hammerofglass wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:48 pm
Hey Beastro what denomination are you arguing from? This isn't a version of Christian philosophy I recognize. Also can you can recommend a book or two that goes into it in more depth?
It's not exactly from any specific denomination. It's more a confluence of different denominations. I'm not ecumenical at all (it's a human movement, and so to me, is a being unto its own that should be looked upon with suspicion), but I seek to look towards what the different branches of Orthodoxy have in common than what divides us. I used to be very anti-Catholic, but I recognize now what I was missing when doing that which I see in people I know that blinds them to pretty easy to recognize symbolism in Catholicism.
I'm Pentecostal. Some might say I'm not given my positions (which is why I joke that I'm an unconventional one), but I don't like to get into the label game nor throw away things when not necessary that's how I was raised and that spirit remains in me. I don't like fundamentalism nor evangelicalism given their aims being confused with their sociocultural context (they are VERY Germanic and North American, but most people in both assume that their positions are clean of sociocultural influences and are blind to their own. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox at least openly recognize their Latin and Greek ones and recognize the necessary expression of that in church life; religion is what worship is nestled in rather than many Prods today squirming at mention of the R-word). I will say though that the Pentecostal emphasis upon things like spiritual warfare is one, though alongside fundamentalism and evangelicalism, are vastly misunderstood by most who adhere to them as they see the spiritual through a materialistic, "modernist-literal" lens which is both maintained and undermined by a current of anti-intellectualism which is a historical part of North American culture (Americans are most famous for it, but Canadians have it as well, it's just more domestic here; a lot of things people sneer at Americans for are things your average Canadian does as well in their own way). With that said they have their hearts in the right place, they know things vital to Western civilization that will damage us are being lost, they just can't properly think of how to articulate and point them out. Their clinging to things like Young Earth Creationism are simply another form of materialism which they despise so much ("The world is fundamentally material and bound to science, therefore the Bible as true and God's Word MUST be explainable through scientific explanation; that it could be true and not be scientific is a contradiction to them just as it is to a secular materialist). One can see this best in popular conceptions of heaven, which are really no different than Sci-fi ideas of alternate dimensions: it is a material place like this one only "somewhere" else with the "spiritual" being the material there as matter is here.
I can't say if there's any one book to look into it, but CS Lewis' Miracles touches on some bits, especially the hierarchy of being and how things exist without being material and "literal" in how we commonly think of that word. Tolkien's work, especially the Silmarillion and his prefaced letter going into the philosophical and religious foundations of his work (
https://genius.com/J-r-r-tolkien-prefac ... -annotated) are another. Tolkien preferred though to embed his outlook in his mythological story telling rather than do essay writing as Lewis did so it can be lost in people just reading his stuff as "just" fantasy. Clark's saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic is practically tautological; they
are the same thing and they open people up to the temptation of domination of what surrounds them (which is why Judaism and Christianity have such a hostility towards magic and sorcery; whether they are "real" or not the sentiment behind them is what is opposed and that is to manipulate the world and exert power on it to your ends only and the damage it causes. I'd argue our modern problems with pollution are a good example of modern issues with it). This is why Tolkien preferred to call himself "subcreator" of his works rather than creator, because he felt he was only fashioning his stories from material God had supplied him through the creation of
this world (and through Tolkien is how God is the Creator Eru Illuvatar in his Legendarium and is effectively another world derived from ours; a story which came from our story).
I bring Tolkien up because he had a different, but still Christian outlook on death and saw more the desire to control our lives and their outcomes to be the source of trouble rather than death itself being one (which ties to machines and magic above and the dark side of techne). This is a great influence on my view point. Everything has it's place in life and death naturally is a part of life until it becomes perverted. The Numenorean kings willingly gave up their lives in a way that wasn't suicide (which can be seen as desiring to die before one's time) nor did they desperately cling to life until they began to decline and their life spans began to shorten (which is the desire to live beyond one's time), and their desperation only hastened that decline before bringing devastation.
His perception of death as the Gift of Man wasn't just a story element but something crucial to his religious outlook and it's important that elves lacked it. Elves, the Valar and many other beings in his work are analogous to the Principalities and Powers which surround us and are bound to Creation in a way we aren't. We prefer to secularize them and call them depersonalizing names to continue the trend Christianity started of taming the paganistic outlook despite their dynamic influence over us, such as nations, ideologies and the "old gods" of love, war, etc (The Internet and Social Media are but two of the latest great ones which now hold sway over us). This is alien to most modern people given their Protestant, especially deeply Calvinist, thinking which shaped modernist perceptions. It is also why perceptions of witches and witch-hunting so dramatically changed after the 16th Century as the now popular conception of them has nothing in common with Medieval witches.
You can also look up Jonathan Pageau and Paul van der Klay's Youtube channels. PVK, despite being Dutch Reformed, has a nuanced outlook very much molded by CS Lewis' and is much like my own.
This one from Pageau is a good example and touches on suffering in the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y66IdtAKMDo
What he describes I've seen. Someone I helped peer counseling that had been repeatedly molested in their life confessed that they had an intense urge to find a kid the same age as when they'd first been molested and do to the kid what was done to them just so they'd know for certain someone else knew what kind of hell it was like that they were living with. You could remain on the basal level of science and materialist thinking and just see the parts, but look at the wider picture, look on a level "above" and that is a spirit running through people, probably passed into the person who first molested the person I knew that was then passed further on. You could say that is a nice metaphor, but not "literally" true and I'd disagree, especially given the therapeutic benefit of solidly conceptualizing the problem as such while also being able to do so in a way which separates the person from the compulsion that isn't some abstract disorder.
As for suffering. Most started with typical Christian talk about the subject, but it's a topic that can only be understood greatly when experienced, and I've experienced a lot in my life. I wouldn't relive it and wouldn't force it on people, but it is there for a reason and I don't see it as meaningless.
Oh my, this is ranty. Sorry for the late reply, I've been very busy.
