Harari is correct, even if he is just regurgitating Nietzsche (that's Neet-cheh, not Neet-chay Mr Klavan. He's German, not French). If you cut open our bodies, there are no rights. If we are meat sacks, then we are not valuable. Only God endows us with rights. There is no way humans can moralise themselves to the ultimate right and wrong because none of us can agree.
That's why we end up with political divides. Not because of Facebook. But, because one half has reasoned their way to truth and the other half knows rights are divine. The 'divine' side will end up the most united. The 'reason' side will divide themselves. It seems like the left are firmly in control, but it cannot last.
What Gets me is Atheists act (at least Online) like Believes are stupid. Now thee are Believers who are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, BUT I maintain it is your basic Atheists who is maybe not stupid, but ignorant. From what I have seen they don't know What Believers Really say and Why we say it.
As I see it, believers, putting the entire world in God’s hands, aren’t generally invested in the way the world works.
I work in HVAC and asked my pastor to show me the AC setup at church. He replied, “Oh I know nothing about that. Ask Dave.”
But boy does he know the Acts of the apostles.
As a believer, I want to serve others by working with my hands in the world, whereas the passionate believers I know spend all day praying and repenting.
(My Jewish friends are better than my Christian friends I should say)
"As I see it, believers, putting the entire world in God’s hands, aren’t generally invested in the way the world works."
One does not necessarily imply the other.
"As a believer, I want to serve others by working with my hands in the world, whereas the passionate believers I know spend all day praying and repenting."
Expand your horizons. Get to know More Christians. The Christians I know can Walk AND Chew Gum simultaneously!
Well, maybe it doesn't have to be "either - or." Maybe it should be "both -and." In other words, spiritual activities like praying and repenting serve an important purpose as do working with our hands in this world to serve others.
We keep searching for God in our restless hearts, some moments in our earthly lives we do glimpse the meaning of the Love we are intended for -birth of a baby is one! -and the glorious beauty around us. What a wonderful sharing of your gifts-these written insights are much appreciated. Thank you
"I consider myself a cultural Christian. I enjoy living in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith." Richard Dawkins
So, when Dawkins declares he is a cultural Christian, he is really saying he selfishly enjoys the benefits of the fruits of a faith he mocks from a God he disdains.
Wonder if Harari enjoys living in Hiloni, the least religious area in Israel.
I also find it hilarious that a man who operates purely on reason and believes human beings are a pure product of evolution and sexual reproduction is a homosexual. It completely contradicts everything he claims.
You got us all rockin today, Brother Klavan! So much truthiness, so much rightness, such an eternal perspective. Christ had a body, He went to weddings and feasts, ultimately he suffered physically and spiritually. Did not we come here to get a body, learn to master it and use it for good? The story goes that we could not progress without it. And do we really have to love the buffoons, the atheists and those people? It’s so easy to love like-minded souls. But you are right...and please don’t like me, it clutters up my inbox and feeds my vanity. Just love.
"Foolish people (and I won’t call out Yuval Harari by name because that would be unkind) believe that this meaning is pure fiction, a contingent set of values whose existence depends on our mutual belief. After all, material life has no meaning. You’re born, you grow old acting out your randomly evolved instincts, and you die. Anything else is an invented overlay."
It is unkind to single out a person personifying satanic buffoonery in the errant belief he’s walking a path never dreamt up before. So I would call out something more uplifting like “Yeehar hooray” , which sounds similar to Yuval Hirari but has more meaning and an expression of joy created by a truth in the moment, like a winning touch down or a winning basketball, and not a fake intellectual word salad uttered through a soulless husk bereft of any trace of humanity and its condition hopes , fear , desires and emotions.
It is as if the art of his deal was struck in the image of a Faustian god rather than the authentic one !
I’m sure Marlowe would agree that the path is more than well trodden every day.
Source; online Wikipedia.
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain and / or making a risky bargain with seemingly good intentions that goes terribly wrong.
Margaret Barker has uncovered things taken out of the bible by the dueteronomists. One is that in the first temple, the holy of holies represented past present and future. (higher law) Covenant Involves kneeling at altar in the present, while honoring the past, and hoping for the future.
Also you stole Kamala's counterfeit campaign slogan.....😯
I was at a dinner-cigar event last night (more like a cigar-dinner-cigar-cigar event), and it was a wonderful time! The outdoor venue was delightful, the weather was perfect, dinner was terrific, and the staff couldn't have been more helpful and polite. I even had my first espresso martini. I saw many old friends and made several new ones.
Can I find God in such a wonderful evening? Is there a way to have such an incredible time with earthly pleasures like Rocky Patel cigars and broccolini, yet still carve out a slice of spiritual grace at the same time?
Harari is correct, even if he is just regurgitating Nietzsche (that's Neet-cheh, not Neet-chay Mr Klavan. He's German, not French). If you cut open our bodies, there are no rights. If we are meat sacks, then we are not valuable. Only God endows us with rights. There is no way humans can moralise themselves to the ultimate right and wrong because none of us can agree.
That's why we end up with political divides. Not because of Facebook. But, because one half has reasoned their way to truth and the other half knows rights are divine. The 'divine' side will end up the most united. The 'reason' side will divide themselves. It seems like the left are firmly in control, but it cannot last.
