nothing simple about Biblical text, its history of redaction, or its historical context; and in practice Biblical literalism becomes a bogus litmus test for having faith. For me, faith in God is simply not the same as faith that every story in the Bible is literally true.

Your approach is called midrashic. It was popular among Jewish scholars in the Middle Ages, and still has some practitioners today. The Rabbis, of course, wouldn't have compared texts Hebrew and Tantric texts, but their attempt to generate further meaning by comparing texts was essentially the same as your approach.

The best known midrash in modern pop culture (because it was seized on by feminists a few years ago) is the story of Lilith, supposedly Adam's first wife, who would not submit to his authority. The texts in question were Genesis 1:24-1:27 (the P version of Creation); Genesis 2:18-2:23 (the J version, written down 400 years earlier, and likely even older); and Isaiah 34:14, which is difficult to date, but is centuries younger than J in any case. In the J version, God creates Adam by breathing into dust, and later creates Eve from his rib to act as his helper:

18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

But in the P version, God creates the Eve and Adam simultaneously, presumably from the same original substance, and arguably coequal:

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, lafter our likeness: mand let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

This apparent discrepancy (Medieval Jewish scholars had never heard of P or J) was resolved by going to a third text, in which Isaiah uses the Hebrew word lilit, perhaps a reference to Assyrian demon (or an owl--or perhaps the demon and the owl were the same creature). Modern translators have a difficult time with lilit, but Medieval Jewish scholars identified it with a female demon who, through midrashic speculation, became Adam's ex-wife, who had been created his equal not his helper, and who is never specifically identified as Eve. Some modern feminists have seen Lilith as cool and pagan (even through the midrash is, you know, pretty Jewish).

You are free to build bridges in this way, as you do here:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I see this story as Eve offering to Adam sex through the apple. It is interesting that Adam does not come up with this idea to eat the apple first and offer it to Eve. There is a similar (at least to me) story of Shakti (female) trying to get Shiva (male) to stop his self-indulgent meditations and do his job and create the universe. She has a hard time convincing him, but ultimately she succeeds...

...So where does evil come from? It might be an illusion. If that is the case there is no need to blame someone for it. That does not mean we should not act to remove suffering and be content with meditating as Shiva was.

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Midrash is not my approach, but I find it no less logical than the Frankenstein Bible that literalists concoct by, for example, pretending that Genesis 2:18-2:2 is just a continuation of Genesis 2:18-2:23, and not a different story representing a somewhat different perspective. And both approaches, whatever their flaws, can potentially produce meaning for those who employ them. As always, problems start when some try to push their interpretations (including "literalist" interpretation) as the only way to look at things. You will get no objection from me to your holding a more optimistic view than I do about the material world. But when you start telling me or others that our suffering does or did not exist, you have crossed the same literalists cross who cast those who do not accept Biblical literalism into hell: you are exporting your own dogma and expecting someone else to take it seriously.

For me, the story of the Fall is a pessimistic one. Your "appeal to Bloom" (as it were) to try to turn it into a comedy is cute, by the way, but not very compelling. Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis (which Bloom was cribbing in The Book of J) is a historical-critical theory that has of been tweaked considerably in recent years. Nowadays not many historical-critical scholars see J, P, D, and E the products of individual writers or redactors. Rather, they are seen as theological tendencies or schools of thought identifiable to certain priestly, prophetic, or scholarly communities overseeing redaction of earlier sources, in close association with events in Israelite and Judaean history: the establishment of the monarchy and construction of the First Temple for J; the destruction of the northern kingdom for E; Josiah's (failed) attempt at the restoration of Judea as a regional power for D; and the Babylonian Captivity for P; and not comedy or tragedy in the Greek (much less the modern) sense. It is not surprising to find some humor in texts with oral antecedents (including funny stories), but that does not turn the story of the Fall into Ghost Busters. Nor is it surprising to find a pessimistic worldview in the ancient Levant: the predominant cultures and political empires from Mesopotamia had an even bleaker assessment of things

So for me, it is not a question of how to turn a pessimistic mythos into one that always looks on the bright side of life. It is an inquiry--both rational and spiritual--about why the story takes such a negative outlook (does it capture something about the human condition, independent of Mesopotamian pessimism? Does it offer a extra-material basis for Salvation (which Mesopotamian pessimism did not)? How do I understand any such Salvation in the light of Christian experience and my own life?

I could easily connect dots between stories I know to construct something new to cheer for a position I already hold. (That is essentially my problem with midrashic speculation and one of my many problems with Biblical literalism). But my approach (for me) has the integrity of a real investigation. I find I honor Scripture best when I treat it as a revered and challenging teacher, and not a magical book of things people want to hear. Even so, it is necessary for all of us to see these things in the light that God gives us to see them.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I mainly know the album "Blue". There is "Both Sides Now" from an earlier album and "Help Me" From "Court and Spark" that I remember.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I've started listening to other Joni Mitchell albums. Yesterday's was "Both Sides Now" (2000)

The best songs on this album were the two she wrote: "A Case of You" and "Both Sides, Now". The others were old love songs. She was singing them in a bluesy-jazzy way that made me realize that what I like about her songs is not the music so much as the lyrics.
Another thing that struck me is that she seemed to think these songs fit together in terms of quality or why would she put them into one album? That made me wonder if she felt the same way about her songs as her fans do. I would not have matched these songs together.

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Well, Both Sides Now (the album, not the single) was pretty late and somewhat atypical. In the 70s, Mitchell used to use something called open tuning (I think), which is like playing and singing out of tune but in one's own consistent musical universe, giving her songs (especially her voice) that weird but beautiful sound of hers. (I wish Lykren were here--he'd probably be able to describe what I'm talking about--come back, man! :))

Anyway, the distinction you make between her music and poetry is interesting. Blue does it both ways, but much of what followed it had a lot to do with her own wacky beat-ish poetry (like Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, which you said you didn't like that much). There were still album artists in the '70s ('80s capitalism hadn't killed them yet), and most of Mitchell's records from that time were mostly for listening to the lyrics. She would still write pop songs from time to time, apparently because record producers made her. She tells a hilarious story on a live recording about writing You Turn Me On I'm a Radio because she hoped it would seduce disk jockeys into playing the single (and in that context, it's a pretty funny song). Unfortunately the pop-ish songs are all most of the kiddies know of her work anymore.

Check out the difference in style and poetry (and especially the attitude toward women and marriage) between these two songs:

This is the hippie line from Blue in 1970 ("We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall" and all that):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsqNRSOSwM

And this is only six years later, writing in that beat-ish poetry of hers, but singing quite a different tune:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0kNny3WlY

And since I sense you prefer the pre-beat poet stuff, here is an early stage performance (in London, apparently) from the Blue/Just Before Blue era. It really captures that weirdly beautiful off-tune voice of hers:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LoKBGotuNhc

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Anyway, the distinction you make between her music and poetry is interesting. Blue does it both ways, but much of what followed it had a lot to do with her own wacky beat-ish poetry (like Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, which you said you didn't like that much). There were still album artists in the '70s ('80s capitalism hadn't killed them yet), and most of Mitchell's records from that time were mostly for listening to the lyrics. She would still write pop songs from time to time, apparently because record producers made her. She tells a hilarious story on a live recording about writing You Turn Me On I'm a Radio because she hoped it would seduce disk jockeys into playing the single (and in that context, it's a pretty funny song). Unfortunately the pop-ish songs are most of the kiddies know of her anymore.

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The up-side of being popular is that it is influential. I only know her most popular songs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Check out the difference in style and poetry (and especially the attitude toward women and marriage) between these two songs:

This is the hippie line from Blue in 1970 ("We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall" and all that):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsqNRSOSwM

And this is only six years later, writing in that beat-ish poetry of hers, but singing quite a different tune:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0kNny3WlY

---

Here are the lyrics to "Song for Sharon": http://www.metrolyrics.com/song-for-...-mitchell.html They make more immediate sense than "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", however, I don't sense the freshness in the ideas she expressed that her more popular songs had.

It seems like her attitude toward women and marriage is similar between the two periods. As she mentioned in "California", I expect her to be always "strung out on another man". There is a certain charm to that childish flightiness, but it gets old which is what I pick up in "Song for Sharon".

Here is a verse from "Song for Sharon" that reminded me of another thread about a woman asking for purification from Mohammed after committing adultery. She wanted to be stoned. Mitchell puts what I think is the same yearning in terms of suicide:

A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody

At least she isn't asking Mohammed to defile himself so she can be purified. The need for purification might be what brings this back to the OP. Is the existence of situations that make a person consider suicide the result of a suffering that would make one question the existence of a good God? By the way, animals commit suicide as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

And since I sense you prefer the pre-beat poet stuff, here is an early stage performance (in London, apparently) from the Blue/Just Before Blue era. It really captures that weirdly beautiful off-tune voice of hers:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LoKBGotuNhc

---

Nice concert. I don't know what the "off-tune voice" means, but I do like the way she sings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The up-side of being popular is that it is influential. I only know her most popular songs.

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As I said, this is a funny self-conscious attempt to write a hit:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhiLftL1bE

Here's another pop-ish Mitchell tune you may like. It was from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which was one of the first beat-ish album, so they probably told her to write it. It catches something about being a teenager, though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7De3WgHas7U

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Here are the lyrics to "Song for Sharon": http://www.metrolyrics.com/song-for-...-mitchell.html They make more immediate sense than "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", however, I don't sense the freshness in the ideas she expressed that her more popular songs had.

---

I wonder if what you are really missing is the catchy melody of a pop song rather than freshness of ideas. But either way, you are entitled to your tastes. I prefer Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (although I like this song, too) precisely because you have to mull over its lyrics a little more. Considering what Mitchell meant helps me to understand how I personally understand some of the same issues. For me, that's more important than having a catchy tune to hum. "Kick off the sand flies, honey, the love keeps flowing" is a hilarious line that brings me a teenage memory of kissing girls on the beach while the bugs were eating us alive, but it doesn't do much more than that for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It seems like her attitude toward women and marriage is similar between the two periods.

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I disagree. The song was written for a childhood friend, and these verses speak of the fascination (ambiguous for the adult Mitchell) that young girls feel about brides, weddings, wedding gowns, etc.:

I went to Staten Island.
To buy myself a mandolin
And I saw the long white dress of love
On a storefront mannequin
Big boat chuggin' back with a belly full of cars
All for something lacy
Some girl's going to see that dress
And crave that day like crazy...

When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything

And when I went skating after Golden Reggie
You know it was white lace I was chasing
Chasing dreams
Mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans
He showed me first you get the kisses
And then you get the tears
But the ceremony of the bells and lace
Still veils this reckless fool here

I don't know if "Golden Reggie" was the kid who got her pregnant, but her wish for a Wedding Day (as opposed to a husband per se) is being remembered in bittersweet way. I compare that to the sentimental free love ditty, My Old Man: "We don't need no piece of paper from the City Hall keeping us tied and true," etc.-- a sentiment many modern women have since figured out was more or less the boy's version of the same fantasy ("I don't want a husband, I want a Wedding Day" vs. "I don't wan't a wife, I want to get laid"). Somewhere between 1970 and 1976, it seems to me, Mitchell noted the discrepancy. I think that, and Mitchell's own frustrations in finding a lasting love, is what the song is about (the latter is a frequent theme in her poetry). I love the verse about going to the Gypsy and watching 18 bucks go up in smoke, by the way. I think it would cost more expensive nowadays!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Here is a verse from "Song for Sharon" that reminded me of another thread about a woman asking for purification from Mohammed after committing adultery. She wanted to be stoned. Mitchell puts what I think is the same yearning in terms of suicide:

A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody

---

I took those verses differently, too. To me, they just say: who knows why she did it? Maybe she had given up on life, or maybe she wanted to make someone feel guilty. The point was that everyone was buzzing about it because that kind of desperation wasn't really all that far from any of their lives. So:

My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Is the existence of situations that make a person consider suicide the result of a suffering that would make one question the existence of a good God?

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My experience with suicide (one adult neighbor, two neighbor's teenage sons, one colleague's 20-something son, and a close friend) is that every event was a hate-motivated act of violence directed at a spouse or parent--to devastating and I mean devastating effect. Talk about suffering! I understand that there are other motives, too. Sometimes soldiers (and others) see what humans are like in their evolutionary state and decide they don't want to stick around. Sometimes people have chronic agonizing physical pain. Some are just really depressed. None of that changes what I have already said about faith in God despite not understanding suffering.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

By the way, animals commit suicide as well.

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To torture their zookeepers, no doubt. (Sorry).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

And that brings me to the OP. Do we really know what someone else is suffering? There are some cases where it seems obvious, but in most cases I wonder. Do we really know suffering at all?

---

Would you like me to tell you what a bone marrow biopsy feels like? I imagine having your head cut off with a knife is a little like that, although it would take longer. Being left to die on a cross is harder for me to imagine, but the pain of being nailed to it is not. On the whole, I think people know what feels like to suffer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

As I said, this is a funny self-conscious attempt to write a hit:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhiLftL1bE

Here's another pop-ish Mitchell tune you may like. It was from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which was one of the first beat-ish album, so they probably told her to write it. It catches something about being a teenager, though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7De3WgHas7U

---

Here are the lyrics to "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio": http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joni+mi..._20075399.html

Here are the lyrics to "In France They Kiss on Main Street": http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joni+mi..._20075353.html

What both of these lack is "heart", but they try to make up for that with specific details.

I don't know who the "they" are that you refer to. Based on the first part of this interview, it seems that she is calling the shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HajWhhXkfYQ

That may be the problem. One needs to approach an album or a book as a team marketing project.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I wonder if what you are really missing is the catchy melody of a pop song rather than freshness of ideas. But either way, you are entitled to your tastes. I prefer Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (although I like this song, too) precisely because you have to mull over its lyrics a little more. Considering what Mitchell meant helps me to understand how I personally understand some of the same issues. For me, that's more important than having a catchy tune to hum. "Kick off the sand flies, honey, the love keeps flowing" is a hilarious line that brings me a teenage memory of kissing girls on the beach while the bugs were eating us alive, but it doesn't do much more than that for me.

---

If it is the familiar melody why do I not find the two songs you mentioned interesting? They both have that same Joni Mitchell sound.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I disagree. The song was written for a childhood friend, and these verses speak of the fascination (ambiguous for the adult Mitchell) that young girls feel about brides, weddings, wedding gowns, etc.:

I went to Staten Island.
To buy myself a mandolin
And I saw the long white dress of love
On a storefront mannequin
Big boat chuggin' back with a belly full of cars
All for something lacy
Some girl's going to see that dress
And crave that day like crazy...

When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything

And when I went skating after Golden Reggie
You know it was white lace I was chasing
Chasing dreams
Mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans
He showed me first you get the kisses
And then you get the tears
But the ceremony of the bells and lace
Still veils this reckless fool here

I don't know if "Golden Reggie" was the kid who got her pregnant, but her wish for a Wedding Day (as opposed to a husband per se) is being remembered in bittersweet way. I compare that to the sentimental free love ditty, My Old Man: "We don't need no piece of paper from the City Hall keeping us tied and true," etc.-- a sentiment many modern women have since figured out was more or less the boy's version of the same fantasy ("I don't want a husband, I want a Wedding Day" vs. "I don't wan't a wife, I want to get laid"). Somewhere between 1970 and 1976, it seems to me, Mitchell noted the discrepancy. I think that, and Mitchell's own frustrations in finding a lasting love, is what the song is about (the latter is a frequent theme in her poetry). I love the verse about going to the Gypsy and watching 18 bucks go up in smoke, by the way. I think it would cost more expensive nowadays!

---

The lines about the gypsy suggested to me a mean-spirited arrogance. I am neutral about any concern for Mitchell's frustrations about finding a lasting love. I don't know the specific situations well enough. Listening to "River" makes me think she may not be totally innocent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I took those verses differently, too. To me, they just say: who knows why she did it? Maybe she had given up on life, or maybe she wanted to make someone feel guilty. The point was that everyone was buzzing about it because that kind of desperation wasn't really all that far from any of their lives. So:

My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction

---

I agree. She is not consciously intending anything with those lines, but it is how I hear them. In the interview I cited above, she thought "Both Sides, Now" was a failure at the time. There is a disconnect between what she thinks she is saying and what people are hearing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

My experience with suicide (one adult neighbor, two neighbor's teenage sons, one colleague's 20-something son, and a close friend) is that every event was a hate-motivated act of violence directed at a spouse or parent--to devastating and I mean devastating effect. Talk about suffering! I understand that there are other motives, too. Sometimes soldiers (and others) see what humans are like in their evolutionary state and decide they don't want to stick around. Sometimes people have chronic agonizing physical pain. Some are just really depressed. None of that changes what I have already said about faith in God despite not understanding suffering.



To torture their zookeepers, no doubt. (Sorry).



Would you like me to tell you what a bone marrow biopsy feels like? I imagine having your head cut off with a knife is a little like that, although it would take longer. Being left to die on a cross is harder for me to imagine, but the pain of being nailed to it is not. On the whole, I think people know what it means to suffer.

---

Or being burnt at a stake. Or being hanged, drawn and quartered in Merrie Old England. I get it. People suffer. The self-righteousness involved in burning someone at a stake or the self-righteousness involved in trying to avenge that when the political climate turns is also suffering. With self-righteousness comes painful feelings of injustice (more suffering) that one tries to rectify and/or blame others or God for.

The description of suffering in the video in the OP does not go into it deeply enough. The only distinction that is made is between moral evil and natural suffering.

None of that changes what I have already said about faith in God despite not understanding sufferings

On the whole, I think people know what it means to suffer.

You highlighted those two lines from my post above, so I wanted to point out that the first means not understanding the phenomenon of suffering is light of a benevolent and omnipotent God; while the second means knowing enough about what suffering feels like to recognize it in others. To clarify, I'll change the second one to: On the whole, I think people know what it feels like to suffer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't know who the "they" are that you refer to.

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As I said in an earlier post: record company producers. If you think it was marketing, fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

One needs to approach an album or a book as a team marketing project.

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Yup, that's how it goes today. What I love about her best albums, though, is that they were made before artists had completely surrendered to marketers. (Can you imagine Taylor Swift twerking to Don Juan's Reckless Daughter? :))

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

If it is the familiar melody why do I not find the two songs you mentioned interesting? They both have that same Joni Mitchell sound.

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Oh I wouldn't know. People like what they like, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The lines about the gypsy suggested to me a mean-spirited arrogance.

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Oh it's funny. All the magic smoke in a fortune tellers parlor, and hey, there goes my 18 bucks! That's not arrogant. If anything, it's self-deprecating.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Or being burnt at a stake. Or being hanged, drawn and quartered in Merrie Old England. I get it. People suffer. The self-righteousness involved in burning someone at a stake or the self-righteousness involved in trying to avenge that when the political climate turns is also suffering. With self-righteousness comes painful feelings of injustice (more suffering) that one tries to rectify and/or blame others or God for.

---

I didn't really understand what you were getting at here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

None of that changes what I have already said about faith in God despite not understanding sufferings

On the whole, I think people know what it means to suffer.

You highlighted those two lines from my post above, so I wanted to point out that the first means not understanding the phenomenon of suffering is light of a benevolent and omnipotent God; while the second means knowing enough about what suffering feels like to recognize it in others. To clarify, I'll change the second one to: On the whole, I think people know what it feels like to suffer.

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Yes, I agree. Those passages are not contradictory. I should not have highlighted them

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

As I said in an earlier post: record company producers. If you think it was marketing, fine.

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After watching the first 10 minutes of the interview, I don't think she had anyone forcing her to do anything. She was in control.

