Mark Steel Lectures

Aswell as very helpful these are also funny so thats always a plus.

Karl Marx (Part one of three)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByOKZmQ72m4


Rene Descartes
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_kHtfDdwc

Sigmund Freud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxBdidos-xg

Atrisotel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slMpJvt6b0I

Freud and God

Freud and God

Basic claims:

1.       Religion is a projection, an objectification, an externalization of subconscious desires. Once this desire is objectified into ‘’God’’ it is mistakenly taken to be an autonomous existence independent of its human creators

2.       Religion is therefore a coded way for human beings to talk about their desires. Human’s beings have desires and human beings with their desires invent Gods who are able to fulfil these desires. If the fundamental human desire is happiness then religion offers happiness- if not in this world then in the next.

3.       Religion is therefore born if wish fulfilment. It is desire fulfilled.

4.       Freud believed that by exposing these revelations he would liberate humans to act in a more informed freeway.

 Freud was interested in what the triggers for religion within the personality were, and what drove the subconscious motivations behind religious ideas, rituals and doctrines.

Freud believed his method of psychoanalysis could uncover these triggers. For Freud religion is nothing more than his product of a psychological process. Indeed Freud did not hate religion but rather view its time as having helped human society to developed and now it was inhibiting a new age of science and psychoanalysis.

Freud and Religion

Freud’s first attempt to explain religion in physiological terms can be found in Totem and Taboo (1915) where he suggests that religion arose during pre-historic man as an act of expiation (the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement.) for the primeval murder of the father by the male adolescents because they desire the mother. The adolescent males then begin to feel guilt about the killing of the farther and so erect a totem in his honour. The Totem takes on the attributes of the farther and the males in time worship it. In doing so the adolescent males are able to relive their feelings of guilt while future generations are prevented for committing such crimes.

For Freud the religious response to the world is neurosis which has its roots in childhood. If the problem area can be identified by psychoanalysis then the religious neurosis should disappear.

1.       Religion is the defence mechanism of the religious person to the experience of living in a hostile world. The world is a fearful place for a child and if learning how to deal with the world is not accomplished in childhood it reveals itself later in life in the form of religious neurosis. The child creates a great farther figure as he remembers from childhood how his dad represented the protector. God is therefore the magnified farther figure that the religious person wishes to depend on throughout the rest of their lives.

This is why, Freud argued, that young people often lose their faith in God when they realise that their own fathers are as perfect as they view God and to make mistakes.

2.       Religion is a form of wish fulfilment – This is the wish of the child for a loving farther in a hostile world who will look after them and upon they can depend leads them to create God. God is the ideal projection of what the farther should be.

The existence of God is therefore an illusion and religion is a mass delusion that shapes the reality for believers.  Individuals feel the need for one upon whom they can rely and create a God with whom they can share all their troubles. Religion enables people to feel comforted and secure as the God they worship is all-powerful, loving and total trustworthy so whatever happens during the individual’s life they can feel confident that it will work out in the end

3.       Freud noted that in religion there are repetitive patterns of behaviour in rituals and services. He considered these to be similar to the neurotic behaviour patterns that some of his clients exhibited. Freud believed that religious rituals provide a mechanism for man to work out early tensions which have developed as a result of the Oedipus complex.

The Oedipus complex is the male desire to kill his farther and have sexual intercourse with his mother; this like most things by Freud has its origins in the childhood. He said that babies developed very complexed feelings about their parents. They see their parents as a threat as the farther often takes over the priority which the mother initially gives to the baby and thus creates a feeling of jealously. The farther as a result is seen as a rival or a threat to the baby and the love given to it by the farther.

language

If in logic
A > C
B > C
then we can conclude that A > C

 However in language

Nothing is better than pizza
Stale bread is better than noting
then we can conclude that
Stale bread is better than pizza

To be continued....
Sometime next week !

Christian Creed, Heresy Keywords and Etymology

Christian Creed, Heresy Keywords and Etymology

1.     Ecumenical

·         Representing a number of different Christian churches.

·         Promoting or relating to unity among the world’s Christian churches.

               The word is derived from Greek οἰκουμένη (oikoumene), which means "the whole inhabited world", and was historically used with specific reference to the Roman Empire. The ecumenical vision comprises both the search for the visible unity of the Church (Ephesians 4:3) and the "whole inhabited earth" (Matthew 24.14) as the concern of all Christians.

