Certainty vs Freedom?

God does not "compel" acceptance of his authority, or we would not be free. Thus, the typical atheist who asks for miracles in order for God to "prove" his existence is really asking for God to remove his freedom. But that is something he will never do.
--Gagdad Bob

I've encountered Bob's argument above many times and in many places, but I've never understood it. What kind of "freedom" is Bob talking about? I take him to mean that if God doesn't prove himself to us, we have the freedom to either believe or not believe that He exists, whereas if God did prove himself to us, we would be compelled by that proof to know that He exists. There would be no freedom to disbelieve that He exists.

Yet, why is it better to believe in something that may or, for all we know, may not exist than to know that it exists? I've never understood why God would prefer the former to the latter. In fact, it seems to me that He would prefer the former. That is, He would want us to worship only a God whom we know to exist rather than to worship one who, for all we know, may be an illusory God or even a real devil.

Moreover, it seems to me that even if our freedom to disbelieve in God's existence is removed by compelling proof that He exists, we would still have the freedom to either "accept his authority"--i.e., obey His commands--or not accept it, just as a child who knows that his human father exists can choose to either accept or not accept his authority. Why would it be better for the child to only believe that his father exists and commands him to act in certain ways than it would be to know that he exists and that he issues those commands? Can't the child still choose to accept his father's authority and obey his commands or to not do so?

So, again, why is it better to merely believe that God exists than it is to know that He does? And, it if isn't, why doesn't God "prove his existence"?

Gagdad At His Best

I never imagine that my life will change in any fundamental way, no matter what happens. I realize that the environment I live in is in my head, and that the only way to really change things is to change my head. Here again, this can be confused with solipsism or narcissism, but it's quite the opposite. I just mean it in a very concrete, experience-near sense. You must be very, very careful about the ideas you allow to take up residence in your head, because they will end up sharply limiting your ability to know the Real, which always transcends any idea you have about it. Life is impossibly rich, with hundreds of little daily pleasure that will pass you by if you do not heighten your awareness and hone your ability to appreciate them. Never imagine that getting what you want will satisfy you so long as you cannot appreciate what you have.
--Gagdad Bob

Quote of the Day

Locate your center -- your psychic being -- which is "behind" the empirical ego, and is the blueprint of your true self. It is like a bead in a celestial string that descends from God to you. Find the divine language, the logos, that speaks to this true self; in a sense, the two cannot be separated, for to find the idiom is to locate the Self. Then it's just a matter of deepening the conversation.
--Gagdad Bob

Who's The Man?

and now Obama, who doesn't even seem adolescent to me, just nothing. Not only is he of indeterminate developmental age, but of ambiguous "gender" as well. He has a pseudo-adult mind that can only recycle half-understood slogans he learned in college, and he seems devoid of any manly virtues at all. Like Clinton, he can only imitate them.
--Gagdad Bob

Gagdad--
Obama is devoid of all manly virtues? What virtues are those? Working hard and earning a good living? Being a devoted and faithful husband and loving father? Successfully raising a family? Playing a mean game of basketball? How is Obama any less a man than YOU? How is his "gender" any more "ambiguous" than YOURS? Who and what are YOU to denigrate Barack Obama's manhood? What "manly virtues" do YOU exhibit that Obama doesn't?

Elitist Quote of the Day

I don't want to write for the idiot masses.
Gagdad Bob

Quote of the Day

History is trying to get somewhere, and it is our job to help it get there.
--Gagdad Bob

Hypocrisy

There are so many idiots out there, such as Bill Maher, who take scripture literally, and then attack it for being so literal. As such, when he attacks religion, he is really attacking his own stupidity.
--Gagdad Bob

Don't all Christian churches teach that what the Bible literally says about the nature of Jesus and his purpose on earth is literally and not simply metaphorically true? If so, how is Bill Maher the "barbaric idiot" Gagdad says he is when he accurately characterizes the teachings of institutional Christianity and the beliefs of its members about Jesus?

I agree that there may be something "barbaric" about Maher's blatant mockery of Christian teachings. But don't we find the same "barbarity" in Gagdad's mocking attacks on atheists such as Maher and on Muslims? However, doesn't the barbarity lie not in the criticism of false or dubious beliefs per se, but in the disrespectful if not hateful treatment of the "children of God" who hold them? And when Gagdad disparages another for perpetrating the same misdeeds of which he himself is guilty, doesn't he compound his own barbarity with hypocrisy?

