Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Solo · 10-01-2006, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

Christ’s Miracles: Ontological Proof of His Existence
Brunner argued that the world-transforming miracles that Christ allegedly performed were “an ontological proof for the existence of the personality of Christ.”
Ontological arguments [4] are a priori arguments that assume that the fact that something can be conceived mentally is proof that it exists. It uses thought alone as proof of existence and does not rely on sense experience or observation. Ontological arguments are often been used to argue that because we can imagine a perfect being, and because perfection has to entail existence, God exists.
Immanuel Kant rebutted the ontological argument by stating that the concept of God, or perfection, did not necessarily entail existence because existence is not a property of a thing.
We can imagine utopia. But that does not entail that utopia exists [5]. On the flipside of the logic of the ontological argument, it can be argued that since we can imagine that God does not exist, God therefore does not exist. Furthermore, to exist is to have a causal relationship with the rest of the universe. This relationship can only be determined by sense experience or observation. Kant observed that imagined thalers are not real thalers. Brunner admitted that Kant was right but shifted the blame to Christian theologians and he faulted Kant for misunderstanding the Ontological proof. He wrote:

Quote:

[the ontological proof] was misused in the service of superstition - to prove the existence of the God of superstition, the heavenly personage which men have kneaded out of the Absolute Being - and its being called proof; for there is no question of a proof here. The Spirit can no more be "proved" than the genius. A person experiences the Spirit within him, and genius is experienced as Spirit: the Spirit cannot be demonstrated to those who are devoid of Spirit and genius cannot be proved to the critic. The so-called ontological proof is not concerned with proving anything, but with stating a proposition which makes philosophy aware of its proper theme in the briefest possible formula.

This is obscure and so entangled that it defies unpacking in a coherent form: Brunner admitted that Kant was right. Then he accused people who used the ontological argument to prove God’s existence, of misusing it in the service of superstition. Then he clawed back the credit he gave Kant back to his position, dismissed those who did not share his view as lacking the spirit, and then he claimed that there was no need to prove the “spirit”. This is not criticism, this is closing the debate and declaring in an ex cathedra fashion that there is nothing to discuss.
What we see above is the ontological proof gaining a new meaning and application at the Behest of Brunner. Everybody else, like Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes, Brunner would have us believe, did not know what ontological proof is and they also did not know the proper theme of Philosophy.
Whereas Brunner accused these eminent Philosophers and great thinkers of mishandling the concept of ontological proof, he failed to demonstrate how they misused it. Instead he supplanted the standard ontological arguments with one that he claimed, would “make philosophy aware” of its “proper theme”. Besides latching on an irrelevant matter like “making Philosophy aware” of its place, Brunner’s approach was wrong.
The determination of the existence of a historical person cannot be done in the same matter as the determination of the existence of a “spirit” or of a supernatural being. To determine whether a person existed historically, recourse to historical sources and historical method is necessary. Indeed, to argue about the existence of a historical person through “ontological proof” is absurd. Brunner’s egregious misapplication of Philosophy on a historical question is a classic illustration of the popular adage that says that “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Indeed, oftentimes, his ineffectual efforts evoke sympathy.