Well said.
Atheists assume the world is material and follows physical equations. And they’re right.
Believers assume life is conscious, intelligent, truthful, and spiritual. And they’re also right.
What Gets me is Atheists act (at least Online) like Believes are stupid. Now thee are Believers who are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, BUT I maintain it is your basic Atheists who is maybe not stupid, but ignorant. From what I have seen they don't know What Believers Really say and Why we say it.
As I see it, believers, putting the entire world in God’s hands, aren’t generally invested in the way the world works.
I work in HVAC and asked my pastor to show me the AC setup at church. He replied, “Oh I know nothing about that. Ask Dave.”
But boy does he know the Acts of the apostles.
As a believer, I want to serve others by working with my hands in the world, whereas the passionate believers I know spend all day praying and repenting.
(My Jewish friends are better than my Christian friends I should say)
"As I see it, believers, putting the entire world in God’s hands, aren’t generally invested in the way the world works."
One does not necessarily imply the other.
"As a believer, I want to serve others by working with my hands in the world, whereas the passionate believers I know spend all day praying and repenting."
Expand your horizons. Get to know More Christians. The Christians I know can Walk AND Chew Gum simultaneously!
Well, maybe it doesn't have to be "either - or." Maybe it should be "both -and." In other words, spiritual activities like praying and repenting serve an important purpose as do working with our hands in this world to serve others.
“Let your light shine before men, so they should see your good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven.”
We keep searching for God in our restless hearts, some moments in our earthly lives we do glimpse the meaning of the Love we are intended for -birth of a baby is one! -and the glorious beauty around us. What a wonderful sharing of your gifts-these written insights are much appreciated. Thank you
"I consider myself a cultural Christian. I enjoy living in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith." Richard Dawkins
So, when Dawkins declares he is a cultural Christian, he is really saying he selfishly enjoys the benefits of the fruits of a faith he mocks from a God he disdains.
Wonder if Harari enjoys living in Hiloni, the least religious area in Israel.
I also find it hilarious that a man who operates purely on reason and believes human beings are a pure product of evolution and sexual reproduction is a homosexual. It completely contradicts everything he claims.
That is funny. In that way, homosexuality can only be rationally practiced among theists.
I assume he’s in a relationship with a man because he loves him. Presumably, he thinks that is just some evolved impulse and he’s rolling with it.
You got us all rockin today, Brother Klavan! So much truthiness, so much rightness, such an eternal perspective. Christ had a body, He went to weddings and feasts, ultimately he suffered physically and spiritually. Did not we come here to get a body, learn to master it and use it for good? The story goes that we could not progress without it. And do we really have to love the buffoons, the atheists and those people? It’s so easy to love like-minded souls. But you are right...and please don’t like me, it clutters up my inbox and feeds my vanity. Just love.
"Foolish people (and I won’t call out Yuval Harari by name because that would be unkind) believe that this meaning is pure fiction, a contingent set of values whose existence depends on our mutual belief. After all, material life has no meaning. You’re born, you grow old acting out your randomly evolved instincts, and you die. Anything else is an invented overlay."
Then Why, do Anything?
To avoid wrestling with the hard science of animal behavior, I find it useful to split off the soul entirely.
Consciousness, awareness, the spirit, is our part of God that has been born into this world, into a human body.
We cannot disregard the flesh entirely, since it was God’s will that we live through it.
Therefore, living by the spirit, we give ourselves with loving service, noticing and providing for the needs of others.
Life in the flesh is death, false, and life in the spirit is true and eternal.
Thank you, I really enjoy reading your letters back and forth. I hope one day you could turn these into a book.
It is unkind to single out a person personifying satanic buffoonery in the errant belief he’s walking a path never dreamt up before. So I would call out something more uplifting like “Yeehar hooray” , which sounds similar to Yuval Hirari but has more meaning and an expression of joy created by a truth in the moment, like a winning touch down or a winning basketball, and not a fake intellectual word salad uttered through a soulless husk bereft of any trace of humanity and its condition hopes , fear , desires and emotions.
It is as if the art of his deal was struck in the image of a Faustian god rather than the authentic one !
I’m sure Marlowe would agree that the path is more than well trodden every day.
Source; online Wikipedia.
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain and / or making a risky bargain with seemingly good intentions that goes terribly wrong.
All sounds very familiar!
Margaret Barker has uncovered things taken out of the bible by the dueteronomists. One is that in the first temple, the holy of holies represented past present and future. (higher law) Covenant Involves kneeling at altar in the present, while honoring the past, and hoping for the future.
Also you stole Kamala's counterfeit campaign slogan.....😯
I was at a dinner-cigar event last night (more like a cigar-dinner-cigar-cigar event), and it was a wonderful time! The outdoor venue was delightful, the weather was perfect, dinner was terrific, and the staff couldn't have been more helpful and polite. I even had my first espresso martini. I saw many old friends and made several new ones.
Can I find God in such a wonderful evening? Is there a way to have such an incredible time with earthly pleasures like Rocky Patel cigars and broccolini, yet still carve out a slice of spiritual grace at the same time?
I'd like to think so!
Short answer YES you can.
Yes! Yes! Yes!