Wholeness

The more one becomes whole, the more powers one has at one's disposal, for wholeness counters the dissipation and fragmentation of profane living. A Whole Person is always a powerful person, both as a cause and an effect. A Whole Person is also "charismatic," in that his words and actions will have an existential "heft," since they are not alienated from the fullness of Being.
--Gagdad Bob

I disagree with much of what Gagdad says. But he sure seems right in the quote above. I want to be whole in the way he describes. I'm not sure how to get there, and it doesn't help that I have so little faith in my power to accomplish worthwhile goals, but I believe that he's right when he says: "I think it comes down to making a commitment on every level of one's being to make it so."

But after you've made that commitment, what specific path should you embrace with that commitment, and how do you know which one? Or is the nature of the path less important than the commitment? Will almost any path to wholeness, or, at least, a great many paths get you there if you pursue one of them with "all your heart, mind, and soul"?

Being Hard on People

Some people ask why I am so hard on certain unnamed bloggers, and that is why: because they assault the very foundation of conservatism, even if their intentions are good.
--Gagdad Bob

I don't know if I'm one of the "unnamed bloggers" to whom Bob was referring, but I do know that my conscious "intentions are good" when I criticize some aspects of political conservatism, just as I believe, or would like to believe, that Gagdad's conscious intentions are good when he criticizes those he perceives as "assaulting the very foundation of conservatism."

Yet, Bob and I differ on how we think people with good intentions that we perceive as wrong or misguided should be treated. Bob seems to think that he knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and that it's perfectly okay to "be hard on"--i.e., mock and disparage-- those who see things differently from how he does. On the other hand, I believe that we should not only strive to regard and treat everyone with respect as a fellow human being and as an instantiation of the divine, no matter how much we may disagree with his opinions and actions, but also that our best chance of helping everyone to find the whole and full truth is to treat everyone respectfully, no matter how much we disagree with him. This may help to open his heart and ours to dialog rather than keep us ensnared in oneupmanship put-downs and debate, and dialog is a pathway to the whole and complete truth.

I believe that there is truth in political conservatism, an example of which is that values are more important than liberals acknowledge in determining people's behaviors and economic, emotional, and spiritual "prosperity." But I also believe that there is truth in political liberalism, an example of which is that government can and should play a larger role than conservatives acknowledge in creating optimal conditions for the broadest spectrum and greatest number of people to develop values and find the other means necessary to achieve the aforementioned prosperity.

But if conservatives keep being "hard on"--i.e., keep insulting and vilifying--liberals or "leftists," and liberals keep being hard on conservatives instead of each affording the other enough kindness and respect to open-mindedly and open-heartedly communicate with each other, then each side is going to miss out on important truth and to needlessly ensure that rancorous if not destructive disagreement and conflict never ceases.

I believe that if someone has bad intentions, we can criticize or oppose his beliefs or actions without vilifying him as a person, even if it would be pointless to try to dialog with him. But if someone has good intentions but believes or does things we regard as wrong, not only should we treat him respectfully and kindly as a person even if we oppose what he says and does, but it may also be constructive to engage him in dialog.

Yet, how can we do this if we're caught up in "being hard" on him?

A Loving God?

Gagdad Bob quotes and agrees with someone named Spengler who writes:

"The empty and arbitrary world of atheism is far closer to the Muslim universe than the Biblical world, in which God orders the world out of love for humankind, so that we may in freedom return the love that our creator bears for us. Atheism is an alternative to Islam closer to Muslim habits of mind than the love-centered world of Judaism and Christianity."

Yet, I seriously wonder how any thoughtful person can see the Christian God as loving or the Christian world as "love-centered." For why would a perfect God create anything at all, since his perfection would have him needing nothing in order to be perfectly fulfilled? And why would a loving God create a universe or, at least, a world filled with so much inescapable human and animal suffering? What's more, if human souls are immortal and capable of suffering everlasting torment in hell, how could one even begin to believe that a God who designed the universe with this possibility could in any way be considered anything other than monstrously cruel and hateful?

The Spengler quote, like conventional Christianity itself, paints God as the supreme and supremely sadistic egotist: "I give you life so that you may love me, even though I don't even deign to prove to you that I exist, but if you don't love me, I let you be tortured for eternity in a dungeon set aside just for the likes of you, and I let you and countless other people and creatures suffer unspeakable injustice in this life as well."

What kind of "loving" God is that? About as "loving" as the Reverend Fred Phelps.

