jar - On Christianity

Yes, without all those birth defects and deseases and accidents, in which innocents suffer and die, how on earth could we ever manage a smile?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Also, controversial down through the years.

Not what I meant. I was writing in a sort of shorthand style and did not provide clear transitions. What I meant was our moral feelings and the evolution of consciousness are problems for me as regards evolution. I don't "like" these question marks. The idea of nihilism is pretty definite. There is no God; life has no purpose. There's nothing particularly humble about nihilism. I have no desire for mystery. Now, it is true, mystery has a romantic aesthetic value, but that's not important here. That may be. If they are clear to you, in a way that can be discursively explained, let me know.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I'm not "criticizing." It would be rather foolish to criticize nature. I might as criticize the trees for losing their leaves in the fall, and I have to rake them up.

Self-absorbed egotism, probably.

Oh, I thought you meant I was criticizing the fact that there are such phenomena as birth defects.I don't think your explanation of "if no sorrow, no joy" is a very good one. I don't see any reason why the Almighty could not produce a situation in which we can have joy without sorrow. I think that's supposed to be the situation in heaven, if I'm not mistaken.Why not reproduce that on earth?

Didn't you say something in another thread about religion being an art? Well, yes, in the sense that I am not certain in my beliefs. They are tentative. But you were suggesting that I was embracing mystery, that I really liked it. I'm not embracing it.

By no means. An aesthete and a nihilist are the same creature.

Jar knows nothing about the tradition of which you speak.

I haven't seen too much "healthy questioning" from Jar. What I have seen is a lot of politically correct ideas, learned apparently by rote, and pictures of baby birds and flowers.That's "religion" according to Jar.It's a far cry from what I know of the Anglican tradition. But I'm going by writers I have studied such as William Law, Samuel Johnson, and, in the 20th century, T. S. Eliot. These folks are rather severe.

Taking Eliot as an example, salvation "costs not less than everything."One suffers to be saved. One takes up one's cross. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Here's my favorite part:

Jar's view is as far from Eliot's as one could imagine. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

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"Your friends, if they can, may bury you with some distinction, and set up a monument, to let posterity see that your dust lies under such a stone; and when that is done, all is done. Your place is filled up by another, the world is just in the same state it was, you are blotted out of its sight, and as much forgotten by the world as if you had never belonged to it."--William Law

The difference is that Eliot believed in the Fall. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.