Israelis versus Muslims, (and the U.S. versus Iran, etc.) retaliate against each other's violent actions--an 'Eye for an Eye'; the Results...

from Times of Israel: "Israeli forces carried out a strike on an Iranian ship in the Red Sea in retaliation for previous strikes by Iran against Israeli vessels, according to a Tuesday report.The anonymous US official said Israel called the strike a retaliation, and that the ship had been hit below the water line." https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-forces-carried-out-strike-on-iranian-ship-in-red-sea-new-york-times/

"Settlers Assaulted Palestinian, Israeli Soldiers Dispersed Rescuers, Rights Group Says Yesh Din reports that two groups of settlers beat Jalud resident with rocks and sticks, and he required medical attention." Haaratz.com

Retaliations by humans have been going on for many thousands of years--More "eye for an eye" revenge violence:-( ---repeat, repeat...for many thousands of years...

Jesus, MLK, Jeannette Rankin, John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, Carl von Ossietzky, Thich Nhat Hanh, Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf, William Penn, George Fox and many others gave us humans a far BETTER WAY to live:

Reject retaliation; choose altruism; choose nonviolence;

choose the way of the Good, the Just, and the Caring.


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

FINDING WHAT IS TRUE

“Am I committed to any ‘truth’ so deeply that I am willing to die for it, and willing to live moment-by-moment,
hour-by-hour, year-by-year for that truth, until my death?

How does one find what is the Good, the True, the Just, the Beautiful?

How does any individual discover whether a philosophical, moral, or political claim is genuine, is true,
is ‘truth,’
is an accurate reality

NOT
misinformation,
confirmation bias,
social distortion,
myth,
cultural dysfunction,
mass delusion, or
intentional deception?

At 72 years of age, now, I look back…

Reflection: "Can an atheistic worldview support the...sacred?"

Can an atheistic worldview support the concept of the holy or sacred?
by Professor Randal Rauser


MY REFLECTION on that short article:
Baptist professor Randal Rauser gave this quote by Dworkin: “religion is deeper than God. Religion is a deep, distinct, and comprehensive worldview: it holds that inherent, objective
value permeates everything, that the universe and its creatures are awe-inspiring,
that human life has purpose and the universe order.”

Huh?! This conundrum seems to show that a HUGE amount of discussion of theism versus atheism is semantic and based on differing definitions.

For Dworkin's definition would appear to be the very definition, not of religion, but of God!

Rauser wrote, "For this discussion, I will define “God” as a personal being who is the ultimate explanation for everything else that exists."

The first general definition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary is somewhat different:
God "1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality:"

Those definitions don't necessarily disagree, but the M-W C. D. one would seem to make Drwokin a theist, not an atheist.

For Drwokin wrote, "...inherent, objective value permeates everything, that the universe and its creatures are awe-inspiring, that human life has purpose and the universe order."

Such a statement is so incredibly different from what most famous atheists claim.

The latter atheists emphasize that existence-cosmos has no value,
that everything is "meaningless," "purposeless," and "pointless,"
that human primates are without worth,
that humans have no choice,
that everything is fully determined from the Big Bang,
that ethics are "subjective," "relative," and only personal "preferences," "likes or dislikes,"
and that liberty, equality, and human rights are all "myths."

That atheists can so completely disagree about the very nature of the reality astounds me.

Though I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. Heck, theists do this as well. John Wesley once wrote he would rather be an atheist than believe one version of Christianity.

A few central reasons why I am a theist is that I think that ethics are real, that creativity is possible for humans, and that the cosmos and life are amazing, that the ultimate nature of reality is full of meaning. (I do speculate about whether or not panentheism or some form of Enlightenment description might be true, BUT I know that is only educated guessing.)

So I am curious, would you characterize me as an atheist or a theist?


In the Light of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #3: What Is Purity of the Heart?

Mind and Heart continuing:

After rejecting the wrong—
pornography, propaganda, emotional pollution,
obscenity, and other destructive actions,
what is the first positive step
into purity of the heart?