2.     Heresy

·         Someone who actively chooses a different interpretations of faith than that which is proclaimed in the creed of the church

From the Latin word ‘haeresis’ meaning ‘’act of choosing’’

3.     Incarnation

·         The embodiment of God the son in the human flesh of Jesus Christ

Etymology

The noun incarnation derives from the ecclesiastical Latin verb incarno,^[4] itself derived from the prefix in- and ''caro, "flesh", meaning "to make into flesh" or "to be made flesh".

4.     Modalism

·         The view that the Holy Trinity is like an Actor playing three different roles; this has the implications that when God was Jesus, he was not the father. The Godheads of the Trinity is made up of three different ‘’aspects’’ or ‘’modes’’ of a single God rather three distinct beings.

5.     Trinitarianism

·         The belief that God exists as three hypostases – The father, the son and the holy ghost but is still just one being with each of them having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures.

6.     Universalism

·         The belief that all humans may or will be saved through Jesus Christ and will eventually come to harmony in Gods kingdom.

7.     Gnosticism

·        The view that God is fully transcendent, the world was created by a demiurge. Jesus was a messenger of God but not actually God, the holy spirit was inside Jesus but left his mortal body shortly before his death.

Gnosticism (from gnostikos, "learned", from Ancient Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge)

8.     Homoiousios

·         Meaning ‘’Similar essence’’. Although essence can be interchanged with ‘’substance’’

9.     Homoousios

·        Meaning ‘’Same essence’’ again with essence being interchangeable with substance

10.                         Hypostases

·         A Greek term which translates into Latin as ‘’personae’’ or ‘’persons’’. Example: God is made up of the three Hypostases.

Comes from the Greek word hypostasis which means ‘’sediment’’. Hypostasis is the result of the words ‘’Hupo’’ which means under and ‘’Stasis’’ which means standing. 

11.                        Personae

·         A Latin word which translates to persons. Example God is made up of three personae.

12.                        Substantia

A Greek word than translates to the Latin word Ousia which means ‘’True being’’ or ‘’True essence’’.

13.                        Ousia

A Latin word which translates to ‘’True being’’ or ‘’True essence’’

Early Christians used Ousia in defining God as one genus of Ousia with three distinct hypostasis.

The generally agreed-upon meaning of ousia in Eastern Christianity is "all that subsists by itself and which has not its being in another’’ (i.e. necessary existence)  - in contrast to hypostasis, which is used to mean "reality" or "existence".^[8]

Christian theologians began to use the greek term ‘’hypostases’’ which translated into latin as ‘’personae’’ or persons. They posited that God is three hypostases of one ousia 

Heresy’s of Christianity

Heresy’s of Christianity

The word heresy comes from the Latin word ‘haeresis’ meaning ‘act of choosing. A heretic is therefore someone who actively chooses a different interpretation of the faith than the one that the church has proclaimed in its creeds.

Arianism

Alexandrian Presbyter Arius (AD 256–336) first proposed this heresy after the writing of the initial apostle’s creed (see the creed and notes on it as well as relationship to the heresy’s in a coming post) . Arius proposed that Christ is not truly divine but created because    

·         God alone is self-existent and immutable; the son who is not self-existent, cannot be God

·         The son as of the Gospels is subject to growth and change (e.g. He is born a child and dies as a man )

·         The son must, therefore, be deemed a creature that has been called into existence and has a beginning.

 Arius’ opposition to Trinitarian Christology, made him a primary topic of the First Council of Nicea, convened by Roman Emperor Constantine in AD 325.

Modalism

Modalism is the nontrinitarian belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one monadic God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons within the Godhead, ,much like one actor playing three different parts.  Modalism differs from Unitarianism by accepting the Nicean doctrine that Jesus is fully God.

The heresy that modalism commits is that since there is no co-existence in the trinity. This means that when God was Jesus he was just Jesus not God which massively limits Gods power.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is influenced by the philosophy of Plato and is the view that:

·         God is completely transcendent

·         The universe was not created by God but by a demiurge and therefore the existence of evil cannot be the fault of God

·         We are all little droplets of God or that we all hold a part of God inside our souls, salvation for humanity is to be returned to God and discard our worldly bodies (which are evil and corrupt) a view that is similar in ways to Hinduism. (expand)  

·         Jesus is a messenger of God not God. The Holy Spirit was inside Jesus’ body when he was on earth but left his body shortly before he died.

