Where Is Heaven? A Response to Sam Harris
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- A clip surfaced of Sam Harris from a recent interview he did on Triggernometry where he expressed incredulity about the apparent absurdity of the idea of “heaven”, given that we have telescopes and satellites that have never observed it. In this video I respond to that sort of literalism and confusion about what heaven means from an ancient and symbolic perspective.
Original interview of Sam Harris on Triggernometry: Sam Harris: Trump, Religion, Wokeness: • Sam Harris: Trump, Rel...
My tweet and the clip of Sam Harris: PageauJonathan/st...
- Orthodox Arts Journal: Most of the Time the Earth is Flat, by Jonathan Pageau: orthodoxartsjournal.org/most-...
- Orthodox Arts Journal: Where is Heaven?, by Jonathan Pageau: orthodoxartsjournal.org/where...
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Start
00:01:45 - Intro music
00:02:10 - The ancient worldview
00:03:05 - Heaven and the invisible
00:06:55 - Earth
00:10:34 - Perception and analogy
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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.
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Sam Harris finally went full Reddit mode 😂😂
More like SHAM Harris..
He's always been full reddit mode tbh
For at that moment he was euphoric.
Tumblr king
I hecking love science 🧬
I made the same argument Sam made literally when I was in kindergarten. My reasoning was that God can't possibly exist because there's no oxygen in space, so even if he is up there, he must be dead
I am sure space suits. Or at least deepsea diver pressurised body suits existed in the olden days. Perhaps your kinder teacher put the science book out of your reach.
@@VaughanMcCue You do realize you're arguing with a 6-year-old?
@@bananas1220
We are on the same level of development in that case. If that breathing god does have lead diver's weights, we should stay indoors. 🤿
exactly! Harris' arguments are so childish
Always enlightening, thank you Jonathan. I wish the American Protestantism most of us knew in our youth as "Christianity" had the capacity for this. Many intelligent people could've skipped a very embarrassing atheist phase if their Christian friends had answers like these to a question like "where is God, exactly?"
The problem with that question, and the reason most couldn't answer it satisfactorily is that it really doesn't make sense in a dualist paradigm. It only makes sense in a materialist paradigm.
You might as well have been asking "where is the number 5" or "why can't we square a circle". The question is so absurd as not to have elicited any thought.
Haha amazing comment bro
Is this a problem of Protestantism?
@@leondbleondb no, it's a problem of materialism.
@@leondbleondb I think this fits into some protestant thought, just most protestants aren't wired to think like this
It is quite honorable to patiently give intelligent answers to stupid questions x)
This is how a mature individual conducts himself. Don't ask me how I know that. The takes one to know one truism doesn't apply in my case. Johnny boy is salt of the earth, that's all I can say.
Digital Gnosis channel has a lengthy response to this video, they didn't find Jonathon's answers too intelligent..
☝🏽
@@mostlydead3261 I honestly don't have time to watch a 5 hours video when I don't even know if the people are serious, and looking at the comments they don't seem to be "Repeatedly saying utter jibberish" "Justifying [...] anti-progress views" I'll read their book if they write one 🙃
@@mostlydead3261 digital gnosis isn’t too intelligent…
Sam said a lot of ridiculous stuff in that interview but what he said about Heaven was absolutely hilarious... I can't believe that actually came out of his mouth.
Gentle reminder that the majority of atheists are midwits.
Fedora tipping 15 year old atheist level commentary from Harris. Harris's writings on morality and ethics are far more illogical and vapid than the strawman he gave. He attempts to argue for objective secular morality. It's sad.
Sam Harris is fading with Modernity
@@ethanb2554 Good let him
@@ethanb2554 Like other charlatans turned into "public intellectuals," Sam Harris works for CIA/Mossad. He's not the only one. He's not "talking about ideas." He is paid to slander Muslims and Christians to perfume the stink of US/NATO warring. I once worked for the US State Dept. I "guess" less than TV watchers.
I always think, "why don't we see heaven through the telescope?", is a lot like asking why we don't see ourselves playing the video game when our character looks up.
🤨
Brilliant comment.
@@enzocompanbadillo5365 nah
I don't know Sam personally and I have not read his work. I have just seen some talks and interviews. Based on those I feel that when he talks about religion, at least sometimes, he doesn't seem to come from a place of love, as in wanting the good for the other, but rather from a place of resentment.
