Yes well, you could try pointing logic and reason at knowledge instead. It's what folks have been doing since the Enlightenment and for good reason. That's how it's been possible to point at things that are actually true. Without those two things, your knowledge can be no more than a pretense. Just another example of religious faith made blind by your own self-declared dismissal of logic and reason. You don't apply logic and reason to your Jesus knowledge, then there is no possible means for you to evaluate whether that so called knowledge is anything other than a crappy notion. You only have blind faith available.
i've done that. Logic and reason point out that faith and knowledge cannot coexist in the same mind. Faith comprises the entire domain of not-knowing. Light symbolizes knowledge. The observation of what faith has made - a material world - is not actually knowledge. So unless the reason comes closer to understanding the nature of knowledge, it is not enlightenment. Knowledge knows what is true. One of the characteristics of knowledge is that is is not anything that is learned. Logic and reason are part of a learning process. The learning process can take you to a place where you can INVITE knowledge to dawn upon your mind. With the proper invitation, you don't need to spend a lifetime learning about knowledge. I didn't dismiss logic and reason. I said they are part of a learning process. Possibly you need a learning process to propose a proper invitation for knowledge to dawn on your mind. It doesn't need to be a long learning process, but can take multiple incarnations. And when knowledge arrives, it doesn't take long. There is no time needed to comprehend what knowledge has to offer. I apply mainly consistency to the use of words in describing the differences between concepts like faith and knowledge. What can be believed about Jesus, yes, i apply logic and reason. For example, it's doubtful that Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin or Herod on the night before the day of his crucifixion. There isn't anything to know about Jesus except to eventually come to a working understanding of what he knew, and learn to invite it in such a way that you also know the same thing. You can't actually know anything about humans. They are products of imagination and faith, which cannot coexist with knowledge. Humans are seen, through eyeballs, with blind faith. That is, faith blinds the mind to what knowledge would show you instead. Knowledge would not see people. Knowledge sees Christ only. Regarding my experience of Christ, initiated in the name of Jesus, it's actually the knowledge of Self. Knowledge of Self is not the same as believing in Jesus. I experienced a major SHIFT in who or what i think i am. I knew this world was not my home. That was not taught me by any religion that i was aware of. But i knew it. That knowledge actually contradicts what Christianity teaches. But i applied some logic and reason to Christianity for a while anyway, while i learned what had happened to me.
Hard to take this discussion seriously. Going round in circles ignoring the contradictions you made, doesn't change the fact that you've described a personal belief which is simply a variation on the already flaky Christian theme. Surely the point has been passed before now, where even you stopped taking what you say completely seriously. By dismissing reason as you have, personal religious beliefs can't be elevated into a knowledge that amounts to anything more than religious faith. Trying to elevate your personal religious beliefs by inserting an 'invite' in between reason and knowledge, doesn't work. It may work for you personally, but that's all. Knowledge without reason can be no more than faith. Personal religious knowledge inevitably comes without reason, except that it is personal choice. Religious knowledge is devoid of reason and when it was allowed to prevail, that is known as the Dark Ages.
There is no such thing as religious knowledge. Knowledge is knowledge. And faith is faith. Those are the only two states of mind that can be had. Again, you are conflating the state of faith with the state of knowledge. You seem unaware of a "Dark Ages" argument within the mainstream church as to how knowledge is actually attained, with monks in the east leading the argument in favor of a type of meditation that allowed knowledge to simply dawn upon one's mind. This is in stark contrast to book-learning, or even the observation of faith-based phenomena, such as the physical world, so much beloved of "enlightened" atheists. Even the study of mathematics and probabilities is the observation of faith-based phenomena. By contrast, knowledge does not require any learning. At most, there is some learning needed to get ready for it. That is the rampart of reason. Reason is not a destination, but rather, an aid that might lead to the preparation and acceptance of knowledge. Hard to take you seriously when you conflate knowledge with faith, just as so many Christians do...making up your own definitions...asserting your own meanings. Your conflating, which echoes Christian confusion between faith and knowledge, doesn't change the fact that you have personal beliefs about what knowledge actually is or does. I am simply consistent in the terms i use, consistent in the differences between them, and consistent about the fact that faith and knowledge cannot coexist, being mutually exclusive states of mind. You are the one dismissing reason if and when you conflate faith with knowledge by introducing a meaningless word "religion" into the debate, insisting your own beliefs about the word is what must prevail. That's not reason. Inserting your own beliefs about the term "religion" won't elevate your discourse to the honorable practice of reason. Yes, it worked for me...reasoning up until an invitation was required. I'm saying it can work for anyone. Reason would also suggest anyone can invite knowledge, since i am not special in any way. Now you are conflating knowledge with reason. No, reason is work that goes between the damned world of faith, and the divine world of knowledge. Knowledge knows, reason is a way of thinking, guided by honesty and consistency. There is no room for conflation in reason. No room for a split mind that holds conflicting concepts as if it can force them together.
That's right. Faith is not at all concerned with the truth, by its nature against reality. So it is knowledge, the knowledge of Christ, that saves minds damned by faith. The knowledge of Christ is the same as the knowledge of reality. What is your problem with reality? Beyond reality is your own little world, driven by your own faith. I call that world "hell", as did Jesus.