There is nothing wrong with record company producers or book publishers. It is good today that we also can self-publish if we cannot get a publisher, but that means we do not work with a professional team. We lose their input. Although I haven't listened to all of Mitchell's albums, what I have listened to recently makes me suspect they are not as good as "Blue". So I ask why? The interview makes me think that Mitchell was not taking advice from others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Yup, that's how it goes today. What I love about her best albums, though, is that they were made before artists had completely surrendered to marketers. (Can you imagine Taylor Swift twerking to Don Juan's Reckless Daughter? :))

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I don't mind listening to Taylor Swift. Here are the lyrics to "Blank Space": http://www.directlyrics.com/taylor-s...es-lyrics.html

By comparison, here are the lyrics to "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter": http://www.metrolyrics.com/don-juans...-mitchell.html

I think some reasons Swift's lyrics are more powerful are they are less ambiguous than Mitchell's and they speak to personalities that most people can relate to. Some of the lines are very fresh in the song's context, such as "cause darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream". I can't find any line from Mitchell's song that is so striking. The repetition of "cowards" and "restless" in Mitchell's song are more tedious than memorable and make me think she is preaching. It makes me want to argue with her. I don't mind the kundalini associations, but it doesn't seem like Mitchell knows much more about it than I do and perhaps she is not even writing about it.

I also see credits to three people for Swift's song: Taylor Swift, Max Martin and Johan Shellback. It looks like Swift is more of a team player. One doesn't have to be a team player, but I like to see other people be given credit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Oh it's funny. All the magic smoke in a fortune tellers parlor, and hey, there goes my 18 bucks! That's not arrogant. If anything, it's self-deprecating.

---

I do see the potential humor there, but it doesn't strike me as funny. By contrast when she wrote about the redneck on the Grecian isle who kept her camera, she also portrayed him in a positive way. The gypsy was only there to be mocked.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I didn't really understand what you were getting at here.

---

What I am trying to do is bring the thread back to suffering and the argument against a loving God because of the existence of suffering.

I think the logical arguments claiming that suffering cannot disprove the existence of a loving God are fine but they are ineffectual because the argument against God is not a rational but an emotional argument. The emotion is self-righteousness. One can logically argue that self-righteousness has no ground, especially if one is an atheist, but logic won't stop one from being self-righteous. Because of that it is unconvincing.

So one could take Mitchell's inability to find a lasting relationship. That is a form of suffering. Why does she experience it? Can we generate an anti-male argument from that. The anti-male argument would be similar to the anti-God argument and maybe we can learn something about the reaction to suffering from it.

Or one could introduce even more painful suffering and consider people being burnt at the stake for translating the Latin Bible into English during Thomas More's day. (See "God's Bestseller" for the details.) This can lead more quickly to an anti-God argument since both sides of those atrocities see God on their side and have an emotional response to those who are burning.

He who learns must suffer. Even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, 'til in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God. -Aeschylus

I've always loved that quote. Bobby Kennedy recited it when he informed a crowd of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. It was a beautiful speech. I wonder if suffering is a gift, a gift to make us like him, a suffering god.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCrx_u3825g

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

He who learns must suffer. Even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, 'til in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God. -Aeschylus

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I'm speechless.

But then again, never speechless for too long.

All I have to say about Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift is (as usual) to each his own.

For this part though:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I do see the potential humor there, but it doesn't strike me as funny. By contrast when she wrote about the redneck on the Grecian isle who kept her camera, she also portrayed him in a positive way. The gypsy was only there to be mocked.

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...I still think you're missing the point.

There's a gypsy down on Bleecker Street
I went in to see her as a kind of joke
And she lit a candle for my love luck
And eighteen bucks went up in smoke

In other words, my love luck is so bad that even that Gypsy was wasting her time (and my money) over it. It's not a question of whether you believe in fortune tellers helping your love life by lighting magic candles (which I certainly do not, but perhaps you do). I'd feel awful, though, if that poor Gypsy on Bleecker Street had actually felt insulted or mocked by the lyrics; because if there is one thing I have always sought, it's a happy medium. [:)]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What I am trying to do is bring the thread back to suffering and the argument against a loving God because of the existence of suffering.

I think the logical arguments claiming that suffering cannot disprove the existence of a loving God are fine but they are ineffectual because the argument against God is not a rational but an emotional argument.

---

So on a rational level, they do not preclude the existence of some kind of god. Whether that is a good God, however, must be a matter of faith.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The emotion is self-righteousness. One can logically argue that self-righteousness has no ground, especially if one is an atheist, but logic won't stop one from being self-righteous. Because of that it is unconvincing.

---

No, this is where you lose me. Many people doubt for reasons other than self-righteousness (it could even be thought of as self-righteous for you to assume so--then where are you? Stuck in an infinite loop! Sounds like a wrong turn to me. But let me give you an example of how doubt that is not self-righteous can work. In my opinion (to be honest rather than boastful) I am more faithful than most men I know of my age. My greatest moments of doubt come with the death of those I love, especially if the death was horrible to them. My low point was 26 years ago, when my Mom died in a lot of pain. Afterwards, for a time, my faith took a vacation. Because my faith is a real thing for me (as opposed to a "Oh gee, wouldn't that be nice!" kind of thing), it is either really there or it really isn't. And It REALLY wasn't. That wasn't a choice or reaction: it was just as a fact. My Mom was gone forever, and I knew it, and it was just the most obvious fact in the world.

In terms of my faith, it was like being paralyzed at the waist and trying to move my legs. There just wasn't a lot to be said about it. But there was no sense of: "Oh God, how I've suffered, and you don't know the half of it, so just don't you talk to me about God's existence, because I'm in pain. So there!" It wasn't like that at all--despite the dumb *ss clergy who had been trained to tell me that it was (and who really just didn't know what the hell else to say). So okay, maybe I was being my usual arrogant self (clergy ARE dumb), but there was nothing self-righteous about it. It was really just me being honest about how I felt.

Feeling that way didn't last forever, thank God. But those days were brought back to me last week when something upsetting happened. Without going into the whole story, I had a close friend--almost a second father--who was around 80; and we had a mutual friend, the daughter of an adult friend, who was a 15 year old Chinese girl. We taught her English and western culture, which she loved; and we all sort of loved each other. So then she got sick and died of a childhood cancer in fairly short order. That was a few years ago, and I've since returned to the States to look after my own aging father. Last week I found out that my old friend had just died, too. I was sad at first, then thought the (gratuitous?) struck me:.Maybe L--- was waiting for him when he got to Paradise. Right away I was struck with the old paralysis: "What kind of stories are you telling yourself, boy, so you can feel better about L---'s horror and T--'s death?" It was the exact same gone forever feeling as before. It stayed with me for a few days, until I managed to cry. Then it left.

So I guess all I'm trying to say is don't assume you know what's in another person's heart. It's easy to convince yourself that you do know, but you know, you're probably wrong. People can be as mysterious as God.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Or one could introduce even more painful suffering and consider people being burnt at the stake for translating the Latin Bible into English during Thomas More's day. (See "God's Bestseller" for the details.) This can lead more quickly to an anti-God argument since both sides of those atrocities see God on their side and have an emotional response to those who are burning.

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Oh yes, I know about Tyndale and actually have an old copy of Wycliff around somewhere--not as old as that, but old enough. I recently read Wolf Hall, which touches a little on the phenomenon of setting people on fire because they have different ideas about God than you do. It's upsetting, but Wycliff was already dead when they burned him--they actually had to dig him up first). But I knew a lot about the subject before.

I thought more about what you might have meant about self-righteousness. I wonder if you are feeling stymied because you need suffering to be less than real for your conception of God to be authentic, but you cannot get that because I keep pointing out that suffering is real to the one who is tortured or crucified or burnt alive. That response is not an emotional one. Being burnt is a different experience than feeling the summer grass between one's toes or hearing a song that fills one with joy. And it is not self-righteous to mention extreme examples of suffering. Are you sure that the emotion you sense is not arising from frustration at having such (admittedly upsetting) examples set out for you?

In any case, on reflection, I suspect that we are nearing the point on this thread where we are just going to have to embrace the ideas we share (the existence of a good God, for instance), and agree to disagree on the rest. You are not going to convince me that suffering doesn't exist, and I don't think I am going to convince you that it is a part of God's mystery that we can only bear faithfully. And I think everyone else moved on long ago. Haven't we really been at an impasse for a while ourselves?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

In other words, my love luck is so bad that even that Gypsy was wasting her time (and my money) over it. It's not a question of whether you believe in fortune tellers helping your love life by lighting magic candles (which I certainly do not, but perhaps you do).

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I would not be so quick to claim it doesn't help, but let's not worry about this gypsy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

No, this is where you lose me. Many people doubt for reasons other than self-righteousness (it could even be thought of as self-righteous for you to assume so--then where are you? Stuck in an infinite loop! Sounds like a wrong turn to me.

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The infinite loop is part of the reason why logic isn't going to help. I am a part of the self-righteousness problem when it comes to suffering. If atheists whine about Christians burning people at the stake, I will bring up the Khmer Rouge. If Christians whine about Jews "killing baby Jesus", I will remind them that I think the antisemitism that grounded the holocaust is rooted in their sacred texts.

I'm the kind of guy who likes to keep that loop turning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

But let me give you an example of how doubt that is not self-righteous can work. In my opinion (to be honest rather than boastful) I am more faithful than most men I know of my age. My greatest moments of doubt come with the death of those I love, especially if the death was horrible to them. My low point was 26 years ago, when my Mom died in a lot of pain. Afterwards, for a time, my faith took a vacation. Because my faith is a real thing for me (as opposed to a "Oh gee, wouldn't that be nice!" kind of thing), it is either really there or it really isn't. And It REALLY wasn't. That wasn't a choice or reaction: it was just as a fact. My Mom was gone forever, and I knew it, and it was just the most obvious fact in the world.

