You write, "It’s not possible to separate your ethics from your metaphysics."
Doing good feels good. No further explanation is really required other than enlightened self interest.
Feeling good is a real world experience. Metaphysics is an explanation. Explanations are abstractions, second hand experience. Explanations are religion at a safe distance.
Oh, and to your question, I would prefer the firing squad to a hanging. Thanks for asking. No, I'll pass on the final cigarette, but appreciate the offer. :-)
Your belief in "enlightened self-interest" seems like a leap of faith. Because you know what also apparently "feels good"? Doing horrible things, which has long been quite popular. How, then, do we separate the good from the bad? It can't simply be your feelings... can it?
My belief in enlightened self interest is far from a completed project, but it is based on real world life experience. As I assume it is for you as well.
How do we separate the good from the bad? Wait for some cleric who we don't really know that well to tell us what some long dead guys 2,000 to 3,000 years ago said? Why is this method automatically better than feelings?
One of our points of disagreement is you keep disparaging "long-dead guys." Whereas I look back at them and wonder what they figured out that I haven't. We're not the first cowboys at this rodeo, Phil. :-)
My only point about "long dead guys" is that they lack credibility with many people for that reason. They are too remote for many people who might otherwise be interested. But as your experience demonstrates, they are still serving a useful purpose for many people too.
Haven't you read many (secular) books that were written decades, if not centuries ago, and you think: Whoa... this could have been written yesterday! Sure, they didn't have iPhones in Biblical times, but the people in the Book are recognizable, familiar, and human. We haven't changed that much, if at all, in the past 3,000 years.
You ask, "Can we salvage Biblical ethics while jettisoning Biblical metaphysics?"
As another option, how about keeping the ethics and heart of the metaphysics, and jettisoning the Biblical part?
That's much of what interests me about near death experience reports. The ethics and heart of Judeo-Christian metaphysics are preserved, and the mountain of baggage piled on the Biblical vehicle over many centuries is left behind.
Yes, the NDE reports are more stories, agreed. But, so far at least, they aren't stories contaminated by centuries of clerical abuse etc. Basically the same message, delivered by new messengers. Who will in time become the old messengers too.
What happens in a hundred years? Good question. Of course I don't know, but here goes anyway....
Science is the leading cultural authority of the modern world, so ideally the scientific community would become new messengers too. They could decide to study death with the same bold, well funded, risk taking adventurism with which they've studied space.
Blast volunteers in to death and then bring them back under controlled conditions, instead of waiting for people to accidentally die and then largely dismissing their reports.
Not holding my breath on this, but you said 100 years, so maybe...
"Blast volunteers into death and then bring them back under controlled conditions..."
As I've said before: What's the big rush? Seems like while we're alive, the operative questions should be about life -- this one -- instead of what may or may not be coming next.
"Blasting volunteers into death" would be like going to a double feature with a friend, but while you're watching the first movie, your buddy can't stop yammering about the second one. :-)
How can you celebrate Judeo-Christian metaphysics, and even label them necessary for ethics, and then in the next breath act like the next life is largely irrelevant to this one?
Why is it ok for Judeo-Christian tradition to make huge claims about the next life for thousands of years, but as soon as NDE people take up the same interest suddenly it's a problem? This is particularly odd given that Judeo-Christian metaphysics and NDE reports overlap to a considerable degree.
If Judeo-Christian metaphysics and NDE reports turn out to both be wrong, and the truth is that "when you die everything is over" and that's that, then your focus on moralism and ethics in the here and now makes much more sense. I'm not dismissing the possibility that this may be the case.
"Judeo-Christian" often obscures more than it describes, and that's the case here. Christianity spends a lot of energy on "the world to come," which has often meant life after death. But Judaism doesn't focus its energies and attention on that subject. We obsess far more about this life than what's on the other side of the grave. Or as Abraham Heschel once said (paraphrased): "We don't talk a lot about life after death because we don't have enough information. In our tradition, no one went to the other side, and came back with a detailed report." ... The classic Jewish teaching states that if someone is planting a tree and hears news of the Messiah's arrival, they should finish planting the tree before greeting the Messiah.
