Can you abstract belief in the miraculous from belief in God?

[underworld men]

Supernatural in the west means that God supercedes.
Supernatural in the east means that God enhances. By your statement it appears that you believe that God supercedes. Please clarify.

I take it by God supercedes or enhances you mean He supercedes or enhances nature.

No I mean Existenz.

This makes sense. So in the West God supercedes nature, making it super-natural.

More like bend it so it is no longer nature.

In the East God enhances nature manking in Nature 2.0.

Making, not manking right (just clarifing)- well not really. Orthodoxy is Greek. It does not nessasarilly have paganism religion or philosophy as it early tenets. But it does have to use the Greek language and it's words to express it's uniqueness through. This is the cause of the problem. Supernatural as in how nature will be once defied. Once all of the questions are answered all the patterns tried. Then the infinite will be given and rule the day. Heaven will be in the presents of the infinite and will be glory to glory or greater happiness to ever greater happiness to neverending.

Now you know I'm an atheist, in which case your asking me to clarify on the above positions is strictly hypothetical.

Absolutely.

All I can say is that I'm an atheist and a naturalist. I don't believe that anything is supernatural

[OK here's an old russian one. Scientifically explain how a bumble bee flies. Not just anything but specifically a bumble bee. Also Maxwell's demon is an empirically proven mechanism.
Both the bumble bee and Maxwell's demon are supernatural.


But does supernatural mean miracle? Think, I am asking if God intervening into the now is a component of miracle as much as
the phenomena of miracle can be stated as a manifestation of the supernatural? Miracle being the example of supernatural as an episode in time.


, since there is no agency higher than nature.

Nature in the sense of kosmos well then how once again Aristotle of you.

Let me also add that the distinction you make between the East and West seems rather moot. What does it matter that God supercedes or enhances nature, when in either case nature is trascended?  

Trascend connotates an independence of action that miracle would contradict. God the father is transcendent but God the son and spirit are here in the finite. God the father can be expressed here as well.



Correct, faith (pre-gnosis) and/or intuitive truth dictates that one accepts existence without requisites.

Not even awareness or memory of oneself? i.e the things lost in death.

No no no gnosis is knowledge from an experience of the supernatural. One opens their eyes into the now without requisite this is a natural state, one then between intuition and rational were one defines their essence or person.

Orthodoxy is the answer to the defiencies of philosophy. It is therapy to give life and existenz meaning. Meaning though experience beyond logic.

First of all let me take issue with what you wrote before this about "religious philosophy." Religion and philosophy are polar opposites.


No really Vladimir Solovyov covers this quite well and the two compliment each other within the frame of internal (philosophy) and external (religious tradition) within the framework that Vladimir Solovyov setup. This very thing is what made him famous.

 One is founded on revelation, the other reason. Revelation and reason are dialectically and diametrically opposed.

Yes but here the connection between them -experience is what is emphasized.

 The crux of existence is that man can't live by reason alone, but nor can he do way without it altogether, which is the "leap of faith" revelation asks us to make: the leap from reason, across doubt and into irrational but godly Belief.

Yes Kierkegaard covered this well, but (MikeK may swoop down) this was before Kierkegaard began to see the limits of religion and philosophy.

 With religion and philosophy the deficiency of one is the strength of the other. Truthfully you can't accept God without rejecting reason, and similarly, you can't accept reason without rejecting God.

Oh no. I say to you if you can experience the nothing you can also experience the divine.

 I can't accept your belief that Orthodoxy is the answer to the deficiencies of philosophy, since to me philosophy is the answer to the deficiencies of Orthodoxy or any other religion.

Philosophy insists that one believe in God -remember Phaedo. Let alone Aristotle

You accept revelation and I accept reason. The difference is irreconcilable. But that's OK.