As for God giving us the "freedom" to "return the love that our creator bears for us," this would be laughable if not so pathetic! How are we "free" to love a God that most of us don't even know exists and have outstanding reason to believe doesn't exist? And of those who believe that God does exist and that they will go to heaven for embracing him and to hell for rejecting him, do they have even as much "freedom" to reject him as does someone confronted by an armed robber who says, "Give me all your money or I'll blow your brains out"?

Finally, when one looks at the vast majority of self-professed Christians, does one see them as "love-centered"? Even if they don't spew the twisted hatred of Fred Phelps, they seem no more loving than most other people of other religions or no religion.

It continues to amaze me how human beings can use their intelligence to rationalize belief in a "loving God" that is neither loving nor the least bit plausible.

Comforting Falsehood vs Discomforting Belief

A Raccoon would much prefer to live and struggle in the light of Truth than in the realized darkness of a false illumination.
--Gagdad Bob

Gagdad Bob says (or implies) that he'd rather know a bleak truth than believe and embrace a bright falsehood, no matter how happy he might be with the latter and depressed with the former. I'd like to say I agree, and, in principle, I do. But when principle runs smack dab against hard reality, it doesn't always remain intact, and I'm not even sure it always should.

For suppose the truth, or what you take to be the truth if you let yourself, is so bleak that, if you believed it, you'd be a miserable wreck for the rest of your life. And suppose you could believe, instead, in a glorious falsehood that made you joyful to be alive each and every day. Which would really be better, and which would you prefer?

To take one extreme example, suppose the truth, or what you took to be the truth, were that the universe was made by a monstrously malevolent god and that when we die, each and every one of us will suffer unspeakable agony forever, and there's absolutely nothing we can do in this life to prevent it. Would it be better to accept this horrible and terrifying truth than to believe the comforting falsehood that a supremely good and loving god made this universe and wants us all to join him in his blissful abode for all eternity after we die? It's difficult to see how it would be, Gagdad's idealism notwithstanding.

And, when you come right down to it, how many of us would really choose discomforting truth over comforting falsehood or, at least, comforting unjustified belief? Take Gagdad, for instance. I'm not sure what he actually believes about god and our relation to god, but he does appear to believe in some kind of divine being or reality that is supremely intelligent and good, the existence of which we (or, at least, some of us) can know with absolute certainty. Does he believe this because he has ample grounds for doing so, or does he believe it because he finds it more comforting to believe it than not to?

I'm not suggesting that he consciously chooses comforting belief in something he knows to be false or dubious over discomforting acknowledgment that there truly is no god, or, at least, no solid justification for believing that there is. Yet, he claims to know with absolute certainty that there is a such a god, and I think maybe this is because he subconsciously chooses to value comfort more than truth.

I suspect that most of us, including yours truly, do the same, even though we don't know we're doing it. We want to think that we're pursuing truth and that the truth we've found or think we've found just happens to be more comforting than alternative falsehoods. But is this because reality is actually as comforting as we believe it to be, or is it because we won't allow ourselves to see it any other way, even if it is another way?

One Diagnosis for Humankind

I'm a psychologist. I carry a badge. I diagnose individuals. But it is said that a prophet diagnoses mankind. Thus, if you look at the DSM, there are, I don’t know, a couple of hundred different diagnoses. But if you look at the Bible, or the Upanishads, or the Tao Te Ching, there is only one diagnosis, which is that human beings live in falsehood, alienated from the Real. They habitually confuse what is ephemeral and valueless with what is transcendent and of eternal value. With his consciousness either compacted and "frozen" or exteriorized and dissipated, the spiritually untutored man is hypnotized by appearances and wanders from sensation to sensation until falling into the abyss at the end of his daze, wishes to ashes, lust to dust.
--Gagdad Bob

Elaborate Falsehood

You need rudimentary intelligence to understand a simple truth and average intelligence to deny it, but superior intelligence to replace it with an elaborate falsehood.
--Gagdad Bob

I know (or, at least, know of) a guy who's absolutely brilliant and stunningly erudite. What's more, he has a one-of-a-kind blog that features some of the best writing I've ever read. And I'm blown away by the fact that he sits down every morning and composes dazzling entries about spirituality, theology, philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, and popular culture with virtually no planning. It just flows out of him onto his keyboard and into the blogosphere like a Mozart symphony. You may think I'm engaging in hyperbole, but I mean what I say. I'm tremendously impressed by this man's intellect and writing art.