#1 Love what is transcendent, first.

What is finite—needs to be an also-ran,
coming in very secondary.

Everything that pollutes the heart comes from imagining,
choosing, and acting as if some finite thing
is most importance. As Plato emphasized
so long ago, and many thinkers since, love the Good.

#2 Realize that seeking the Good, the True, the Just
the Beautiful, the Loving is the first step
into each
moment,
each minute,
each hour,
each day,
each month,
each year,
each lifetime,
not one goal among many other concerns.

Purity of heart
is the true path to everything else.

#3 As good as career, projects, achievements, and success are,
choose in the present now to put humans first.

That’s called humanism, altruism, benevolence,
friendship, empathy, compassion, and so forth.

#4 Remember, that commitment in marriage is continual
choosing,
continual action,
and continual promise.

Feelings come and go.
Circumstances come and go.
Understandings come and go.
Distractions come and go.

But purity of the heart is coupled to covenant.

This is when two lovers
are one in caring and sharing in the midst of their
many differences, disagreements, and mistakes.


To be continued--



In the Light,


Daniel Wilcox

The Confused Semantics of Atheism and Theism

Here We Go Again...

the absurdity of so much dialog between Atheists and Theists: how human language interaction is so complex and complicated that two humans can talk to each other for hours appearing to share their own contrary philosophical, cosmological and ethical views, YET completely misunderstand each other--
TOTALLY.

Is the universe, or multiverse meaningless? Purposeless? Pointless?

Does ONLY matter and energy exist forever?

Point #1: Years ago, the famous Christian theologian Paul Tillich claimed that most people who think they are Atheists, aren't really Atheists but actually believe in God! Huh?

Then there's Martin Gardner, co-founder of the modern skeptic movement, who wrote in his book, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener that Tillich was actually an Atheist!

Side Note: Recently, several Atheists told me, personally, that I am "really an atheist."

Nope.

Of late, a popular statement on Atheist websites is that every human infant is an "Atheist"!

LOL;-) Infants don't have the cognitive ability at their birth to decide philosophical questions.

Back and forth go thinkers labeling others, often contrary to the others' clear affirmations.

As a retired teacher, I tend to go with the common dictionary definition of words:

What is an Atheist?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Atheism--
a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
--
1570s, from French athéiste (16c.), from Greek atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly," from a- "without" + theos "a god" (see theo-).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=atheist


Read the famous atheistic quote on the poster again.

What?

I realize that George Santayana is a famous philosopher, but in this statement
he seems to have forgotten semantics, or he is trying--
like in football--
to do a quarterback reverse;-)?

Point #2: Baruch Spinoza wasn’t an Atheist,
but probably some sort of Pantheist according to most scholars
(or possibly advocating one form of panentheism according
to the French philosopher Martial Gueroult ).

“There are, Spinoza insists, two sides of Nature. First, there is the active, productive aspect of the universe—God and his attributes, from which all else follows. This is what Spinoza, employing the same terms he used in the Short Treatise, calls Natura naturans, “naturing Nature”.

Strictly speaking, this is identical with God. The other aspect of the universe is that which is produced and sustained by the active aspect, Natura naturata, “natured Nature”.”

Spinoza: “By Natura naturata I understand whatever follows from the necessity of God's nature, or from any of God's attributes, i.e., all the modes of God's attributes insofar as they are considered as things that are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God. (Ip29s).”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

Point #3: According to Santayana’s definition, Theists such as Plato, Alfred Lord Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Immanuel Kant, Keith Ward, the skeptic Martin Gardner, (and, yes, even the Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung) would all be Atheists!

After all, Plato very clearly wasn't committed to worshiping the Roman and Greek mythological gods. So was Plato an Atheist?

No. Plato essentially held to the eternal perfect reality of the Good.

Not atheistic at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet some modern Atheists are Platonists!

Doesn't compute. (Here it appears they are emphasizing that they don't believe in mythological, creedal gods. Of course, by that explanation, I don't believe in such delusions either.

