June 5, 2008

Again belated notes for you folks!

Thanks to all who came by in May. We had a mix of old timers and newcomers at the last meeting. Welcome to all and hope we haven't scared you away! Congrats to Uriah Carr for winning the copy of "Socrates in Love" at the last meeting (and not "Six Questions of Socrates" as I had intimated. I might bring another book this month.....

We did not talk about "what is conciousness" at the last meeting. Instead we discussed the nature of sacrifice, specifically should Jesus's crucification be considered a sacrifice. The assertion being made was that since Jesus received everlasting life in return for his life, isn't his a false or hollow sacrifice. And if this "supposed" sacrifice is the crux of Christianity, doesn't this make Christianity misguided.

I started by asking "what is sacrifice?" This led to our starting definition that sacrifice must be loss without reward. It was suggested that the essence of Christianity is sacrifice without reason. We wandered through the Crucifixion as a ritualized sacrifice, a story without historical evidence but establishment of a metaphysical dogma, ie the true nature of Jesus's sacrifice is to free ourselves of the illusion of sin. Likewise, the idea of good vs evil is another metaphysical dogma to bring a higher order into an apparently capricious universe. From this arose an extended discussion about the strains of thought (Stoicism, "Paulism", Neo-Platonism via Augustine, Nickabee, Leibnitz, Bonhoffer) that have made Christian philosophy what is has been and what is it today. (I will not even pretend to understand these intellectual underpinings--just that it was fascinating. Although if we persist in argumentation through appeal to authority, I may require footnotes!!!)

This led us into a discussion of what is rational in terms of a belief system, comparing two threads of Christian thinking: a rational approach through Neo-Platonic dialogue or the theistic, non-rational approach of Paul. Mention was made of the South Pacific cargo cults [http://en.wikipedia.o...] who had at least observed evidence of American planes making cargo drops, even if the next step of worship and practices to please the Gods for more cargo drops may not be rational. (Perhaps Christianity or other major religions are cargo cults to an even more technologically-advanced spacefaring race!)

One of our last thoughts was that the province of religion should be metaphysical underpinings and leave issues of ethics and morality to rational Socratic dialogue.

There is no question on the block for Sunday, June 15, as far as I know although he discussion went on long past my leaving. If anything arose from that, please post back.

-Bernard

What: Altadena Socrates Cafe
When: Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Where: Coffee Gallery
2029 Lake Ave
Altadena, CA 91001


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