Not true read the link I posted. Agree or not this is how it stands in the east.

orthoexistentialists= Kierkigaard, Dostoevsky

If, according to existentialism, objectivity is subjective (I even think Kierkegaard himself said this),

That is completely incorrect, the subjective is true, is not saying that the objective reality is subjective reality. Kierkegaard stated that God is a subject not an object.


how can there be an ortho or a hetero practicioners of this philosophy?

Ortho is not the hetero. If one attempts to maintain the truth of ones tenets this is but one form of ortho. Right as in correct not right as in dexter.

 Again you say Orthodoxy is the answer to all, which is why you name Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky. But perhaps I'll name Nietzsche and Camus.


Madness and sadness make unhappy play in the rain.  

Which one of us can say the other is heteroexistentialist without breaking the cardinal tenet of this creed.

I will break the creed right now. Existenz does not predate essence. Essence is part instinct/intuition.

orthoDostoevskyites=? You, me, this website. Although Dostoevsky wanted people to be Orthodox christian since that's what he stated was what he was articulating.

I believe you, although to read this about Dostoevsky is kind of dissapointing for me. In articulating this isn't he intending to foist his belief on people, making him distastefully like evangelical Christians or atheists who seek to do the same.

Yes but Dostoevsky also knew what would happen in Russia. His work was away out of the hell not so much a recruiting tool.

[Childe Harold]

Philosophy insists that one believe in God -remember Phaedo. Let alone Aristotle

No it doesn't. Some, a few Stoics among them, believe in a Providence which guides our ends, "rough-hew them how we will," but this is more like fatalism and certainly not the realization of divinity you've convinced yourself to expect. Also what about Democritus, Lucretius, and the rest of them who, unlike you, focused their inquiries not on rationalizing death itself, but the fear of it. Their position was that it was foolish to fear punishment or hope for reward after death, since the experience of anything good, bad or divine rests on faculties of sensation all of which end with death of the brain. I would name more of such philosophers had I studied them, but its enough to say that knowledge of the brain as a neccesary basis for sensation figured prominently in many strands of Stoicism and Epicureanism.

Heaven will be in the presents of the infinite and will be glory to glory or greater happiness to ever greater happiness to neverending.

I thought you said you didn't want a Disney Land of the mind and body after death? Here is the question. Either you accept annihilation as a consquence of death, or you create a refulgent paradise in which to bask for ever and ever. I don't want anything for ever and ever and can't understand how any rational being would. Isn't part of life understanding that, that death is the price of life, that our body, while an encumbrance to the pursuit of pure knowledge, is also a handy and unrivaled medium for the experience of a happiness that itself approaches the divine, and that the intellect by itself could never provide. Remember also that what makes people happy most of the time is not the ideality of some present state, but the hope of finding happiness in the future. In Pope's melancholy words, "man is never bless, but always to be blessed." In any system of afterlife hope can never belong, since part of hoping is knowing that what you hope for might never come true. As opposed to expectation of the Good--the mainstay of your or anyone else's heaven.

Let me anticipate what you will reply. No philosophy can ever hold up to logic, which is what I'm applying to your idea of the divine. Fair enough. But to make this admission the evidence of the existence of the divine is to me simply ridiculous. I'm a materialist. You're not. These positions are irreconilable.

I took a look at that romanity link. To me the material on there is just an overwrought and self-justifying piece of theology. The problem with gnosiology is that it rests of premises that by their very nature are exogenous and thus unknowable by material reasoning. And unfortunately, material explanation of anything is something I will never cease to demand. (This is materialism in the philosophical sense of course--just clarifying) True, maybe I can't explain how a bee flaps its wings, but that does not mean the bee's mechanism for this is supernatural. Nothing goes beyond nature, only our understanding of it. OK this is something Scully said in the X-Files but its true.

P.S I'm reading Pheado now. I didn't realize it was one of Plato's dialogues...

[underworld men]

Philosophy insists that one believe in God -remember Phaedo. Let alone Aristotle

No it doesn't.