Point #4: It seems that in these anti-theistic statements, Atheists such as Santayana are spreading a very world-wide net of what they consider non-theism to be,
but in contrast, they
highly restrict Theism to a very narrow ledge
--which amounts to only creedal Christianity,
and maybe includes orthodox
Judaism and Islam.

Atheists even assert that Deism isn’t theistic!

Try telling that to Enlightenment figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Immanuel Kant, etc. who strongly believed in God and lived for God.

Point #5: Also Atheistic leaders argue that Panentheism and Pantheism are actually not Theistic!

Hello!
Panentheism means all is IN God, or God is the mind--the PROCESS--while the cosmos is the body, physical matter and energy.

Panentheism is very transcendent, the exact opposite extreme from Atheism's naturalism.

And Pantheism means that all IS God, that God is the Universe. Albert Einstein, (as noted previously on this blog) emphasized that he didn’t believe in a personal god, but that he believed in Spinoza’s God.

All such theistic philosophical views are contrary to the definition of Atheism: “no god.”

Point #6: Then Santayana declares that he has “true piety towards the universe.”

But how can he or any human live "true piety," if the universe is only matter and energy?

The philosopher Paul Kurtz wrote a long powerful tome, The Transcendental Temptation, in which he eviscerates all religions, BUT at the climax of the book, Kurtz offers his own "transcendental" view!

But isn't "transcendental" contrary to Atheism by definition?

Point #7: All of this semantic confusion gets lost in the cosmos.

Though I am a very strongly convinced Theist, someone might consider me to be an Atheist since I agree with Santayana and Plato who both deny “only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”

Well, it goes even further than that. Even when I was a committed Christian for 55 years, I didn’t believe in Santayana’s narrow explanation of God.

Point #8: These semantic troubles never end. They started at least 2,000 years ago. Even Christians, sometimes, were called Atheists! Romans used to call monotheists, “Atheists” Because they didn’t believe in the Gods of Greece or Rome.

Point #9: And in the present time, some Atheists have claimed Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, etc. were Atheists even though the very words of those theistic thinkers claim the exact opposite.

Voltaire and Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson were strong Theists and opposed to Atheism.

Such a stretch of semantics.

What a chaos we weave when we try and explain clearly.

I bet Alice is laughing her head off. Wait a minute, it was the Queen of Hearts
in Wonderland who shouted, “Off with their heads.”

Not so funny now that some Muslims are following the Qur'anic verse to behead people.

Point #10: Maybe we do need Atheists now to oppose Muslims and Christians who always find
justifications for killing for their particular creedal God.

“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
Alice in Wonderland




Let’s live in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: The Abyss of Meaninglessness

Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." (NIV version) and Ecclesiastes 1:14, 17-18 I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is futility and striving after the wind...to know wisdom...is also striving after the wind. Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge, increasing pain.

Rather totally pessimistic about everything, isn't the Speaker?

But there is some superficial truth, I suppose to his nihilism. When I was a young Christian fundamentalist growing up in a small village in Nebraska--before I had gone to several universities, read extensively, suffered tragedy, lived in various places in the world, met humans with totally contrary worldviews, etc.--I didn't understand this hopeless wail.

I thought I understood life and God and the world. However, I was ensconced in much illusion and some delusion, though I didn't know it.

So I was happy and productive and filled with hopes and dreams. Aren't most kids, before the harsh realities of life wear us down?

But even after some very tough times, I still wouldn't have identified with the Speaker's utter feeling of futility, because I had a secure foundation in my faith in Christ.

My faith in God gave me a deep spiritual life. Thank God, I didn't live on the surface of life chasing after this world's glitter or, worse, its glut.

But then tragedies came...

And the worst one of all is when I discovered at 17 years of age that most Christian leaders for 1,700 years (beginning with Augustine) had claimed that God doesn't love most people, that infants are "in essence, evil," etc.