Because, as far as I can tell, is he is the epitome of the arrogant "intellectual" who believes all the worlds problems comes from the "stupid" people, including those who believe in God (superstition to him), and the world would be a better place if everyone tried to be like him or at least shut up and let the "smart" people run things.
This is where his TDS comes from. He thinks Trump and those who follow him are to dumb to do good and will inevitably destroy everything.
It's the hubris of the Athiest "intellectual" who can't see past his own ego.
His mother's were the lesbian creators of The Golden Girls. He was raised to hate Christianity and religion as a whole.
Thats not really true. I think he is a good person in that sense. Although he might have resentments zowards certain people... we all do tbf 😂
I think Sam Harris reveals the religious nature of the devout atheist. He came off as very mechanical and closed minded when he talked to Jordan Peterson.
Harris' take on the Biden scandal is the single most obvious display of "atheist" faith. He forgives the "small" evil of Hunter Biden for the greater good of the faction he's on side with. This very act presupposes the existence of a metaphysical value hierarchy, which is a spiritual principle. Harris's neck is too thick to facilitate his looking down at the body which carries him, or up at the principles which puppet him.
Opposites are not different in kind; they are the same, only different in degree; Harris' disposition can apparently be expressed in these different ways; I am convinced that in a different universe, Harris is exactly the obnoxious strawman that he keeps attacking.
He does come off as mechanical sometimes. That doesnt really change the value of his arguments though...
@@youlig1 as value can subjectively vary between individuals , then I agree.
This video was wonderful; but I don't understand why we feel the need to dignify Sam with a response at all anymore, since he's basically gone fully into uncharitable troll mode. But I get it, we all do what Sam does to varying degrees, whether by petty resentment or lazy/inherited habit. Its good for us all to be reminded of the broader reality of these things! So basically, thank you Sam! 😉and Jonathan!
It's helpful regardless because it's a good summation of this that can be watched by literalists and materialists as an introduction regardless.
I've run into this with people I know when we talk about Christianity to others and they're fundamentalist perspective undermines them as they try to explain that God is outside the universe looking into it like we do a fish bowl. As the video explains, their language isn't wrong, but they're applying it as literal totally comes off foolish to those they're trying to evangelize to.
I've seen the reaction when I take my turn and try to explain this as best I can and see the difference in reaction. People get it, they're just not used to having it explained to them and are used to expecting the fundamentalist perspective.
A problem today is, to use Pageau's example, there are less ignorant aunts today and more people that can grasp this sort of thinking now, but much of Christianity's cultural paradigm is stuck in the old pattern.
This angers me at church where Protestants effectively do what they are outraged the Catholic Church does, horde Scripture and understanding of it. Sadly, they seem to do it out of pessimism that most can understand what's being said, which is a worse reason than the Papacy controlling things tightly to stop the proliferation of dangerous heterodox thinking.
re dignify with a response
For there to be 'good' or 'correct', there needs to be a 'bad' or incorrect'. Also by including whatever it is Harris said, this person may be hoping to win over fence-sitters with his arguement, just as in a debate.
I always used to use the line "...a sophisticated concept of God, as opposed to new atheist xyz, who thinks Christians believe if they ride a space shuttle far enough they'll look out the window and see an old man on a cloud"
_this was supposed to be a sarcastic caricature_
They're mostly exposed to American mainlines, who I suppose have a childish view of theology...and then the New Atheists take that childish view of theology and misrepresent it further in order to set up bad faith strawmen to apply not only to the mainlines, but to all Christians, and also often Islam and other religions.
The new images coming back from space,in one of them an old man is spotted saying I never said don’t eat pork,or mutilate your genitals
you won't??? Well shucks.
When a team wins a championship they all put their hands in the air and jump to the sky. The losing team falls to the floor and hangs their head. Thats the reality of heaven and hell. Good is up and bad is down.
Where is that vintage point from which one could discern the value of up and down? Where are we when we can say that up is corrupt and down is auspicious?
@@paradissimon4063 When you say that up is corrupt you are inferring that it is collapsing. That the corruption is its downfall. When you say that down is auspicious you are inferring that its conducive to upward mobility.
If up is corrupt and down is auspicious then the value structure of the world is inverted.
Maybe you could provide an example to elaborate in case I’m missing the point.
@@paradissimon4063 low hanging fruit that’s easy to get to and the fruit that’s up higher and requires work and risk to reach.