The Influence of Jesus and His Miracles Prove his Existence

Brunner proceeded to argue that because even fools knew about Christ and we know about his activities, “we are logically constrained to see his concrete, individual, human existence as the cause of the concrete effects we experience, as that which fulfils the conditions for contingency.”
This is a faulty argument that presumes that what is known about a figure, irrespective of who the figure was, is known because it is true. The stories about Mithras were believed by Mithras-worshippers. And their lives were influenced by their beliefs regarding the deeds and sayings of Mithras. But we are not therefore constrained to believe that Mithras existed. We require historical proof for that and the same criterion applies to Jesus. The story of Jesus is not corroborated outside the New Testament gospels. And the gospels are patently fictional because they narrate about a virgin giving birth, dead people rising from the dead and the authors even narrated the words Jesus spoke even when Jesus was alone (Mark 14:39). These are markings of works of fiction because the claims in them are not consistent with human experience. The laws of science are the same today as they were two thousand years ago so there is no reason to believe the laws of science could allow people who had been dead for days to come back to life.
In addition, Biblical scholars like Thomas Brodie (The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha Narrative As An Interpretive Synthesis Of Genesis-Kings And A Literary Model For The Gospels) and Randel Helms (Gospel Fictions) have demonstrated that most of the miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels were literary constructions that involved borrowing from the Old Testament. Richard Carrier has also provided a historians perspective in his article Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story that explains why some of the miracles attributed to Jesus, like his resurrection, lack sufficient evidence to justify belief in their veracity [6]. Authors like Dennis McDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) have also cogently argued that through literary borrowing, Mark emulated Homer in the construction of his gospel and borrowed several motifs from Homer, for example, hydropatesis (water-walking) is found in Odyssey 1.98 & 5.48 in which Odysseus walked on water. We also find it in Mark 6:45-52 where Jesus walks on water. Odysseus also slept in a boat, a storm started and he woke up and calmed it (Odyssey 10.31, 12:169) and Mark also narrated that Jesus slept in the stern of a boat, woke up and calmed it (Mark 4:1-2). There are several other parallels that McDonald illustrates that indicate that most of the miracles in Mark, including the feeding miracles and healing the sick, were borrowed from Homeric epics like Iliad and Odyssey. We therefore are not constrained to accept the historicity of Jesus based on his miracles alone because by the same reasoning, we would also be constrained to accept the historicity of Odyssey.
It is important to note that the existence that Brunner is arguing above is not existence in the sense of the “historical existence” of Christ. In other words, he is making philosophical arguments in a historical ballpark. His arguments therefore, even if they were to be philosophically robust, would be irrelevant in the determination of the existence of a historical Jesus.

Hi Ted,
interesting stuff, and I would like to take you on most of the points to show the problems with this type of argument. In the interest of time, I'll just boil it to one issue.

You are right in saying that the "ontological argument" does not prove anything. To begin with, as "proof of existence" it's a plodding piece of scholastics which exercised many a great philosopher but really has nothing to add in a debate on a historicity of the gospel events. History deals with facts; philosophy deals with beliefs informing the facts. Historically, one cannot contemplate dead man walking and talking.
The same applies for the influence of miracles on the subsequent generation of believers. It's obviously false to say that no untruth could be told about a historical person, and therefore the reported miracles must be taken at face value. For someone like me, who lived through three revisions of the official History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in twenty-two years, it has a particular scent of naivete.

All of this is obvious. But I am afraid what also comes through loud and clear is your attempt to equate a demonstrably deficient and muddle-headed defense of Jesus as a living genius by Brunner with manifests of the historicist school generally. That won't work, Ted.

Mythical events, beliefs in supernatural abilities, or conception can demonstrably surround historical personalities. Pythagoras and Plato were both believed being conceived by virgins impregnated by gods. The figure of Juro Janosik, an 18th century Slovak highlands rebel, captured and executed by the authorities, was believed in popular legends to have had supernatural powers which came from wearing a magical shirt, a magical belt, and wielding a magical alpenstock. He came to a sad end only when separated from them by a witch. On the most famous series of paintings of the Soviet era, Stalin is present alongside Lenin on a rostrum of the Congress of the Soviets electing the first government and issuing its first Decrees in November 1917. He was not there. Noone at the time seemed to know where Stalin was. He surfaced in Helsinki, a couple of weeks later.

It is also a mistake to think that "discoveries" like the Odysseus treading water, or Elisha feeding a multitude, or Dionysius turning water into wine, i.e. miracles attributed in the gospels to Jesus, argue substantially for a mythical origin of him. They are literary models, and most likely they were borrowed as a prototype of the events illustrating the phenonema associated with ecstatic mind, for which his name came to be invoked by the ptoto-gnostic mystery adepts who followed him.
So, in my view of the matter, the "hydropatesis" incident symbolizes a relapse into euphoria during a depressive psychosis in a manic episode. This "mysterious" re-appearance of the spirit out of the depths of persecutory delusions has traditionally caused manics to defy gravity and test their own levitational powers, hurling themselves off the roofs and out of windows of psychiatric wards. The magical feeding of the multitude, I have discussed here already. It relates to indifference to food - feeding on scraps -during the times one is "with Jesus" (or manic). And I pointed out that in the Markan arithmetic, Jesus needed even less loaves and fishes to feed 5K then 4K of his "followers", which obviously for the original author of Mark were not to be taken literally, or be organized spatio-temporally around a historical personage. It was to be read as a "koan". And again, the same thing with turning water into wine - it falls into the class wine-(holy) spirit contrasting metaphors (most prominently in the event at the Pentecost), and simply describes what every psychiatrist specializing in bipolar process has observed. Excited manics appear drunk (especially once they start losing sleep).
These, what I call "handshakes", is how the original "Jesus disciples" identified themselves to each other after Jesus was gone. They knew the works of "pneuma" and could associate the suggested events with their own experience.