In terms of my faith, it was like being paralyzed at the waist and trying to move my legs. There just wasn't a lot to be said about it. But there was no sense of: "Oh God, how I've suffered, and you don't know the half of it, so just don't you talk to me about God's existence, because I'm in pain. So there!" It wasn't like that at all--despite the dumb *ss clergy who had been trained to tell me that it was (and who really just didn't know what the hell else to say). So okay, maybe I was being my usual arrogant self (clergy ARE dumb), but there was nothing self-righteous about it. It was really just me being honest about how I felt.

Feeling that way didn't last forever, thank God. But those days were brought back to me last week when something upsetting happened. Without going into the whole story, I had a very close friend--almost a second father--who was about 80 then; and we had a mutual friend, the daughter of an adult friend, who was a 15 year old Chinese girl. We taught her English and western culture, which she loved; and we all sort of loved each other. So then she got sick and died of a childhood cancer in fairly short order. That was a few years ago, and I've since returned to the States to look after my own aging father. Last week I found out that my old friend had just died, too. I was sad at first, then thought the (gratuitous?) struck me:.Maybe L--- was waiting for him when he got to Paradise. Right away I was struck with the old paralysis: "What kind of stories are you telling yourself, boy, so you can feel better about L---'s horror and T--'s death?" It was the exact same gone forever feeling as before. It stayed with me for a few days, until I managed to cry. Then it left.

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I am sorry for your loses.

I am going to ask a question. I mean no disrespect by it. I expect you to throw the question back at me: What do you think happens to them?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

So I guess all I'm trying to say is don't assume you know what's in another person's heart. It's easy to convince yourself that you do know, but you know, you're probably wrong. People can be as mysterious as God.

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I only claim to know what I feel. I assume that others who make the same kinds of arguments that I would make against one group or another because of some alleged suffering are feeling something similar to the self-righteousness that I would feel.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Oh yes, I know about Tyndale and actually have an old copy of Wycliff around somewhere--not as old as that, but old enough. I recently read Wolf Hall, which touches a little on the phenomenon of setting people on fire because they have different ideas about God than you do. It's upsetting, but Wycliff was already dead when they burned him--they actually had to dig him up first). But I knew a lot about the subject before.

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I know very little about them except what I read in Bryan Moynahan's book, "God's Bestseller".

I do think it was ludicrous to dig up Wycliff just so they could burn his body and hope they sent him to hell. They probably condemned themselves in the process.

This is one of the beautiful things about death. It so frustrates the self-righteous. They can only make someone suffer for so long. The Romans did their best to keep the suffering going as long as humanly possible with crucifixions. The Christians did their best with burning people at the stake or hanging, drawing and quartering their enemies. The ones who burn the longest are the ones who survive.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

If atheists whine about Christians burning people at the stake, I will bring up the Khmer Rouge. If Christians whine about Jews "killing baby Jesus", I will remind them that I think the antisemitism that grounded the holocaust is rooted in their sacred texts.

I'm the kind of guy who likes to keep that loop turning.

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Interesting. You're talking about the appropriation of history for ideological purposes. There is a lot of that going around these days. In the post-modern academy it is considered inevitable (because things like sex, sorry, gender, and melatonin level supposedly carry the ultimate truths) and you're even supposed to do it in some cases. And in politics proper, framing narratives to manipulate support is the name of the game. You're right that dueling self-righteousness is central to all this lying. But critical historians soldier on. We've seen worse. In my opinion, there is nothing inevitable about the self-righteousness that needs to impede logic or morality; nor is it a basis for dismissing the problem of suffering in the human experience. So I'm not convinced it needs to be an infinite loop. It is a potential pitfall though.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am sorry for your loss.

I am going to ask a question. I mean no disrespect by it. I expect you to throw the question back at me: What do you think happens to them?

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Thanks. No, your question is not disrespectful. I don't know if this is what you meant by throwing it back at you, but as I've said, no one knows what happens after you die. Or maybe that doesn't answer your question, which was what do I think happens. Okay, I think one's body reverts to particles and one's life (zoe) goes its own way. My suspect that zoe takes something gleaned in its late physical experience (maybe wisdom?), but how would I know? And given the great influence of the late body on zoe's recent experience as human being, I am not at all convinced that one's personality (psyche) survives death. On the other hand, it may be that what does survive--freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality. But I'm really just speculating.

Okay, maybe throwing the question back at you means asking you what you think happens. I'd be interested to hear.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I know very little about them except what I read in Bryan Moynahan's book, "God's Bestseller".

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Thomas More comes off as a real psycho killer in Wolf Hall. (Do you remember what a heroic martyr he was in A Man for All Seasons?) I've heard this has brought some accusations of anti-Catholicism against Mantel, but I don't see it in the book. She could have come down much harder than she did on the 16th century Papacy, and Wolsey, England's appetitive Catholic theocrat at the time, is actually a sympathetic character. Mantel herself is a lapsed Catholic (turned Socialist agnostic), so that may have produced some hard feelings. I heard her say in an interview, though, that she is considering to join the Church of England now. And she doesn't sound like much of a Socialist anymore, either. Anyway, chit, chat, gossip, gossip.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I do think it was ludicrous to dig up Wycliff just so they could burn his body and hope they sent him to hell. They probably condemned themselves in the process.

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Condemned themselves to hell? Do you really think so?

But yes, it was as stupid as burning anyone else alive; although I doubt Wycliff's cadaver minded much. I think they used copies of his Bible to stoke the fire, which seems the greater crime to me. Or maybe I made that detail up. I don't really remember.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Interesting. You're talking about the appropriation of history for ideological purposes. There is a lot of that going around these days. In the post-modern academy it is considered inevitable (because things like sex, sorry, gender, and melatonin level supposedly carry the ultimate truths) and you're even supposed to do it in some cases. And in politics proper, framing narratives to manipulate support is the name of the game. You're right that dueling self-righteousness is central to all this lying. But critical historians soldier on. We've seen worse. In my opinion, there is nothing inevitable about the self-righteousness that needs to impede logic or morality; nor is it a basis for dismissing the problem of suffering in the human experience. So I'm not convinced it needs to be an infinite loop. It is a potential pitfall though.

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Then we agree. Suffering is an excuse used to "frame narratives to manipulate support". The arguments are emotional based upon ideas of injustice which can only be grounded in whether I like the suffering or not. The righteousness that calls for justice has only the self as its ground.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Thanks. No, your question is not disrespectful. I don't know if this is what you meant by throwing it back at you, but as I've said, no one knows what happens after you die. Or maybe that doesn't answer your question, which was what do I think happens. Okay, I think one's body reverts to particles and one's life (zoe) goes its own way. My suspect that zoe takes something gleaned in its late physical experience (maybe wisdom?), but how would I know? And given the great influence of the late body on zoe's recent experience as human being, I am not at all convinced that one's personality (psyche) survives death. On the other hand, it may be that what does survive--freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality. But I'm really just speculating.

Okay, maybe throwing the question back at you means asking you what you think happens. I'd be interested to hear.

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That would be how I see it as well although we might differ on details about "zoe" or "particles". I would have referred you to Raymond Moody's "Life After Life" if you didn't have an answer.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Thomas More comes off as a real psycho killer in Wolf Hall. (Do you remember what a heroic martyr he was in A Man for All Seasons?) I've heard this has brought some accusations of anti-Catholicism against Mantel, but I don't see it in the book. She could have come down much harder than she did on the 16th century Papacy, and Wolsey, England's appetitive Catholic theocrat at the time, is actually a sympathetic character. Mantel herself is a lapsed Catholic (turned Socialist agnostic), so that may have produced some hard feelings. I heard her say in an interview, though, that she is considering to join the Church of England now. And she doesn't sound like much of a Socialist anymore, either. Anyway, chit, chat, gossip, gossip.

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Thomas More did not come off looking very good in Moynahan's book either.

I thought "A Man for All Seasons" was grossly sentimental. Of course, I saw it after reading "God's Bestseller", because I wanted to know more about More. Whatever Pope canonized this guy should be ashamed of himself.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Condemned themselves to hell? Do you really think so?

But yes, it was as stupid as burning anyone else alive; although I doubt Wycliff's cadaver minded much. I think they used copies of his Bible to stoke the fire, which seems the greater crime to me. Or maybe I made that detail up. I don't really remember.

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Not "to hell", but yes, their actions were an unconscious self-condemnation just as Thomas More burning his religious opponents at the stake was an act of self-condemnation on his part. He didn't see it that way. Whether he is actually in some hell or not, I don't know. More and those he burned may be partying now in heaven, like in the movie "The Voices", for all I know.

By the way, not all near-death experiences are happy movements through the tunnel into the light. People have reported "hellish" experiences. So maybe they are all partying in hell.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Then we agree. Suffering is an excuse used to "frame narratives to manipulate support". The arguments are emotional based upon ideas of injustice which can only be grounded in whether I like the suffering or not. The righteousness that calls for justice has only the self as its ground.

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We do? Haven't I just said that framing narratives to manipulate support is not inevitable and need not impede logic and morality? And that it is no basis for dismissing he problem of suffering in human experience? I think you are confusing narratives of special victimhood with suffering. Having a giant needle driven into your pelvis and them forcefully pulled out (because it has lodged there), twice on each side, while you screen in pain, is not the same experience as feeling joy in your heart at the site of your beloved's smile. I understand that you need them be be part of the same spectrum for your theological and scientific speculations, but they are categorically different experiences that don't appear to want to cooperate with you. :)

That is twice recently that you have taken something I wrote seriously out of context, YesNo. Are we playing chess here, or trying to learn from one another's differences? Hmmmmm?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

That would be how I see it as well although we might differ on details about "zoe" or "particles".

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Really? I don't want to put words into your mouth, but are you sure you see the experience of life after the body as potentially different from the personality? Perhaps you do. It surprises me though.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I would have referred you to Raymond Moody's "Life After Life" if you didn't have an answer.

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I read it when it came out: 30 or 40 years ago now. Even then I wondered how anyone knew those people were telling the truth. I am open to the possibility, of course, but I was hardly convinced by Moody.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Not "to hell", but yes, their actions were an unconscious self-condemnation just as Thomas More burning his religious opponents at the stake was an act of self-condemnation on his part. He didn't see it that way. Whether he is actually in some hell or not, I don't know. More and those he burned may be partying now in heaven, like in the movie "The Voices", for all I know.