@@06rtm How can we discern that a king, so high up in the hierarchy, is bad?
Surely we don't see his height from the same point of view from which we see his goodness, otherwise we couldn't discern them. In that case, is good up?
As you proposed, maybe the value structure of the world and the arrangement of the world are two separate things, such that we can say that the value structure of the world is inverted.
But what is that vintage point from which we can see that the values are inverted? Somehow we need to step away from the plane of values AND the plane of things. What a strange place to be...
@@the2ndcoming135 Thats really good
Not the most shining moment. Yet it prompted an illuminating talk. Thank you, Jonathan.
There is absolute zero chance Sam doesn't know that the literalist "sky daddy" version of God atheists joke about isn't what most Christians actually believe. He deliberately chose to act like a smarmy ass to mock billions of people because he felt like it.
But he does. He even brought it up in his talks/debates with Peterson.
Peterson tried to frame a more sophisticated idea of Heaven to Harris (like Jonathan is here) and Sam's immediate objection was something along the lines of "yeah but most Christians don't think that, they think (the more literal thing)".
He has extreme prejudice and disdain for the common religious follower who is not an "intellectual" like him.
@@dragons_red And I believe in "the more literal thing" as it believed every christian (and Church fathers, and apostoles) till modern age.
I think you're right, the problem with Sam is that he genuinely doesn't seem to understand more sophisticated takes on religion
@@dragons_red in regards to the common not seeing everything. My response would just be "that gate looks a little more narrow each day." Aim for the keyhole , because nobody goes through a door.
Sam Harris is the newest in a long line of the genetic and philosophical tradition of the Pharisees. He has incentive to hate God and actively chooses to do so.
"Show me the scientific evidence that scientific evidence isn't enough."
and perhaps more to the point for Sam and his worldview: show me the scientific evidence that scientific evidence _is_ enough
What was I supposed to say that’s satisfying? It’s about the Death Star?😂
"Are your children merely illusory bags of meat that are not actually conscious, and you only care about them because of superstitions based in your genetic similarity?"
Man, materialism really has made us dumber.
Exactly. Materialism makes no sense of anything, least of all consciousness; it only gives an appearance of explanation, but it's based on spurious premises and assumptions which are predicated on our modern secular culture and scientism.
Forgive me. I'm now getting my feet wet in all of this. I'm trying to understand what he is saying. Is he saying that our ancestors used heaven as a representation of a hierarchy of values. Jesus "the king" is both a man but also is a symbol of the top of the hierarchy of values?
@@matthewgardner1473 both a representation and the reality.
@@PsychoBible Sorry. Not sure I understand. Just for my understanding, let's assume I'm trying to navigate my way through the world. In order to do that, I must establish my own value hierarchy of values. How can I look to Christianity to help guide me and teach me as to how I should construct my own value structure? If Christ is a representation to an ideal hierarchy, what are those values?
@matthewgardner1473 Sacrificial love is one of them and the one Jesus displayed best (He died on the cross for our sins. The reality was he was an innocent man who was killed out of political expediency by the Pharasees. Everybody knew he was innocent but nobody cared and so on goes the story.). Humility, Charity (the Love of God), Prudence etc. In Catholicism we call them the Virtues. There are also the opposite of the seven deadly sins called the Seven Virtues. I recommend looking up Father Ripperger as he has a whole series on this.
Based on his consistent characterization of Christians as childish thinkers, I have reached the definitive conclusion that Sam is no longer (if he ever was) acting in good faith when he discusses atheism. It’s baffling how a person who is capable of thinking in complex terms with regard to other topics can only rigidly adhere to the most basic and concrete conceptualization s if anything approach inc metaphysics much less the concept of God.
I wish Sam all the luck in the world in finding a scientific basis for morality. If only it were that simple! It’s the definition of a fool’s errand. On the other hand, he could find himself at God’s doorstep at the end if his philosophical journey. Perhaps he should save himself time and read chapter 1 of Mere Christianity?
I saw your profile pic and the first moment I thought "But I didn't comment on that video". Then I saw the name was different.
There’s way better things to read than Mere Christianity.
Maybe he should save himself the time and read any Orthodox book.
I think it’s possible to develop what you refer to as a scientific basis for morality. I’d say the western world is already doing so.
Take our current understanding of human psychology. We now know much more precisely what it takes for our brains to produce the chemicals that cause us to experience positive emotion. Positive emotions being something we can truthfully claim that most, if not all, humans consider purposeful in one’s life, and the life of human children..
With this knowledge, we can guide children, for example, towards lifestyle habits that steer them towards these positive emotions, on the basis these habits, and overall direction of the optimal way to live life, are healthy for the human.
Previously we might have relied on religious archetypes to steer society in a similar direction, but perhaps not as precisely as we can with science.
Such religious archetypes are still effective today, I get it. But here I can see a reasonable demonstration of how science can assist with a basis of morality.
My stance is that human well-being is the filter for how we should structure society and it’s culture.
Respectfully
@@LotusHart01 so, the first principle is human well being?
@@LotusHart01 that is very silly and illogical
I had this beautiful experience the first time I rode in an airplane. Little by little, my perspective changed, until the very dimensional quality of what I saw below was markedly different. It was something I’ll never forget.
Hmm I wonder if that feeling of dimensional shift you felt is similar to what astronauts feel looking down at the planet
I have a friend from east Africa and after his dad rode in an airplane he realized his religion (Orthodox Christianity) was all absurd nonsense.
Get em buddy, I was baptized in these atheistic heros before I saw the light. Now these arguments are so widely accepted despite being so trivial and it is nice to see some playful pushback. I appreciate ya. And cheers from TO
What helps me is to recognize the diversity of humanity. There were science minded people in the past and how they understood God was not literal but rather as a "prime mover" who setup the Universe and/or as "the nature of being" (something very close to Sam's near worship of consciousness). These people existed alongside the more literal (salt of the earth church goers) and metaphorical (Carl Jung) believers of religion and those to which is was experiential (song, awe). All these types used to sit together in the broader church. Secular modernity seems to have torn us all apart and we can no longer understand how these different types of people have different views of God, religion, politics, etc.
I screenshot this to learn as much as I can about this because its an extremely interesting comment and I hope its all true. I agree with what you're saying about Sam Harris, though wouldn't consider myself a Christian other than the fact that I try to align to what Christians call, the Logos. Is Christ the Logos? I don't think there is any way to answer that. At least, at this point I don't see how that could be answered.
How does this fit with YHWH, the very specific god of the tribe of the Israelites?
@@timelessperspective As Mr. Pageau was saying in this video some are able to see particulars (the stories of Jesus) and others see more abstractly (what is the Logos and ordering of the world). If you are having trouble seeing the truth in the particulars of the scriptures your mind might be better suited for trying for a more abstract and philosophical view on God and Logos.
@@LordJagd I am saying that different people perceive God differently based on how their minds work. I don't see how your question relates to that.
aristotle had that conception of God. Philosophers have felt that way about God for maybe thousands of years. I feel like these people who claim to be science minded kind of just take it literally so they can make others look dumb, while in reality they seem to not be able to interpret basic metaphors.
It’s really weird that Sam is still stuck in that crazy literal cartoon understanding of heaven, he’s an intelligent person, I don’t get it.
It's easier for big headed egos like Harris to use cartoon versions of anything, because they know that their followers are at that level who will adulate them accordingly. For us, that makes it super easy to separate out the wheat from the chaff.
Pride stops one from seeing the Word of God. Humble yourself and all will reveal itself
Pride block intelligence
It's because he is NOT an intelligent person... knowing that... everything becomes clear.
No contrition, no revelation
Wow, I was recently struggling with the idea of the bodily assumption of Mary. I didn't understand why it was necessary or why we should believe it happened. But this video made it click in my head.
Her body was necessary for our salvation. Her body was the body that brought us the incarnation. So it only makes sense that her body would "ascend" to heaven, her body is the New Testament holy of holies, and the new Eve. In the same way that our physical bodies descend from Adam and Eve, our salvation descends from the new Adam (Christ) and the new Eve (Mary).
It's like I knew all of this but couldn't fit it together. I hope I'm understanding it correctly
💯
Wow, that's so blasphemous and funny at the same time!
Not exactly. It’s not about Mary’s womb, that’s a lie from the Catholic Church which is anti christ in nature
While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:27-28).
It’s about the holly spirit. It’s about the seed.not the womb or he wouldn’t of said there is no greater born of a women then John the Baptist (Luke 1:42-45).. And Mary was born from a women
Jesus came in not by sin 🍆but the Holy Spirit into a virgin.