There's only one problem. A lot of what he writes strikes me as the "elaborate falsehood" of a man so smart that his cleverness overwhelms his good sense, and he really believes the systematic nonsense he posts. I guess I'm just not smart enough (or dumb enough) to get taken in by it. But I continue to enjoy it much as one might revel in a great, brilliantly told fairy-tale.

All Are NOT Created Equal

Anyway, when I discuss politics, I try to do so by relying upon intrinsically true cosmic principles that can have no expiration date. One such principle -- from which all other political principles must flow -- is that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Once you reject this principle, all kinds of political mischief follow.
--Gagdad Bob

All people are not created with equal abilities or opportunities to pursue happiness and achieve the successes that Gagdad and many others of similar persuasion naively (or disingenuously) say we are. And I believe that when we reject this obvious fact, all kinds of political and economic mischief follow. I agree that people who are struggling should do more to help themselves to succeed. But I also agree that government can play more of a legitimate role in empowering people to do this. Gagdad, with all his intellectual brilliance and education, may not need much of this kind of help. But not all of us are "created equal" to Gagdad Bob.

Becoming the Ones We've Been Waiting For

We will become the ones we've been waiting for only once we become more like the One who's been waiting for us.
--Gagdad Bob

I agree. But who or what is "the One" who's been waiting for us? Do we find it in a Judaism, Christianity, or Islam that is not so esoteric as to be unrecognizably Jewish, Christian, or Muslim? And do we find it in Gagdad's One Cosmos unless we look very hard and overlook a lot of what we find there?

Is He Serious?

One can have rhetorical skills, like Obama, which conceal an intellect that is mediocre, or poor rhetorical skills, like President Bush, and have a superior IQ.
--Gagdad Bob

Career Choices and Concerns

After I posted my previous entry, someone wrote to me privately to say that it was difficult for him to fathom how a person who writes as well as I do could have the kinds of learning impediments I say I have. However, he went on to suggest that I may want to look for a different kind of job that is better at downplaying my non-verbal weaknesses and at tapping my verbal strengths. But I wonder what that job would be.

He recommended that I try writing for publication. I have to admit that my dream job would be to make a good living from writing. But that seems totally unrealistic. Look at Gagdad Bob. He's brilliant, erudite, and an amazing writer. Yet, to hear him tell it, he can scarcely give his remarkable book One Cosmos away even though it's been praised by reputable reviewers and discussed with him in What is Enlightenment? magazine. If he can't make a living off his writing, how can a far less intelligent, learned, and gifted writer such as myself hope to do so? How many people, no matter how talented they are, make a living writing philosophical or "spiritual" nonfiction or, for that matter, anything else?

No, I need to do something else for my livelihood, even if I can somehow find the time to write on the side. I've chosen medical coding as my career goal for three reasons. First, it's predominately verbal. It consists of analyzing the diagnoses and procedures that healthcare professionals perform with patients and the supplies and equipment they use in their rendering of services to those patients into their appropriate numerical or alphanumerical codes. For example, 43820 is the CPT code for a surgical procedure called a gastrojejunostomy. Coders need to know enough about medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, and the practice of medicine to find these codes quickly and to apply them accurately in the right order and form to any healthcare scenario.

My second reason for choosing medical coding is that I've had an interest in the medical field ever since I was a kid. Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby, Medical Center, and much later, St. Elsewhere, ER, and Chicago Hope have numbered among my favorite TV shows. I couldn't be a doctor when I was a boy, but fictional doctors from the small screen were my role models of intelligent and selfless service to humankind during my formative years. Maybe I can't be a doctor now, or a PA or nurse, but I can possibly have some involvement in the medical field by working with doctors and other healthcare professionals in a supporting clerical capacity.

Finally, I chose medical coding because it's a pretty solid job. The pay isn't stellar, but it's not too bad. And if you can work for a big healthcare system like U.C. Davis or Kaiser, you probably have about as good a job security as you could hope for.

However, it undoubtedly comes as no surprise to my handful of regular readers that I have acute concerns over whether I can succeed as a coder. I have several not insignificant factors working against me. First, I'm accurate in my coding, but I'm also very slow. In order to be hired for almost any coding job, one must pass an exam that requires speed as well as accuracy. Moreover, in order to be hired for the better, higher-paying coding jobs, one must pass a national certification exam where, once again, speed is essential. I don't know if I can ever get fast enough, no matter how much or long I practice. And even if I do, I don't know if I'll be fast enough on the job to carry the workload expected of me.

Second, there's my age and startlingly unimpressive background. If I were hiring coders, I probably wouldn't choose me from a pool of qualified applicants. Why would anyone else?

