The human condition is such that we are incapable without the help of grace of coming to objectively experience the human condition in order to reconcile it. Our defense mechanisms are too strong.J'C: Perhaps a good Apologetic, but certainly not a general statement about the human condition. Many humans think of the East Asians as an example do very will objectively experiencing the human condition without Grace. Some use various forms of meditation as a way to focus on the human condition, and rid themselves of the defense mechanisms but it is done without external help. Many well educated westerners particularly those without a strong indoctrination for dependence on God are able to experience the human condition, objectively, subjectively, or spiritually without the need for grace from God or other. I am well studied in the human condition, not because grace showed me the way, but because I was indoctrinated to be aware of it from my earliest conscious moments.
Nick A
Next year in Jerusalem
3 days ago
7 comments:
Experiencing it and reconciling the human condition are not the same. When Paul described himself as the wretched man, he had experienced the human condition. However for those believing in conscious evolution, it has to be reconciled, inwardly consciously seen, for what it is.
This is also the essence of karma yoga. It is a rapid karma purification only a few are capable of.
Grace isn't limited to secular conceptions of personal gods. It is there for who can be open to it. Of course the difficulty is being open to it.
When Paul described himself as the wretched man, he was selling salvation. He was incapable of experiencing or reconciling the human condition. Those who buy into his bleak misanthropy will never experience or reconcile the human condition with or without Grace. Sorry. Paul is the source of the religion that anyone exposed to it must be purified from to even hope for Grace. Admittedly without Grace they have little hope of reconciling with the human condition as poisoned by Paul. A very few so poisoned can reconcile without Grace.
J'C
You deny what Paul experienced and I believe it to be natural. There is no way to proceed.
This is why no agreement is possible without first agreeing upon what Man may be in relation to cosmological levels of reality and the relativity of "being." As Paul said, if there is no re-birth the path is dead.
What then is Man? Is Man just an animal with a computer in its head?
As you say Paul is conversation stopper. I will not comment on Paul's re-birth sales pitch.
To answer your last question People are animals with a self-aware computers overlaid on the brain. I doubt it was overlaid there by God, and in fact I doubt it was overlaid at all. It is not impossible, of course, but evidence is overwhelming that self aware intelligence is a natural result of sufficient cortical development.
The question "What is Man" including the conscious evolution of Christian re-birth isn't for you. That is OK but I don't believe it has to be for negative atheists and there IMO is the hope for the eventual reconciliation of science and religion.
If we collectively can come to admit the value of Simone's observation here, societal life must change for the better:
"To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God---not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition---that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing." Simone Weil
The question was "What is Man?" Since you have specifically excluded Weil, myself, and all other atheists from the conversation by tying it to the religious concept of re-birth I will respond here.
The question "What is Man" including the conscious evolution of Christian re-birth isn't for you. That is OK but I don't believe it has to be for negative atheists and there IMO is the hope for the eventual reconciliation of science and religion.
???Reconciliation of Science and Religion????
Oh Please, Dear God, leave Science to be Science and keep it separated as far as is possible from Religion.
Dear God - we know you cannot be harnessed or corralled in a laboratory; you cannot be disected, tested or measured with the instrumments of science and we would not presume to try.
However, I have just one favor to ask....my car needs $800 of repairs; would you be so kind to send me a gift certificate or should I just take the car to the shop and tell them you'll take care of the bill?
Live Long and Prosper,
Your Poorest Servant
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