.See bc everyone comes through this world by the 🍆 as a sinner bc of our parents adam/Eve. Which Eve was made to be a helper to Adam not the first one to sin and get us all into this mess of sin but our parents didn’t know any better. That’s why we need Jesus or the second Adam. The Holy Spirit is known as the helper bc of Jesus Christ death on the cross. He left it for us that believe and have faith in him.
The holy of Holies in the 1 covenant is where God dwelt in the temple with the ark of the covenant. Now the holy of holies came to earth to show us the way truth and life it’s is in the human body’s heart. The bride of Christ where the Holy Spirit will make its home.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
But now I am going back to the Father who sent Me, and none of you asks Me where I am going. You are very sad from hearing all of this. But I tell you that I am going to do what is best for you. That is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help You until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you. - john 16:5-7
Hope this been clarity
Much love
I struggle with the same. Thank you for taking that angle and sharing!
@@foolfether No it's not. Please explain your view. Are you protestant?
I know Jonathan adresses here and in other places non-orthodox trying to show the depth of the Revelation but sometimes he seems to do it to the extent of excluding the literal/historical meaning of the Scripture. If you cosistently hold to that logic you'll end up being gnostic/docetic/jungian.
St. John Damascene on heaven (as in creation) and paradise (as in a place of dwelling/state living of humans):
"The heaven is the circumference of things created, both visible and invisible. For within its boundary are included and marked off both the mental faculties of the angels and all the world of sense. But the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, filling all things, and surrounding all things, and hounding all things, for He is above all things, and has created all things".
"Some, indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense , and others as a realm of mind. But it seems to me, that, just as man is a creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man's most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself".
Notice how he blends and doesn't separate the visible and the invisible, the heaven as a realm of sense and of mind. This "both and" structure is seen in the church fathers throughout their exgesis. For example, the truth/reality of the Cross and Resurrection is historical/physical, typological (prophesied through types in the OT), moral, anagogical, mystical (the way you experience your death to the passions and resurrection to the new life in Christ). Generally, church fathers viewed the historical as the foundation upon which other layers are stocked. There's only a couple of exceptions, one being the Song of songs. Moreover, if you recall the actual even of Ascension you'll see the apostles seeing Christ taken up physically into the heavens and Him fading away into the clouds. You could see it with physical senses but obviously He doesn't seat anywhere there in the same physical sense. Something similar is true for the Transfiguration, the event was historical, the apostles were taken physically to the mount but them seeing the uncreated Light wasn't through physical senses, rather eyes of the mind, but their bodies and senses still were somehow involved in the vision, this event is though quite different from the Ascension.
The Damascene's vision is so subtle and so steeped in the incarnation, someone like Sam Harris could not understand it. Easier to use the basic Heaven/Earth duality in such an argument.
What's the radius?
Which work is your quote from?
@@scottpreston3892 infinity
@@kekistanihelpdesk8508 wouldn’t that make the radius anything relative to a given object? In an infinite universe, there can be no objective center, except the center of a particular object (which can itself be delineated into various parts with their own central points and radii). Therefore each object would be, in its entirety, a unity unto itself, yet still a piece of a still greater unity of all things.
Dear Jonathan. This explanation is absolutely superb. Thanks.
I think this corner of the internet forgets most people are still at this point. In fact in America it’s probably a majority think in this paradigm
Very helpful, as ever. I watched this and Benjamin Boyce's solid critique of Sam Harris today.
There's also the element of heaven being beyond time, matter, and space. (Which already points to the limits of language in suggesting something spatial)... So these strawmen arguments positing heaven as a 'superthing', to channel PVK, miss that as well.
Dante makes this point clearly, as well. Just in case we are caught in space; hence, there are no levels. In a sense there is no ‘up’
Just plain simple reality. We are our unconscious. The conscious self doesn’t exist and neither does language. Language is just a tool. Dante knows the truth of poetry as music , notes playing off each other. That is the point of the logos. Communication is through reality’s lived patterns: experience. Jonathan’s great aunt doesn’t need philosophy. She embodies Christ. She is philosophy in the birthday cards she never misses sending to her family. She is the salt of the earth.
Amazingly stupid arguments were put forward by Sam Harris someone who supposedly is among the smartest and most "enlightened" among us. If there is one thing the last 2 years have shown me the experts are amongst the most stupid among us.
