Category: Beliefs
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DiaBlogue: Looking for an Argument
I must commend Alan for his diligence in following through on my recommended reading, given that I’ve only now got around to reading his last three posts — from July! To be sure, I regret that Chesterton was such a disappointment, but I will (perhaps too generously) ascribe that to…
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The Creed of Love’s Dominion (CoLD)
This Creed of Love’s Dominion (CoLD) is the theological counterpart of my Radical Centrist Manifesto. It summarizes my religious (non-contingent) beliefs about the nature of divinity. After one, two, three, four-and-a-half attempts, [Read More] to see what I’m happy with enough to label “Version 1.0.” It may not be perfect…
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A Bottom-Up Creed, Take 4c: Love’s Dominion
Well, I think I’m converging. At least, I haven’t come up with a better name (or numbering scheme :-). What do you think? They say perfection comes, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing to take away. Is there any more to take away?
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A Bottom-Up Creed, Take 3: Love’s Dominion
If at first (or second) you don’t succeed, try, try again. 🙂 This time with yet another nifty title, focusing more on the approach itself rather than (merely) reacting against modernity. [Read more] to see if I’m making any progress…
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A Retro-Modern Creed, Take II: The C of Love
As promised, here’s another attempt at a post-modern creed. However, I’ve chosen to use the term “retro-modern”, as this looks back towards modernistic creeds in a way informed by post-modern critiques. In particular, it posits “love” as the universal concept which transcends societal relativism, the way Einstein’s “c” (the speed…
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A Post-Modern Creed, Take One: Truth, Justice and Love
In the Epilogue A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian confesses that the one thing he’d do differently would be to change the title to something like “Towards a Generous Orthodoxy”, since he’s providing more of a journey than a destination. I see this as both the strength and the weakness of his…
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DiaBlogue: The Pursuit of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth
In a A Scattered Review of The Pilgrim’s Regress, Alan does an excellent job of summarizing the intersection of Lewis’ ramblings and our diablogue. I must commend him on such a quick and comprehensive read, as well as a remarkably concise summation. Alan then asks, “Ernie, is there anything to…
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DiaBlogue: CAWK-ward Comments
Alan provides a lucid and gentle view of What Is Wrong with Christianity (and People), in response to my relatively Hate -ful post. While his description was more than fair, there were a few very minor potential confusions I wanted to clear up. I started by creating a comment, but…
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DiaBlogue: What I Hate About Christianity (As We Know It)
I have finally concluded that my primary DiaBlogue strategy — trying to invent a “common ground” of shared understand — is unlikely to succeed. Virtually none of the various proposals for ontology and divinity I floated have met with Alan’s approval. Worse, even though we managed to agree on a…
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DiaBlogue: Orthodoxy, Generously
While I’ve been busy with various projects on my other blog, Alan replied to my quest for Enlightenment? and Truth and Trust with discussions of: * Enlightening Bug * On the Evolution of Religion [not formally part of the series] * Practical Truth * (In)coherent Mumbling I was particularly encouraged…
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DiaBlogue: Of Truth and Trust
Alan was kind enough to send me a short email saying he was 1) busy, and 2) confused by my last post about the “love connection” and suggested I might want to go ahead and answer his other questions. That may take a while, though, so I did want to…
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DiaBlogue: Enlightenment?
Moreover, I am asserting (admittedly without proof, at this point) that my paradigm is actually more robust than yours, in that it can explain: why your paradigm works at all where it breaks down what happens beyond your realm of validityThis hearkens back to a point I made earlier, that…
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DiaBlogue: My Standard Model of Christianity
Or — as I suspect Alan is thinking but is too polite to say — “What the Hell Does Ernie Believe?” I concur with Alan’s opinion in The Weight of Justice that “our meta-discussion … seems to be making some progress”, rather than merely going Round and Round. However, while…
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DiaBlogue: Round and Round
I think Alan hits the nail on the head when he asks, Where Did We Put Those Goalposts? We do appear to have converged on a reasonable definition of “Round One”, but as he points out, ‘this is not a one round “fight” ‘. Specifically: The overall goal that I…
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DiaBlogue: Convergent Elocution
While Alan wonders whether or not I am finally Reaching Escape Velocity by Reviving the Classics, I worry whether the yolk may be on me after reading my friend Seth Godin’s cautionary tale about miscommunication: I realized that every single time I used an analogy, he didn’t “get it.” Instead,…
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DiaBlogue: Reviving the Classics
While Alan appears concerned that my Fundamentalish Theory incorrectly asserts that he is Fundamentally Mistaken in his beliefs, I actually found his replies quite helpful, which implies that my sally was at least partially successful. 🙂 In particular, it was quite nice to see a direct contrast between my definition…
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DiaBlogue: Fundamentalish Theory
I am going to take the unusual step of starting with Alan’s reply to my comment on Psi-lent Night?, about why he believed moral standards are “objective, but [not] necessarily universal”: By way of analogy, one might say that Newtonian mechanics are objective, but not universal, since they break down…
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DiaBlogue: Hell. Why Not?
First of all, let me apologize for not doing a better job of replying to Alan’s questions. I share his sense of frustration that we’re talking past each other, and agree that my last post probably pushed us even further in the wrong direction. Sorry ’bout that. So, let me…
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DiaBlogue: Systemic Failure
I appreciate Alan’s attempt at “Getting Back on Track,” as I do agree we seem to have lost our way. I remain concerned that Alan doesn’t seem able to articulate a coherent ontological position as an alternative to Christianity — as I would consider that essential for a fair comparison…
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DiaBlogue: Naturalism AND Mysticism Are Dead
Today’s title is homage to the Tom Stoppard play, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead“, which in turn is inspired by the two most casual murders in a tragedy filled with death. I don’t think Alan was still at Caltech when TACIT put it on the former, but I still have…
Radically Happy 