And then, sadly, some of the same old baggage is then reapplied by SOME near death experiencers. Some turn their NDE in to a business. Others talk more about their interpretation of the experience than they do the actual experience. Just as has long been true of the Biblical vehicle, it starts with the best of intentions, and then....
Ahhh... but here's one critical difference: Faithful Jews and Christians care for the widow, the orphan, and the poor. They feed the hungry. They light Shabbat candles or take communion. They gather each week with their community to re-read a few passages from their Book, and then they discuss it. Their lives are filled with actions in the real world that are informed by their metaphysics. What *experiences* or actions fill the lives of the faithful members of The NDE Church?
There isn't an NDE Church yet, but yea, that is probably coming.
The critical difference you reasonably point to is a function of the fact that Judaism and Christianity have been organized religions for thousands of years, with community, rituals, public actions etc well established, whereas the NDE phenomena is relatively new. Or rather, widespread knowledge of the NDE phenomena is new. In America at least, the book Life After Life by Raymond Moody in 1975 opened a new era on that subject.
Most NDE experiencers seem to report that the experience changed their relationship with people and love etc, but because there is no organized religion how that plays out is an individual matter which would have to be approached on a case by case basis.
The critical difference I see is that while Biblical religions talk about heaven, NDE experiencers claim to have been there personally. I don't consider these claims proof, but if you watch enough NDE videos it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that those making the reports sincerely believe what they're saying.
So to answer your "what are they doing" question, I guess we might say what they are typically doing is serving as a new kind of prophet. What makes them interesting prophets, to me at least, is that they aren't selling any particular religion, or even religion in general. The message typically shared is more along the lines of "love is the answer".
"The critical difference I see is that while Biblical religions talk about heaven, NDE experiencers claim to have been there personally."
What are the Gospels if not an account of an NDE? Jesus has a near-death experience -- he "dies" on the cross -- but then he rises and returns to tell us about the world to come after we die?
Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel, Phil? (I'm kidding. I know the Church of NDE is different, but maybe not as different as you might imagine.)
"What are the Gospels if not an account of an NDE?"
Yes, some have guessed that Jesus had an NDE while in the desert, and that was one source of his teachings thereafter.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, and neither are those sharing their NDE experiences either really. What they seem to be doing instead is VALIDATING the heart of what your chosen tradition has been claiming for a long time. Such validation seems to trouble you?
It's only "reinventing the wheel" in the sense that this is a new crop of messengers whom many people will find more credible than the old messengers. Part of the reason that many will find these new messengers more credible is that NDE reports don't fuel division by promoting any one religion as being superior to other religions. Some people, myself included, find that refreshing.
There's really no mention in NDE reports of religions, clerics, books, doctrines, rituals, rules, punishments, judgments etc. I've not seen any arguments in NDE reports offered either in defense of or rejection of traditional religions. NDE reports seem to simply leap over all of that.
The Judeo-Christian tradition seems to be slowly collapsing, in the West at least. Those who might be able to breath some new life in to those old traditions might be welcomed.
And if the old traditions should answer "no, no, no and no, it has to be exactly the way we say and under our leadership etc", then well, that might be why the old traditions are dying in the part of the world that is most educated.
>> "Part of the reason that many will find these new messengers more credible is that NDE reports don't fuel division by promoting any one religion as being superior to other religions. Some people, myself included, find that refreshing."
Yes, I totally get that. Makes a lot of sense.
>> "And if the old traditions should answer "no, no, no and no, it has to be exactly the way we say and under our leadership etc"...
That bears absolutely no resemblance with the Judaism or the Jews I know. Club Jew has been and remains a work in progress.
One more time for those hard of hearing…the American form of federal government does NOT separate church from state (a modern, and fallacious, invention of the federal judiciary - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights disagree with this inferior invention in case law). Our Constitution and Amendments only protect churches (religious organizations) from interference by federal statutes (acts of the US Congress) that might target them.
