极速赛车168官网 Comments on: I was an Atheist Until I Read “The Lord of the Rings” https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/ A Digital Areopagus // Reason. Faith. Dialogue. Sat, 05 Nov 2022 22:26:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 极速赛车168官网 By: Antonia https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-229165 Sat, 05 Nov 2022 22:26:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-229165 Outstanding article!

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极速赛车168官网 By: Jonathon Davies https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-196679 Thu, 07 Feb 2019 07:12:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-196679 Good grief. I feel compelled to say, beauty can exist in a nihilistic universe. You're doing a disservice to your opponents here. "Lord, enlighten thou our enemies [...] we are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength." You describe a viciously reductionist atheism, but that's simply not representative of the way we atheists feel, which is pretty much the same way you feel. Perhaps I find human values a little more tragic, posturing before the void as it were, since I don't believe everything will come right in the end through God, but my values are still your values.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Andrés Mario Battistella https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-184417 Tue, 19 Dec 2017 19:25:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-184417 In reply to Steven Dillon.

A year later, but anyway... (sorry for bad english)
If gods have nothing in common each other, how can you call them "gods"? How can you speak of "gohood" or even "divinity" if that does not imply any common nature or essence? How can you speak of them at all (if the have nothing in common with anything, it's impossible to know them in any way)?
Also, how can be "oneness" or "unity" before "being"?
Think it a while: if you ask for "oneness", for example, you say: "What "oneness" IS? So you're referring it to "being", or better, to «esse» (I prefer the latin). That is a clear sign that «esse» is the most universal and common, and the absolute prior.
"Oneness" is not common for both "being" and "not-being", because "not-being" just is not, has no properties or nothing else, nothing in common with "being". There's no real distinction here, because there's only "being". If you say that "not-being" shares the "oneness" with "being", then you're treating "not-being" as "being", and so it's not "not-being".
It's understandable what I'm saying?

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极速赛车168官网 By: Steven Dillon https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174827 Wed, 08 Mar 2017 19:57:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174827 In reply to SJH.

This does become complicated. If you're interested in reading a brief, accessible primer on what I'm talking about (it's called "polycentricity"), you can't do better than this: https://henadology.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/wp32-butler-pp3538-version-2.pdf

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极速赛车168官网 By: SJH https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174826 Wed, 08 Mar 2017 18:58:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174826 In reply to Steven Dillon.

This is where I get confused with even the Catholic vision of the Trinity. If there are multiple gods and they are in relationship to each other then there is a who and a what. If they would speak to each other then they would define themselves relative to each other and as a what (god). If there is one God then he is it and there is nothing else. There is no other. Now this is where the Trinity gets complicated for me and why I felt you were describing a sort of trinity in your description of unity among gods. It seemed to me that you were describing one god represented in multiple persons all in union with one another but all individual persons.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Steven Dillon https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174825 Wed, 08 Mar 2017 18:39:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174825 In reply to SJH.

I guess I'm not sure what it means to say that YHWH just is if it is not to say who or what YHWH is. I mean, I'm inclined to say it is true of each God that he or she just is, such that the phrase "just is" means something different depending on the Deity.

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极速赛车168官网 By: SJH https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174815 Wed, 08 Mar 2017 16:40:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174815 In reply to Steven Dillon.

I may be wrong but I think I disagree with your assertion:
"Equating YHWH with 'is' will reduce to understanding YHWH as either 'who' or 'what' "
If YHWH just is, then there is no who or what. Who or what implies a relationship does it not? YHWH just is. We are defined by our relationships but God is not. If you eliminate all other relationships and all other beings then he still exists on his own. We use "what" and "who" to define God because we have to but it is not so for God.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Steven Dillon https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174762 Tue, 07 Mar 2017 18:20:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174762 In reply to SJH.

Equating YHWH with "is" will reduce to understanding YHWH as either "who" or "what": to say, for example, that Poseidon "is not" will either mean little more than that Poseidon is not YHWH, in which case "is" has been reduced to "who", or it will mean that Poseidon lacks being, in which case "is" has been reduced to "what."

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极速赛车168官网 By: SJH https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174760 Tue, 07 Mar 2017 18:08:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174760 In reply to Steven Dillon.

Would it be better to describe the Christian god as "is" as opposed to what or who? YHWH simply is "I Am". Not a what or a who but just is.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Steven Dillon https://strangenotions.com/i-was-an-atheist-until-i-read-the-lord-of-the-rings/#comment-174757 Tue, 07 Mar 2017 17:23:00 +0000 http://strangenotions.com/?p=6795#comment-174757 In reply to SJH.

The very question of “what” the Gods are involves ontology. Beings are “whats”, but Gods are “whos.” Because the Gods give rise to and ground being, they are not any sort of “what.” In order to transcend ontology, and speak about Gods we must speak of them only as who he or she is.

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