Yes it does here's a taste Apology-56
God orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men—that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.

Some, a few Stoics among them, believe in a Providence which guides our ends, "rough-hew them how we will," but this is more like fatalism and certainly not the realization of divinity you've convinced yourself to expect. Also what about Democritus, Lucretius, and the rest of them who, unlike you, focused their inquiries not on rationalizing death itself, but the fear of it.

Really, were specifically in their works? The quote above from Plato is a cornstone of philosophy.

Their position was that it was foolish to fear punishment or hope for reward after death, since the experience of anything good, bad or divine rests on faculties of sensation all of which end with death of the brain.

Where specifically do they say this that death is the souls end?
I would name more of such philosophers had I studied them, but its enough to say that knowledge of the brain as a neccesary basis for sensation figured prominently in many strands of Stoicism and Epicureanism.

So stoicism and Epicureanism stated their is no soul, afterlife or gods? Where in their works?

Once Phaedo its all in the words of Socrates not me. Also you have missed allot by no addressing the link I posted here it is again.

http://www.romanity.org/mir/me01en.htm

Heaven will be in the presents of the infinite and will be glory to glory or greater happiness to ever greater happiness to neverending.

I thought you said you didn't want a Disney Land of the mind and body after death? Here is the question. Either you accept annihilation as a consquence of death, or you create a refulgent paradise in which to bask for ever and ever. I don't want anything for ever and ever and can't understand how any rational being would. Isn't part of life understanding that, that death is the price of life, that our body, while an encumbrance to the pursuit of pure knowledge, is also a handy and unrivaled medium for the experience of a happiness that itself approaches the divine, and that the intellect by itself could never provide. Remember also that what makes people happy most of the time is not the ideality of some present state, but the hope of finding happiness in the future. In Pope's melancholy words, "man is never bless, but always to be blessed." In any system of afterlife hope can never belong, since part of hoping is knowing that what you hope for might never come true. As opposed to expectation of the Good--the mainstay of your or anyone else's heaven.

Let me anticipate what you will reply. No philosophy can ever hold up to logic, which is what I'm applying to your idea of the divine. Fair enough. But to make this admission the evidence of the existence of the divine is to me simply ridiculous. I'm a materialist. You're not. These positions are irreconilable.

What positions?

I took a look at that romanity link. To me the material on there is just an overwrought and self-justifying piece of theology. The problem with gnosiology is that it rests of premises that by their very nature are exogenous and thus unknowable by material reasoning. And unfortunately, material explanation of anything is something I will never cease to demand. (This is materialism in the philosophical sense of course--just clarifying) True, maybe I can't explain how a bee flaps its wings, but that does not mean the bee's mechanism for this is supernatural. Nothing goes beyond nature, only our understanding of it. OK this is something Scully said in the X-Files but its true.

P.S I'm reading Pheado now. I didn't realize it was one of Plato's dialogues...

[Childe Harold]

So stoicism and Epicureanism stated their is no soul, afterlife or gods? Where in their works?

I said only in certain strands of Stoicism and Epicureanism was this the case. Look for a consensus in any philosophical school and you won't find it. Hence my incredulity at your suggestion that all philosophy insist there to be a god. What Socrates said is fine but a person doesn't have to be bidden to love wisdom and want to search for it.

Really, were specifically in their works? Where specifically do they say this that death is the souls end?

Classical philosophies diverged on the existence of God or Gods and the extent to which they impinge on our existence. Of course not all of them believed death to be the soul's end. Some did. Some didn't believe in a soul other than that which animates us and makes us individual. Again there's an absence of unanimity. Call me a charlatan but I've read enough of this stuff to understand this (I'm sure you have to, if not more). I would provide some quotations but the relevant materials lie in my college abode.

What positions?

Materialism and metaphysics.

[underworld men]

So stoicism and Epicureanism stated their is no soul, afterlife or gods? Where in their works?

I said only in certain strands of Stoicism and Epicureanism was this the case.