Finally, I don't know if I'll be able to learn the job. If I'm struggling helplessly to learn the system and my relatively simple duties in the file room, what chance do I have of learning the more complex computer and other operations required of a medical coder? Realistically speaking, I may have a better chance of becoming a bestselling author than I have of succeeding at a medical coding career, and the odds in favor of the former seem infinitesimal in their own right. Unless I can grow a new brain that works the way it's supposed to, that is. Or, perhaps, one of my dear readers would like to do a brain exchange with me. No, I'm not malevolent enough to inflict that inequity on anyone.

So, I really don't know what to do other than keep doing what I'm doing and working in the file room as long as they'll let me while studying on the side unless and until I'm able to get into coding. I'll be talking about that with my vocational rehabilitation counselor and a job coach later this week and with a neuroscientist next week. If I learn anything new, I'll probably be writing about it here. In the meantime, I'd like to thank the person who wrote to me privately and Night Stranger for their words of encouragement. And I'd like to wish a blissfully happy holiday season to all.

The Seven Year Itch

"Reality is what you are not in control of -- or, to put it another way, what you must take account of. If spiritual growth is predictable and certain, then it's again probably just your ego expanding."
--Dr. Robert Godwin

Gagdad Bob says he read a book years ago entitled The Astrology of Personality:

The main thing I remember from it was his idea that our lives run along cycles of seven years, and that each seven year cycle is a fractal of the others. In other words, the cycles are self-similar on a deep level, so that, for example, we will encounter the same basic challenges and conflicts in each seven year cycle, only in a different "key," so to speak.

I remember charting out my life at the time, and sure enough, I could see that major transitions and upheavals had taken place in my 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th years (i.e., when I was 6, 13, 20 and 27). Rudhyar also mentioned that a compete cycle is 7 x 7, so that a 49 year cycle is a complete analogue of the seven year cycle. Thus, just as seven years marks a kind of birth/death, so too does the 49th year.

I am not big on any kind of numerology. However, when I examined my own life, I could see that it too exhibited some rather major changes that fit pretty neatly into seven year cycles.

For instance, I lived in the same house with my grandparents and mom until the age of seven when my mom remarried and she and I moved out and lived with my stepfather in Mountain View and then Los Altos. This turned out, I believe, to mark a climactic break with the life I had known.

I entered high school at age fourteen, which marked a significant break with life in elementary and junior high school.

I moved with my grandparents to Redwood City at age 21 and spent the next 30+ years there going through numerous ups and downs.

I returned to college at age 28, which occasioned some pretty big external and, more importantly, internal changes.

My latest cycle, from age 49 through the present, has been my most significant one. My grandmother died. My girlfriend moved out. I met my wife-to-be. I worked full time. I got married. We sold the house, bought a house here in Sacramento, and moved here. I finally made a trip to Thailand. I returned to school to study medical billing and coding. And now I am seeking a career in the health information field.

It is really quite interesting how my life can be divided so readily into these seven year cycles and how it virtually began anew around age 49. I am nearing the end of my eighth cycle now. I wonder what my ninth cycle will bring, especially now that I will be self-conscious of it.

So THAT'S What It's About!

Gagdad Bob interpreting the Wizard of Oz for his young son:

Son, you see, it's all an allegory of the Great Depression. The black and white world of Kansas is a symbol for America at the time, and the 'Wicked Witch of the West' is the evil capitalist, Elvira Gulch, who 'owns half the county' and rules over the 'little people.' The whirling cyclone is the great revolution that will lift everyone into the false utopia of a worker's paradise, run by leftist charlatans such as the Wizard. The Tinman is the helpless and dehumanized industrial worker who will link arms with the farmer, represented by the Scarecrow, to overturn the capitalist order. But Dorothy proves that a heavy-handed state is not required, as she possesses all the resources she needs to succeed in life. She is the American Spirit, reborn and awakened from the bad dream of leftism, now able to appreciate the simple beauty of America, in spite of the hardships.

Poetry and Scripture

Gagdad Bob was inspired by my recent posts on the Bible and poem deafness to write about "scripture and revelation." I'd like to address some of what he said today.

I am not going to provide a link, because I don't want to needlessly embarrass the person or make them feel self-conscious.

I wouldn't have written about it in the first place if I felt unduly embarrassed or self-conscious about it. Besides, my humble blog could have used the publicity. :-) On the other hand, I don't need a bunch of true-believing proselytizers either.

Basically, the dilemma has to do with an integral-type person who says he does not comprehend Christian scripture, so he must reject it.

I don't "reject" it in the sense of resolutely concluding that it reveals no important truths. But I DO wonder what truths it may reveal and how we can know what they are.

He is particularly appalled by Old Testament stories of God expressing his frustration and disappointment with mankind by effacing them from the planet and starting over. Viewing the situation in wholly humanistic, rationalistic, and literal terms, this person can find no possible justification for God's act of mass-killing. And if we interpret this story in an allegorical way, who's to say that we can't interpret everything else in the Bible in such a way, including, say, the resurrection of Jesus? So this person has jettisoned Christianity entirely, in favor of a more abstract and impersonal Buddhistic notion of God.

What justification IS there when the story's taken literally? What compelling allegorical meaning does it have about any true God? Why should we interpret Jesus' resurrection literally? Do we need to interpret it literally to be "saved"?

Now interestingly, in a subsequent post, this person may have provided a hint of insight into his own spiritual infirmity -- indeed, if that is what it is -- by pointing out that he has never in his life been able to comprehend poetry. He doesn't believe this equates to stupidity, since he certainly understands plain English and has no trouble expressing himself. But when it comes to poetry, he either derives no coherent message or a flat and literal one. He cannot intuit the specifically poetic sense of the poem, which obviously rises above the literal.

This is an excellent summary of my difficulty, except that I said it appears to be true of "most" rather than all poetry I've encountered. I guess the same goes for the Bible. I don't seem to grasp the inner truth of many of its verses, but I think I may understand and even resonate with some of them.

For the whole point about scripture, as far as I am concerned, is that it is not so much the "word of God" per se. Rather, I see it as a message from man to man -- a divinely inspired message from man's higher self to his lower self, expressed in a language that the lower self can comprehend.

If scripture is inspired by God and is "man's higher self" speaking intelligibly to his "lower self," what relation does "man's higher self" have to his "lower self" and to God?

if scripture were purely in the language of the celestial realm from which it arises, man, as he is presently constituted (and certainly ancient man) would not be able to comprehend it.

If man's "higher self" wrote it, didn't it translate this writing from the "language of the celestial realm"? That is, didn't it already understand the "celestial language" before it could express it in scriptural language? If so, why does it need to translate the "celestial" language into something simpler? Why does the "lower self" need to understand it, and can it understand the "celestial language" in any meaningful way from reading the simplified translation?

How do we respond to the person who rejects the entirety of scripture based upon this or that seeming absurdity?

Speaking for myself (and I suspect for many others), I don't "reject the entirety of scripture" based on "this or that" dubious literal passage. I acknowledge that if one looks hard enough, one can probably find "meaning" in virtually every biblical passage, much the way one can "find" objects or even an entire story in every Rorshach ink blot. So, I don't necessarily "reject" any scripture. What I do is question whether parts of scripture that seem incredible on a literal level should be taken that way, even if they're officially supposed to be, and, if some fundamental parts that are supposed to be taken literally are exceedingly dubious when taken that way rather than as allegories, what this means for the entire faith. For instance, if one can legitimately doubt, even if one can't outright dismiss, the unique divinity and resurrection of Jesus, how should this affect our interpretation of scripture as a whole and our allegiance to any Christian church's teachings?

When Scripture is envisaged in its totality it imparts global value and its supernatural character to whomever is not blinded by any prejudice and who has been able to preserve intact the normally human sensibility for the majestic and the sacred."

I may be somewhat "prejudiced" against taking ancient stories of miraculous people and events as actual history, but I don't know that my degree of prejudice in this regard constitutes pathological "blindness." Rather, it seems quite prudent. But what I'd really like to know is what "global value" and "supernatural character" is "imparted" to someone capable of "envisaging" scripture "in its totality." What does this graced person understand about God and Jesus, and how does he feel and live?

Thus, we might say that the "poetic sense" is analogous to the "musical sense" of the sophisticated listener who is able to pull together all of the diverse musical connections as they are deployed in time (i.e., melodically) and space (i.e., harmonically)...While I am unable to appreciate either opera in general or Wagner in particular, that doesn't detract from the deeper point that I am trying to make about scripture and the poetic sense.

If the "poetic sense" is, indeed, "analogous to the musical sense of the sophisticated listener," and most readers of the scripture are no more sophisticated in their poetic sense than most musical listeners are sophisticated in their musical sense, just how well does scripture speak to the "lower self" of most of us, and, if it's truly "divinely inspired," why doesn't it do a better job of speaking to most of our "lower selves" than it seems to?