Sam's argument against religion is the same argument that 13-year-old me used to avoid going to church because I didn't want to wake up early. Literally has the vocabulary of both the 50-year-old neuroscientist and the most intelligent 12-year-old in the room. Completely embarrassing, didn't need to be dignified with a response. It was patient of you too even try to explain to this guy how wrong he is, because he's in a position where he can and should know better.
To know better would be to pick a religion. To pick a religion is to give credibility to a book (or series of books) over all anothers. You would have to assume you've found the real one and that coincidentally you both happen to be exposed to the real one (usually by your parents) and that another more real one isn't out there.
For me the 1979 song Heaven (by the Talking Heads) largely conceptualised to me why such a thing could not exist, even if this 27 minute video tried to explain what "exist" really means 😄
I enjoy this guy's videos generally and even, to a degree, this one. But honestly this ramble to me is no different than telling me science cannot prove how the Sharman calls the rain.
@@user936 your chain of logic is unreasonable. first, you don't have to pick a religion to give credibility to a book. i give credibility to all religious books, because i understand that they are not scientific texts. i can read harry potter, which very much has religious themes from paganism and christianity, and not have it conflict with my reading a superman comic. and harry potter and the superman comic don't conflict, although they are both stories about the same landscape of christian and pagan idols.
harry potter and frozen, however, do conflict because the plot of frozen would only fit over harry potter if ginny killed the basilisk and didn't need harry to save her from voldemort and the snake. you can see that the metaphors and categories don't lay on top of each other, they are inverted, and that is becasue frozen is feminist propaganda.
your big mistake is assuming that religious truths are scientific truths. they aren't. they are more broad, have identity only as categories, and describe a much more flexible and powerful range of phenomena that actually pertains to human experience.
let's say the scientist doesn't know how the shaman calls the rain. firstly, he should go figure that out, because he might learn something. secondly, he should try to figure out WHY the shaman calls the rain. but he can't do that without going into the religious and symbolic language of theatre. by the way, that's the space advertiser, therapists, and politicians play in, whether they know it or not. the best ones know it...
People can imagine alternate dimensions, aliens, elves, vampires, and every other thing- but somehow anything from Judaism or Christianity is ridiculous and demands a scientific explanation.
I think you made the mistake of omitting your fables in the list of alternate dimensions and the menagerie of made-up things, as they are the foundations of religions and are not limited to your favorite mythology.
@@VaughanMcCue Not sure- but the phrase "anything from Judaism or Christianity" kinda covered it. So, not excluded- but comprehensively included. That was kinda the point.
@@JohnTindale
I read it as though you were corraling Abrahamic myths as exceptional cases. I don't think anybody demands scientific explanations for any myths until the purveyor tries to sell nonsense as legitimate. Thanks for your interest and contribution
This is _exactly_ what is needed to combat the soul-devastating, post-modern, nihilistic worldview that so many nowadays seem to struggle with.
17:36 "The images are not arbitrary". Exactly! Post-modernism might claim that there exist infinite interpretations of any given statement or symbol but in reality certain time honored metaphors just make intuitive sense to us.
A contemporary person might ask "Where is heaven? Is it behind Jupiter? Behind Saturn?" and everybody thinks him a wise, critical thinker. Were someone to ask that same question in the Middle Ages, every scholar would recognize that person for a fool who completely misunderstood the question. It's like asking "Where is 'hierarchy'?" or even more stupidly "Where is 'beauty'?".
These videos are so insightful, Jonathan. Please keep making them, I will for sure keep watching them!
Sam Harris is trying to understand the scriptures with the same science tools as he is trying to understand the universe. The Bible has it own symbolism, that has to be understood, and you cannot understand the bible without knowing about them. A lot of it is missing today even in the protestant church. Sam Harris is trying to understand the nature of chess with the rules from soccer, without being aware that chess is a game with its own rules.
It's way worse, he is arguing from pure logic, while the foundations of his material worldview are ultimately all analogic.
Your comments on "above" as regards Dante and the mindset of ancients got me reflecting on the tower of Babel. Perhaps (just floating the idea) is that part of the issue with the tower was the way it facilitated the higher viewpoint, i.e. those that hadn't "put the work in" could enjoy the same as others with the necessary grounding.
