I merely commented on Jeff's fine work in articulating the importance of admitted ignorance and proper uncertainty, by citing a note from a work of my own, my autobiography.
My Scriptural references are easily recognizable as evidences of human hubris.
Since they were/are Biblical, I was letting Jeff know that I would completely understand if he wanted to delete the comment so as to avoid religious debate in his comments section.
That's the long and the short of it fellas. I hope I'm not considered religiously vain again.
I really honestly believe that in the scope of things, eternal and infinite as reality is, I know nothing.
I see life as a Christian Theist, and as such, am genuinely, and properly awed, all the time.
If that's some kind of vanity, I own it.
Sorry to cause such a row, fellas. I'll not let that happen on my account again.
Amplified competition. Made possible by digital scale as you say. Before technology competition manifested itself in books.
Thoughts were “looked at” in paper. Before paper, thoughts were simply communicated, oratory, no medium required.
To know. The haves and have nots are “the knows” and “know nots” in our times. Though this has always been. Depends on what you can see. For the spiritually minded I need only mention two names to reveal the meaning of this, Jacob and Esau. One favored the other hated by God. The principle one followed led to freedom. The other to captivity.
Man’s inner fire to know is a byproduct of sin. In physical immortality/innocence this desire would not exist. It would simply be translated as ‘How may I help God?’ or ‘How do you want me to use the talent I posses to build and serve?’
Once “their eyes were opened” happened, the grandness imprinted in us deteriorated in well…mortality first, and as a result our abilities became focused on extrapolating the possibilities given. To want to know what we could have been able to do. Of course what we could’ve done versus what we can do is contingent upon the conditions afforded! Something humans fail to take into account. Entitlement. Immortals vs mortals, and allow me to emphasize the condition of immortality, innocence. Hence the need to guard the Tree of Life or “they will be like us knowing good and evil” Genesis 3:22. Of course one third of the angels did go further than knowing, they chose. Rev 12.
When sin entered creation by choice we lost contact with the Almighty. The degradation followed down to the cellular level. I am thankful for this adjustment God made. Methuselah is said to have been the longest living human at 969 years if I am not mistaken. Can you imagine living for centuries with the information available today? The desire of chasing after knowledge to the extent of selling your soul is a choice. This is the test of time. What do you go after, enlightenment that leads to captivity, or commands that lead to true enlightenment via the purchased way Christ provided. “To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.” Psalm 119:96 To eternal freedom by commands. We are told the numbers for each side. Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many follow it, and you know the rest. I don’t worry about the many. They seem to weed themselves out consumed by pride and theoretical fallacies.
Lastly, Solomon’s end is a testament to be cautious about knowledge. He had encountered God twice in his life and even this knowledge could not keep him from falling away. Socrates famous quote “the only thing I know is that I know nothing” needs a bit of a tweak for me. The only thing I know is that I know God. The endless “looking” “to know” has been monetized rightly so because it is a business considered essential to the mind. Add a few bells and whistles and movies in the last decade are stuck at the narrative of a parallel universe. Wonder and awe, endless looks and views to what really is, the within. Visibility of the human mind. How can we rape and pillage this protected land for the purpose of monetary gain? Why by free choice of course. Manipulating consent. The rest has the brand of conspiracy, the seal of disbelief itself protects it.
Thank you for the wonderful quote, Mr. Dissident. Yes, uncertainty is the anchor tenant of faith, and cannot be replaced by any amount of knowledge or wisdom. We may at times find serenity in knowledge or wisdom, but we can only faith in uncertainty.
Reason/Wisdom claims no such intent to replace anything. We might make that claim for our own self-serving purposes. But Reason and Wisdom are existentially secure in and of themselves, and hardly need us to validate or invalidate them.
Either you are misquoting Socrates or Socrates was just wrong this time: faith claims no wisdom. Faith may, however, be a path to wisdom.
We subvert and forsake wisdom all the time simply because wisdom is not our greatest capacity. Our greatest capacity is love. Who among us would not jettison the wisdom of the ages for the love of a child? All the better if we can find love through faith because we need all the help and all the love we can get. That's why. Besides, it's wise to explore what we don't know. That's why ignorance is the first step of every journey we take, and why it's better to begin the journey with ignorance than to end it in ignorance.