Thanks for the link. Interesting article. Yes, the distinction between federal and state matters here. I’m not a lawyer, so help me out here and evaluate this response to a question I posed to Google Gemini:
“In essence, the Fourteenth Amendment acts as the vehicle through which the limitations on governmental power regarding the establishment of religion, originally intended to restrict only the federal government by the First Amendment, are now also applied to and restrict the actions of state governments. This means that individual states cannot establish a state religion, endorse one religion over others, or favor religion over non-religion, just as the federal government is prohibited from doing so.
Therefore, any action by a state government, including its legislature, that would violate the Establishment Clause if undertaken by the federal government is also unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is why the scenario of Texas erecting a giant cross on its state capitol building raises serious constitutional concerns under both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
This is wrong (i.e. faulty interpretation of the 14th Amendment).
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The clause “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” does not conflict with the 1st amendment’s language, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. The first amendment is not conferring a privilege or immunity upon federal and state citizens - it simply constrains the federal government. Therefore it cannot be construed that one privilege or immunity of a state citizen is that its State government cannot make or maintain a law regarding an establishment of religion. This is erroneous. Bad case law has introduced this confusion, with the result being utterly silly outcomes, such as no prayer meetings on state school property, no churches operating schools for municipal jurisdictions, et cetera.
I will simplify - the Civil War (which the 14th Amendment was a response to) was not fought to banish religious establishments from civic life. The legal rulings that lead modern people, such as yourself, to conclude that there is a “separation between church and state” are all wrong, having been issued by PARTIAL jurists acting beyond their authority to arrive at an atheistic outcome.
Setting aside Constitutional law for a second, what exactly are you endorsing? For instance, Roger Williams was run out of Massachusetts (Congregational) and settled in Rhode Island, where the Baptists found a home. Is that your vision? Baptists established in one state, Presbyterians in another state, Seventh Day Adventists over here, Unitarians over there?
P. S. I’m not advocating for an “atheistic outcome.” But I don’t believe the government should be in the religion business… nor do many of the jurists who you think are rogue, anti-American activists.
Yes, at the discretion of the people. This has always been at the discretion of the people. You may not be aware of this, but I live in Seattle, and there are no doubt many people who would banish me from the City for my religious faith. And if they did, there’s very little to nothing I could do about it, because I am a religious dissident here. I merely want to acknowledge that this has been the case and continues to be the case. If I were a governor of a state I would be very mild in my approach to the religious health of the state. I would enact or support laws that protect the moral floor of the people of the state, leaving it to church officials to attract members and enforce internal church discipline. But this could easily include permitting local school districts to allow churches to run schools if they desire that. Similarly, I would be open to banning outside Islamic preachers from operating in state prisons.
And AI is simply trained to regurgitate language written by others. It is not capable of making a moral or logical claim as it is limited by its training on language uttered by flawed and (in some cases) immoral writers.
It means exactly what it says. Congress - the bi-cameral legislative body of the federal government - cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion. At the time of the writing and ratifying of those words several of the States had established religions, and the ratification of the Bill of Rights did not outlaw those official, State churches, because the Bill of Rights did not outlaw religion, or state sanctioned religion. It MERELY limited the federal government.
RD has never made sense to me. (I read him extremely rarely). I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools through high school. The teachings were not focused on punishment, or at least that is not how I perceived them. Also, politics and religion don't mix well for me. If a religious organization gets all political thats it, I'm tuning out of their program. Same goes for journalists or politicians who mix them.
You write, "It’s not possible to separate your ethics from your metaphysics."
Doing good feels good. No further explanation is really required other than enlightened self interest.
Feeling good is a real world experience. Metaphysics is an explanation. Explanations are abstractions, second hand experience. Explanations are religion at a safe distance.