One thing i've noticed about being on top of a mountain is that what is below, say a town that is now entirely visible, becomes completely unthreatening. A city which feels so heavy and dangerous becomes still and within full view. The feeling of reaching the summit of a mountain that overlooks a vast expanse has its own kind of euphoria. The thing that has me thinking after hearing jonathan's talk in this episode has to do which what DOES feel threatening from the summit: a storm that cannot be withstood, or falling back down to the bottom. The theological interpretation of this will have me thinking to myself for a long time.
thank you
When someone asks why we haven't seen Heaven through telescopes, all I can do is give them the benefit of the doubt that they are being *willfully* stupid.
Without having watched this video, I tried to have this conversation with an atheist on an agnostic mutual’s live stream. When I tried to give this or very similar conversation he kept saying I was obfuscating, conceding the point, & not answering the question. We went around in a circle for 20 minutes to the point a self appointed moderator on the other side had to tell him to stop, and that I had answered him five times but he kept denying any answer that wasn’t a simple yes or no. And demanded I gave my own opinion not what others have said about the topic before hand. It was very disappointing to see someone who is supposedly intelligent and learned be unable to process symbolic analogy/allegory as a honest answer.
Basically, “Heaven,” from a philosophical perspective, contains the metaphysical principles which underlie reality. Things like the laws of logic, causality, the forms, mathematical objects, etc. And God would be the ultimate unifying principle in which these categories cohere and have their source.
This shouldn’t be difficult to grasp for people like Sam, who have at least some training in philosophy. Obviously one can deny that immaterial entities exist, but to do so compellingly requires a lot more work than Sam is willing to offer.
Jonathan, I doubt you will see this comment, but just in case, I’d like to ask how you see the relationship between angels and the forms? Sometimes when you’re taking about those things which give beings identity-say, the people of a nation, it seems like you see them as angels when I would tend to think of them as forms. Any literature you could recommend on the topic? Thank you.
I will live for whole eternity in some real place, beacause I am creature and have body (it means - every creature has borders, only God is limitless-without borde, but Jesus Christ is also human and has body, so our Lord is also somewhere).
Nobody can live on or within principles or ideas, what have you wrote is not real life, it is your fantasy, which you think is so smart and philosophical.
Harris is a child when it comes to philosophy....he don't get it at all
@@emilbrusic6032 not sure what has spurred such an emotional action. I haven’t reduced anything to merely metaphysical principles, I’ve simply explicated the concept of Heaven as Jonathan used the term from a philosophical perceptive. By no means does this exhaust the concept of Heaven - as an Orthodox Christian, I fully affirm the existence of the Eschaton, the New Heavens and the New Earth, angels who are conscious, Saints that hear our prayers, etc.
To go as far as saying that metaphysical principles are fantastical is totally out of line with Orthodox teaching. For example, realism with regard to universals underpins the teaching on the Incarnation and Christ’s healing work of our human nature. Throw out the reality of universals, and the dogma as formulated by the Ecumenical Councils goes out the window. There are many such examples, but this is one that is quite clear.
@@Kingfish179 I am orthodox as well.
This subject is not about metaphysical principles, but is the Heaven real place with real borders, or just idea or one state of human soul.
Obviously there is no place for the Heaven in modern scientific worldview, and solution for that is to reject that religious view which is behind mask of science, not to move Heaven in fantasy land. Christians should have courage to reject every falsehood, even whole world is believing in that falsehood.
I think you're right --- perhaps Jonathan meant "the people" as the population abstractly, like "the Roman people". Individual humans are not angels, we are the thing that mediates between heaven and earth. If you haven't already definitely check out Language of Creation by Jonathan's brother.
and idk about Sam Harris, JBP has been trying to get Sam to recognize the problem of linking fact and value in his "scientific morality" thing for _years_ now, and so far as I can tell from their latest convo, Sam has made zero progress in understanding
9:00 it's interesting how a lot of our ideas were born from failing to understand the translations of texts by people far remove by time, space and language from the readers.
He seems to not have the ability to interpret metaphors or larger concepts of reality very well. He seems to be left brained to the point where he can't interpret this kind of stuff, a mix of that and maybe just lack of trying to understand. He's an example of how you can have knowledge but not be wise.
Interesting. The way Jonathan presents heaven in this episode raises the question of how to perceive Christ's >physical< resurrection and ascension into heaven.
I agree, I can't help be feel that Jonathan gets very close to "over-symbolizing" certain concepts.
