Question

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 28, 2024 10:33:45 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mar 27, 2024 20:25:59 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

A sports forum isn't the place for serious theological discussions.

But I should mention that I had an interesting mystical (and intellectual) journey in the early 90s-- from my serious 20 year sojourn as an agnostic to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

I would have to write a lengthy book to properly explain it.

I was always intellectually curious, and my childhood and teen pastors (Protestant) could never answer my questions.

It's as good a place as any.
Can you give us a CliffNotes version of the CliffNotes version?

Four things that inspired my journey from agnosticism to Eastern Orthodoxy (circa 1990) were;

1)  Learning about the near-death experiences of a truly remarkable patient, a Presbyterian minister.  Made me wonder about the immortality of the soul.

2)  A very unusual mystical experience in the Scottish Highlands.

3)  A subsequent conversation with my brother-in-law, who had recently returned to New York, from a Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, to enroll in St. Vladimir's Seminary-- on the advice of a Buddhist sage.  That conversation then prompted me to contemplate my Comtean positivism, and read MIT Professor Huston Smith's book.

4)  Discovering the philosophical limits of positivism, in Huston Smith's book, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind.

[Walter]

I've ordered the book.
We shall see where it takes me.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 28, 2024 13:55:07 GMT -5 Walter said:

I've ordered the book.
We shall see where it takes me.

For 20 years, I was contemptuous of religion.  In fact, I openly expressed my contempt for Christianity in that 1991 conversation with my brother-in-law at St. Vladimir's Seminary.

At the same time, I always respected him as a fellow intellectual.  He had studied Anthropology on a graduate level, before travelling to Ladakh to immerse himself in Tibetan Buddhism.

He became an Orthodox priest-- now retired, after about 30 years as a parish priest in the OCA.  Like me, he was raised as a Protestant.

The life-altering insight in the Huston Smith book, for me, was the realization that my decades-long positivistic worldview was, in fact, based on a 'leap of faith" in its own right-- a conviction that there is nothing in the universe that we cannot perceive and measure empirically.

This then gets into what the philosopher William James described as "the varieties of religious experience."

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud disagreed about these same, basic issues.

Like Freud, I was a strict positivist for years.

[Walter]

Mar 28, 2024 17:39:56 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Mar 28, 2024 13:55:07 GMT -5 Walter said:

I've ordered the book.
We shall see where it takes me.

For 20 years, I was contemptuous of religion.  In fact, I openly expressed my contempt for Christianity in that 1991 conversation with my brother-in-law at St. Vladimir's Seminary.

At the same time, I always respected him as a fellow intellectual.  He had studied Anthropology on a graduate level, before travelling to Ladakh to immerse himself in Tibetan Buddhism.

He became an Orthodox priest-- now retired, after about 30 years as a parish priest in the OCA.  Like me, he was raised as a Protestant.

The life-altering insight in the Huston Smith book, for me, was the realization that my decades-long positivistic worldview was, in fact, based on a 'leap of faith" in its own right-- a conviction that there is nothing in the universe that we cannot perceive and measure empirically.

This then gets into what the philosopher William James described as "the varieties of religious experience."

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud disagreed about these same, basic issues.

Like Freud, I was a strict positivist for years.

I'll reserve judgement until I read the book.
As to the notion of positivism as some strict, over-ruling understanding of the world....one word: Pi

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 28, 2024 19:05:12 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mar 28, 2024 17:39:56 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

For 20 years, I was contemptuous of religion.  In fact, I openly expressed my contempt for Christianity in that 1991 conversation with my brother-in-law at St. Vladimir's Seminary.

At the same time, I always respected him as a fellow intellectual.  He had studied Anthropology on a graduate level, before travelling to Ladakh to immerse himself in Tibetan Buddhism.

He became an Orthodox priest-- now retired, after about 30 years as a parish priest in the OCA.  Like me, he was raised as a Protestant.

