What if Judas didn't do it?

[Belacqua]

I'm not a Christian.

I apologize, Belaqua, I thought you were.  I stand corrected.

No problem. I understand that the things I talk about can lead a person to that conclusion.

I'm an artist. A while back I got a PhD in the philosophy of art, and my dissertation was on how different artists' theology determined the way they painted. As you can imagine, this led to me reading an enormous amount of theology. I ended up getting frustrated by how a lot of people on the Internet oversimplify Christian theology, or at least speak of it as if it is only the simplest, most fundamentalist variety.

[Objectivist]

I apologize, Belaqua, I thought you were.  I stand corrected.

No problem. I understand that the things I talk about can lead a person to that conclusion.

I'm an artist. A while back I got a PhD in the philosophy of art, and my dissertation was on how different artists' theology determined the way they painted. As you can imagine, this led to me reading an enormous amount of theology. I ended up getting frustrated by how a lot of people on the Internet oversimplify Christian theology, or at least speak of it as if it is only the simplest, most fundamentalist variety.

That must have been a lot of reading.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I also think that God's consciousness, for the Scholastics, wouldn't fall easily into the idealist/realist dichotomy. As with God's "love," or God's "desires," the words don't mean what they mean when applied to humans. 

As I understand it, for finite temporal creatures, consciousness is always consciousness of something. This requires two things: the being who is conscious and the object of that consciousness. 

But since God includes everything, there can't be an object of consciousness separate from him. God's consciousness is just existence itself. 

Though I realize there is a lot of diversity in how different Christians address this. I wonder if Berkeley, for example, would be vulnerable to Rand's criticism. (Which is not to say I agree with it, necessarily.)

No Belaqua, you don't get to say that God is this or God does that because one of the many implications of the primacy of existence is that Christianity can not be true so you can't come along and assume the Christian god exists and that its consciousness is different from "finite, temporal creatures" as if there were any other kinds (to exist is to be finite).  No, that's the end of Christianity.  It's over, at least if you accept logic and reality.  One can claim anything one wants about imaginary beings but the primacy of existence principle is what separates fact from fantasy, the real from the imaginary, and true from false.  It's the ultimate razor, cutting fraudulent worldviews off at the root.  Christianity begins by declaring metaphysical subjectivism.  Therefore it is false.  There, I just proved that Christianity is false.  If you accept logic then you must accept this and move on.  Not that I think you or any other Christian will.  Christianity has been exposed and you should really warn your fellow Christians not to steal concepts like true, objective, rational, logical, etc. that have in their genetic root the POE.  

If God existed and it was true that there "can't be an object of consciousness separate from him" then God is not conscious.  Such a notion would commit the fallacy of pure self-reference.  It would be a consciousness conscious only of its own objectless awareness, and that's a direct contradiction.  Consciousness can only ever be a secondary object.  That is that we can observe our own conscious awareness but only after we are aware of some eternal object.  

Actually, there is a way for Christians to overcome this devastating razor.  Just say that your belief isn't rational but you believe it anyway because you want to.  That would be consistent.

You're spiking the ball on the 40 yard line. Try doing some actual metaphysics instead. I will gladly consider your opinions once you start doing the heavy lifting required get from your first-person subjective experience to knowledge of a reality external to yourself. Until then your Randian jesticulations repulse me.

[Silver]

Knowledge of a reality external to oneself, if it has a deity attached to it, is the precise first-person subjective experience mentioned in the same erroneous thought process. There is no objectivity to the theistic concept of a deity, or first cause, or something bigger than oneself.

[The Grand Nudger]

Goodness. While rand did try to form a worldview with objectivity at the center, you don't have to subscribe to a randian worldview to make these observations, nor would rands worldview being repulsive do anything to alleviate the trouble that positing a fundamentally subjective metaphysics creates. It's silly to blame rand or rands repulsive worldview for christianity having stepped in shit all by it's onesies - or for your own failure to have ever looked into it.

Ultimately, though, these are issues with logical coherence..and do your beliefs about god really require that god to be logically coherent?