·         The incarnation is rejected because that would mean that God would no longer be transcendent, God is perfect and so cannot come into contact with the world which is evil.

This presents problems as if Jesus was not divine then his dying for our sins has no meaning, it stops Christianity being Christianity, Indeed Islamic belief accepts that Jesus was a prophet.

Massive problems are also presented as God is not the creator of the world, a heresy that completely contradicts the book of genesis furthermore it begs the questions- why would God care about humans and if God is omnipotent then why can he not come into contact with the universe, it also leads to the question why should we care about the world ? If God did not create the world then the concept of stewardship is complety removed.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's witnesses believe that the bible was inspired by God and that it is historically accurate. Jehovah's witnesses test any religious believe against the idea's or teachings of the bible if an idea or teaching doesn't agree with the bible then it is wrong. Jehovah's witnesses have their own translation of the bible known as 'The New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures' which is divided into the Hebrew Scriptures (old testament ) and the Christian Greek Scriptures (new testament )

God

Jehovah's witnesses believe that :

·         God the father (Jehovah) is the only true God.

·         Jesus Christ is his son who Jehovah created and is inferior to God.

·         The Holy Spirit is not a person it is Gods 'active force'

Rejection of Nicene creed as well as parallels with the Arianisn heresy

The Father

·         God is a single being whose name is Jehovah (other translations such as Yahweh are accepted)

·         Jehovah is alone and above all beings.

·         Jehovah created everything that exists.

·         Jesus was Gods first creation (How did they get that from the book of Genesis ? It would be intresting to try to find a copy of the 'The New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures' )

·         Jesus is not GOD and is not equal to GOD

·         Jehovah, after creating Jesus, created everything else through Jesus (Again where in the bible does it say/suggest this ? I'll probably do another post on the specific quotations)

Jesus Christ

·         Is a mighty being, but is NOT GOD

·         He is not equal to God in power or eternity

·         Jesus is inferior to Jehovah but superior to angels

·         Jesus Christ rules as part of Gods heavenly kingdom

·         Jesus is a lesser and SEPARATE SPIRIT being

·         When Jesus came to earth from heaven he was a perfect human being but not divine in anyway. His sacrifice while not divine was enough to make human salvation possible

·         Jesus' resurrection was a sprit resurrection not a bodily one

·         Jesus was appointed by God to judge each human being and decide upon their faith.

The Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit is not a person and is not part of a trinity but is Jehovah's active force. Jehovah's witnesses believe that the doctrine of trinity is inconsistent with the bible and contradicts what Jesus, the apostles, and the early Christians believed.

Who cares ?

Probably the saddest and most heretical belief that Jehovah's witnesses have is there believe that Jesus did not die on cross but rather on a single stake. Witnesses believe that cross is a pagan symbol and while at first may not seem that significant but when you think about the how important the cross is as a symbol is for Christians then it seems a bit more significant.

Death Heaven and Hell

When a person dies, their existence completely stops. This comes from a quote for the bible in which Witnesses believe makes clear that human beings do not have an immortal soul which survives the death of the body.

The living are consciuos that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all... for there is no work, nor devising, nor knowledge nor wisdom in (the grave), the place to which you are going

Ecclesiastes 9:5,10

Finally witnesses belive that Hell in the traditional sense does not exist, There is no place where sinners are tormented after death, since death is the end of existence nothing can be done to them or for them. Witnesses also argue that it would against Gods nature to torture human beings  which is one of the criticism of Augustine's theodicy, if God is omnipotent then why did he create a world in which evil and suffering is already built in .  

I'm trying to think of some good philosophy puns but I can't Kant, oh well I'm sure I can Russell some up, I think people who find them very Humeorous. Oh dear them seem to have Plato-ed .

Holiday Reading

First Book- 'Unholy Night' by Seth Grahame Smith 

Picked it up in Waterstons for entertainment weekly's review 'Akin to fusing Game of Thrones with the Gospel of St Luke' which is basically what the book is in a nutshell. The story follows a thief in his quest for revenge and his encounter with Mary, Joseph and their baby but essential is a fantasy retelling of the birth of Jesus and his escape from King Herod and the Romans. It's pretty interesting as it takes the traditional story of the 3 wise men and it expands it, the wise men are not wise men but rather on-the-run convicts disguised as wise men. Miracles and magic happen in equal measure and you are never really certain of the validity of each event due to some very trippy epically written dream sequences. As a brief warning the book is violent and well very Game of Thrones in places.    