Oh, and to your question, I would prefer the firing squad to a hanging. Thanks for asking. No, I'll pass on the final cigarette, but appreciate the offer. :-)
Your belief in "enlightened self-interest" seems like a leap of faith. Because you know what also apparently "feels good"? Doing horrible things, which has long been quite popular. How, then, do we separate the good from the bad? It can't simply be your feelings... can it?
My belief in enlightened self interest is far from a completed project, but it is based on real world life experience. As I assume it is for you as well.
How do we separate the good from the bad? Wait for some cleric who we don't really know that well to tell us what some long dead guys 2,000 to 3,000 years ago said? Why is this method automatically better than feelings?
One of our points of disagreement is you keep disparaging "long-dead guys." Whereas I look back at them and wonder what they figured out that I haven't. We're not the first cowboys at this rodeo, Phil. :-)
My only point about "long dead guys" is that they lack credibility with many people for that reason. They are too remote for many people who might otherwise be interested. But as your experience demonstrates, they are still serving a useful purpose for many people too.
Haven't you read many (secular) books that were written decades, if not centuries ago, and you think: Whoa... this could have been written yesterday! Sure, they didn't have iPhones in Biblical times, but the people in the Book are recognizable, familiar, and human. We haven't changed that much, if at all, in the past 3,000 years.
I don't read books. I just read you. :-)
You ask, "Can we salvage Biblical ethics while jettisoning Biblical metaphysics?"
As another option, how about keeping the ethics and heart of the metaphysics, and jettisoning the Biblical part?
That's much of what interests me about near death experience reports. The ethics and heart of Judeo-Christian metaphysics are preserved, and the mountain of baggage piled on the Biblical vehicle over many centuries is left behind.
"Near death experience REPORTS..."
Aren't those just more explanations, abstractions, second-hand experiences -- your new religion at a safe distance?
And what happens in a hundred years, when the corpus of NDEs has grown? Members of The NDE Church will be buried under so many stories. Then what?
Yes, the NDE reports are more stories, agreed. But, so far at least, they aren't stories contaminated by centuries of clerical abuse etc. Basically the same message, delivered by new messengers. Who will in time become the old messengers too.
What happens in a hundred years? Good question. Of course I don't know, but here goes anyway....
Science is the leading cultural authority of the modern world, so ideally the scientific community would become new messengers too. They could decide to study death with the same bold, well funded, risk taking adventurism with which they've studied space.
Blast volunteers in to death and then bring them back under controlled conditions, instead of waiting for people to accidentally die and then largely dismissing their reports.
Not holding my breath on this, but you said 100 years, so maybe...
"Blast volunteers into death and then bring them back under controlled conditions..."
As I've said before: What's the big rush? Seems like while we're alive, the operative questions should be about life -- this one -- instead of what may or may not be coming next.
"Blasting volunteers into death" would be like going to a double feature with a friend, but while you're watching the first movie, your buddy can't stop yammering about the second one. :-)
How can you celebrate Judeo-Christian metaphysics, and even label them necessary for ethics, and then in the next breath act like the next life is largely irrelevant to this one?
Why is it ok for Judeo-Christian tradition to make huge claims about the next life for thousands of years, but as soon as NDE people take up the same interest suddenly it's a problem? This is particularly odd given that Judeo-Christian metaphysics and NDE reports overlap to a considerable degree.
If Judeo-Christian metaphysics and NDE reports turn out to both be wrong, and the truth is that "when you die everything is over" and that's that, then your focus on moralism and ethics in the here and now makes much more sense. I'm not dismissing the possibility that this may be the case.
"Judeo-Christian" often obscures more than it describes, and that's the case here. Christianity spends a lot of energy on "the world to come," which has often meant life after death. But Judaism doesn't focus its energies and attention on that subject. We obsess far more about this life than what's on the other side of the grave. Or as Abraham Heschel once said (paraphrased): "We don't talk a lot about life after death because we don't have enough information. In our tradition, no one went to the other side, and came back with a detailed report." ... The classic Jewish teaching states that if someone is planting a tree and hears news of the Messiah's arrival, they should finish planting the tree before greeting the Messiah.