No you didn't you gave no such indication you where speaking of a minority view within either group, now please specifically which strands, which works you gave no such clarity?

 Look for a consensus in any philosophical school and you won't find it.

On the specific issues I addressed you can. God, Soul, afterlife. Yes with reservations, is a yes none the less. You pulled the stoics/epicurian in, now justify your position per their statements and works. It is only fair.

 Hence my incredulity at your suggestion that all philosophy insist there to be a god.

Pythagorus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Numerous, Saccus, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Iamblishus, Gemitos. I can keep going but the point is that each of these titans of philosophy not only insisted that there is a God but made God a nexus to their philosophies. Hence my incredulity at your suggestion that all philosophy insist there not be a god. Look at what Socrates specifically stated that a philosopher was..
 
What Socrates said is fine but a person doesn't have to be bidden to love wisdom and want to search for it.

Or believe in the supernatural or God but Socrates specified that to be a philosopher one must indeed believe in a God and love wisdom/sophia and seek knowledge.


Really though, were specifically in their works? Where specifically do they say this that death is the souls end.

Classical philosophies diverged on the existence of God or Gods and the extent to which they impinge on our existence.

Please forgive me for being frank but do you really know enough about "classical" philosophy to make such a sweeping generalization, I mean before I start posting quotes again.

Of course not all of them believed death to be the soul's end. Some did.

Which ones of classical philosophy professed the souls end?

Some didn't believe in a soul other than that which animates us and makes us individual.

Which ones believe this?

 Again there's an absence of unanimity. Call me a charlatan but I've read enough of this stuff to understand this (I'm sure you have to, if not more).

No disrespect. But how could you miss the very specific statements that these people Dostoevsky included made, that contridict your statements about what they believed. This line of thinking would say that there should be no law, simply on the logic that law can not be guaranteed to be enforced. Degrees again.

I would provide some quotations but the relevant materials lie in my college abode.


What positions?

Materialism and metaphysics.

So we agree that reason can not encompass everything and or completely resolve the issues of man.

[underworld men]

I took a look at that romanity link. To me the material on there is just an overwrought and self-justifying piece of theology.

[It will do you bad to critique Greek Orthodoxy with such an empty sweeping set of generalizations. Romanian, Russian or Japanese in the flavor.

 The problem with gnosiology is that it rests of premises that by their very nature are exogenous and thus unknowable by material reasoning.

This is out of context and only a partial generalization of the page's message. The missing half- is what can not be reasoned by material reason can be reasoned by intuitive reason.

 And unfortunately, material explanation of anything is something I will never cease to demand. (This is materialism in the philosophical sense of course--just clarifying) True, maybe I can't explain how a bee flaps its wings, but that does not mean the bee's mechanism for this is supernatural.

Really then why is the bumblebee able to fly when by the standards of science, it specifically is defying physics. It is a supernatural thing that a bumblebee can fly. More so then some other creatures. It is observable/experienceable just as your experience of chaos is.
Maxwell's demon defies that laws of physics, is observable and can be experienced. So that technically makes 2 acts of supernatural and one act of chaos that we can validate. Today is a bad day for determinism.

Nothing goes beyond nature, only our understanding of it. OK this is something Scully said in the X-Files but its true.

Yes supernature to enhance, instead of supercede.

P.S I'm reading Pheado now. I didn't realize it was one of Plato's dialogues...


What did Plato write that was not dialectical?

[underworld men]

Experience of the material world=sensory perception +  analytically logical thought = stored memory. This is reason per philosophy. This is the nous. The nous is part of the person and without it there is no person. There is righteousness of logic aka philosophy and then there is righteousness of the hypostasis which is the whole person and circumstance in harmony. Two different things one being a component of the other but not vice-versa.

Experience of the material world=sensory perception + intuition and analytically logical thought = stored memory. This is reason per gnosiology. One must seek both intuitive knowledge/faith and analytically logical thought to have balance in the mind. This is the Orthodox nous. Nous in the emotional center and in harmony with it.