So where does this leave the Jesus-historicity issues ? I believe there are a number of gospel incidents which were originally not "miracles" but straightforward narration. They were later converted into "mirculous events" for theological purposes. The transfiguration likely originated in an incident of Jesus talking to himself, adressing aloud and apparently conversing with M&E which puzzled his village entourage (Mk 9:10). In the story of Gadarene swine, the psychotic who believes himself confined to a cemetary as much as accuses Jesus of messing him up. In Lazarus, Jesus proclaims himself the resurrection and the life while trying to hide himself from the hostile Pharisees. How did they figure that bringing a stinking corpse back to life as reward for believing in Jesus' divinity was the wrong thing for a divinity to do ? Elsewhere, Jesus goes to grab a few figs out of season, gets nothing, and curses the tree. (Strange,... that's why it was remembered...). Then, someone else had the idea of Jesus causing the fig tree to 'wither' as a lesson on the power of faith. The problem with that operation was that Jesus 'faith' in obtaining a handful of figs was thwarted in the first place, so where is the guarantee that faith could move mountains ?
These are all examples of dysfunctional myth which simply defies clssifying the gospels as such. It reads in many places as apologia. So my ontological argument would be, if he did not exist what was all the embarrassment and apologizing for ?

Jiri

No Robots · 10-01-2006, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

Anyway, it is possible that he was an atheist. He was not a very consistent ideologue. What I have read so far indicates otherwise. Do you have specific citations for this?

Brunner calls himself an atheist explicitly in several places. Here is a passage from Hear, Israel and Hear, Not-Israel (The Witches) in which he does so (my translation follows the original German text):

Ich mache den Unterschied zwischen Gott und den Götzen; denn ich bin im Grunde gottlos wohl nur nach ihrem Sinne von Gott, da ich gar nichts andres denke als Gott, das Einzige, was überhaupt sich denken läßt, Gott als das Wesen, – mein Leben, als das Relative und Negative kann ich nicht eigentlich denken, und daß mein Leben mir wunderbar, ist nur, weil mit ihm ich Gott denke, dazu lebe ich. Und bin denn wohl gar kein Atheist, sondern Adämonist, nicht gottlos, nur götzenlos. Doch will auch gern Atheist ich heißen, da unter Atheismus nichts andres zu verstehen als Götzenlosigkeit.

I make the distinction between God and idols; for I am fundamentally godless only in your meaning of God, because I think of God as nothing other than that which alone can be thought of at all, God as Beingness—I cannot think of my life, something relative and negative, alone: my life is wonderful to me only because with it I think God. And thus I am certainly no atheist, but an adaemonist, not godless, but idol-less. Yet gladly I will call myself an atheist, in that by atheism I understand nothing but idol-lessness.

There is a passage in his dialogue Materialism and Idealism where he calls himself an atheist that will help to demonstrate where his idealism comes into play:

Ich denke aber nicht materialistisch wie du; weil ich auch Idealist bin. Idealist in Bezug auf die Materie; weil bei mir die Materie ihrem Wesen nach keineswegs Materie ist, sondern Denken. Etwas ganz andres also als Illusionist. Idealist, der auch an das Denken denkt! Und weil ich auch Atheist bin. Du, wie du vorhin dich geäußert hast, tatest das weder als Materialist noch als Atheist denn du hattest nicht mit Denken an das Denken gedacht, an das Denken als an das Wesen der Materie, sondern mit Glauben an das Göttlein im Menschen, an des Menschleins freies Denken, hervorgebracht von der Materie, welches du alsdann – dieses von der Materie so gänzlich verschiedene Denken – alle Wunder seiner immateriellen Weltzuschauerei und Erkennerei verrichten ließest. Du warst also Dualist, ohne zu merken, daß du es bist; du warst es wegen des Denkens, wegen deines Glaubens vom Denken. Du hattest nicht aufgehört bei Denken und Dingen nach der Kausalität zu fragen statt nach der Identität, und hattest noch nicht angefangen, die Dinge ihrem Wesen nach als denkend zu verstehen.

I do not think materialistically like you; for I am also an idealist. An idealist in regard to the material; for the material in its essence is not material, but thought. Something completely different than an Illusionist. An idealist, who also thinks about thought. And because I am also an atheist. Earlier, you expressed yourself neither as a materialist nor as an atheist because you did not conceive of thought as thought , of thought as the essence of the material; but rather you thought with belief in the little god in man, with belief in the little bit of human freedom in thought, produced by matter, by which you henceforth—with that thinking quite different from matter—accomplish all its miraculous ability to peer into and understand the material. You were then a dualist without being aware of being one; you were one for the sake of thought, for the sake of your belief in thought. You had not ceased to ask about thought and things in terms of causality, rather than in terms of their identity; and had not begun to think of things as thought in their beingness.

To make Brunner’s point clear, here is an example from Richard Dawkins of how the materialist generates thought from matter without ever acknowledging his dualism:

It is a manifest fact that the brain – especially the human brain – is well able to over-ride its ultimate programming; well able to dispense with the ultimate value of gene survival and substitute other values. I have used hedonistic pleasure as just an example, but I could also mention more noble values, like a love of poetry, or music, and of course the long-term survival of the planet – and sustainability.

It is this construal of thought and matter as causally related rather than as identical that Brunner condemns. Fundamentally, Brunner is calling for a science of thought qua thought, not thought as derivative of matter.

No Robots · 10-01-2006, 10:22 PM

For everyone's information, Brunner's text that forms the basis of this discussion is available online here. It is an essay against mythicism that was the appendix to his character study of Christ (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

Brunner was not unaware that there were other possibilities because he lambasted other scholars in his writings for their rejection of a historical Jesus. Amongst Brunner’s contemporaries was David Friedrich Strauss who wrote The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1860), P.L. Couchoud who wrote The Creation of Christ (1939), Albert Kalthoff who wrote The Rise of Christianity (1907) and Arthur Drews, who wrote The Christ Myth (1910). He therefore knowingly limited his set of possibilities to lead the readers to seeing his preferred option as the most reasonable one, while staying silent on the other options by other authors. His quadrilemma was therefore false.

As you note yourself, Brunner does criticise Drews specifically. He also mentions Strauss in the appendix:

Why do Drews and Lublinski not take a few ideal passages of our literature and conjure up and fabricate a figure like this with such features of bronze, such vitality, and with similar impact on the history of mankind? The older critics, including David Friedrich Strauss, might help them - but it would take us too far, and in any case it would be superfluous, if we were to discuss him in detail. Strauss is only Strauss; as an exponent of historical criticism he suffers, like the other critics, from ignorance of the times and ignorance of Christ. In the end we are left with Christ against Strauss; this tiny trickle of water thinks it can extinguish the blaze which encompasses the world!

Presumably, Brunner includes Schweitzer et. al. in the category of "older critics", and holds the same opinion of them that he does of Strauss.

Chili · 10-02-2006, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

It is this construal of thought and matter as causally related rather than as identical that Brunner condemns. Fundamentally, Brunner is calling for a science of thought qua thought, not thought as derivative of matter.

Essence precedes existence as shown in Gen.1 and Gen.2 wherein what God created in Gen.1 came into existence Gen.2 there called Lord God.

Adam and Eve are not part of Gen.1, or Gen.2 but are conjectured only in Gen.3 to created the dualism in the 'like god' mode that Brunner identifies. So in effect, man was God but he also wanted to be like god and have an identity of his own. Of course this is good . . . but it is not good forever because it is void of forever.

What is known as the fall of man places the materialist behind the eight ball (Plate called them Cave dwellers) and makes creation the formal cause of evolution while evolutionists insist that they will find the missing link . . . and so the argument continues without end.

No Robots · 10-02-2006, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

But Brunner himself was an ordinary man – at least in the sense that he never claimed to belong to the spiritual elite.

Brunner definitely did see himself as part of the Gemeinschaft der Geistigen (community of spiritual people):

We want to live our true life in its primal beauty, a life which is blessed, godless and free of the world in our world, where we can breathe without experiencing the tragic consequences of being spiritual, without being punished for thinking in a spiritual manner. Our Christ, 344.

He did not claim to be among the great creative geniuses whose thought guides this community. In fact, he reserved the top place in his spiritual hierarchy for only two people: Christ and Spinoza.

Ted Hoffman · 10-02-2006, 09:01 AM

Thanks Jay.
Mountainman, I wouldnt find it suprising. Not that I have read up on what issues Julian legalised. Why do you think it is suprising?
Yes, from Brunner, we can learn about a brand of the obscure metaphysics that mystics believe in.
Solo

Quote:

...the "hydropatesis" incident symbolizes a relapse into euphoria during a depressive psychosis in a manic episode.