[The Architect Of Fate]

You're spiking the ball on the 40 yard line. Try doing some actual metaphysics instead. I will gladly consider your opinions once you start doing the heavy lifting required get from your first-person subjective experience to knowledge of a reality external to yourself. Until then your Randian jesticulations repulse me.

Lol between the two of you, he's done the heavy lifting. 

[Belacqua]

Well, I guess we can work on this in more detail.

The following is from http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/primac...sness.html

The basic metaphysical issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy [is] the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness.

The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness—the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).

The source of this reversal is the inability or unwillingness fully to grasp the difference between one’s inner state and the outer world, i.e., between the perceiver and the perceived (thus blending consciousness and existence into one indeterminate package-deal). This crucial distinction is not given to man automatically; it has to be learned. It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute.

So, piece by piece:

The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness)

I suspect that all the atheists posting here are comfortable with this, more or less. We are pretty sure that if all the people and dolphins and other perceiving subjects dropped dead, then the universe would still exist.

This doesn't address what Popper called "World Three" objects, like numbers. Some people (e.g. Roger Penrose) think that numbers exist independently of our thoughts about them. So I'm not sure whether Rand considered such intangible objects to be part of "the universe." That's an issue that a Randian would want to address, I think, since for Platonists and other idealists, God, numbers, and other ideal objects can not be known through the senses, but exist independently of perception anyway.

Maybe Rand explains all this in her books. The summary I've quoted sort of skips over that.

that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity.

This, too, would need explication before we'd want to accept it. In what way does a thing have an identity or nature, as itself and not another thing, that exists when unperceived? Do all unperceived trees have the same nature and identity, or does each individual tree have its own? Does the nature or identity require physical embodiment, or do such natures exist as ideas?

The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward.

I can see that we have consciousness by perceiving that things not-us also exist. Husserl, for example, has laid out the stages which a newborn baby goes through, as it goes from being a sort of undifferentiated "I" to perceiving that it is separate from the mother, etc. This is big for Freud, too.

What the brief description quoted above glosses over is the whole Kantian "copernican revolution." This is the problem that our perceptions (mental phenomena) have a relationship to the things-in-themselves that are not simple or direct. In other words, what we know through perception is a mental image or interpretation, filtered through sense experience and mental categories. Anything that appears to our consciousness has always already been interpreted. And the degree to which these interpretations are consistent across all animals of the same species, or vary depending on culture, is an open question.

Then to get from mental phenomena to something that deserves to be called "knowledge" I think requires more steps. Most atheists these days probably want something like the scientific method -- fitting accumulated sense data into an interpretive framework or theory that can be tested against other observations. So, OK, "looking outward" is required, but I don't think it's sufficient.

Then there is the larger question of where "outward" is. Like it or not, I am a part of nature. If I believe in the primacy of matter, then I have to believe that my physical brain is necessary for my mental activity to happen. And my physical brain is a physical object among all the other physical objects -- my mind is not some kind of pure spark that is independent of the "outward" world.

Also I think it is possible to have something deserving of the name "knowledge" about matters that are not received through the senses. Math, for example.

So that all gets a bit tricky. And that complicates the following:

The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness). [Rand rejects this possibility.]

So where is "inward," exactly? Is it not also a set of mental phenomena which are created by the physical brain? I'm guessing my "inward" self would consist of memories, interpretations I've formed about the world, my likes and dislikes, that kind of thing.

I do believe that I can gain a certain kind of knowledge by reflecting on these things. Is there a hard and fast boundary between this set of mental phenomena and the ones that come to me from "outward"? I think the line is kind of fuzzy. I don't only get knowledge from things that are CURRENTLY in my line of sight -- I abstract knowledge from things I have sensed by remembering, interpreting, and analyzing them.

The source of this reversal is the inability or unwillingness fully to grasp the difference between one’s inner state and the outer world, i.e., between the perceiver and the perceived (thus blending consciousness and existence into one indeterminate package-deal). This crucial distinction is not given to man automatically; it has to be learned. It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute.

I'm not clear yet on what this absolute difference is between inner and outer. Is my consciousness of my left foot inner or outer? Is proprioception inner or outer?