Intuitive knowledge is not reading body language or caughting flashes of warning signs and then the mind triggering a chemical reaction. Intuitive knowledge is ascetic joy like making a work of art and it deep richness, as one does with all things in varied degrees, -a part of your being or essence.


PS so Stef your now MANFRED? What is that?

[Childe Harold]

Really then why is the bumblebee able to fly when by the standards of science, it specifically is defying physics.

Not so fast. Checking up on this I see your statement is folklore. Type Bumblebee on Wikipedia. The explanation found on here will do for me. So will the criticism I find about Maxwell's Demon. Sorry I just won't believe in the unbelievable. Call me biased, but we are both biased.

I see what you're getting at though. For a while I've been plagued by the theory that the universe is expanding. But if this is the case, it must have an outer boundary and, what's stranger, something outside that boundary. Still, I don't chalk it down to the supernatural or godly, but my own puny understanding. Further I try not to dwell on such perplexities. They are unwholesome.  

Hence my incredulity at your suggestion that all philosophy insist there not be a god.

I don't insist this. Your philosophers insist there is a God. Mine don't. Let us love wisdom in our own ways. Fair?

Please forgive me for being frank but do you really know enough about "classical" philosophy to make such a sweeping generalization

My learning of the classical philosophers was itself "sweeping" and thus liable to the weaknesses of this type of study. As you said before, its hard to find a job waving a philosophy degree in employer's faces. My philosophical dilletantism is in deference to this. But hey there's always the industrious and self-starting virtue of the autodidact.  I can't rap out statements off the top of my head that vindicate my position on the above, although I still hold to it. I'm pretty sure I've got something with Lucreties though, in particular his On the Nature of the Universe. But for the sake of bringing this to a close, we'll say you win on this one.

What did Plato write that was not dialectical?

When you first brought up Phaedo I thought he was just another ancient philosopher dude. I didn't even know he had any connection to Plato in the first place.

So we agree that reason can not encompass everything and or completely resolve the issues of man.

OK (grudgingly).

PS so Stef your now MANFRED? What is that?

Ah well my name plus the last three digits of my zipcode was way too prosaic for a username, certainly one for this site. So what better for a romantic username than a Romantic Byronic hero.

[underworld men]

Excellent as for the bumble bees and maxwell's demon yes they were used to only validate the current limits of science (the bee appears to be no more though). If you read the gnosiology page then you understand that science is to be supported and respected not attacked by religion and religion is not to cross into the realm of material process- to supercede. Creationism is such an example of inappropriate religious intervention..

As for the differencies one must first allot freedom of each person to choose.

Now once one chooses religion MUST validate its faith through works. One must participate in the Orthodox God.
Not the gnosticism/deist/agnostic God who does not intercede. Not the philosopher god of the west who supercedes. The Orthodox God who is open to communion with all (aka catholic).

The God who then gives theognosia (St Gregory of Nyssa http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_doubleknowl2.html), then gnosis, nepsis (soberity/self actualization), theoria, Phronema then =theosis. The great ladder of St John Climacus.

Gnosis validates God. Gnosis in Orthodoxy is miracle.

As to your question...
"Can you abstract belief in the miraculous from belief in God?"

I think the gnosiology page validates unfortunately that, with freewill at the heart of belief, people can most definitely maintain a belief in God without miracle. And most definitely vice versa believe in miracle and not God.


P.S. As for modern Platoists -they call themselves Idealists. Idealism is the opposite of materialism.

[hithesh]

When you say miraculous are you referring to the the miraculous healing, birth, and resurrection of Christ?

Are you speaking of such miracles existing in the world here, or in the world beyond that is unknown?

I believe in the God of the gospels, but I doubt all the miraculous elements. I find the depth, and meaning of his teachings, to be all I need for belief.