Thanks, reante. Don't know why you insist on conflating wisdom and certainty. Faith has no functional claim on me whatsoever. I initiate every single one of my prayers with no expectations of a response and no demands on or from my faith. My faith comes from me irrespective of how or where I direct it.
Faith is neither ultimate wisdom nor absolute knowledge. Faith is a way to get from what little I know today to (hopefully) a more knowledgable place tomorrow. Faith is a way for me to accrue, perhaps, a little more wisdom today than what I had yesterday. No absolute. No ultimate. Just one of many paths to a better life as a better husband, father, sibling, and friend.
Saying "...we can only [find] faith in uncertainty" isn't the same as saying we can find faith only in uncertainty. Clearly, there's much to find in uncertainty, faith not least. Ignorance, not uncertainty, is the opposite of wisdom, although it is at times wise to take that first step in ignorance.
Time devoted to faith is not necessarily time displaced from either reason or wisdom. Wisdom is -- in no small measure -- an amalgam of knowledge infused with faith. Your use of Reason/Wisdom conflates the two. But reason is no more synonymous with wisdom than faith. Each is a separate pathway to wisdom. True wisdom resides in neither exclusively. True wisdom considers both.
To remain grounded in phenomenological cause and effect without faith in the uncertainty of the road ahead consigns us to navigate only via the rearview mirror, to consider only those things we think we know in places we've already experienced -- an exercise in sheer vanity and the opposite of humility. Because humility is a concession to what we do not and perhaps cannot know -- God's plan for us not least.
You see faith as an instrument of entrapment and enslavement. I see it as an instrument of liberation. But not the only one...
Reante: Talk abut getting up on the wrong side of the vanity bed...
Solomon was considered wise for a reason. Not only because he was learned and knowledgable. But because he was able and willing to look beyond what he knew (or thought he knew), and find wisdom in the beauty of uncertainty. He found wisdom in what he didn't and couldn't know. In doing so he discovered, like all people of faith, a much larger world than the one circumscribed and truncated by the things we think we know -- most often in our arrogance and pride. Wisdom, not knowledge and not religious vanity, suggests that the first step in learning is bowing down to God.
Humility, therefore, is not simply a concession to faith or tautology. It's a concession to wisdom. Humility and gratitude open doors to much larger worlds. In such grander places than those we can perceive through our senses and intellect, someone else's gentleness and humility (however derived) does not necessarily translate to your strength and bravado. Nor should gentleness and humility ever be confused with fear.
Unless I completely misunderstood, Peter was telling me to go ahead and delete his comment (not yours) if I didn't want to engage in any possible fallout. There was nothing passive/aggressive about it.
Also, this ain't my first rodeo. I've dealt with plenty of contention over the years, some of it unnecessarily self-inflicted.
That said, wisdom is not certainty, true or otherwise. Wisdom will always admit the possibility of error (humility). Plenty of heroes and plenty of villains over the ages have been just as certain in their faith as they have in any reasoned assessment of cause and effect. True leaders have the wisdom and courage to embrace their faith in the uncertainty of the moment -- often without the confirmation or validation of cause and effect -- and move forward nevertheless. Gut instinct embraces faith, often in spite of reason or conventional wisdom.
Again, certainty and wisdom are not synonymous. You're bending terminology and definitions to fit your conclusion. The only key to navigating the intersection of reason and faith is to understand that a) the traffic moves in all directions at all times, and b) better use all your mirrors and try to keep your eyes on the road...
Another excellent article , God has given us enough to be our best , not worship tech this reminds me of C.S. Lewis warning about the prophet in the lab coat.
Thank you, Jake. We are no less religious today than we were before the Enlightenment. We simply worship different pantheon of gods at different alters. There is nothing whatsoever unreligious about the entire woke agenda.
Boy... you guys are way over my head!
fyi, I had no idea I was smarting.
I had/have no idea who will walk away from what.
I merely commented on Jeff's fine work in articulating the importance of admitted ignorance and proper uncertainty, by citing a note from a work of my own, my autobiography.
My Scriptural references are easily recognizable as evidences of human hubris.