Again, the "outer" gets into the "inner" by a path that isn't completely direct or simple. Are the nerve impulses in my optic nerve outer until they form a mental image, at which time they become inner?

The web site quoted above continues:

Observe that the philosophical system based on the axiom of the primacy of existence (i.e., on recognizing the absolutism of reality) led to the recognition of man’s identity and rights. But the philosophical systems based on the primacy of consciousness (i.e., on the seemingly megalomaniacal notion that nature is whatever man wants it to be) lead to the view that man possesses no identity, that he is infinitely flexible, malleable, usable and disposable. Ask yourself why.

I suspect that a lot of atheists who accept the primacy of existence won't be comfortable saying that this automatically leads to the recognition of rights. No doubt Rand explicates this in detail elsewhere.

Nor do I see that Idealism, with or without a Supreme Being, necessarily leads to the view that I have no identity, that nature is whatever I want it to be, and that I am infinitely flexible, malleable, usable and disposable. Neither Plato nor Aristotle (who wouldn't agree with the primacy of existence, as Rand states it) would say that people are without a nature or that we are infinitely changeable.

So I grant that it's not fair for me to take such a brief summary and pass judgement on it. I would need a lot more explication as to why these assertions are true. But I think that gives an idea of why we aren't ready to accept Rand's ideas when they're simply asserted as fact. As thinking people we deserve to have the dots connected so that we can see WHY we are supposed to accept these things.

[Silver]

I've never paid enough attention to Rand to form an opinion.

[The Grand Nudger]

The difference between the poe and the poc is whether there is a reality per se.  It's that simple.  If there isn't - if we assert the poc...then we lose coherent use of concepts grounded in a reality per se.  We lose reality.  We lose facts.  We lose objectivity.  We lose valid logical inference.  There is no such thing.  Conceptually, there's nothing wrong with affirming the poc and denying the poe so long as we're careful to avoid employing terms and concepts and systems which would depend on that which we've rejected.

The poc leads to the view that you have no identity because identity is a part of reality per se. What you are, and what you aren't. These are claims to facts. Lets use me as the grand nudger. There is no reality, there is..instead, whatever I happen to apprehend (however I do it in this realityless existence). You think you're human. I think you're a cat. Guess what. You're a cat. You might think "but I'm clearly a human, there is a demonstrable difference between me and a cat. You can see that we have disparate biology!" No you don't. Biology and discrete sets are a part of reality per se. There is no -real- difference..and even if there seemed to be some superficial difference that convinced you you weren't a cat..I could change that, and change your perception, at a whim.

No objective fact -of anything- can be grounded in fundamentally subjective metaphysics. There can't even be such a thing as true or false. It is meaningless to discuss these things, having already rejected any reality per se in favor of the primacy of consciousness, of subjectivity. IMO, theists who screw the pooch on this one do so because they don't realize that a single source of subjectivity is being laundered as though it's single allegedly almighty source made it objectivity.

Here's an even more amusing problem that arises from affirming the poc and rejecting the poe. God loses his omniscience. God knows nothing. God can know nothing. There is nothing to know.

[Fake Messiah]

Judas is necessary to the narrative because otherwise it reads "And then Roman soldiers nabbed him and tacked him up." Clearly that was a major problem for the early Roman church, so they concocted some convenient excuses like Judas and the trial at the Sanhedrin to insulate themselves from what their own troops and politicians had done. Or what they had done according to the early Christian mythos. They make no sense whatsoever once you think about them but that's never been the strong point of the faithful. Blaming the Jews was easy and that little blood libel has cost a lot of lives down through the ages.

Yeah, that is the most interesting if not the most obvious answer. Romans whitewashed mythos and blamed the Jews, especially if you consider that modern translations give his name as “Judas,” in actuality, his name in all NT documents is Judah (Ioudas); basically, “Jew.”

Although it doesn't talk about Judas as a character and I guess from the point of theology/ Christianity, but I guess it is useless because it is all made up. Especially when we see that Christians and other "experts" have nothing to say about this topic, but blabber about something else.