I battled against this horrific version of Christianity for most 50 years, until I finally realized to my deepest self that Christianity can't be true, that the Good News version I heard as a kid and young teen was a delusionary aberration.

Well, you get the point...


And now at 62, after doing spiritual battle against Augustinian-Reformed theology, and for so many years against inner failings and testings, and destructive worldviews, trying to help others caught in confusion and dysfunction and sin, and grieving over unanswered prayers, and experiencing deep heartache, I, too, understand what the Speaker means when he finds even wisdom to be a striving after the wind.

And what do we do, when even more and more modern Quakers are supporting Augustinian-Reformed thinkers or at the opposite extreme, claiming that there is no Ultimate Meaning or Purpose to existence?

Why do so many leading Christians now and in the past adamantly support theological determinism which claims the vast majority of us humans are preordained to eternal torment/damnation?

And why are so many modern Friends, exactly contrary, denying that God even exists?

It's so much like the horrific wall in Herman Melville's conundrummed short story, "Bartleby."

And then there are the everyday heartaches, trials, and tribulations...

And when a certain political figure, President Barrack Obama, is elected on the theme of hope, but then reverses many of his solemn pledges and ideals.

And when the natural world heaves, and the striving of hurricane winds and drought and disease and more disasters kill millions.

Yet the vast majority of leading Muslim, Christian, and New Age thinkers claim God planned and foreordained all that evil!

Even most Atheists, too, claim that all horrific human choices for slaughter and rape and rapine, and all natural disasters were determined at the moment of the Big Bang!
We humans are only "illusions," "wet robots," "puppets," etc.

So much nihilism in human philosophy.

No doubt, someone will point out that this is the way life has always been--tragic, brief, and short.

And, no doubt, the person is correct. That is why Ecclesiastes came to be written by a Jew living about 250 B.C., because so many of the promises of God in the Torah and the Prophets and in Proverbs and the Psalms hadn't come true.

Where had the Psalmist been hiding that he could claim, "I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread (Psalm 37:25)?

So sometimes, like millions of others at present, or in the past, I too drown in the abyss of meaninglessness, plummet for days down into the bottomless pit of despair.

If as the Speaker emphasizes through most of the book, we only have this life, we then are only like a live dog versus billions of dead lions and dead dogs who have gone before us.

Is not this life then a senseless striving after the wind?

An emptiness and meaninglessness like a transient vapor--here and then gone?

This is where Paul's statement in the New Testament shocked contradictorily and was life-saving: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21) until I realized finally that it can't be true.

As I teen, I loved the first part of that verse. Jesus was my ideal, my hero, my best friend.

As for the latter part, I couldn't see Paul's view at all. But now many years later, past innumerable struggles and heartaches, I can see how, for Paul who suffered much, that Heaven did beckon.

But now I realize that there is no afterlife, that religion is mostly delusion.

Thankfully, however, I do hope in God yet--that despite all those tragic details which I briefly explained.

I do hope with all of my brief finite self, that there is Meaning and Purpose in our existence even though we humans don't know what it is beyond seeking to live compassionately and to support human rights and justice...

To seek the Good, the True, the Reasonable, and the Beautiful

in the Light,


Daniel Wilcox

Destiny, the Way of God, Versus Evil and Disaster in the World

"God doesn't cause messes for a purpose but he brings purposes to the messes."
Greg Boyd

What deep waters in a pop maxim of only 14 words!

Such a hope-'comet' to hang one's life onto!

Instead of the despairing and severely misguided theology of religious people--from Calvinists to Muslims to Hindus--who claim God wills all evil and all suffering, that every typhoon, earthquake, and war are God's idea and plan.

On the contrary, in this imperfect, actually messy, world, in this unfinished cosmos, God is Unlimited Benevolence and Goodness seeking to guide the cosmos and us finite conscious humans.

God wants to help us redeem the time and the place of where ever we are.

Our destiny is not today's momentary temptation, superficial experience, or tragic event.

We are called to live in the Light of God's eternal becoming.
I John, I Corinthians 13, etc.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox