I thought this was an interesting book review in Friday's Wall Street Journal. It's titled "Cries and Whispers" written by David Yezzi, reviewing the book "My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer" by Christian Wiman.

Cries and Whispers

From the book review:

I've posted here and in SMP about my view that, going forward, Faith for modern thinkers will become less about magic and more about a kind of poetic experience of spiritual truth. Nihilism fails. Our lives do matter. God is with us and the lesson of Christ's passion on the cross is that God is especially with us in our suffering.

I don't expect anyone here to agree with my view. I offer it only for your consideration. All replies are welcome.

PairTheBoard

I'd ask the same thing I am asking in the buddhist thread.

What about the people of this world?

I understand you have worked towards your own salvation, and probably feel you work towards others. So you have everyone's ultimate end worked out.

But on a daily level, we live in a certain social way that promotes unnecessary suffering.

Much of this world suffers, because of the ignorance of our cultures. Religiously does it HAVE to be this way?

Yes you must preach your religion over others, but should you have all the things you do while others do not? I realize everyone has Jesus and God, but you and your friends and family (mine as well) live in such a way that others MUST suffer.

Does God require us to suffer?

Should my daily routine be buy a bible, read a bible, chat on the Internet about the bible, attend church, buy things, watch entertainment.....while mathematically being at the expense of the suffering of the other half of the world?

To be simple and direct does God require you to live in such a way that the other part of the world suffers?

there is no scarcity with god

Romans 8:32
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

2 Corinthians 8:9
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

he is the reason we can be justified being such selfish monsters

I hate this question. It's not that God requires us to suffer, but that our existence requires us to suffer.

Now, before someone goes and accuses me of rejecting the creation version in Genesis, the fact is that Adam is told to "keep" the garden and protect it. To defend and protect and tend and care for. Think about the implications of that.

Did you get the words defend and protect from 'keep'?

Not sure if this i supposed to pertain to my question, or if its just random stuff. I don't see how 'us' have been given all things. Some have many things that others do not. Some suffer incredibly while others are very wealthy.

Regardless, are we allowed to change this under gods command. Or should we be stuck with the good we have and others stuck with the bad?
I think poverty is a man made invention, does this suggest poverish shall remain that way, or should we fix that?

I am not looking for justification for being such a selfish monster, I would be appalled to hear that you are.

Can you be clearer or more specific about what you mean by this sense of "faith"?

Specifically, I don't have a problem with "poetic experience" (I would use the term "numinous experience"), but I am troubled by talk about "spiritual truths." What are these spiritual truths and what does it mean to have faith in them?

PairTheBoard -
"I've posted here and in SMP about my view that, going forward, Faith for modern thinkers will become less about magic and more about a kind of poetic experience of spiritual truth. Nihilism fails. Our lives do matter. God is with us and the lesson of Christ's passion on the cross is that God is especially with us in our suffering."



I had intended on just enjoying whatever opinions people might express in response to my OP without my commenting on them. I don't have all the answers and I don't think I'm very well qualified to do justice to the ideas I have in mind. I think they would be better expressed by a poet or artist. I am neither, having been trained in mathematics with a more analytic than poetic habit of thinking. I don't believe the ideas I have in mind are well suited to an analytic approach. Notice both the author of the book being reviewed in the WSJ link and the book reviewer are poets.

By "poetic experience of spiritual truth" I did not have in mind necessarily the experience of God's presence or what I understand a "numinous experience" to mean or one that involves the mystical or God or divinity in any way. By "poetic experience" I have in mind the kind of experience one might have reading a poem that draws you in, engages you, touches you, affects you and provides you with a new perspective. Similiar experiences might come from seeing a powerful film and coming out of the theater feeling somehow changed. Or being moved by a compelling piece of music, or good book, or striking painting, or maybe just hearing a well told story. For that matter, keeping in mind the Deadhead motto, "my life is my art", poetic experience might be found in even the most ordinary of life experiences. So I intend the phrase "poetic experience" to be understood more broadly than just the experience of poetry.

By "Spirit" I don't intend any magical or supernatural phenomenon. I think we understand what we mean when we talk about acting in a spirit of forgiveness rather than a spirit of revenge, a spirit of friendship rather than a spirit of enmity, a spirit of generosity rather than a spirit of miserlyness, a spirit of peace rather than a spirit of violence, a spirit of love rather than a spirit of hate. While I don't see anything supernatural in this meaning I do believe this sense of the word is a high level concept which is not suited to materialist reduction. I think it has real meaning and stripping it of meaning through ill conceived materialist reduction does not prove its lack of real meaning.

In my view then, spiritual truth is not communicated by propositions with definite truth values. Rather, spiritual truth is evoked in poetic experiences which have a sometimes subtle sometimes profound, sometimes temporary sometimes permanent affect on the spirit in which one lives their life. That spirit might very well be what I would call a spirit of Faith which sustains a person when he might otherwise dispair, which inspires strength and endurance through difficulties when he might otherwise tire and be discouraged, which bears good fruit like Jesus alluded to when he said, "you will know them by their fruits".

I imagine die hard nihilists and hardcore material reductionists disagree with the above view. But notice there is no mention of God or magical miracles, or the supernatual in any of it. So I imagine there are also Theists who reject the view as well. There are those who insist that Faith must mean belief in God and/or the miracles of holy books understood as having magically happened in violation of natural laws. God must be understood as an objective entity with a value of "true" to the proposition that he exists.

In my view God is not rejected. But as soon as we start talking about God we are necessarily speaking poetry. This was the main point of disagreement I had with Bunny when he was still a believer. He insisted we must understand God as I describe in the paragraph above. In my view, such insistence is an extreme lack of humility in the face of what native Americans called "The Great Mystery". In my view, the "God Poem" resonates with many people, evoking poetic experiences of a highly spiritual, life changing and life affirming nature. The God Poem evokes poetic experiences of spiritual truth for many people. But not for everyone. Others may find poetic experiences of spiritual truth elsewhere. Once again I return to the advice, "you will know them by their fruits".


Once again, I don't have all the answers and my presentation likely has shortcomings. If you find it incomplete it might be better if you try to fill it out yourself. If you simply reject it I respect your opinion and am not here to change it. Simply offering food for thought.

Thanks,

PairTheBoard

I don't have anything intelligent to add at the moment and I don't necessarily agree with you entirely, but I very much relate to the viewpoint you're expressing PTB

cheers.

I find a lot of musical truths in C#major.

I find a lot of culinary truths in pulled pork burritos.

I find a lot of scientific morality in f = ma

*NB my use of "truth" is not dependent on any truth-condition, and my use of "morality" contains no normativity.

I'm not sure which leaves me staring with glazed eyes at the screen more, the complexity of your posts or the hypnotic effect of your avatar.

No one suffers, cause he exists. Suffer comes from planning. Who gives up on planning (has faith), never suffers. The more you plan the more you suffer, the more you have faith the less you suffer. People suffer cause they don't accept their fate. Whoever accepts his fate, how could he suffer?
Even if we shouldn't accept this. Most of the time when ppl suffer, they still hang on on their live. This means that they are still gaining more than they do suffer. Otherwise they would commit suicide. But suicide commit only ppl who don't accept their fate at all.

I didn't say anything about this before, but I do find this a very counterintuitive reading of the lesson of passion. On the cross Jesus quotes the Psalmist and says, "My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?"



Where I think you go wrong is referring to this as "faith for modern thinkers." Like you I think these are all valuable parts of a good life. I also think for many religious people the value of faith is that it provides a sense of wonder or meaning that is valuable (this is also in part why they will strongly resist giving up their faith). The criticism that I (and other atheists) make is not about this effect of faith, but rather that the credulity of faith also leads many religious people to false beliefs about the world or to resist changing their beliefs in the face of strong evidence against them.

Of course, if faith were a requirement for having this sense of wonder or meaning, then perhaps it would still be worth the cost. But, as you acknowledge here, it isn't. We can also experience these things through reading poetry, listening to music, or even in the most ordinary experiences of our lives. So it seems to me that a better way of understanding this is that modern humans is that the experience of the wonder and meaning of a life without faith is becoming increasing prevalent (I'm here just assuming your descriptive claim about modernity).

I know what I mean when I use a phrase like the above--something like acting on the basis of being motivated by revenge, forgiveness, friendship, etc. If this is all you mean by "spiritual," then I am just confused--how are these motivations supposed to relate to "truth"? If you mean something else, I think it fair for me to ask you to explain what this other thing is.

Okay. I'm not fond of redefining "truth" in the way you are here, but whatever, you can define it however you want. I would phrase your definition as something like this: a "spiritual truth" is some string of words (or signifier or "icon" etc.) that causes you to have an emotional experience that is unusually strong and that has long-term positive effects on your life.

However, I hope you know that when I say of some spiritual or religious claim that it is "not true" or that I don't know what it means, that I am not using "true" in the same sense you are. So criticizing me by assuming that somehow your sense of "spiritual truth" is the correct sense of the word has yet to be shown.

Just out of curiosity, do you know why you refer to them as die hard nihilists and hardcore material reductionists rather than just nihilists and material reductionists? It is rather offputting...

I'll also note that I'm not fond of the argumentative style that seeks to imply that it is correct by locating itself in the middle of two differing, presumptively "extreme" viewpoints.

Surely you misspoke here. You don't really mean to claim that when we talk about God we are necessarily speaking poetry. Just as we can read even a poem for propositional content alone, we can also understand claims about God for their propositional content alone. In fact, it is undeniable that this is an important element of claims made about God for many religious believers. That is, they really do believe the supernatural magical stuff that you (and I) want to reject. Wouldn't it be extremely arrogant of you also to declare that this way of talking about God is not possible?

For what it's worth, I suspect that this is an inaccurate statement of Bunny's viewpoint.

I don't have a problem with people who find the "God Poem" beautiful or evocative. In fact, I probably go to church more often than most of the theists on this forum in part because I do find many religious rituals beautiful and meaningful. I do think it is a bit silly of people who find God as a poem to be beautiful to get upset when other atheists criticize the view that God is a real entity (not saying that you are). Of course, you might think they are missing the point, but since so many people actually do take God as a real entity, I don't know why.

Thanks for doing so. Please don't take my criticisms here as being a negative comment on your post, which I found interesting.

We also should not forget that there is a widespread in religion towards triggering desired esthetical reactions.

Some examples:

* Bible verses are often constructed to give a lyrical flow. The most extreme case is the King James Version where authenticity is willfully sacrificed for rhymes and thunderous language.
* Tribal religions that use rhytm and dance to invoke trancelike states, or spiritual ideas connected to the most powerful and striking local natural phenomena (predators, volcanos)
* Churches and temples which are constructed with very specific goals as to throw light, colorize light and steer sound and impose a feeling of "extranatural attention".
* Clergy are given elevated positions both socially and physically when delivering testament.
* Religion is often connected to power structures and authority. The chieftain must appease spirits, the king must be chosen by God, the war must be blessed.
* Religion is often connected to moral ideals that we hold in regard and opposed to moral ideals we dislike.
* Religion often takes in high levels art and craftmanship in the construction of buildings, icons, totems, jewelery, paintings, windows etc etc.

He could have a toothache.

Really though, for *human beings,* and not some hypothetical being-construct, suffering is a requirement of existence. The "problem of evil" is a problem of existence. I exist. I am thankful. I suffer. But I am thankful. There is no problem.

It's as if there HAD TO BE a Satan if there was to be an Adam. And Satan is there, in the garden, at the beginning of the story. There HAS TO BE death and war and illness and disease and plague and so on. There HAS TO BE mysterious quantum weirdness and contextual strangeness. Otherwise, we do not come into being.

So, God has to utilize all of the ingredients for the human recipe. And if there is to be salvation, God Himself has to sacrifice Himself. Therein is the story of grace and love, and why a man should be thankful, according to the Christian story.

In the Quran their is a passage:
Moses says: God please show me yourself
God answers: Never ever

If you find out why God did answer 'never ever', you will have your answer.

Can you cite some examples? Certainly there were flaws in the translation, but this is the first time I've heard this specfic criticism.

First things first; Pretty much all bibles share general gist. I'm not accusing any particular bible of presenting Christianity inaccurately. It must be understood then, that we are talking about smaller differences. KJV was made under the edict of the king (duh) who ordered English theology scholars to produce a bible that would unite the Anglicans and the Puritans. This isn't to say it was not in its time and impressive piece of work scholarly speaking - but it is at heart a prettified and politicized version of existing bibles, more so than the "revolution" it is generally believed to have been.

One essentially took existing bibles, glossed over some phrases that would upset opposing religious groups if one displayed preference, used archaic English and latinized language to make it seem like an "original" bible and applied poetry very, very generously.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...on-david-edgar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authori..._and_criticism

This sounds very little like your original criticism:

The first sentence (in the context of a criticism) sounds like an intentional attempt to mask or create meaning through word changes. In reality, that happens with EVERY translation from ANY language to just about any OTHER language. Differences in sentence structure and word meanings do not permit one to translate in a strictly literal word-for-word translation. If you try to translate the French phrase "I gave you the box" in an unbending literal manner, it comes out as "I you have given the box." Writing it in this form is not the same as constructing it to give a lyrical flow. It's *JUST* translating it. It always happens when you translate from one language to another, and that's it.

As for your second sentence, I don't see any of that in the article you linked. Maybe I missed it.

As I said, the King James Version has its issues, but I don't think your view stands as being a legitimate criticism.

I don't really get your post to compute.

You're not disputing that wording is changed to make rhymes and make the language more impressive, but you're arguing that this does not change the authenticity of the text? Obviously if the original texts are not constructed with such poetic rhymes in mind, this is sacrificing authenticity. Translating 14 different terms for ruler into "prince" might make for better reading, but it doesn't make for better translation.

On the same page - if I reconstruct what you wrote into a poem using 1800s prose, chosing rhyme and flow over words that match yours better - it should be patently obvious that I am sacrificing authenticity when I recreate your text.

Correct. Authenticity does not require strict literal translation.

Let's take Psalm 119:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...19&version=NIV

This is an acrostic poem. That is, each line of each stanza all begin with the same letter. Is it inauthentic to translate it in a way that does not preseve the authenticity of the poem because it is no longer an acrostic? If so, how do you propose translating it? If not, then what's your question?

Nobody has said authenticity requires a strict literal translation. Are you carrying out an argument with someone else? I have said they sacrificed authenticity. If you can't keep terms straight, this is useless.

As for the remainder if your post... I'm speaking about the translation of a Bible (or more correctly bibles), not a psalm.

I'm confused. I thought you were saying that phrasing things so that the flow more smoothly in the output language sacrifices authenticity. So my question at this point is to try to determine what you mean by authenticity. It seemed that you were pushing the idea that because the translation wasn't strictly literal, that authenticity is lost:

By choosing rhyming words (ie, not taking the strict literal interpretation of the words), you're saying that authenticity is lost.

Does your argument necessitate its application to the Bible as a whole document, or would the argument move forward in a similar manner when applied to a subset of the Bible?