The life-altering insight in the Huston Smith book, for me, was the realization that my decades-long positivistic worldview was, in fact, based on a 'leap of faith" in its own right-- a conviction that there is nothing in the universe that we cannot perceive and measure empirically.

This then gets into what the philosopher William James described as "the varieties of religious experience."

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud disagreed about these same, basic issues.

Like Freud, I was a strict positivist for years.

I'll reserve judgement until I read the book.
As to the notion of positivism as some strict, over-ruling understanding of the world....one word: Pi

Auguste Comte's concept of logical positivism is the basis of modern, scientific culture-- since the Enlightenment.

And it has had tremendous heuristic value.

It's the idea that the phenomena in the universe are entirely naturalistic, not determined by metaphysical processes-- i.e., angels, demons, God, etc.

We take this positivistic assumption more or less for granted in modern science-- ruling out metaphysical determinants of natural phenomena.

But is it the be-all and the end-all?

That is the question.

[Walter]

Mar 28, 2024 19:30:04 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Mar 28, 2024 19:05:12 GMT -5 Walter said:

I'll reserve judgement until I read the book.
As to the notion of positivism as some strict, over-ruling understanding of the world....one word: Pi

Auguste Comte's concept of logical positivism is the basis of modern, scientific culture-- since the Enlightenment.

And it has had tremendous heuristic value.

It's the idea that the phenomena in the universe are entirely naturalistic, not determined by metaphysical processes-- i.e., angels, demons, God, etc.

We take this positivistic assumption more or less for granted in modern science-- ruling out metaphysical determinants of natural phenomena.

But is it the be-all and the end-all?

That is the question.

Mathematic teaches us that things are true in the abstract that cannot be quantified or computed. Pi is an example.

That does not, however lend any creedence clearwater to the idea that NOT knowing allows us to guess and have faith that the guess is correct.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 29, 2024 11:39:14 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mar 28, 2024 19:30:04 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Auguste Comte's concept of logical positivism is the basis of modern, scientific culture-- since the Enlightenment.

And it has had tremendous heuristic value.

It's the idea that the phenomena in the universe are entirely naturalistic, not determined by metaphysical processes-- i.e., angels, demons, God, etc.

We take this positivistic assumption more or less for granted in modern science-- ruling out metaphysical determinants of natural phenomena.

But is it the be-all and the end-all?

That is the question.

Mathematic teaches us that things are true in the abstract that cannot be quantified or computed. Pi is an example.

That does not, however lend any creedence clearwater to the idea that NOT knowing allows us to guess and have faith that the guess is correct.

It's not about guessing, at least for me.

It's about manifestations of the inexplicable, and the potential limitations of positivistic inquiry and empirical perception.

Mathematically, there may be contiguous dimensions of our four-dimensional space-time "universe" that we cannot perceive.

This is one possible explanation for the New Testament and Orthodox hagiographical descriptions of Christ (post-Resurrection) and the saints "popping" in and out of the picture-- the material world.  (Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications, of course.)

Interestingly, Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is all around you, if you could but perceive it."

[Walter]

Mar 29, 2024 12:54:11 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Mar 29, 2024 11:39:14 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mathematic teaches us that things are true in the abstract that cannot be quantified or computed. Pi is an example.

That does not, however lend any creedence clearwater to the idea that NOT knowing allows us to guess and have faith that the guess is correct.

It's not about guessing, at least for me.

It's about manifestations of the inexplicable, and the potential limitations of positivistic inquiry and empirical perception.

Mathematically, there may be contiguous dimensions of our four-dimensional space-time "universe" that we cannot perceive.

This is one possible explanation for the New Testament and Orthodox hagiographical descriptions of Christ (post-Resurrection) and the saints "popping" in and out of the picture-- the material world.  (Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications, of course.)

Interestingly, Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is all around you, if you could but perceive it."

This:

"There may be..."
"One possible explanation..."
"Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications..."
"If you could but perceive it..."

See the problem I have?

