Relda.
I must catch up with Polanyi! Bruce Barber, to whom I ascribed some central ideas in the article has taken me to task for using the Cartesian bifurcation of mind/ world and framing theology on those lines. He proposed a different way of approaching the theology that is more biblical, this is what he said:
“ I’m still unpersuaded that theology has to think with the categories the philosophers require eg about the ‘living’ (I prefer the ‘earthly’) Jesus and the risen Christ. The Cartesian heresy (the bifurcation between the res cogitans (the thinking mind) and the res extensa ( the external world) looks awfully like your sentence “the former event is an objective event in the world the latter is an event in the mind”.
It seems to me to go this way. Biblically, flesh and spirit are integral ways that body might inhabit the world. The man of flesh is the whole man (body, mind, and spirit ie Greek anthropology) turned away from God and the neighbour; Spirit is the whole man (body mind and spirit) turned towards God and the neighbour.
This happens as the salvific event called repentance by the agency of ‘Holy Spirit’ ie by that spirit which vivifies the wounded inert body of the crucified Jesus this side of his cross, and which is also promised to us, and analogously turns our dead ‘living’ bodies to living ‘dying’ bodies in the event of discipleship.
I can’t see any ‘mind’ in this except the transformed nous Paul enjoins in Romans 12: 1 ff which brings about a totality of bodily reconciliation.”
My response to this was:
This helps as long as we understand that we are talking metaphorically and existentially. In that case an adoption of the Cartesian bifurcation is no help at all and I repent of my using it in the article. The better apologetic for the modern man is therefore to instruct him in the ways of metaphorical and existential language rather than to adopt modernity’s own problem.

Opiniated

“Your definition of "Personal spirituality" is simply wrong.”
I didn't offer any definition of personal spirituality. If you think my 'definition' is wrong then that is probably because you are making assumptions about how I would define it.

“It is not commenced by indoctrination or feeding children chocolates and presents as bribes to further the cause of a religion whose book, the Bible, is dubious at best.”
Curious statement! Obviously intended to be more emotive than rational.

“It does not pretend honesty where very little honesty exists.”
Sounds idealised and very optimistic.

“If this is rubbish what else is rubbish...Abrahamic religions are based on coddswallop!”
Faulty syllogism.

“It is you who made the wildly unjustified assumptions originally in your first reply to me and when corrected you suddenly want to take your cricket bat and ball and go home.”
My children used to argue like this. A. “You're a goon.” B. “No! You're a goon.”
Fortunately, they grew out of it.

“I have plenty to offer these threads...I will at least give an honest interpretation of the Bible pointing out it's serious flaws.”
The 'criticism' of the Bible that you have offered so far seems to be based on discrediting a particular view of S. namely that it is inerrant. Its a straw man argument. I think I have made it very clear in my posts that I do not regard S. as inerrant.

“You were the one who stated "...that adventures in 'personal spirituality' tend to be narcissistic in nature"...Isn't that a wild assumption?”
No. It's an opinion that sounds like an assumption when taken out of context.

“If much of the Bible is rubbish how can there be any value in a falsified "shared experience"?”
Essentially a repeat of the same faulty syllogism noted earlier.

“And if the Bible is wrong in many places, is the resurrection a load of bunkum as well”
You dont seem to have understood what Sells was saying.

Do you read poetry? Does it trouble you that it isnt 'true'?

From Jesus to the Christ?

Defending its purpose of discussing all things, could say to our OLO chiefs that from a philosophical point of view, Christ was actually a Greek word tagged on Jesus after the Resurrection.

Further, from a philosophical point of view, one wonders why the wonderful theme of the Sermon on the Mount
gradually took second place to the Resurrection?

Whether it has taken second place to the present line of Christianity which like it or not, has become a strong part of Western politics, makes one wonder how much of the Christ up to our time has been made up?

Certainly when we study the Sermon on the Mount, we find how much better are such examples as Blessed Are, than Though Shalt, which to me sounds so much like my military life, where life became Yours is Not to Reason Why, Yours is But to Do or Die.

One wonders what went through the mind of St Thomas Aquinas when he accepted Hellenistic Reasoning in order to lift Christianity out of the Dark Ages - and also as a Doctor of Learning Aquinas began universities.

Further, in a study of Aquinas we find he had a troubled mind, and to be sure as later with Immanuel Kant, they were torn between the humanistic love and decency that the young Jesus bore and the harsher practicalities that later Christians had to face.

Nevertheless, as the young Jesus was one who cobbered up with ordinary folk, including fisherman, one feels if
He is a True example for us so-called Christians, and ordinary others, compassion and respect for ordinary others should be our main object in life - admitting how wrong us ordinary humans can be at times, as part of it, as well as indeed, particularly to be ready to share the blame in International Relations.

Bushbred

Your post shows a great deal of common sense. It got me thinking just what would Jesus make of people like Peter Sellick?

An intellectual poseur? Well, probably Jesus would refrain from judging him at all and hope that by his example Sells would reflect more upon Jesus' philosophy and be more gracious to people who hold differing opinions.

Fractelle, thanks mate for the compliment.

Though I only hit the topic with a bit of philosophy, every good Christian knows how St Paul gave dire warnings concerning philosophy.

Reminds me again too much of the military and ours is not to reason why?

Cheers cobber, and thanks for your company.

Regards, BB, WA.

Sells you admit writing with intention: an apologetic for moderns. The Gospel writers had one too – narrating Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Post mortem appearances are explicit, the reference to the empty tomb likewise. If the writers intended a spiritual resurrection that would have been easy enough eg Acts12:15.

The narratives are messy, and in all eyewitness testimony – often conflicting. They're not smoothed out for effect, the reports don’t line up perfectly as they would if there was collusion.

Jesus resurrection isn’t narrated with eschatological meaning because it was eyewitness testimony, the symbolic and metaphorical wasn't yet in their thinking.

The disciples initially didn’t understand the resurrection – only that Jesus has been vindicated - everything he said about
himself was true! They went and witnessed as commanded, and were duly killed.

Instead of allowing the historical text to constrain what is allowable to think and write you keep trying to put it
through your philosophical sausage maker. A machine that cannot compute the facts:

-The universe had a transcendent cause,
it can’t exist before it existed.

-The Big Bang is empirical evidence of its coming
into existence, only creative will brings things
into existence.

-Creative will is the product of mind, intelligent
design of physical constants and laws is evidence too.

-Only persons have minds.

-Therefore the universe was created by a personal being.

-God unchaning and omnipotent, atemporal before
the creation and temporal after, is not constrained
by the physical laws he created and sustains.

-He suspended these laws and entered into his creation
for the reasons he provided.

Fractelle the irony is Sells would not recognise Jesus if he came back, his philosophy doesn’t allow it. Sells would ask
to be taken to the psychologist.

And you would find Jesus awfully intolerant of your desire to be left alone in your agreeable delusions. He doesn't take no for an answer though. Until that fateful time when he will woo no more.

“I came that you may have life and have it to the full”