I understand, and have learned this from you. So thanks for that.
Heschel says, "We don't talk a lot about life after death because we don't have enough information"
Well, somebody is now offering you more information. Do with it what you will.
And then, sadly, some of the same old baggage is then reapplied by SOME near death experiencers. Some turn their NDE in to a business. Others talk more about their interpretation of the experience than they do the actual experience. Just as has long been true of the Biblical vehicle, it starts with the best of intentions, and then....
Ahhh... but here's one critical difference: Faithful Jews and Christians care for the widow, the orphan, and the poor. They feed the hungry. They light Shabbat candles or take communion. They gather each week with their community to re-read a few passages from their Book, and then they discuss it. Their lives are filled with actions in the real world that are informed by their metaphysics. What *experiences* or actions fill the lives of the faithful members of The NDE Church?
There isn't an NDE Church yet, but yea, that is probably coming.
The critical difference you reasonably point to is a function of the fact that Judaism and Christianity have been organized religions for thousands of years, with community, rituals, public actions etc well established, whereas the NDE phenomena is relatively new. Or rather, widespread knowledge of the NDE phenomena is new. In America at least, the book Life After Life by Raymond Moody in 1975 opened a new era on that subject.
Most NDE experiencers seem to report that the experience changed their relationship with people and love etc, but because there is no organized religion how that plays out is an individual matter which would have to be approached on a case by case basis.
The critical difference I see is that while Biblical religions talk about heaven, NDE experiencers claim to have been there personally. I don't consider these claims proof, but if you watch enough NDE videos it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that those making the reports sincerely believe what they're saying.
So to answer your "what are they doing" question, I guess we might say what they are typically doing is serving as a new kind of prophet. What makes them interesting prophets, to me at least, is that they aren't selling any particular religion, or even religion in general. The message typically shared is more along the lines of "love is the answer".
"The critical difference I see is that while Biblical religions talk about heaven, NDE experiencers claim to have been there personally."
What are the Gospels if not an account of an NDE? Jesus has a near-death experience -- he "dies" on the cross -- but then he rises and returns to tell us about the world to come after we die?
Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel, Phil? (I'm kidding. I know the Church of NDE is different, but maybe not as different as you might imagine.)
"What are the Gospels if not an account of an NDE?"
Yes, some have guessed that Jesus had an NDE while in the desert, and that was one source of his teachings thereafter.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, and neither are those sharing their NDE experiences either really. What they seem to be doing instead is VALIDATING the heart of what your chosen tradition has been claiming for a long time. Such validation seems to trouble you?
It's only "reinventing the wheel" in the sense that this is a new crop of messengers whom many people will find more credible than the old messengers. Part of the reason that many will find these new messengers more credible is that NDE reports don't fuel division by promoting any one religion as being superior to other religions. Some people, myself included, find that refreshing.
There's really no mention in NDE reports of religions, clerics, books, doctrines, rituals, rules, punishments, judgments etc. I've not seen any arguments in NDE reports offered either in defense of or rejection of traditional religions. NDE reports seem to simply leap over all of that.
The Judeo-Christian tradition seems to be slowly collapsing, in the West at least. Those who might be able to breath some new life in to those old traditions might be welcomed.
And if the old traditions should answer "no, no, no and no, it has to be exactly the way we say and under our leadership etc", then well, that might be why the old traditions are dying in the part of the world that is most educated.
>> "Part of the reason that many will find these new messengers more credible is that NDE reports don't fuel division by promoting any one religion as being superior to other religions. Some people, myself included, find that refreshing."
Yes, I totally get that. Makes a lot of sense.
>> "And if the old traditions should answer "no, no, no and no, it has to be exactly the way we say and under our leadership etc"...
That bears absolutely no resemblance with the Judaism or the Jews I know. Club Jew has been and remains a work in progress.