The setting is interesting (if not historically accurate ) and historical characters such as King Herod, the puppet king put in place by the Romans to rule over the Jews during the rains of Julia Cesar and then after the civil war Augustine Cesar.

Second Book 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

I have no idea why I'm doing this it is so hard to read and just so annoying as a result of it also being so interesting.

Quote from the introduction

'The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence'

thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought ,but to the expression of thoughts : for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought ).

Do I understand much of it ? no not really am I going to try to at the expense of sleep and sanity YES. I will attempt to read a bit at a time over till I believe that I understand it and then I shall blog about it and then hopefully Miss Price shall tell me what it actually means.

Interesting side note the book is written almost in bullet points which I think reflects greatly on Wittgenstein's nature.  

The Language of Faith

 The Language of Faith

Aquinas while writing in a time before religious language ever came into question none the less was aware that religious language was not quite the same as normal language. Aquinas knew that God was not a person, and so therefore couldn’t be communicated about in the same way that an object which is inside the universe can be communicated about. After all God is an infinite being who is also transcendent and necessary human language is used to describe things which are contingent and is something that we experience through sight, sound, touch, taste and smell and give in turn a sound which corresponds to its nature. Linking back to Ferdinand de Saussure’s Semiotics we would say that something we experience with give a sign  e.g. A device I experience which disperses ink in links a give the sign ‘pen’. Pen is made up of the signifier ‘P’ ‘E’ ‘N’ which in turns refers to the concept that the thing corresponds to which is as stated earlier something which disperses link in lines.

Bit off topic but anyway thus if we say ‘God is heaven’ it is grammatically similar to, but logically different from saying ‘Moses is on the Mountain’. If it were not then we would be accused of anthropomorphising God. It is also a form of literalism which is a mistake when things are taken literally instead of metaphorically for example creationists or biblical literalists.

Religious Use of Analogy

Aquinas proposed that to avoid committing logical error we use analogy. An analogy is a literary device by which one thing is compared to another. Aquinas held that this was possible because we are in some way related to God (i.e. made in his image and his likeness ) yet we must be aware that language about God is bound to be as limited and inadequate as our limited understanding of God’s nature (epistemic distance ).

For Aquinas there were two kinds of Analogy

1)      Analogy of Attribution

2)      Analogy of Proportion

When we say God is wise or God is love we are using the analogy of attribution. In other words we are giving God qualities that are highly esteemed by human beings

An analogy of proportion is when we realise that God is proportionately greater than human qualities for example God Is omnipotent or God is omnibenevolent.

To sum up

Aquinas concluded that there were three ways in which God is talked about.

1) Equivocal (WRONG) this is to speak of God in a different scene from how we speak if earthly things. This is wrong as we don’t know about none earthly things it is beyond our experience (link to Hume)

2) Univocal (WRONG) this is to speak of God is the same sense as we speak of earthly things – God is limited

3) Analogical (RIGHT) this is to speak of God cautiously by comparison with earthly things- There are two types Attribution and Proportion.

Ian Ramsy preferred to talk in terms of models and qualifiers. To say that God is wise is to employ model ‘wisdom’ from everyday experience. To say that God is ‘infinitely’ wise is to use the qualifier ‘infinitely’ to describe the uniqueness of God. According to Ramsey this ‘lights up’ the meaning of God and leads to a ‘religious disclosure’ which in turn leads to a religious commitment.

Ramsy wanted above all to show that religious language is above all not descriptive but more evocative, meaning that its purpose is not to arrive at an accurate description but evocative meaning. Religious languages purpose is not to arrive at an accurate description of God, but to instead to move the believer to make a religious response to a being who is ultimately beyond words and whose significance is ultimately beyond the grasp of human understanding.  

(And yes I will be linking Ramsy to religious art just as soon as I can dig myself out of the biology paper hole I am currently drowning in )

Location: Home

Music: The Front Bottoms- The Front Bottoms 

Start: ???

Finish: Too late