Evil's War against Religions

[Fooloso4]

DM:

A better question is: do you deny, ignore, distort, dismiss as superstition or explained away your own sense of the divine?

No, I think my question is much better. Once again: Is the “true experience with eternal realities in time” your own experience? Yes or no will suffice.

[Dark Matter]

No, I think my question is much better.

Too bad.

-- Updated March 23rd, 2017, 12:44 am to add the following --

I think my original assessment was wrong. There is a war against religion, but I don't call it "evil"; I call it ignorance and delusion.

[Belindi]

A better question is: do you deny, ignore, distort, dismiss as superstition or explained away your own sense of the divine?

I have a sense of the divine. I have a sense of a perfect circle. The perfect circle cannot exist for me except as my idea abstracted from real circles which I have seen.

The divine is my idea abstracted from my actual experiences of what I take to be good, beautiful, and true. If I believed that my ideas were absolutely true I would be an idolater.

[Fooloso4]

DM:

I asked you three times: Is the “true experience with eternal realities in time” your own experience? You refused to answer. The most likely reason is because you have not. But according to the quote “true religion” is this experience. And so, you too are an outsider. As you quoted and highlighted: “ it can never be observed, much less understood, from the outside”. You believe that such an experience is possible but have not experienced it. Your’s is then merely a vicarious religion, the work of your own imagination.

[Lark_Truth]

Question: would an evil being use religion - twisting its dogmas and beliefs - so that the people who have nothing better to believe are Lost instead of Saved?

Think about it, there are many different religions, some stemming from the same source (i.e. the many sects of Christianity) but each having somewhat different beliefs. Each has truths, valuable truths. But if the devil wanted to turn as many souls as they could from the whole truth, would they try and corrupt religion to suit that purpose?
A half-truth is always more believable than a lie, and it seems to me that the truth is far easier to hide when people aren't actively looking for it.

[Fooloso4]

Lark_Truth:

A half-truth is always more believable than a lie, and it seems to me that the truth is far easier to hide when people aren't actively looking for it.

And what is the truth that you are trying to hide? Is it anything other than the claim that your religion is the whole truth and others are at best half truths?

[Dark Matter]

Question: would an evil being use religion - twisting its dogmas and beliefs - so that the people who have nothing better to believe are Lost instead of Saved?

Think about it, there are many different religions, some stemming from the same source (i.e. the many sects of Christianity) but each having somewhat different beliefs. Each has truths, valuable truths. But if the devil wanted to turn as many souls as they could from the whole truth, would they try and corrupt religion to suit that purpose?
A half-truth is always more believable than a lie, and it seems to me that the truth is far easier to hide when people aren't actively looking for it.

Yes, but I'm not entirely convinced there is a devil.

A better question is: do you deny, ignore, distort, dismiss as superstition or explained away your own sense of the divine?

I have a sense of the divine. I have a sense of a perfect circle. The perfect circle cannot exist for me except as my idea abstracted from real circles which I have seen.

The divine is my idea abstracted from my actual experiences of what I take to be good, beautiful, and true. If I believed that my ideas were absolutely true I would be an idolater.

Well said!

-- Updated March 23rd, 2017, 11:22 am to add the following --

DM:

I asked you three times: Is the “true experience with eternal realities in time” your own experience? You refused to answer. The most likely reason is because you have not. But according to the quote “true religion” is this experience. And so, you too are an outsider. As you quoted and highlighted: “ it can never be observed, much less understood, from the outside”. You believe that such an experience is possible but have not experienced it. Your’s is then merely a vicarious religion, the work of your own imagination.

Think what you like.

-- Updated March 23rd, 2017, 11:59 am to add the following --

F4 gives a good example of why I asked that things not be taken out of the context of the whole. By doing so, it is all too easy to distort the intended meaning. If it a deliberate ploy to deceive, then Lark Truth is right, there is evil intent. I may be wrong, but I'm more optimistic than that: I prefer to think the person is deluded into thinking sophistry represents a sincere effort to get to the truth of things. That is why I think Belindi did well in answering my question honestly and sincerely.

[Fooloso4]

DM:

That is why I think Belindi did well in answering my question honestly and sincerely.

And I think you did quite poorly in not answering mine.

Belindi denied direct experience of the perfect circle itself and the divine itself, they are according to her ideas abstracted from actual experience. She does not believe her ideas are absolutely true. You, however, provided a quote that said the true religion is just such an experience. Now if you claim that I have taken this out of context then what is the context in which it means something other than this?

You say:

Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire cosmos.

This is equivocal enough to mean several things: to grasp the idea in the Platonic sense of know the form - noesis is to grasp with the mind, direct intuition, eidos means idea or form or object of noesis. In this sense it means direct intuition or experiential knowledge of the whole. But to grasp the idea of the whole can also mean nothing more than understanding the idea that there is a whole without any commitment to what the whole is or our relationship within it or its relationship to the divine.

You also say:

… we are all endowed with a sense for the Divine. It can be denied, ignored, distorted, dismissed as superstition or explained away (such as calling it a projection of human imagination), but it's the reason religion isn't going to go away.

If, as Calvin claimed, the sensus divinitatis provides knowledge of God then you are left open to Belindi’s challenge of idolatry. The sensus divinitatis makes an absolute claim regarding the existence of God who endowed us with this sense. Of course, the God that Calvin sensed or the God that Plantinga sensed may not be the God you sense. The argument is circular - I know there is a God because God endowed me with the knowledge there is a God.

And, of course, the sensus divinitatis is not the same as the “true experience with eternal realities in time”. The latter is, however, in line with Platonic noesis, that is, with transcendent experiential knowledge, but we cannot say that such knowledge includes knowledge of a God unless we possess such knowledge. And so, it comes down to nothing more that a profession of belief that you want to be more than belief but which without the knowledge you do not possess remains just a belief.

[Dark Matter]

F4: I also said your sophistry bores me.

[Fooloso4]

DM:

F4: I also said your sophistry bores me.

You assume that because my inquiry challenges your claims that it must be sophistry rather than an inquiry into the truth. The only sophistry here is that produced by your attempt to avoid open and honest discussion. Your generic non-responses do not deflect from the fact of your unwillingness to defend what you say. You proclaim your views, attempt to browbeat and intimidate those who question you, and retreat when your tactics do not work, as if claiming boredom is of any significance or that it obviates the fact that you refuse to respond or engage in discussion when things do not go in your favor. Your feigned boredom is not only rude it is antithetical to purpose of this forum.

[Dark Matter]

We've been all through this before.

[Fooloso4]

DM:

We've been all through this before.

Indeed we have. No doubt things would be different if you did more that accuse and evade. Unfortunately for you, this is a philosophy forum and it is standard practice to question and challenge what is said. Of course you can choose not to respond but doing so speaks volumes and it is very likely that it will reflect more poorly on you than engaging in open and honest discussion.

[Dark Matter]

Like I said: your sophistry bores me...almost as much as repeating myself.

[Belindi]

Like I said: your sophistry bores me...almost as much as repeating myself.

Academic abilities take time and effort to acquire and you too could acquire 'sophistry' if you made the effort.

[Lark_Truth]

And what is the truth that you are trying to hide? Is it anything other than the claim that your religion is the whole truth and others are at best half truths?

I am not attempting to hide any truth, just to state the facts as I see them.
I am not claiming that my religion is the whole truth and that others are half truths. If it appears as if I am trying to force me beliefs onto you, then I beg your forgiveness, Fooloso4