Since they were/are Biblical, I was letting Jeff know that I would completely understand if he wanted to delete the comment so as to avoid religious debate in his comments section.
That's the long and the short of it fellas. I hope I'm not considered religiously vain again.
I really honestly believe that in the scope of things, eternal and infinite as reality is, I know nothing.
I see life as a Christian Theist, and as such, am genuinely, and properly awed, all the time.
If that's some kind of vanity, I own it.
Sorry to cause such a row, fellas. I'll not let that happen on my account again.
Amplified competition. Made possible by digital scale as you say. Before technology competition manifested itself in books.
Thoughts were “looked at” in paper. Before paper, thoughts were simply communicated, oratory, no medium required.
To know. The haves and have nots are “the knows” and “know nots” in our times. Though this has always been. Depends on what you can see. For the spiritually minded I need only mention two names to reveal the meaning of this, Jacob and Esau. One favored the other hated by God. The principle one followed led to freedom. The other to captivity.
Man’s inner fire to know is a byproduct of sin. In physical immortality/innocence this desire would not exist. It would simply be translated as ‘How may I help God?’ or ‘How do you want me to use the talent I posses to build and serve?’
Once “their eyes were opened” happened, the grandness imprinted in us deteriorated in well…mortality first, and as a result our abilities became focused on extrapolating the possibilities given. To want to know what we could have been able to do. Of course what we could’ve done versus what we can do is contingent upon the conditions afforded! Something humans fail to take into account. Entitlement. Immortals vs mortals, and allow me to emphasize the condition of immortality, innocence. Hence the need to guard the Tree of Life or “they will be like us knowing good and evil” Genesis 3:22. Of course one third of the angels did go further than knowing, they chose. Rev 12.
When sin entered creation by choice we lost contact with the Almighty. The degradation followed down to the cellular level. I am thankful for this adjustment God made. Methuselah is said to have been the longest living human at 969 years if I am not mistaken. Can you imagine living for centuries with the information available today? The desire of chasing after knowledge to the extent of selling your soul is a choice. This is the test of time. What do you go after, enlightenment that leads to captivity, or commands that lead to true enlightenment via the purchased way Christ provided. “To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.” Psalm 119:96 To eternal freedom by commands. We are told the numbers for each side. Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many follow it, and you know the rest. I don’t worry about the many. They seem to weed themselves out consumed by pride and theoretical fallacies.
Lastly, Solomon’s end is a testament to be cautious about knowledge. He had encountered God twice in his life and even this knowledge could not keep him from falling away. Socrates famous quote “the only thing I know is that I know nothing” needs a bit of a tweak for me. The only thing I know is that I know God. The endless “looking” “to know” has been monetized rightly so because it is a business considered essential to the mind. Add a few bells and whistles and movies in the last decade are stuck at the narrative of a parallel universe. Wonder and awe, endless looks and views to what really is, the within. Visibility of the human mind. How can we rape and pillage this protected land for the purpose of monetary gain? Why by free choice of course. Manipulating consent. The rest has the brand of conspiracy, the seal of disbelief itself protects it.
Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion
of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If
I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but
precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to
preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon hold-
ing fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the
deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving
my faith. -KIerkegaard
Thank you for the wonderful quote, Mr. Dissident. Yes, uncertainty is the anchor tenant of faith, and cannot be replaced by any amount of knowledge or wisdom. We may at times find serenity in knowledge or wisdom, but we can only faith in uncertainty.
Reason/Wisdom claims no such intent to replace anything. We might make that claim for our own self-serving purposes. But Reason and Wisdom are existentially secure in and of themselves, and hardly need us to validate or invalidate them.
Either you are misquoting Socrates or Socrates was just wrong this time: faith claims no wisdom. Faith may, however, be a path to wisdom.
We subvert and forsake wisdom all the time simply because wisdom is not our greatest capacity. Our greatest capacity is love. Who among us would not jettison the wisdom of the ages for the love of a child? All the better if we can find love through faith because we need all the help and all the love we can get. That's why. Besides, it's wise to explore what we don't know. That's why ignorance is the first step of every journey we take, and why it's better to begin the journey with ignorance than to end it in ignorance.