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Yeah, I don't know how that stuff works, either. Having faith in a God of love and justice is enough for me, though. For now. :)

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

We do? Haven't I just said that framing narratives to manipulate support is not inevitable and need not impede logic and morality? And that it is no basis for dismissing he problem of suffering in human experience? I think you are confusing narratives of special victimhood with suffering. Having a giant needle driven into your pelvis and them forcefully pulled out (because it has lodged there), twice on each side, while you screen in pain, is not the same experience as feeling joy in your heart at the site of your beloved's smile. I understand that you need them be be part of the same spectrum for your theological and scientific speculations, but they are categorically different experiences, and don't appear to want to cooperate with you. :)

That is twice recently that you have taken something I wrote seriously out of context, YesNo. Are we playing chess here, or trying to learn from one another's differences? Hmmmmm?

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Perhaps we don't agree.

When someone is upset with God because of some specific suffering they are experiencing, I don't expect their argument to be based on anything logical nor moralistic. They suffer. They are upset. They may well be looking for someone to blame. This would impede logic and morality at least until they calm down.

However, other suffering arguments, the ones I am more interested in, are based on "narratives" to use your term. These narratives are designed to impede logic and morality and work up the emotions of the listeners. The purpose is to use the narrative to establish an evil group of people based on the suffering of their alleged victims and make a political call to justice to rectify that suffering. Self-righteousness impedes both logic and morality in its campaigns for justice.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Really? I don't want to put words into your mouth, but are you sure you see the experience of life after the body as potentially different from the personality? Perhaps you do. It surprises me though.

I read it when it came out: 30 or 40 years ago now. Even then I wondered how anyone knew those people were telling the truth. I am open to the possibility, of course, but I was hardly convinced by Moody.

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I don't follow your argument about personality.

However, let me suggest a similarity between the publication of near and shared death experiences today and the publication of unauthorized translations of the Bible into English during Thomas More's time.

Why was More so upset about Tyndale's translation? It undermined the monopoly that Catholicism had over Christianity with the help of the new printing technology. The Catholic Church wanted to make sure words like "ecclesia" and "presbyter" and "caritas" were defined to legitimate the Catholic Church, its ordained priests and the virtue of giving money to only that church. Tyndale opened Christianity up threatening the Catholic monopoly.

Today, we have a new printing revolution. Now Christianity (and its long-despised Jewish minority) are not the only games in town. All of the religions of the world are available for individuals to examine. After all the in-fighting between the various Judeo-Christian and atheist sects civil liberties provide powerful obstacles to the modern equivalents of More from gaining power. What Christians have enjoyed was a monopoly not only on spirituality, but also on "resurrection". Only their Jesus could resurrect. Only their Jesus could provide resurrection to others. That is no longer the case.

What Christians find objectionable about near death experiences today is that it threatens their religious monopoly in the same way that Catholics felt threatened by Protestantism undermining their monopoly in More's day.

From my perspective, I don't see any difference between the shared-death experiences reported in the Christian New Testament and shared-death experiences reported by people of all faiths or even no faith. The only thing that Christians could argue for is the quantity of these experiences was more massive.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Perhaps we don't agree. When someone is upset with God because of some specific suffering they are experiencing, I don't expect their argument to be based on anything logical nor moralistic.
They suffer. They are upset. They may well be looking for someone to blame. This would impede logic and morality at least until they calm down.

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What about the many mature adults who are able to confront "specific suffering" without becoming "upset with God"; or even if they do, are still able to think in terms of logic and morality? Is it correct to tar them with the brush of the illogic of others who (at least as you claim) may be too upset to think clearly. Even if you were right about the others, it would not mean that those who assert the reality of suffering are incapable of logic or morality.

Your argument at present amounts to this:

1. Individuals suffer. You seem to finally concede this, but in fact, you want to have it both ways because their suffering is inconvenient to your often stated position that suffering does not really exist.

2. You are therefore compelled to argue that individuals who are suffering are not capable of appreciating their true situation because they are suffering, which "impede[s] their logic and morality."

The argument is circular. Those who suffer cannot be wrong about the fact that they are suffering because they are suffering.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

However, other suffering arguments, the ones I am more interested in, are based on "narratives" to use your term. These narratives are designed to impede logic and morality and work up the emotions of the listeners. The purpose is to use the narrative to establish an evil group of people based on the suffering of their alleged victims and make a political call to justice to rectify that suffering. Self-righteousness impedes both logic and morality in its campaigns for justice.

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Here we begin to agree. Fetch the long-suffering fatted calf! :)

But we need to make an important distinction. As I said in my previous post:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I think you are confusing narratives of special victimhood with suffering.

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We will move toward greater common ground (and make the fatted calf nervous indeed) if we can acknowledge that suffering per se is not the same thing as attempting to use one's own suffering, the suffering of one's ancestors, or the suffering (contemporary or historical) of identified groups as a means to enhance one's personal or political status or power or to advance an argument through an appeal to emotion or special pleading.

Can we agree on that at this point? I'm hungry (and the fatted calf's just sitting there).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't follow your argument about personality.

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As I said before, it's not an argument, just speculation. I don't know what happens after death, and I place my faith in the God of love and justice where such things are concerned. But I'm happy to explain/discuss some of my speculations

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Thanks. No, your question is not disrespectful. I don't know if this is what you meant by throwing it back at you, but as I've said, no one knows what happens after you die. Or maybe that doesn't answer your question, which was what do I think happens. Okay, I think one's body reverts to particles and one's life (zoe) goes its own way. My suspect that zoe takes something gleaned in its late physical experience (maybe wisdom?), but how would I know? And given the great influence of the late body on zoe's recent experience as human being, I am not at all convinced that one's personality (psyche) survives death. On the other hand, it may be that what does survive--freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality. But I'm really just speculating.

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Okay, so maybe we are just electric meat. Maybe the bulb blows and the whole thing gets tossed out and that's just all she wrote. It's possible. But I don't believe it and neither do you, so let's move on. Another way to look at it is that once we die, our physical bodies are reduced to elemental particles that get recycled; but that we cannot directly observe what happens to the rest of us: the part of us capable of non-physical suffering, for example, which may nevertheless take years to heal, or may even leave us permanently impaired. And if we can't observe this "self" directly, what can we say about it (assuming it exists at all)? Must we accept what has been handed to us by folk traditions, religions, or modern "experts" who may not know more than anyone else about the subject? Or can we bring some logic of our own to our speculations?

Okay, so many would call what I am talking about the soul. The New Testament uses the term pseuxn (psyche) and modern psychology adopts the term to mean the self. In both cases, it is understood to refer to the personality. So I start by asking: why do we assume what remains is the personality? It seems to me there are a lot problems with that idea. Is the personality really consistent between the ages of two and 17 and 48 and 88 (let alone in utero) or do the physical processes of the body change it? What about dementia? Or a massive brain injury resulting personality change (such as in the Phineas Gage or even Jim Brady cases)? Do those born disabled because of damaged or different brains remain "retarded" once the brain is gone? Is the Afterlife like Florida: full of senior citizens and reckless kids? It seems to me that the survival of the personality per se should not be taken for granted, even by those who believe that the light and the bulb are not the same thing.

This is why I prefer to speak of zoe (life) rather than pseuxn (soul). And while it may be the death knell of the old canard that belief in an afterlife is wishful thinking based on a selfish desire to live forever (because who wants to keep living if it's not "you"), I can already see torches and pitchforks being raised by those whose faith has long been that if they go to church or say a special prayer, they will one day be reunited with their lost parents and grandparents and husbands and wives and and brothers and sisters and friends and children. And while I'm tempted to just shrug as compassionately as I can at those people and say: "Look, what makes you think that I know how it works?", I actually suspect that their situation may be better than it seems. It's what I meant when I said: "it may be that what does survive--freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality." In other words, our true selves may not be done with the true selves of those we have loved. And so, to get a little sappy for a moment, we are left with Eric Clapton's question: "Would you know my name?" I say yes. But how would I know?

And in case "freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality" is not clear enough, I mean that the personality is limited by the brain, and manipulated by the biochemistry of a the body, which is itself the product of millions of years of natural selection. But free of body and brain and biochemistry and lethally grubbing for physical survival, there is (in my belief) zoe, the living self that God created for us. It seems to me that with the death of the material, life is liberated to its true form, though perhaps grown in some ways (in wisdom?) by its experience in matter; or perhaps changed for the worse?

What comes next? How should I know? Perhaps zoe (with some dearly bought wisdom) sees what can be learned as a bird of prey or a pine tree or starving Ethiopian mother. Perhaps those who are ready move closer to God while those who are not fall farther still. Perhaps some are simply saved from suffering. Perhaps they go to God. Perhaps they go to another universe. Perhaps the question doesn't even apply. I mean, who died and left me in charge of all the answers? Trusting to a God of love and justice really does help.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

However, let me suggest a similarity between the publication of near and shared death experiences today and the publication of unauthorized translations of the Bible into English during Thomas More's time.

Why was More so upset about Tyndale's translation? It undermined the monopoly that Catholicism had over Christianity with the help of the new printing technology. The Catholic Church wanted to make sure words like "ecclesia" and "presbyter" and "caritas" were defined to legitimate the Catholic Church, its ordained priests and the virtue of giving money to only that church. Tyndale opened Christianity up threatening the Catholic monopoly.

Today, we have a new printing revolution. Now Christianity (and its long-despised Jewish minority) are not the only games in town. All of the religions of the world are available for individuals to examine. After all the in-fighting between the various Judeo-Christian and atheist sects civil liberties provide powerful obstacles to the modern equivalents of More from gaining power. What Christians have enjoyed was a monopoly not only on spirituality, but also on "resurrection". Only their Jesus could resurrect. Only their Jesus could provide resurrection to others. That is no longer the case.