One more time for those hard of hearing…the American form of federal government does NOT separate church from state (a modern, and fallacious, invention of the federal judiciary - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights disagree with this inferior invention in case law). Our Constitution and Amendments only protect churches (religious organizations) from interference by federal statutes (acts of the US Congress) that might target them.
What does this mean? >> "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/state-established-religion-in-the-colonies
Thanks for the link. Interesting article. Yes, the distinction between federal and state matters here. I’m not a lawyer, so help me out here and evaluate this response to a question I posed to Google Gemini:
“In essence, the Fourteenth Amendment acts as the vehicle through which the limitations on governmental power regarding the establishment of religion, originally intended to restrict only the federal government by the First Amendment, are now also applied to and restrict the actions of state governments. This means that individual states cannot establish a state religion, endorse one religion over others, or favor religion over non-religion, just as the federal government is prohibited from doing so.
Therefore, any action by a state government, including its legislature, that would violate the Establishment Clause if undertaken by the federal government is also unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is why the scenario of Texas erecting a giant cross on its state capitol building raises serious constitutional concerns under both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Is that accurate?
This is wrong (i.e. faulty interpretation of the 14th Amendment).
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The clause “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” does not conflict with the 1st amendment’s language, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. The first amendment is not conferring a privilege or immunity upon federal and state citizens - it simply constrains the federal government. Therefore it cannot be construed that one privilege or immunity of a state citizen is that its State government cannot make or maintain a law regarding an establishment of religion. This is erroneous. Bad case law has introduced this confusion, with the result being utterly silly outcomes, such as no prayer meetings on state school property, no churches operating schools for municipal jurisdictions, et cetera.
I will simplify - the Civil War (which the 14th Amendment was a response to) was not fought to banish religious establishments from civic life. The legal rulings that lead modern people, such as yourself, to conclude that there is a “separation between church and state” are all wrong, having been issued by PARTIAL jurists acting beyond their authority to arrive at an atheistic outcome.
Setting aside Constitutional law for a second, what exactly are you endorsing? For instance, Roger Williams was run out of Massachusetts (Congregational) and settled in Rhode Island, where the Baptists found a home. Is that your vision? Baptists established in one state, Presbyterians in another state, Seventh Day Adventists over here, Unitarians over there?
P. S. I’m not advocating for an “atheistic outcome.” But I don’t believe the government should be in the religion business… nor do many of the jurists who you think are rogue, anti-American activists.
Yes, at the discretion of the people. This has always been at the discretion of the people. You may not be aware of this, but I live in Seattle, and there are no doubt many people who would banish me from the City for my religious faith. And if they did, there’s very little to nothing I could do about it, because I am a religious dissident here. I merely want to acknowledge that this has been the case and continues to be the case. If I were a governor of a state I would be very mild in my approach to the religious health of the state. I would enact or support laws that protect the moral floor of the people of the state, leaving it to church officials to attract members and enforce internal church discipline. But this could easily include permitting local school districts to allow churches to run schools if they desire that. Similarly, I would be open to banning outside Islamic preachers from operating in state prisons.
And AI is simply trained to regurgitate language written by others. It is not capable of making a moral or logical claim as it is limited by its training on language uttered by flawed and (in some cases) immoral writers.
Yeah, I know AI simply regurgitates whatever it has already swallowed. It was a short cut. And not a good one. Apologies.
It means exactly what it says. Congress - the bi-cameral legislative body of the federal government - cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion. At the time of the writing and ratifying of those words several of the States had established religions, and the ratification of the Bill of Rights did not outlaw those official, State churches, because the Bill of Rights did not outlaw religion, or state sanctioned religion. It MERELY limited the federal government.
RD has never made sense to me. (I read him extremely rarely). I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools through high school. The teachings were not focused on punishment, or at least that is not how I perceived them. Also, politics and religion don't mix well for me. If a religious organization gets all political thats it, I'm tuning out of their program. Same goes for journalists or politicians who mix them.
The bigotry runs deep here.
You mean Ross? Or both of them?