first and final

[Guest guest]

Greg, all,

Certainly we can share our versions of God among ourselves. Certainly

collective versions should be shared.

All the tropes and notions of " religious talk " are subject to worthwhile

(to some) psychologization via symbolic, mystical, introspective, (etc.,)

generation of psychic and intrapsychic experiences.

***

Yet these questions of psychology of religion orient themselves around the

multipicity of religious experience rather than monological religion

because no one is in the position to demonstrate that the God of a

believers is also both, and firstly and finally, the God of all the

believers and all thee non-believers.

This is also true for the explicit conceptions of Jung and Freud and the

other system builders of psycho-dynamic psychology. This doesn't undermine

the way we talk about phenomena but it does stand as a conundrum and

constraint upon our presumption that our personal certainty has wider and

absolute application to the minds of others.

All encompassing faith tends toward fundamentalism. Why? One reason is

that one's own faith is more satisfying when it's pegged to first and

final truths. And, it's a matter of convenience to assert, as Jung did,

that one knows for certain just because one can state " I know. " Thus, it

is not surprising that this is all wrapped in the shell of 'objectivity'

and, next, that it matters a lot to many people that they are correct

while others, atheists, etc., must be incorrect.

Much harder to admit one just doesn't know.

regards,