What Christians find objectionable about near death experiences today is that it threatens their religious monopoly in the same way that Catholics felt threatened by Protestantism undermining their monopoly in More's day.

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Okay, I think I've followed your rather complicated analogy. I do see a some problems with it. But even if the analogy were much clearer, it would still do nothing to advance the veracity of near death experiences. Even if you could show that Christians find the idea objectionable (which I doubt you can), it would not follow that those who report such experiences are telling the truth; or if they are, that their perceptions were authentic experience. They may be, but it has nothing to do with whether Christians find them objectionable.

Also, a statement predicated "What Christians find objectionable about near death experiences today is..." presumes a non-existent uniformity and unanimity of belief between Christian confessions, denominations, and individuals. The Catholic Church has no official position on "NDEs." Many Protestants are interested and even feel vindicated by some of the reports. (The reason the teenaged Pompey Bum plunked out his hard earned law mowing money for a copy of Ray Moody's slender book was that our dippy youth minister had been talking it up). No doubt you could find some Christians who object, but cherry-picking evidence doesn't fly in reasoned discourse. Objecting to the veracity of reports of near death experiences is in no way definitive of being a Christian. So your argument is still born.

I might object to some details of your analogy, too (world religions were widely known before the Internet, Christianity hardly has a monopoly on belief in an afterlife or the transmigration of souls, etc.), but I feel your argument has already been sufficiently blown out of the water. :):):)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

From my perspective, I don't see any difference between the shared-death experiences reported in the Christian New Testament and shared-death experiences reported by people of all faiths or even no faith.

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Well I'm glad you've found something that seems so universally meaningful to you, YesNo. As I've said before, I am open to the idea; but I treat the subject with no less a critical approach than I bring to Biblical studies. Since we have spoken of such things for many weeks now, I'm sure you see that I am not being inconsistent.

I have a suggestion, too, before I close. Rather than claim that the miracle stories of various religions constitute near death experiences, you would be on stronger ground to argue that medical technology in the 20th and 21st centuries led to a new kind of experience: one in which patients who had clinically died were resuscitated--and this has resulted in near or partial experiences of afterlife. If you are right about that, you won't need to negate somebody else's miracle story. That seems like a polite approach if nothing else. Poor old Lazarus has been through a lot. :)

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What about the many mature adults who are able to confront "specific suffering" without becoming "upset with God"; or even if they do, are still able to think in terms of logic and morality? Is it correct to tar them with the brush of the illogic of others who (at least as you claim) may be too upset to think clearly. Even if you were right about the others, it would not mean that those who assert the reality of suffering are incapable of logic or morality.

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Some people can still think logically and morally when they suffer. Some can't.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Your argument at present amounts to this:

1. Individuals suffer. You seem to finally concede this, but in fact, you want to have it both ways because their suffering is inconvenient to your often stated position that suffering does not really exist.

2. You are therefore compelled to argue that individuals who are suffering are not capable of appreciating their true situation because they are suffering, which "impede[s] their logic and morality."

The argument is circular. Those who suffer cannot be wrong about the fact that they are suffering because they are suffering.

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People suffer. My position is that I don't see the existence of suffering as evidence that the universe is evil.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

We will move toward greater common ground (and make the fatted calf nervous indeed) if we can acknowledge that suffering per se is not the same thing as attempting to use one's own suffering, the suffering of one's ancestors, or the suffering (contemporary or historical) of identified groups as a means to enhance one's personal or political status or power or to advance an argument through an appeal to emotion or special pleading.

Can we agree on that at this point? I'm hungry (and the fatted calf's just sitting there).

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I am a vegetarian, but you are welcome to eat the calf.

I think I have already made the distinction you have made.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

As I said before, it's not an argument, just speculation. I don't know what happens after death, and I place my faith in the God of love and justice where such things are concerned. But I'm happy to explain/discuss some of my speculations

Okay, so maybe we are just electric meat. Maybe the bulb blows and the whole thing gets tossed out and that's just all she wrote. It's possible. But I don't believe it and neither do you, so let's move on. Another way to look at it is that once we die, our physical bodies are reduced to elemental particles that get recycled; but that we cannot directly observe what happens to the rest of us: the part of us capable of non-physical suffering, for example, which may nevertheless take years to heal, or may even leave us permanently impaired. And if we can't observe this "self" directly, what can we say about it (assuming it exists at all)? Must we accept what has been handed to us by folk traditions, religions, or modern "experts" who may not know more than anyone else about the subject? Or can we bring some logic of our own to our speculations?

Okay, so many would call what I am talking about the soul. The New Testament uses the term pseuxn (psyche) and modern psychology adopts the term to mean the self. In both cases, it is understood to refer to the personality. So I start by asking: why do we assume what remains is the personality? It seems to me there are a lot problems with that idea. Is the personality really consistent between the ages of two and 17 and 48 and 88 (let alone in utero) or do the physical processes of the body change it? What about dementia? Or a massive brain injury resulting personality change (such as in the Phineas Gage or even Jim Brady cases)? Do those born disabled because of damaged or different brains remain "retarded" once the brain is gone? Is the Afterlife like Florida: full of senior citizens and reckless kids? It seems to me that the survival of the personality per se should not be taken for granted, even by those who believe that the light and the bulb are not the same thing.

This is why I prefer to speak of zoe (life) rather than pseuxn (soul). And while it may be the death knell of the old canard that belief in an afterlife is wishful thinking based on a selfish desire to live forever (because who wants to keep living if it's not "you"), I can already see torches and pitchforks being raised by those whose faith has long been that if they go to church or say a special prayer, they will one day be reunited with their lost parents and grandparents and husbands and wives and and brothers and sisters and friends and children. And while I'm tempted to just shrug as compassionately as I can at those people and say: "Look, what makes you think that I know how it works?", I actually suspect that their situation may be better than it seems. It's what I meant when I said: "it may be that what does survive--freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality." In other words, our true selves may not be done with the true selves of those we have loved. And so, to get a little sappy for a moment, we are left with Eric Clapton's question: "Would you know my name?" I say yes. But how would I know?

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This is where near and shared death experiences may offer something.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

And in case "freed from the limits and instincts of the body--is a truer self than the dice roll of one's personality" is not clear enough, I mean that the personality is limited by the brain, and manipulated by the biochemistry of a the body, which is itself the product of millions of years of natural selection. But free of body and brain and biochemistry and lethally grubbing for physical survival, there is (in my belief) zoe, the living self that God created for us. It seems to me that with the death of the material, life is liberated to its true form, though perhaps grown in some ways (in wisdom?) by its experience in matter; or perhaps changed for the worse?

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I think I agree with this, but not with the pessimistic portrayal of this "material" world.

Natural selection is a bad metaphor. Supposedly this selection process occurs without consciousness because it is "natural" unlike artificial selection which is what we do when we breed plants and animals, but if it really were unconscious that would mean no "selection" occurred at all.

What one has are organisms faced with the various climate changes over the billions of years. Those organisms made choices. Those choices materialized changes that ultimately led to us. As I see it, they were not just trying to survive, but they were looking for something better pretty much the way we do today except their range of possibilities were different.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What comes next? How should I know? Perhaps zoe (with some dearly bought wisdom) sees what can be learned as a bird of prey or a pine tree or starving Ethiopian mother. Perhaps those who are ready move closer to God while those who are not fall farther still. Perhaps some are simply saved from suffering. Perhaps they go to God. Perhaps they go to another universe. Perhaps the question doesn't even apply. I mean, who died and left me in charge of all the answers? Trusting to a God of love and justice really does help.

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My assumptions are similar, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to find out more.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Okay, I think I've followed your rather complicated analogy. I do see a some problems with it. But even if the analogy were much clearer, it would still do nothing to advance the veracity of near death experiences. Even if you could show that Christians find the idea objectionable (which I doubt you can), it would not follow that those who report such experiences are telling the truth; or if they are, that their perceptions were authentic experience. They may be, but it has nothing to do with whether Christians find them objectionable.

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What I am trying to do is understand why you find shared death experiences problematic, while at the same time you seem to accept the reports that Thomas put his hand in Jesus' wounds after the crucifixion when Jesus suddenly appeared in the room.

My guess is that you believe two things: (1) the event actually happened, and (2) only Jesus could do something like that. I have no problem with (1) because I can think of an example of a shared death experience like it. That means I don't have to believe that the event occurred because the event is now no longer a miracle contradicting my general view of reality. Belief (2) is what I am trying to describe as a monopoly.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Also, a statement predicated "What Christians find objectionable about near death experiences today is..." presumes a non-existent uniformity and unanimity of belief between Christian confessions, denominations, and individuals. The Catholic Church has no official position on "NDEs." Many Protestants are interested and even feel vindicated by some of the reports. (The reason the teenaged Pompey Bum plunked out his hard earned law mowing money for a copy of Ray Moody's slender book was that our dippy youth minister had been talking it up). No doubt you could find some Christians who object, but cherry-picking evidence doesn't fly in reasoned discourse. Objecting to the veracity of reports of near death experiences is in no way definitive of being a Christian. So your argument is still born.

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I am sure some Christians accept these things. Others don't. What I am trying to understand is why don't those Christians who doubt that shared death experiences are real nonetheless accept their New Testament that contains many such stories?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I might object to some details of your analogy, too (world religions were widely known before the Internet, Christianity hardly has a monopoly on belief in an afterlife or the transmigration of souls, etc.), but I feel your argument has already been sufficiently blown out of the water. :):):)

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I think the technology today is critical. Not just publishing, but also transportation. When I was an undergraduate, there weren't any computers with chat and forum interfaces. Sure, I heard of Buddha or Krishna, but I could not discuss these issues with anyone and I would not have even thought of discussing them.