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 29, 2024 14:02:44 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mar 29, 2024 12:54:11 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

It's not about guessing, at least for me.

It's about manifestations of the inexplicable, and the potential limitations of positivistic inquiry and empirical perception.

Mathematically, there may be contiguous dimensions of our four-dimensional space-time "universe" that we cannot perceive.

This is one possible explanation for the New Testament and Orthodox hagiographical descriptions of Christ (post-Resurrection) and the saints "popping" in and out of the picture-- the material world.  (Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications, of course.)

Interestingly, Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is all around you, if you could but perceive it."

This:

"There may be..."
"One possible explanation..."
"Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications..."
"If you could but perceive it..."

See the problem I have?

The inexplicable manifestations I referred to are numerous.

I would include, 1) The First Century A.D. canonical Gospels and Pauline epistles, 2)  the 2,000 year Orthodox hagiographical literature, 3) the astonishing scientific phenomenology of the Shroud of Turin, 4) the Bible Codes, and 5) the near-death literature (and firsthand accounts of my own patients.)

All of these phenomena are far more complex and remarkable than most modern intellectuals realize.

[Walter]

Mar 29, 2024 14:57:51 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Mar 29, 2024 14:02:44 GMT -5 Walter said:

This:

"There may be..."
"One possible explanation..."
"Assuming witness accounts are not fabrications..."
"If you could but perceive it..."

See the problem I have?

The inexplicable manifestations I referred to are numerous.

I would include, 1) The First Century A.D. canonical Gospels and Pauline epistles, 2)  the 2,000 year Orthodox hagiographical literature, 3) the astonishing scientific phenomenology of the Shroud of Turin, 4) the Bible Codes, and 5) the near-death literature (and firsthand accounts of my own patients.)

All of these phenomena are far more complex and remarkable than most modern intellectuals realize.

Perhaps they are and perhaps every one of them is unexplainable. That still doesn't mean God exists.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 29, 2024 16:01:09 GMT -5 Walter said:

Mar 29, 2024 14:57:51 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

The inexplicable manifestations I referred to are numerous.

I would include, 1) The First Century A.D. canonical Gospels and Pauline epistles, 2)  the 2,000 year Orthodox hagiographical literature, 3) the astonishing scientific phenomenology of the Shroud of Turin, 4) the Bible Codes, and 5) the near-death literature (and firsthand accounts of my own patients.)

All of these phenomena are far more complex and remarkable than most modern intellectuals realize.

Perhaps they are and perhaps every one of them is unexplainable. That still doesn't mean God exists.

But how do we explain these phenomena?

Serious question.

To grapple with it honestly requires a deep dive into the phenomenology-- hard work indeed.

In the case of the First Century scriptures, many geniuses have spent years studying the "philological" data-- and not only in the modern Protestant era (i.e., post-Tubingen.)

Even the "near death" type literature goes back for centuries in the Orthodox East.

In the case of the Shroud, former USAF Academy physicist John Jackson has been studying the scientific data on the Shroud since 1978, when he led the STURP Commission in Turin.

How did the anatomically-exact (and micro-anatomically exact) reverse 3D image of a crucified man get radiographically imprinted on a linen burial shroud?

The only scientific explanation is that the image was burned onto the cloth by radiation emitted from an actual crucified body that had been scourged.

(The micro-anatomical Roman flagrum wounds on the back are not visible to the naked eye.)

[Walter]

Dead bodies emit radiation that burns cloth?
What are you talking about?

And if they do, then every burial shroud would have similar imprints.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 30, 2024 9:33:13 GMT -5 Walter said:

Dead bodies emit radiation that burns cloth?
What are you talking about?

And if they do, then every burial shroud would have similar imprints.

One Dead Body, in particular.

[cbisbig]

Mar 28, 2024 13:55:07 GMT -5 Walter said:

I've ordered the book.
We shall see where it takes me.

Good for and be open minded.

[Walter]

Book arrived today.
Looks interesting.
We shall see...