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Pastimes : The Philosophical Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (108)	7/31/2005 9:24:12 AM
From: Rarebird	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26251

I would define Christianity as the desire for an eternal happiness. I respect Christianity as a great metaphysical vision of the universe so there are limits as to what I can say here in terms of critique. I took a philosophy of religion comprehensive in graduate school and had to study the great Saints of Roman Catholicism, such as Augustine, Anslem, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockam, etc; in order to pass. I have studied all the Catholic proofs for the existence of God and the Lutheran, Kantian and Existential refutations, including the Nietzschean view that God committed suicide based on human activity in the world. Although I am very much interested in philosophy of religion and in theology to a lesser degree, I do not practice any religion and look at life primarily from a human secular point of view. Twenty five years ago, I published a long paper on Kant, where I traced the development of the death of God in Modern Continental philosophy starting with Descarte through Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. There are many other great metaphysical visions of the universe which contradict the Christian view. So, I must say from the outset that Christianity is only one of many great metaphysical visions of the universe. That is to say, Christianity does not possess a monopoly on the Truth. <<there are simply to many reports by mystics throughout the ages {all the same} and even near death experiences etc documented by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other clinically trained people to deny the divinity of life.>> Think for yourself. It is not wise to trust someone else's vision, especially a mystic. How do you know if what these people saw was true? Did you see what they saw? How do you know if what you saw was just based on your desire to see it ahead of time? Many others have seen nothing.