Please provide evidence for this interpretation.

Quote:

Mythical events, beliefs in supernatural abilities, or conception can demonstrably surround historical personalities.

Please provide evidence that Jesus was a historical personality that was surrounded by supernatural, mythical events.

Quote:

...This "mysterious" re-appearance of the spirit out of the depths of persecutory delusions has traditionally caused manics to defy gravity and test their own levitational powers, hurling themselves off the roofs and out of windows of psychiatric wards. The magical feeding of the multitude, I have discussed here already. It relates to indifference to food - feeding on scraps -during the times one is "with Jesus" (or manic).

Please provide evidence for this. Is this your own idea or other scholars have made a similar argument? If so, where.
Does the same food-is-nothing message apply to the feeding miracles in Homer's Odyssey? If not, why not?

Quote:

I believe there are a number of gospel incidents which were originally not "miracles" but straightforward narration. They were later converted into "mirculous events" for theological purposes. The transfiguration likely originated in an incident of Jesus talking to himself, adressing aloud and apparently conversing with M&E which puzzled his village entourage (Mk 9:10).

Please provide evidence for this argument.

Quote:

...my ontological argument would be, if he did not exist what was all the embarrassment and apologizing for ?

What apologizing? By who?
Who was embarrased? How do you know?
No Robots

Quote:

I make the distinction between God and idols; for I am fundamentally godless only in your meaning of God, because I think of God as nothing other than that which alone can be thought of at all, God as Beingness—I cannot think of my life, something relative and negative, alone: my life is wonderful to me only because with it I think God. And thus I am certainly no atheist, but an adaemonist, not godless, but idol-less. Yet gladly I will call myself an atheist, in that by atheism I understand nothing but idol-lessness.

I told you this guy's ideas were a muddled obscurity. He chooses to define atheism as whatever he wants atheism to be. What is a thing that can be thought of alone? Is thought monadic?
He says that he cant think his life(or mankind) is alone because he thinks his life is (part of) God.
What is God according to Brunner? Does redefining God make him an atheist?

I have seen no evidence that he was an atheist. He specifically said atheism was mistaken. Are you willing to argue that he believed in something he believed was incorrect?
Please answer the following questions from your reading of the cogitant.

What does Brunner believe the cogitant to be?
Where does Brunner believe it dwells?
Where does Brunner think the cogitant came from?
What is the purpose of the cogitant?
Does the cogitant have energy? How does it fulfil its mission?
Who is it that divided mankind into two species?
Since Brunner did not believe in evolution, through what process did the Jews become the highest race?

My reading is that Brunner believed that there were two species of people. Is that correct?
If so, I understand them to be the spiritual elite and the multitude. Correct?
In fact, this spiritual elite, per my understanding, is just an elite species of geniuses, according to Brunner. I dont see him diluting such a distinguished class to a "community". The very expression "multitude" means the spiritual elite were very few.
I don't find the quotation you have provided as supportive to your claim that "Brunner definitely did see himself as part of the Gemeinschaft der Geistigen". If you can find another quote, I will appreciate it.

No Robots · 10-02-2006, 10:50 AM

Quote:

I have seen no evidence that he was an atheist.

The point is that he did call himself an atheist. You are of course free to argue that he has no grounds for doing so.

Quote:

In fact, this spiritual elite, per my understanding, is just an elite species of geniuses, according to Brunner. I dont see him diluting such a distinguished class to a "community". The very expression "multitude" means the spiritual elite were very few.

The validity of the phrase "spiritual élite" as a translation of "der Geistigen" has been challenged by some Brunnerians. Some have proposed "espritals". "Spiritual people" satisfices for the moment. Similarly, "multitude" is a translation of "das Volk", which has a far richer set of connotations.

Brunner essentially posits that individuals gravitate toward either folkish thinking or spiritual thinking. The latter are far fewer in number.

Quote:

I don't find the quotation you have provided as supportive to your claim that "Brunner definitely did see himself as part of the Gemeinschaft der Geistigen". If you can find another quote, I will appreciate it.