Good1 QUOTE: Faith is not at all concerned with the truth So it is knowledge, the knowledge of Christ [but] You have to go beyond knowledge, to the land of faith [but] That's right. Faith is not at all concerned with the truth [so] So it is knowledge, the knowledge of Christ, [but] You have to go beyond knowledge, to the land of faith
Oh, I see your problem. You've taken something I said on October 30, and then corrected on October 31, and have 1) taken it out of context, and 2) abbreviated a longer sentence...in order to try and change the meaning. The original statement reads thus: " You have to go beyond knowledge, to the land of faith, to find special status from anything at all." The corrected version says: " You have to go beyond knowledge, to the land of faith, to find special status for anything at all." Where is the circular reasoning? Special status is not salvation. Special status is what faith produces, and what constitutes damnation. This is the same as saying, you have to go beyond heaven to go to hell. Visa versa, you have to go beyond hell to find heaven. Likewise, you have to go beyond knowledge to find faith and it's damnable fruit of inequality (special status). Conversely, you have to go beyond the inequality offered by faith to find the equality offered in the land of knowledge. Perfectly logical and consistent with the fact that faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive states of mind, yielding mutually exclusive conditions (equality vs special status). Where is this circular logic you speak of? Do you have a problem with sentences, as they were originally constructed, in context, from beginning to end?
No I really don't think you do, but let's just stick with this for now. As mentioned early in our exchange, if knowledge is received as you have said it is, without reasoning, work or learning, and has no special status, then your professed knowledge of Christ, can be in reality no more true or correct , grounded or reliable than another person's knowledge of No Christ. No amount of pseudo-philosophizing , circular argument or word salad buffets you can create will alter that. In reality you haven't moved out of the land of blind religious faith. Calling your religious faith, knowledge, just doesn't cut it.
Let's just go with this for now. Learning is essentially a change of mind. It is work. Reasoning is a type of learning that is also work. Presumably reasoning is an honest type of learning that takes care to maintain consistency, which is about as close to honesty as faith-based creatures can get. Mind you, faith-based creatures are made in the darkness of dishonesty, and by their nature are dishonest, having abrogated responsibility for their appearnce in physical form. If reasoning is honest, it can lead the faith-based creature back to knowledge, from whence it came, before abandoning knowledge for faith. If religion was honest, then religion and reason would be the same thing: the careful discernment between real and unreal, between knowledge and faith. I don't see your brand of "reason" any more honest than bigots, who have given the term "religion" a bad reputation. This is because you steadfastly maintain inconsistency (dishonesty) to serve your own faith-based agenda. So you take what I say and twist it around, breaking it's consistency, and changing its meaning, if you could. You've been called out for this, and now, you are doing it again, by misrepresenting what I've said about learning and reasoning. Faith based creatures, christians and atheists alike, MUST change their minds about reality, if ever they would return to a state of knowledge. The change involves a subtraction of what the "knowledge of faith" (an oxymoron) has added. This is why meditation, a subtraction of active thinking, functions to change one's mind, to cause learning, and to cause reason. However, just to be willing to meditate, understanding it's function, requires some change of mind, as the subtraction of thought is not natural for any faith-based creature. Despite changing, learning, reasoning and meditation, one must still INVITE knowledge to come and replace the flimsy structures that even the best reasoning can build. Arguably, reasoning is a prelude to invitation. Once knowledge arrives, you will be able to see just how any further reasoning is not necessary. Reasoning is not natural to the state of knowledge. At best, reasoning functions as a rope that can be climbed out of a deep well of faith. Once you are on top, you don't need the rope anymore. Once you know something, you don't need to compare your knowledge to what other, more or less honest philosophers think or thought. The competition is for you, the dishonest, to compete with, marshaling all your powers of sophistry. Having had the experience, you are hard pressed to re-frame it according to your own dictats. No Christ = No Reality...No Knowledge. No knowledge yields the state of faith, a fundamentally dishonest state of mind. So it is an oxymoron, and an inconsistent style of reasoning (dishonest), to force opposing concepts into the same fruit (knowledge and faith forced together), just as it is dishonest to force "good and evil" (forced together) to express itself as the fruit of one tree. It is this kind of inconsistency, this kind of dishonesty, that defines a world based on faith. There is no knowledge of "No Christ", just as there is no knowledge of "good and evil", as if it were one thing, one tree, or one fruit. This appears to be what you are doing. Fake philosophy. Faking it till you make it? If you could be known by your fruit, that would be the dishonest inconsistency of mixing opposing states of mind into one thing, such as, the "knowledge of No Christ", which is the same as saying something stupid like, "the knowledge of no knowledge", or "the knowledge of faith". Any philosopher worth his salt could tell you faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive states of mind. You are as unwilling as the gone-astray christian community, in admitting the impossibility of mixing the two. In brief, none of your circular arguments, which bring knowledge and faith together as if they were the same thing, will improve your word salads, such as "the knowledge of No Christ". Christ and reality are the same thing. Faith re-defines reality according to it's own dark agenda. There's that word salad again: "religious faith". You have no idea what religion is any more you have an idea what reason is. Either religion is an honest process that discerns the difference between faith and knowledge, or it is a dishonest process. It merely has the reputation of being dishonest, given a long history of existential magicians. You are not exempt from that crowd, atheists themselves being existential magicians just as much as christians. All faith is blind to knowledge. Bigoted faith, driven further into the darkness by dishonesty is the blindest of all. Calling your dishonest brand of reasoning *not religion* (assuming religion is synonymous with dishonest, bigoted agendas), or *not faith* does not get a free pass when put side by side with honest, consistent, philosophy. I'm not calling my philosophy knowledge. It serves as an excellent jumping off point to invite knowledge. I've had a taste of knowledge that you know nothing about.