Thanks, reante. Don't know why you insist on conflating wisdom and certainty. Faith has no functional claim on me whatsoever. I initiate every single one of my prayers with no expectations of a response and no demands on or from my faith. My faith comes from me irrespective of how or where I direct it.
Faith is neither ultimate wisdom nor absolute knowledge. Faith is a way to get from what little I know today to (hopefully) a more knowledgable place tomorrow. Faith is a way for me to accrue, perhaps, a little more wisdom today than what I had yesterday. No absolute. No ultimate. Just one of many paths to a better life as a better husband, father, sibling, and friend.
Saying "...we can only [find] faith in uncertainty" isn't the same as saying we can find faith only in uncertainty. Clearly, there's much to find in uncertainty, faith not least. Ignorance, not uncertainty, is the opposite of wisdom, although it is at times wise to take that first step in ignorance.
Time devoted to faith is not necessarily time displaced from either reason or wisdom. Wisdom is -- in no small measure -- an amalgam of knowledge infused with faith. Your use of Reason/Wisdom conflates the two. But reason is no more synonymous with wisdom than faith. Each is a separate pathway to wisdom. True wisdom resides in neither exclusively. True wisdom considers both.
To remain grounded in phenomenological cause and effect without faith in the uncertainty of the road ahead consigns us to navigate only via the rearview mirror, to consider only those things we think we know in places we've already experienced -- an exercise in sheer vanity and the opposite of humility. Because humility is a concession to what we do not and perhaps cannot know -- God's plan for us not least.
You see faith as an instrument of entrapment and enslavement. I see it as an instrument of liberation. But not the only one...
Shared with friends, your insights.
On a personal note, the first line of my autobiography is, "The more I know, the more I know how little I know".
...something about a golden calf or a tower in the plain of Shinar I shouldn't wonder,...
It's sometimes (always, really) difficult to believe that humans are actually "worshiping". But they are.
Sorry that this comment may draw long opposition. That's OK. You can delete comments, no?
Thanks again, Jeff.
Reante: Talk abut getting up on the wrong side of the vanity bed...
Solomon was considered wise for a reason. Not only because he was learned and knowledgable. But because he was able and willing to look beyond what he knew (or thought he knew), and find wisdom in the beauty of uncertainty. He found wisdom in what he didn't and couldn't know. In doing so he discovered, like all people of faith, a much larger world than the one circumscribed and truncated by the things we think we know -- most often in our arrogance and pride. Wisdom, not knowledge and not religious vanity, suggests that the first step in learning is bowing down to God.
Humility, therefore, is not simply a concession to faith or tautology. It's a concession to wisdom. Humility and gratitude open doors to much larger worlds. In such grander places than those we can perceive through our senses and intellect, someone else's gentleness and humility (however derived) does not necessarily translate to your strength and bravado. Nor should gentleness and humility ever be confused with fear.
Unless I completely misunderstood, Peter was telling me to go ahead and delete his comment (not yours) if I didn't want to engage in any possible fallout. There was nothing passive/aggressive about it.
Also, this ain't my first rodeo. I've dealt with plenty of contention over the years, some of it unnecessarily self-inflicted.
That said, wisdom is not certainty, true or otherwise. Wisdom will always admit the possibility of error (humility). Plenty of heroes and plenty of villains over the ages have been just as certain in their faith as they have in any reasoned assessment of cause and effect. True leaders have the wisdom and courage to embrace their faith in the uncertainty of the moment -- often without the confirmation or validation of cause and effect -- and move forward nevertheless. Gut instinct embraces faith, often in spite of reason or conventional wisdom.
Again, certainty and wisdom are not synonymous. You're bending terminology and definitions to fit your conclusion. The only key to navigating the intersection of reason and faith is to understand that a) the traffic moves in all directions at all times, and b) better use all your mirrors and try to keep your eyes on the road...
Another excellent article , God has given us enough to be our best , not worship tech this reminds me of C.S. Lewis warning about the prophet in the lab coat.
Creating is human excellence.
Thank you, Jake. We are no less religious today than we were before the Enlightenment. We simply worship different pantheon of gods at different alters. There is nothing whatsoever unreligious about the entire woke agenda.
Grounded in what? Turtles all the way down? Or ... faith?