You could look at the rise of new spiritual practices and ideas like species undergoing punctuated equilibrium. Catholicism could be seen as a "species". When its monopoly on spirituality broke down due to the environment having new printing technology various other Christian "species" could come into existence. Similarly today with the environment undergoing technological changes (a kind of cultural climate change), new religious species can emerge.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Well I'm glad you've found something that seems so universally meaningful to you, YesNo. As I've said before, I am open to the idea; but I treat the subject with no less a critical approach than I bring to Biblical studies. Since we have spoken of such things for many weeks now, I'm sure you see that I am not being inconsistent.

I have a suggestion, too, before I close. Rather than claim that the miracle stories of various religions constitute near death experiences, you would be on stronger ground to argue that medical technology in the 20th and 21st centuries led to a new kind of experience: one in which patients who had clinically died were resuscitated--and this has resulted in near or partial experiences of afterlife. If you are right about that, you won't need to negate somebody else's miracle story. That seems like a polite approach if nothing else. Poor old Lazarus has been through a lot. :)

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I don't believe in "miracle stories". Either Jesus appeared to travelers on the road to Emmaus, later ate food with them and then disappeared, or he did not. If he did, then that has to be taken into account as part of the way the real world behaves.

Sounds like we agree on most of what I wrote yesterday. The Fatted Calf was made of ginger cheesecake, by the way. Mmmmm-boy! Gone now, though. :)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Natural selection is a bad metaphor. Supposedly this selection process occurs without consciousness because it is "natural" unlike artificial selection which is what we do when we breed plants and animals, but if it really were unconscious that would mean no "selection" occurred at all.

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This discussion belongs on the evolution thread, but while we are here, it seems to me that you are practicing a kind of equivocation with "natural selection." As I understand the term, nature is the one doing the selecting, through genetic recombination and mutation (against the backdrop of the environmental stress you mention). I agree that it is a misleading term, and that there is no discernible selection occurring in terms of choice or will. But that doesn't mean that organisms are choosing how their parents genetic material combines and mutates, or the likelihood of their survival in the changing environment (as you seem to imply below).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What one has are organisms faced with the various climate changes over the billions of years. Those organisms made choices. Those choices materialized changes that ultimately led to us.

As I see it, they were not just trying to survive, but they were looking for something better pretty much the way we do today except their range of possibilities were different.

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Which choices exactly did the blue green algae make? When did Australopithecus africanus choose to have a gracile jaw and small teeth so that it could not chew through the increasingly tough vegetation of the drying African savanna? In what way way the bacillus that causes syphilis "looking for something better pretty much the way we do today"? Did it document I it's hopes in any form you are able to demonstrate? But again, let's take that discussion to the evolution thread. I think the biologists among us have long given up on this one.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What I am trying to do is understand why you find shared death experiences problematic, while at the same time you seem to accept the reports that Thomas put his hand in Jesus' wounds after the crucifixion when Jesus suddenly appeared in the room.

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Ah, ad hominem tu quoque fallacy. I wondered if that's what you had in mind. Whether I believe that or not has no logical bearing on the validity or non validity of reports of near death experiences. You are also still employing the faulty premise that I "find shared death experiences problematic." I have said several times now that I am open to the idea; but I employ the same critical approach to them that I do, for example, to Biblical studies. If that's still confusing, or if my personal convictions about the Resurrection are not clear, please refer to my discussion about it a few pages back. Now, into the penalty box with you and no more fouling.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

My guess is that you believe two things: (1) the event actually happened, and (2) only Jesus could do something like that.

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How come you didn't just use what I had already told you I believed instead of guessing? What I said then was that my belief in the Resurrection was part of my faith in an omnipotent God who is stronger than death. It doesn't bother me that the Gospels are a bit confused about what actually happened It's what I'd expect. It doesn't interfere with my faith in God, nor my conviction that the Resurrection was a historical event. So yes, I believe it actually happened and that God did it.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I have no problem with (1) because I can think of an example of a shared death experience like it.

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Yes, we've talked about your experience before. But this is the first I have heard of your claim that it was like the Resurrection. And yes, you ARE going to have some hurdles to get over on that one.

First of all: do you or do you not believe that the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a historical event? Please answer yes or no (as I just did). If your answer is no, then how can you claim something that didn't happen in the first place was like something that (you say) did happen? But if you answer yes, you still have some hurdles to get over, too.

Your claim that your experience was like the Resurrection is necessarily dependent on your knowing what the Resurrection was like. If you do not know what it was like, then you cannot make the case that the other event was like it. So what was it like and how do you know? Did Jesus rise in the flesh? If so, how did he walk through a door? Or was he a spiritual being at that point? If so, how did he eat food with his disciples? How did he digest the food and how did he excrete it? But if he was corporeal, how did he vanish on the road to Emmaus, and why didn't Cleopas and his companion see who he was until just before he vanished? How did he later ascend into Heaven? But if he was spiritual, how was Thomas able to touch put his hand in his wounds?

And most importantly for the purposes of your claim, how do you know which it was for sure? What information do you have that the rest of us don't to establish what the Resurrection was really like? Or that it occurred at all? Before you answer, please note that "I know because I know what happened in the other experience" is circular thinking (and thus fallacious). You cannot claim that event 1 is like event 2 because event 2 was x way so event 1 must have been x way, too. Your notion that the event was like the Resurrection turns into what George W. Bush once described as a "three-spiral crash." :)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

That means I don't have to believe that the event occurred because the event is now no longer a miracle contradicting my general view of reality.

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You are free to believe what you like about the event in question. I imagine one more rigorously trained in science would want you to repeat your experience under laboratory conditions before it would be considered quite as natural a phenomenon as you seem to think it is; but you will only get a fight from me to the extent that you try to use your beliefs to negate the faith of others. Why not live and let live? Hmmmm?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Belief (2) is what I am trying to describe as a monopoly.

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You have confused belief and faith; of which Christians have no monopoly. For a faithful person (or for myself at least) there is no problem with contradictions between the the Road to Emmaus and Doubting Thomas. I don't know what the Resurrection was like anymore than you do. My faith is in God is sufficient for me to understand that it happened. Who needs the ghost stories?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am sure some Christians accept these things. Others don't. What I am trying to understand is why don't those Christians who doubt that shared death experiences are real nonetheless accept their New Testament that contains many such stories?

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Ah, bait and switch. We weren't talking about Christians "accept[ing]these things" before, but objecting to them. Being open to a possibility (that is, not objecting to it) is not the same as accepting it as necessarily authentic. How did that become a matter of "doubt[ing"?] Do you personally accept every claim to have had a near death experience uncritically? Personally, I don't know of any Christians who object to the idea of it per se. But that doesn't mean we were born yesterday. ;-)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

You could look at the rise of new spiritual practices and ideas like species undergoing punctuated equilibrium. Catholicism could be seen as a "species". When its monopoly on spirituality broke down due to the environment having new printing technology various other Christian "species" could come into existence. Similarly today with the environment undergoing technological changes (a kind of cultural climate change), new religious species can emerge.

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Oh YesNo, you have some interesting concepts! :-D I'll try on the idea of the Catholic Church as a species unto itself, but I'm not promising anything. But I do like the idea that you and I may be the harbingers (via LitNet) of new approaches to God and meaning. (You, perhaps, as the Prophet of the coming bad marriage between science and religion, and me as the only one who seems to get the difference between sola fide and sola scriptura). Are we to become the Punch and Judy of theology? This thread has had more than 5182 views so far, and that can't all be Melanie. But maybe it's just us writing new posts? (So much for your brave new world!) If it isn't, though, we should definitely consider taking up a collection.

EDIT: How 'bout the Stones? You like the Stones?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KW3ASB3SqRU

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

This discussion belongs on the evolution thread, but while we are here, it seems to me that you are practicing a kind of equivocation with "natural selection." As I understand the term, nature is the one doing the selecting, through genetic recombination and mutation (against the backdrop of the environmental stress you mention). I agree that it is a misleading term, and that there is no discernible selection occurring in terms of choice or will. But that doesn't mean that organisms are choosing how their parents genetic material combines and mutates, or the likelihood of their survival in the changing environment (as you seem to imply below).

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I think the discussion is relevant because we are talking about theodicy. Since atheists don't believe in God, one can switch that to "cosmodicy" or justifying the universe in the face of suffering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodi...d_anthropodicy

You seem to admit that "natural selection" is "misleading" because "there is no discernible selection occurring in terms of choice or will."

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Which choices exactly did the blue green algae make? When did Australopithecus africanus choose to have a gracile jaw and small teeth so that it could not chew through the increasingly tough vegetation of the drying African savanna? In what way way the bacillus that causes syphilis "looking for something better pretty much the way we do today"? Did it document I it's hopes in any form you are able to demonstrate? But again, let's take that discussion to the evolution thread. I think the biologists among us have long given up on this one.

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I don't know how they chose to do these things, but they are the only ones who could have made a choice in response to the climate changes at the time. The climate changes did not change the jaw shape.

The documents that it left were fossils. The "when" based on punctuated equilibrium happened in a relatively rapid time frame, tens of thousands of years of "punctuation" compared to millions of years of "equilibrium". For more information on this, see Niles Eldredge, "Evolution and Extinction".

Let me throw the question back at you. How did random mutations without the use of consciousness of any sort generate an evolutionary history, documented by fossils, involving increased complexity?

I like to think of "natural selection" as a metaphor as bad as "Mr. Market". For those who don't know, Mr. Market is credited with a stock rising or falling. Now, we all know there is no Mr. Market making these choices. The people responsible are the individual investors who traded that day given the changing financial environment. We forget that about natural selection.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What I said then was that my belief in the Resurrection was part of my faith in an omnipotent God who is stronger than death. It doesn't bother me that the Gospels are a bit confused about what actually happened It's what I'd expect. It doesn't interfere with my faith in God, nor my conviction that the Resurrection was a historical event. So yes, I believe it actually happened and that God did it.

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I have no problem with God doing it. I don't think we'd see anything at all without some transcendent Consciousness manifesting the world.

There may be parts of the Gospels that are confused. I don't think the stuff about the Jews was very nice for example. The Romans killed Jesus.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

First of all: do you or do you not believe that the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a historical event? Please answer yes or no (as I just did). If your answer is no, then how can you claim something that didn't happen in the first place was like something that (you say) did happen? But if you answer yes, you still have some hurdles to get over, too.

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I'm not a Christian, so my views on the bodily resurrection of Jesus are irrelevant. However, from what I remember about reading parts of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles when I was thinking about near and shared death experiences, I don't think Jesus had a near death experience. The body he had may have de-materialized or it may have been taken away. It doesn't matter. What I think he did do was generate very powerful and materialized shared death experiences for his followers.

So, did he resurrect with the same body that was crucified? No. He would have needed many months of recovery and Pilate would have crucified him a second time. Did he materialize and de-materialize later in a real body, as real as yours or mine? Yes. Or, at least, based on shared death experiences I have no reason to doubt that these events did not happen as reported.

Those events are enough to justify the creation of a new, legitimate religion that reflects spiritual reality.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Your claim that your experience was like the Resurrection is necessarily dependent on your knowing what the Resurrection was like. If you do not know what it was like, then you cannot make the case that the other event was like it. So what was it like and how do you know? Did Jesus rise in the flesh? If so, how did he walk through a door? Or was he a spiritual being at that point? If so, how did he eat food with his disciples? How did he digest the food and how did he excrete it? But if he was corporeal, how did he vanish on the road to Emmaus, and why didn't Cleopas and his companion see who he was until just before he vanished? How did he later ascend into Heaven? But if he was spiritual, how was Thomas able to touch put his hand in his wounds?

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As you are aware, I am a panentheistic idealist. I am neither a materialist nor a dualist. There is no unconscious matter out there to stop him from doing whatever he wants. Luckily, our minds are not so free or who knows what damage we would do to others.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

You have confused belief and faith; of which Christians have no monopoly. For a faithful person (or for myself at least) there is no problem with contradictions between the the Road to Emmaus and Doubting Thomas. I don't know what the Resurrection was like anymore than you do. My faith is in God is sufficient for me to understand that it happened. Who needs the ghost stories?

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I need them if I want to grant credibility to the New Testament stories.

I am also looking for levitation events. For example, did Jesus actually walk on water, a form of levitation event? I've heard of other stories from the past that are similar, but I want something more contemporaneous.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Ah, bait and switch. We weren't talking about Christians "accept[ing]these things" before, but objecting to them. Being open to a possibility (that is, not objecting to it) is not the same as accepting it as necessarily authentic. How did that become a matter of "doubt[ing"?] Do you personally accept every claim to have had a near death experience uncritically? Personally, I don't know of any Christians who object to the idea of it per se. But that doesn't mean we were born yesterday. ;-)

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I let people like Raymond Moody verify these events. So, I trust what this authority has to say. I don't trust what so-called skeptics have to say, because I reject the metaphysics of these skeptics.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Oh YesNo, you have some interesting concepts! :-D I'll try on the idea of the Catholic Church as a species unto itself, but I'm not promising anything. But I do like the idea that you and I may be the harbingers (via LitNet) of new approaches to God and meaning. (You, perhaps, as the Prophet of the coming bad marriage between science and religion, and me as the only one who seems to get the difference between sola fide and sola scriptura). Are we to become the Punch and Judy of theology? This thread has had more than 5182 views so far, and that can't all be Melanie. But maybe it's just us writing new posts? (So much for your brave new world!) If it isn't, though, we should definitely consider taking up a collection.

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I'm not a prophet, but someone discussing my own cultural assumptions with you and trying to weed out the ones that don't make sense. Part of my problem is that I don't know what I believe, but I have learned to realize that I believe a lot of junk that I should not.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

EDIT: How 'bout the Stones? You like the Stones?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KW3ASB3SqRU

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How about Meghan Trainor? I do like that song about the bass.

Look, despite your attempt to change the subject, you are going to have to have the complexity debate on the evolutionary thread. It is not relevant to our discussion of near death experiences and the Resurrection of Jesus. When you get to that thread, by the way, you might want to try again on some of the questions from my last post. Claiming that blue green algae or early hominids chose their own genetic make-up because "they are the only ones who could have made a choice in response to the climate changes at the time" is execrable logic. "The documents it left were fossils" is a nonsensical response to my questions: "In what way way the bacillus that causes syphilis 'looking for something better pretty much the way we do today'? Did it document it's hopes in any form you are able to demonstrate?" Even if the bacillus had left any fossils (and if it did, please show them to me), they could not be used to sustain a claim that the pathogen was "looking for something pretty much the way we do today'"

But let's not get distracted. ;-)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I'm not a Christian, so my views on the bodily resurrection of Jesus are irrelevant.

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It's not irrelevant if you claim:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I can think of an example of a shared death experience like it.

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Once again, you cannot claim something you say did not happen is an example of something you say did happen. That logic does not go away just because you choose to ignore it. So did it happen and how do you know?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

However, from what I remember about reading parts of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles when I was thinking about near and shared death experiences, I don't think Jesus had a near death experience. The body he had may have de-materialized or it may have been taken away. It doesn't matter. What I think he did do was generate very powerful and materialized shared death experiences for his followers.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

So, did he resurrect with the same body that was crucified? No. He would have needed many months of recovery and Pilate would have crucified him a second time. Did he materialize and de-materialize later in a real body, as real as yours or mine? Yes. Or, at least, based on shared death experiences I have no reason to doubt that these events did not happen as reported.

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What makes you think that "what [you] remember about reading parts of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles" is historically accurate? The answer you give above is: "based on shared death experiences I have no reason to doubt that these events did not happen as reported."

So to examine your reasoning: you claim that the Resurrection of Jesus provides evidence for the validity of shared death experiences. But how could you possibly know what (if anything) actually happened during the Resurrection? Your answer: I know because it was a shared death experience; and I know what those are like. That is a circular argument--more crap logic. Again, you'd probably do better to just focus on modern reports (IMHO).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I let people like Raymond Moody verify these events. So, I trust what this authority has to say. I don't trust what so-called skeptics have to say, because I reject the metaphysics of these skeptics.

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So despite your claims to be dealing with the world as it really is, you are relying just faith, too. The difference is that I have faith in God and you have faith in someone selling a book. Good luck with that, YesNo.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am also looking for levitation events. For example, did Jesus actually walk on water, a form of levitation event? I've heard of other stories from the past that are similar, but I want something more contemporaneous.

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The Indian rope trick?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Once again, you cannot claim something you say did not happen is an example of something you say did happen. That logic does not go away just because you choose to ignore it. So did it happen and how do you know?

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I am not following this.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

What makes you think that "what [you] remember about reading parts of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles" is historically accurate? The answer you give above is: "based on shared death experiences I have no reason to doubt that these events did not happen as reported."

So to examine your reasoning: you claim that the Resurrection of Jesus provides evidence for the validity of shared death experiences. But how could you possibly know what (if anything) actually happened during the Resurrection? Your answer: I know because it was a shared death experience; and I know what those are like. That is a circular argument--more crap logic. Again, you'd probably do better to just focus on modern reports (IMHO).

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Just the opposite. The shared death experiences provide evidence that the events reported in the Christian New Testament could have happened.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

So despite your claims to be dealing with the world as it really is, you are relying just faith, too. The difference is that I have faith in God and you have faith in someone selling a book. Good luck with that, YesNo.

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It perhaps could all be generalized to faith or belief.

There might be different levels of belief. Some things we take for granted like common sense. We don't call common sense a belief, but it is. We like to think of it as a bunch of obvious facts. Other things contradicting common sense we might explicitly believe in even though they contradict what we think are facts. These would be miracle stories. They are miracles because they contradict our common sense facts, but we still believe in them. I prefer avoiding miracle stories. If a miracle occurred it tells me to reset my common sense to allow for such things to occur.

How does this relate the the OP?

The question is whether a good God can exist with the existence of suffering. I view suffering as a way to learn. In trying to avoid it we make adjustments so the next time the suffering will be less.

For those who don't believe in God, the question shifts to whether suffering implies that the universe is not good. I don't think that is true either. In other words I disagree with the message in the "Melancholia" movie: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/melancholia-2008 However, that puts me at odds with religious people who believe the universe is bad and something they must save themselves from or be saved from by someone else.

That is where the arguments about evolution enter the discussion. Does the suffering to life through climate change resulting in evolution and extinction imply that the universe is not good? I don't think so. Suffering motivates species to change. What I think is the case is that what we mean by evolution is clouded by bad metaphors that emphasize suffering, survivalism and unconsciousness rather than the agency of the living organisms involved in the process.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am not following this.

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Pigs can fly. You know that famous story of the pigs flying 2000 years ago? Well that never happened. See? Pigs can fly.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Just the opposite. The shared death experiences provide evidence that the events reported in the Christian New Testament could have happened.

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But how do I know whether those pigs 2000 years ago (the ones that didn't fly) were actually flying? Simple: because pigs can fly, it provides evidence that those pigs 2000 years ago were flying. And those pigs flying 2000 years ago in turn provide evidence that pigs can fly.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It perhaps could all be generalized to faith or belief.

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Fine. Have faith in what you choose.

Free will and choice? The supernatural? I think I understand the very common human desire for some sort of "overseer" or god. Much has been said here about terrible things happening to good people and the desire to believe that there is a reason for it, either the individuals choices or some supernatural being putting these events in motion. I believe it is neither. I choose to live in California in an old non-earthquake strengthened house. It could fall down on me before I type the next word here or it could happen the hour after I move to some non seismic area. There could be a major quake and I could "luck out" and not be hurt. I could spend a small fortune on seismic retrofitting and the house could still fall apart depending on the type of quake, it's strength and direction. I could be taking out the garbage and the house falling wouldn't affect my physical health.
It is an interesting subject to discuss and has been for ever but, in my humble opinion, there is no answer and certainly not a supernatural answer.
Duke Masters
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Pigs can fly. You know that famous story of the pigs flying 2000 years ago? Well that never happened. See? Pigs can fly.

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I'm still not following this, but it probably doesn't matter.