I think Doestoevsky is telling us the same, in TBK. You see Aloysha disheartened with the miraculous does not occur at Zosima's funeral, so he weeps for a bit at this loss of life and magic, and he later finds a deeper sense of happiness.

I don't think individuals come to the Christian God by his miracles, they come the Christian God because the divine love he showed in his life and teachings for them, and the miraculous elements are just add-ons, but not necessarily the bases of their faith.

[underworld men]

When you say miraculous are you referring to the the miraculous healing, birth, and resurrection of Christ?

Are you speaking of such miracles existing in the world here, or in the world beyond that is unknown?

I believe in the God of the gospels, but I doubt all the miraculous elements. I find the depth, and meaning of his teachings, to be all I need for belief.

I think Doestoevsky is telling us the same, in TBK. You see Aloysha disheartened with the miraculous does not occur at Zosima's funeral, so he weeps for a bit at this loss of life and magic, and he later finds a deeper sense of happiness.

I don't think individuals come to the Christian God by his miracles, they come the Christian God because the divine love he showed in his life and teachings for them, and the miraculous elements are just add-ons, but not necessarily the bases of their faith.

It is very very very hard to be specific when it comes to mysticism. This is why so many wretched of heart people flock to it and us it to con people.

As for gnosis -miracle is miracle like a supernatural occurance that happens to validate the existence of the supernatural.

Memory of the experience. Now if its sideshow type stuff it serves no purpose other then to possibly misled people down the wrong path, BUT if it is an act of love or devoution
then it is a part or component to ones salvation.

Heart knowledge is used by both the bad and the good.

But in reality gnosis is much more then even this.

For the Hesychast...

If though prayer one finds the stillness the unmoving silence
if they can reach out with their hearts and touch it.

It will in the first experiences bring about pure extasy.

PS Hesychacism pre dates the 14 century.

[poor knight]

I don't think individuals come to the Christian God by his miracles, they come the Christian God because the divine love he showed in his life and teachings for them, and the miraculous elements are just add-ons, but not necessarily the bases of their faith.

What's the quote from Demons... Stavrogin and Kirilov say they believe in Christ, but not in God.

I think this was one of the central struggles for FD all his life; how to reconcile the world's suffering with an omnipotent and benevolent God. Perhaps his conclusion was that Christ and the Holy Spirit are given to us to be our comfort and hope almost in spite of God. That's a pretty provocative statement I know, and I don't know that I believe it; but it would make some sense within the context of FD's writing.

[hithesh]

I think this was one of the central struggles for FD all his life; how to reconcile the world's suffering with an omnipotent and benevolent God. Perhaps his conclusion was that Christ and the Holy Spirit are given to us to be our comfort and hope almost in spite of God. That's a pretty provocative statement I know, and I don't know that I believe it; but it would make some sense within the context of FD's writing.

I don't think FD was struggling late in life, I thing he figured out what divine happiness is, by Christ's teachings in the gospel (lose self love, love god, and love all others, and great, will your blessing be on earth)

This is what Tolstoy who stripped all the supernatural elements from the Gospels, and yet found a deep truth in Christianity, had in common with Doestoevsky. They both found deep meaning in Christ's moral teachings; one applied it to the political, the other applied it to personal life, but none needed the supernatural elements to understand the truth.

I was a Christian when I was younger, but I lost my faith some time after that, because the Christ the church portrayed made no sense to me.

I read TBK, and it taught me a great lesson for living life, then I found myself reading the gospels, and seeing the truth Doestoevsky saw in Siberia, and since then I have found myself believing in the God of the gospels, by the teachings alone.

I was thinking the other day about Aloysha's depression after Zosima's funeral, because the supernatural did not occur, and then of how he got over it, and found happiness more so then before.

When one is over the loss of the miraculous, he finds the beauty and happiness in life here.

God is external to us, and we can not prove he exists, but I do know he is perfect love.