So just tell me which sense of the word true you mean!

You mean "desire for meaning is more true than propositional truth" in the sense that it shoots better? You mean "desire for meaning is more Jesus than propositional Jesus"?

Is desire for meaning true in a different sense of true than "propositional truth"? Because then it's not "more true", you're equivocating.

I'm fine with true being polysemous, I just want to know what you mean by it. Maybe instead of giving me alternative definitions and calling me ignorant you could just tell me which one you had in mind? This shouldn't be difficult if you want people to understand you.

I think he's the type of person who thinks that philosophy and religion are all about sounding mystical first and content last.

Imagine if instead of all this flowery language about Osiris and third eyes he'd said something like "We don't navigate the world through reason alone" would anyone object? Because that's all I can glean from it. It doesn't sound very impressive though.

My guess is similar about "desire for meaning is more true than propositional truth". It's going to translate to something either trivial, false, or meaningless, so we have to make it obscure lest people realise it's hollow.

Meaningless. That's my interpretation.

This is where the analogy fails because there is no translation between the two for the student. I am not trying to translate. I am pointing toward the chaotic unknown and providing tools to help navigate it.

The vast majority of people have committed to resisting this Hero’s Journey. They have killed the ideal in their mind because they decided long ago that they don’t want to endure what is required for that. Everyone does this, it’s how the story goes. Still, the ideal or the soul can never be completely killed. That is actually the main thing that I am doing, stirring up the hornet’s nest, because it is necessary.

I would challenge anyone to explain how that in any way helps understand what you mean by "the desire for meaning" is true.

I would encourage you to heed Wittgenstein:

Anything that can be said can be said clearly.


If nobody understands what you are saying (which seems to be the case here), then it means either that the ideas that you are attempting to convey are muddled in your own mind, and/or you are unwilling or unable to express your ideas in a clear manner.

addendum:

When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair. - E. B. White

Say clearly why you believe that one of the religions springs from something different than all the rest of them. Which prophecy is it?

Try “life promoting” then. You would agree that the desire for food, especially when starved, is life promoting, correct? Think of it the same way.

The desire for meaning is life promoting. Anything life promoting is a move closer to reality, or a move closer to the highest truth.

So far, so good!

How so? Death is also a reality. Life isn't "closer" to being "real" than death.

What is "the highest truth"? Thanks.

AUTHOR: James Allan Francis (1864–1928)

QUOTATION: Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was his coat. When he was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.

ATTRIBUTION: JAMES ALLAN FRANCIS, One Solitary Life, pp. 1–7 (1963).

https://www.bartleby.com/73/916.html

From an unpublished manuscript I wrote:


For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by
him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Colossians 1:16-17

JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN WORLD HISTORY:

This is from Massimo Lorenzini’s book A Reason for the Hope, pages 199-200:

Who is the most influential person in the history of the world? Nobody knows the exact
date of His birth, but His coming into the world split history into B.C. and A.D. He never
wrote a book, but more books have been written about Him than anyone else in history
and the only eye-witness accounts of His life and teachings have been translated into
more languages than any other writing (2,000+). He never painted a picture or
composed any poetry or music, but nobody’s life and teaching has been the subject of
output of music, plays, and all other forms of art. He never raised an army, but millions
of His followers have laid down their lives for Him. Every year about 330,000 are
martyred for identifying with Him.

During His public ministry, His travels were limited to an area about the size of New
Jersey, yet today His influence is worldwide. He never spoke to more than a few
thousand people, yet today His followers make up the largest religious group the world
has ever known. He had no formal education, but thousands of schools, colleges,
universities, and seminaries have been founded in His name. He never owned a
property, He had to borrow a boat to sail in, a donkey to ride on, and even a coin to use
for an illustration, but all around the world today thousands of hospitals, orphanages,
churches, pregnancy centers, and other buildings have been erected to carry out his
work.

Who am I describing? Jesus of Nazareth, of course. Of Him Napoleon said, “I know
men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other
person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar,
Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our
genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour
millions of men would die for Him.”

JESUS CHRIST: FULLY GOD AND FULLY MAN:

1. Many details of His life were foretold in the Bible many hundreds of years before He was even born.
2. He uniquely exemplifies perfect justice and perfect mercy.
3. He uniquely exemplifies majesty and meekness.
4. He uniquely exemplifies a judge who pays the fine for the criminal.
5. He uniquely always existed and created the heavens and the earth.
6. He uniquely taught that to obtain eternal life, one must not only believe “in” what he
taught, but also “on” what he accomplished by his life, death, burial and resurrection.
One must trust Him and Him alone. Believers will have a personal relationship with Him.

JESUS CHRIST: LIAR, LORD OR LUNATIC?

Anyone who considers the life of Jesus must conclude that he was one of three things: A liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. (Recently, some have tried to argue that the Jesus of the Bible didn’t exist at all. The problem with that thesis is that if one denies the historical evidence for Jesus, then one must also, to be consistent, deny the historical evidence for any historical figure in antiquity. I’m not personally aware of anyone who is such a model of consistency.)

Here is a quote from C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity (pp.54-56):

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about
Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be
God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of
things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the
level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You
must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon;
or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not let that open to us. He did not
intend to.

Great, that didn't need to be so hard. We can work with that. So "the desire for meaning is more life promoting than propositional truth" (presumably you mean truth in the case of propositions to mean something less esoteric).

In what sense though? You mean it's something we value more (like I keep asking)? I don't think that's necessarily true. I'm not even sure the two can be separated. Presumably any real meaning we find is going to be expressable by a proposition.

This still sounds like nothing dressed up as something deep.

From the perspective of the flesh, there are many realities and death is more real than life, or at least death isn’t less real than life.

From the perspective of the soul, life is only what is real. Death is not real. Reality is life in its fullest form and the world is a counterfeit reality.

The “I Am” is between the two (flesh and soul). At the beginning of the Story, the I Am and the flesh are aligned. The soul, or the Son of Man, tries to create division (sound familiar?) between the I Am and the flesh in order for progress to happen.

To eat from the Tree of Knowledge is to open ourselves up to reality. When Adam (flesh) tastes the fruit, he only tastes death. The Son of Man and/or the Divine Female (soul) say to the I Am that eating the fruit (opening ourselves up to reality) is life promoting.

In Matthew 16:28, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
When he says this, he is making reference to eating the forbidden fruit (opening up to reality). He is basically saying that there are some (I Am) standing here who will divide from Adam (flesh).

Gospel of Thomas saying 1:
And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

Desire for meaning present = eating the forbidden fruit = opening up to reality
Desire for meaning suppressed = aligning with Adam (flesh)

So we have mankind creating copious amounts of gods and religions. Then, whichever one is currently in the lead regarding adherents explains the origin of the universe. LOL. It would seem obvious that if they appealed to magic and superstition and the supernatural in selling the religion, this means it is appealing to irrationality and therefore its popularity is an indication of dubiousness. Hello.

Right.

I'm glad you appended "LOL" to your last sentence, because literally nobody is making that argument. So, we agree that would be a silly argument (which, fortunately, nobody is making.)

Good thing nobody is appealing to magic and/or superstition in my argument above.

If you'd like to actually engage what I actually wrote, maybe we can have a productive discussion. If not, I'll let you get back to your blog.

Have a nice day!

As trite and basic as the 'yeah but what about all the other gods' is, it is still a massive problem for your belief system.

You can't prove those gods aren't real any more than I can prove yours isn't real, and believers in those gods can't prove that they're real any more than you can prove yours is real, and all the arguments you might use to show that their beliefs in their gods are unsupported, apply equally to you and your god...

Not being able to answer questions like 'where did we come from', doesn't support your god's existence. Neither does you just believing it. The 'god of the gaps' argument is genuinely a problem for your beliefs, you have no answer to it.

And yes, you might as well be appealing to 'magic' because you can't offer any convincing evidence and if you can, why am I not convinced? If it's that trivially true and obvious?

If you’re confused why I said to become male, I mean it in the same way that Jesus meant it:
“Look, I will lead her that I may make her male, in order that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

It’s unfortunate that you weren’t alive back then to set him straight about how to properly communicate this stuff.

How so?

Why?

Right.

Right.

I don't recall ever postulating an argument that commits the "God of the Gaps" Fallacy. Do you recall me ever committing that fallacy?

It's outside of my skill set to figure out why you're not convinced that Jesus was and is who He claimed to be.

The existence of God is certainly not a trivial matter, in my opinion.

It's unfortunate that you weren't alive during any of the Ecumenical Councils. You could have explained to those dullards why the so-called "Gospel of Thomas" should have been considered canonical.

Doesn’t matter. Top-down belief systems aren’t meant to last. People only cling to their worldview if they don’t have good enough tools to navigate through the story. Better tools are coming soon enough.

Why not?

Why do you believe that?

How do you know?

Well, you brought it (the Gospel of Thomas) up.

The Francis quote above is ad nauseum about "he came from obscurity and 20 centuries later is the centerpiece of human life." Yet you contend that literally nobody is making the "most popular religion" argument. While YOU make it.

The religion is based on magic powers stories and superstition. Get real.

I am not making a "most popular religion argument"; I am making a "most powerful religion argument." Do you see the difference? If not, I would be delighted to explain the difference to you in a future post.

No it isn't.