Selaphiel

:chuckle: But actually, you will see that image soon. H&G did a Christmas card and you were one of the names on the recipients list. lain:

The weekend is ok so far. Lots of rain. :rain: Went out to do a bit of Christmas shopping earlier and now I'm in for the day. Going to watch some football and hopefully get some good reading done.

I'll get back to you on the Bonhoeffer.

How are you Have you been getting some good relaxing in now that you are done with that exam? :chuckle:

:e4e:

Thank you for the support in the woodshed, Sela. I appreciate it.

I'll be back to you with the rest of my VM replies. I see you've been writing many hours recently, and I have a day like that ahead of me. Next week is finals, and I have a paper to write based on an interview I conducted with someone and I have to analyze it according to various behavioral models and theories, plus put together a portfolio and study for exams. If I'm here, it's because TOL is in the background and I needed a breather.

Did you know you can study/think/create better if you take regular breaks to focus about other things? Your brain uses these 'recess breaks' to consolidate what you've been doing and sometimes the brainstorm comes during or after the break. Kind of what sleep does for you too, but different.

:shocked: Wow. I'd want a bit of a break from thinking after that.

Good job on finishing it though. Marathon session! :chuckle:

Part 1:

The only thing I know of James from psychology is from passing mention of the James-Lange theory of emotion. I don't know anything other than that in addition to what you've just told me, and from that, I don't think I'd be drawn to pragmatist philosophy. I don't have a specific philosophical hero though there are those with whom I've connected over the years, one of them being Kierkegaard.

Nice. That sounds like an interesting paper. I know a bit about Nietzsche and Freud but not really anything about Feuerbach except I recall you mentioning him a few times before.

It's chapter 18, "The Disciple and Unbelievers". The passage used is Matt 7:1-12. Bonhoeffer appears to treat it as only dealing with believers and unbelievers and I've never interpreted it as having that more narrow application (the part about judging) but I thought he had some interesting points. I also kind of like his thought about Christianity, Christ's Word, not being an ideology (in the same chapter but he mentions in other places too) but I'm still thinking it over.

:chuckle: That's quite the image.

:e4e:

Part 3 eek: :chuckle: Any time, Sela.

As usual though, there's so much there to digest, I have to do it when my brain says it's time. I'll get back to you for sure though, probably sometime in the early morning here.

Good luck with the exams, both school and driving. Soon you'll be cruising the town with all your furry friends. :chuckle: What's the school exam on?

I've been alright. Busy with work. Had a pretty good Thanksgiving, H&G trying to catch their own turkey notwithstanding. lain: I've been making progress in Bonhoeffer. I thought he had some interesting thoughts about believers judging unbelievers. How judging their bad actions also confirms them in supposedly or apparently good actions. What we really need to do is just point them to Christ. And judgment can detach us from unbelievers and love is not detached.

:e4e:

As for the other kind of materialism, and consumerism.... that's something I feel pretty strongly about. It's repellent to me, and yet I have to live in the middle of it and yes, take advantage of it while I'm repelled by it. And it's such a first world problem, isn't it? Would someone in a developing country be amused by our angst, I wonder? Was the mystery never there to begin with for someone who fights every day to stay alive physically, let along metaphysically?

Proof of Heaven is very interesting - and what drew me to it was that it wasn't your run-of-the-mill near death experience - we're talking about a respected neurosurgeon who was accustomed to working with the brain in a completely materialistic sense, removed from all emotionality and spirituality. It was brain tissue to him... gray matter, white matter, synapses, limbic system... no more. So coming from that direction makes his NDE all the more fascinating, he's like the least likely candidate possible.

My turn to spam.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Whitehead, although I've seen you and I think kmo discuss him.

Although I hadn't thought of it in quite that way, I like your comment about seeing mankind in continuity with other forms of life because that really would re-enchant. Most Christians I know view our world as the center of the universe and the only created beings - and yet when you look at our solar system, our galaxy in relation to the size of the universe it's absolutely mindboggling and very humbling.

17jymDn0W6U

You have my permission to spam my page any time you want.

You've got two avenues of thought going here and I need to let each percolate for awhile before I respond (it doesn't come easy for me as it does you) but thank you so much for them, I appreciate it a lot.

Kind of like instead of a "new normal" there would have to be a "new mystery?" You can't go back from what's been uncovered, because it's been seen.

To find a new enchantment you have to clothe in a different way; to recreate new mystery (of what's always been) you almost have to write a new story by approaching the transcendental from a new direction?

Coincidentally, I'm reading this right now:

Proof of Heaven

I didn't realize disenchantment wasn't only a word but also a philosophical idea until your last message. It's intriguing. I had a vague sense of it when I said 'mystery,' without knowing I only had a hair of the tail of the elephant.

I don't think it's possible to revert back; in disenchantment lies knowledge, don't you think? And not limiting that just to education, but the street kid's way of knowing too - and once you know, and the mystery is gone, how to put that genie back in the bottle? Whether you come to know via the elevated or the banal, technology has changed everything.

I had a very weird dream last night. I was back in school and somehow I ended up signing up to actually teach a class on Shakespeare's Othello. But I wasn't actually a teacher so on the first day of class I told everyone that I'm not a teacher and everyone started to leave until I said I had an idea to do the class on the theology in Othello. Most people started decided to stay then. I woke up shortly after though so I'm not sure what we ended up discussing. :freak:

Dreams can be so bizarre. :chuckle:

Thanks. I'll try to watch it sometime soon. :up:

How have you been? How's the semester going?

Do you have your license yet? :car:

I watched and enjoyed. I jotted down a few notes - places where I agreed, and some not as much, and maybe I'll write a bit to you about them at some point.

One thought that came to me while watching is that regardless of how people might differ on what has been lost or gained since Duchamp, one loss that both camps might agree on (even while differing on whether it would be a positive or a negative) can be distilled into one word: mystery.

Oh, thank you, Sela. I watched the first six or seven minutes and am already drawn in. Luckily I have some holidays ahead and some extra time to sit and enjoy this, so I'll fix some coffee and get back to watching.

Thanks so much for thinking to send it and I'll write again later.

I hope you're doing well.

(And I don't think I can ever look at another nativity scene again without thinking of my witty friend. :chuckle

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. I've always found it to be an interesting topic. Maybe I can write a paper on it and do some research someday. :e4e:

We're on the same page nativity scene, then. :chuckle:

I think it's great to be able to do that - putting words to what your senses are telling you - and that your learning has brought you a lot of enjoyment. Those simple pleasures are deceptive in their complexity.

What do you think of this argument? :think: