Quite so!
The possibility for non-dualistic thinking seems like a direct descendant of the original transgression
I think science has demonstrated that the old style of dualistic thinking is a bad habit which stands in the way of understanding things better. Effective dualism is much more helpful â because then you also explain the reason for the dualism.
Science has applied this to many things in the natural world by showing how most phenomena are different forms of one (or fewer) thing(s) like the phases of water, atomic elements, and the many different forms of energy. We can apply this to the mind-body problem where we have an effective dualism due to two different forms of life (processes of self organization in two different mediums). Applying this to the spirit-physical duality in theology is more difficult since the spiritual is not measurable and the best we can do is speculate â but I think it is still possible.
Probably from me since I have explained this before numerous times. Would be thrilled to find someone else has suggested this however.
This connects up to my opposition to the book of Enoch and opposition to the idea of a rebellion of angels at the beginning. I think this makes hash of theodicy and the problem of evil. At least, I would have difficulty believing in God according to those ideas.
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Has it? It is reducible to a question of whether events objectively happen.
Yes. I explained how.
I have no idea why you think this has anything whatsoever to do with dualistic thinking. Perhaps you should explain what you think âdualistic thinkingâ means or consists of and then how the question of whether events objectively happen is connected to this. The idea is so bizarre to me, it suggest this is entirely dependent upon your philosophy which I wouldnât know or have to accept, and I very much doubt you can find it in the Bible either (which is not the same as using the Bible to prop it up â something people do with many many different philosophies).
What comes to my mind when someone says âdualistic thinkingâ is dualism in the mind-body problem which describes mind and body as two completely different orders of existence making it difficult to explain how the two interact with each other at all. Dualistic philosophy is described as the mind consisting of a non-physical substance, which doesnât agree with scientific observations and thus I think this is unsupportable. It doesnât mean there isnât a spiritual aspect to reality since as I suggest above one can speculatively employ effective dualism for that as well.
Nondualism includes a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize the absence of fundamental duality or separation in existence.
Sam Harris talks about it as overcoming the subject-object distinction, hence my point about how it is really reducible to whether events objectively happen.
I assumed that non-dualism is what you were referring to by this statement:
It is amazing to see people think Jesus was happy to quote fictional accounts as historical like Jesus had no idea what happened. Evolution is destructive to the Gospel. The enemy is death. Jesus died to overcome the enemy. Death did not create Adam. Adam brought death into the world. This is not some minor event that is allegorized, stolen from other cultures, written about by dozens of supposed writers, then Jesus spoke of it historically but knew it was allegorical? Good grief, can we twist logic any further than this? As if Jesus, the all man all God, did not know the history of His creation. Jesus was there at the foundation and he quoted His eyewitness account. Evolution is debunked, but people want to believe it as it lets them discount the foundation of Godâs plan for man, who we are, and who He is. Then, we can pick and choose the Bible verses we like. The Gospel is reduced to God is Love and God saves everyone. That is a false Gospel. God is love AND God is justice. Sin is a big deal to God, but evolutionary thinking reduces sin to almost nothing and allows introducing abject abominations into false churches. Evolution hangs on a mere thread and the real researchers know it and willingly suppress science to protect the religion of naturalism. Class | NavigatorsWay
No. I was referring to a simple fact of scientific explanation which has repeatedly shown how apparently different things are actually the same thing in a different form.
It showed how ice, water, and steam where the same molecule with different thermal energy. This is much more powerful explanation because it explains where the differences between these different states come from.
Before we had this idea of everything composed of four different elements: fire, air, water, and earth. But a much better explanation was the atomic elements each composed of the same three particles: proton, neutron, and electron.
And then we found that nearly everything (light, heat, motion, sound, matter, âŚ) was different forms of the same measurable quantity we call energy.
The point is that things which seem very different can be explained quantitative differences in the same thing to make an appearance of dualism when it is really one and the same thing. It strongly suggests that this is much better means of explaining things in general. Not there are no dualities but that the dualities often can be explained in terms of a more fundamental unity and that this has a great deal more explanatory power.
I was not so familiar with this and looking it up shows too many variations for this to have anything much clearer. But a particular focus was non-dual awareness which I didnât find very appealing. The last thing I would be interested in is any downplay of the distinctions between things. I would complain of that being just defeating good explanation as one which simply assigns thing to separate categories of existence. The point of effective dualism is not to erase distinctions but to show that the differences between things can have explanations for the differences.
What do you mean by âfor this to have anything much clearerâ?
non-sequitur. People can quote fictional accounts even when they know what really happened.
Incorrect. Anti-science creationism is destructive to the gospel, Christianity, and mankind.
Incorrect. The enemy is sin â our own self-destructive habits.
Death is a natural part of life and life would not exist without death no more than light can exist without darkness.
Incorrect. Adam brought separation from God into the world, and since God is the source of eternal life it can thus be said that Adam brought death into the world in that sense.
Your interpretation of Genesis is not an event, but pure fantasy more like those in Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter with no connection to reality.
Nobody twists logic farther than the creationists do â to the point of outright lies and blatant dishonesty.
Jesus never spouted the lies of the creationists, not even once.
Creationism is debunked. But people who want to use Xtianity as a tool of power over people will never let science inform us about the world around us because they want to be the ones telling everyone everything as if they were assigned by God to speak for Him.
Yes you can do this like the creationists do. But I prefer to read the whole Bible as it is.
You cannot reduce the gospel to the latter because it just isnât there in the gospel, nor do the teachings of Jesus agree with this. God is Love, because God chooses love and freedom over power and control, no matter how much those using religion for power donât want to believe this. But that freedom means people can choose against God just as they can choose against the truth and support lies like creationism. But no doubt these users of religion for power donât like that either. The only freedom they want is their own freedom to be the ones who dispense salvation, and the choices of other people do not matter to them at all.
No such passage in the Bible. This is a different gospel. God is love and God is truth (and that IS in the Bible). The most the Bible says about God and justice is that the Lord is a God of justice, but not that God is justice. And I certainly believe that what God gives to all is perfect justice.
Incorrect. While this was the preoccupation of the Pharisees seeking to keep themselves undefiled. Jesus went around with sinners because that is who he came to save.
The correct understanding isâŚ
Sin is a big deal to the sinner because it will destroy them.
Ahh⌠what you mean is that it takes away your pretend authority to dictate what is a sin to everyone and thus threatens your use of Xtianity as a power over other people.
Nonsense. I am a physicist, but none of the things in physics has accumulated the quantity of evidence which evolution has. It is the theory with more evidence then any other and it is now used as a part of everyday life in the practice of medicine and technology. The effort of the creationists to imitate the communists in this idea of repeating their lies over and over again will fail just as the communists failed because the truth will always win.
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What is non-dualism?
How about you explain it.
At least that way, we will know what you think you are talking about.
You are doing what you accuse YECs of doing. You are setting Scripture against science, not Evolution but another recognised branch of Biology, namely Ecology. I know Ecology is not part of Evolutionary theory, I have often commented about things that Evolution does not easily accommodate in that area, but Ecology is real. it is now. And it is very well documented and understood. The cycle of life and the intertwining of lives and deaths is something you need to understand if you want to claim things about death.
Richard
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I still donât think you understand what my comment was referring to
I asked first⌠I really donât understand what you are trying to say there
And I answered your question.
You asked what wasnât made clear to me.
And the answer to your question was that it was not made clear to me what non-dualism is.
Are you perhaps no more clear about what non-dualism is than I am?
And then there is thisâŚ
This doesnât explain your comment either. Making a connection like this to something Sam Harris said is pretty weird. What has that to do with anything I said?
So⌠I guess you have explained your reference ânon-dualismâ which is not what I understodd at all. But we still lack an explanation of why you think this has something to do with the misuse of Godâs gifts.
Ok⌠got it nowâŚ
If an event objectively happens then non-dualism is false
Go and ask a non-dualist if an event objectively happens. In some way, shape, or fashion they will say the event can appear objective, but ultimately it is not an objective happening.
Sounds like solipsism to me. If you are right, I guess some of the ânon-dualistsâ believe something similar.
I think our access to objective reality is somewhat tenuous or indirect, but I also think we have excellent evidence from science that an objective reality exists.
I answered that as well.
I do not demand that you agree with me, unlike some.
Contrary to popular opinion, there is not one faith. There is one church, and one Lord, but there are myriads of variations in faith, and that includes how Scripture is read and understood.
Richard
You may want to heed the advice of one of your fellow creationists:
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It is based on independent observations 
therefore the event ultimately and objectively occurred.
But can an objective event ever be considered to be uncaused? This is rhetorical and off topic, so feel free to disregard