I thought the use of the first person plural was sufficient indication that Brunner considered himself part of the community of spiritual people. The whole of the conclusion of Our Christ is really a manifesto for the community of spiritual people. Here is a pertinent quotation:

Thou [Christ] art the unique marvel, the living manifestation of the Eternal, and we are not Thine equals. We cannot do what Thou couldst; we cannot, and so our aims are not the same as Thine. But turn Thou not away from us; for neither do we want to live in superstition like the others, following the prince of this world. We want to live according to the truth of the Spirit, and that is why we need this Doctrine of the Spiritual Élite and the Multitude, this teaching which is the true meaning and the completion of all spirituality in the world, in art, in philosophy, in love, in Judaism and in Thine own form of it as Christ—for They work is not finished as long as there is no spiritual life for the community of the spiritual [Gemeinschaft der Geistigen].

The community of spiritual people consists of all those who believe that there is such a thing as a spiritual life that can be shared with others and must be protected from those who oppose the idea of spiritual life. Naturally, this community is guided by the thought of the great geniuses of the spirit: Christ and Spinoza. In a sense, you could say that Brunner is the anti-Marx (even though he greatly admired Marx's work). Brunner posits a dialectic of human thought established on the polarization of spiritual thinking with folkish thinking. This is really dialectical idealism.

Quote:

Since Brunner did not believe in evolution, through what process did the Jews become the highest race?

This is a serious misconstrual. Brunner wrote many books where he combated the growth of antisemitism. An abridgement of one of these books has been published in English (quotations here). In it, Brunner contests the idea that Jews are inferior by pointing out their record of accomplishment:

More Jewish scholars have received the Nobel Prize for scientific endeavour than those of France and England together (and incidentally no antisemitic scholar has received the Nobel Prize). Quite clearly, the word’s actual interest in the benefits coming from Jewish talent is greater than the judgment of antisemitism, greater than all the other anti-Jewish prejudice which, though not explicitly antisemitic, is widely found. In the face of this irrefutable wealth of talent, therefore, the notion that Jews are spiritually inferior is clearly nonsense and we need say no more about it; the antisemitic assertion collapses when confronted with the world’s consistent experience of Jews.

Notice that he talks about spiritual inferiority: he gave no credence to "scientific" race theory. For Brunner, Jews had a spiritual advantage in that Judaism was in essence an anti-religion, pure positive atheism. This doesn't mean that all Jews were free of religious superstition. Quite the contrary. But there were among them those who succeeded to one degree or another in penetrating the religious cloak and came to the genuine religionless spirit of Judaism, which allowed them to achieve many great things.

Quote:

What does Brunner believe the cogitant to be?

The Cogitant (das Denkende) is best understood, in my view, as the idealist inversion of the material universe. If we see reality as essentially one unified thought that expresses itself in infinite ways, that is the Cogitant.

Chili · 10-02-2006, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

I have seen no evidence that he was an atheist. He specifically said atheism was mistaken. Are you willing to argue that he believed in something he believed was incorrect?

But Ted, before atheism can be conceived to exist, theism must necessarily exist and it is against the opinion of theism that atheism is formed. The problem here is that atheists must recognize the same idea that theism is based on and call it "not-God." Brunner, OTH says (or as much as says) that if I am God there is no God left for me to believe in.

Quote:

Please answer the following questions from your reading of the cogitant.

What does Brunner believe the cogitant to be?

The ego consciousness

Quote:

Where does Brunner believe it dwells?

Our imagination

Quote:

Where does Brunner think the cogitant came from?

From nowhere but was conceived by the light of common day.

Quote:

What is the purpose of the cogitant?

To fill the void in our mind.

Quote:

Does the cogitant have energy? How does it fulfil its mission?

It has no energy but is a slave identity that takes charge of the body.

Quote:

Who is it that divided mankind into two species?

There is only one species called man but there is also the human condition that tells us something about the being itself.

Each and every human being is divided between his man and human identity.

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Since Brunner did not believe in evolution, through what process did the Jews become the highest race?

It is by far the greatest mythology that ever served mankind which in the end exists for the survival and prosperity of the tribe.

Quote:

My reading is that Brunner believed that there were two species of people. Is that correct?

Not two species but more like . . . I'll stop here.

Amaleq13 · 10-02-2006, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

The point is that he did call himself an atheist. You are of course free to argue that he has no grounds for doing so.

He denied that he was an atheist as the term is actually defined but accepts the term according to his own definition of it.

No Robots · 10-02-2006, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

He denied that he was an atheist as the term is actually defined but accepts the term according to his own definition of it.

Yup. We spiritual atheists are claiming to be the real atheists in opposition to you materialist atheists, who have actually only deified matter.

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