It really is embarrassing because they treat us as if we were utterly stupid. But…
Awesome video. Every time you re-attempt to help people understand Heaven and Earth you come up with new illuminating examples!
This is a wonderful breakdown even for believers. For those that recall the Four Horsemen of New Atheism era, it was this intentional denseness those gentlemen showed that made me step back and rethink and accept God.
After Dante’s death, the people in Florence petitioned the city council to have a reading of the Commedia every week for those who could not read it themselves. The honour fell to Boccaccio. Indeed a comparison to our culture today.
Hey Jonathan. I appreciate your pattern recognition. I was wondering about your take on Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy. How in Bible there are references to reincarnation. "For all the prophets and the law have prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who was to come." (Matthew 11:13-14). Was reincarnation removed in the 6th century from the doctrine?
Doesn't it seem like we come into this world with a characterological disposition? What made Mozart Mozart and not Mozart's father? How could our soul just learn the lessons required in one cultural epoch? It seems that there is a soul distillation process going on from the beginning. I have been studying anthroposophy for a little while and find it resonates at the highest level for me. Christ is the central figure in anthroposophy. It is similar to the Rosicrucian path of initiation. Also in the gospels there are two versions of Jesus' birth. One in a house and the other in a manger. So much to say on all of this. God bless you brother. You are truly doing the divine work.
One explanation is traducianism in which some Church fathers believed (of course reincarnation is heresy).
With that ancestral sin, or original sin is easier to understand.
Thank You For Sharing 🗣⚡🌎
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Sam Harris more than Peterson or Pageau is sensitive (in the negative sense) to the room he's talking to. I've seen many times when he gets annoyed if the audience claps for his “opponent” or if he doesn't get the reaction he wants. That tells me his ego is lodged firmly and integrated into his beliefs. I know a lot of atheists like this unfortunately. They want to win arguments, and want the power to crush people with words and intellect. Unfortunately when you're as smart as Harris, it comes full circle and you actually start to look pretty dumb if you continue to show up to debates but 100% write-off literally every non-scientific notion ever to pop into a human brain.
Maybe he thought that room was more stupid than his average room and was trying to get the crowd on his side or something.
It can't all be just waved away with a fluttering of a hand. There's at least something undeniably real there. And he knows that now. That means he's going down the wrong path now by ignoring it. It means he's fallen into the trap and needs to actively crawl out of it and soon before his spirit is in real trouble.
What we think of as science is only about 200 years old. Ancient people didn't see the world through science. And they didn't see it through nothing.
Peterson literally got visibly angry chastised the audience in one of their debates lmfao.
@Jimmy Googer the key word there being “one”.
@@naryanr Harris never got visibly angry at the audience in any of their debates. There was one time where he said something about how he’s not even sure what they’re clapping at in Peterson’s statement. Far more mild than what JP did. Anyway the point is the “angry atheist who resents god and can’t handle people disagreeing with him” caricature is totally empty.
@Jimmy Googer It's not just anger; you have to look at snark and sarcasm, talk of winning and losing.
With Harris it's present in almost every debate.
His primary concern is with “losing”, and that is almost certainly because of how he thinks that'd make him look. And I think that's what's led him to say some pretty ridiculous things in the past.
I honestly feel like Sam Harris and his contemporaries just have a profound lack of imagination.
Fascinating video! I always had this image in my head of Heaven being one, a hierarchy but still part of a greater whole, From Dante's Paradiso, and that as Beatrice saids it is merely to visualize for his senses, this grand order and scale and hierarchy, in a way that his mind may understand and comprehend. But when you phrased it like that it totally made me understand how Earth plays into it! I thank you for that! And that our senses are simply a worldly visualization of all things unseen! I commend you for helping me reach such insights! I pray that it was just as helpful for others watching as well! It is quite comforting to know that people in the past actually were quite advanced on an intellectual level, and had understandings far more complex of heavenly things than we do now, but that our focus on Worldly things has led us astray..
Very helpful, Mr. Pageau. Thank you for your work.
It might also be because Dante is writing in Italian, not Latin, that he includes these warnings and explanations of certain interpretations.
Would you mind saying more about that?
@@thesecondlawandthetowerhou6026 Sure. The Divine Comedy’s also a pivotal work because it tries connecting the Roman tradition with the Christian tradition. Dante does this by incorporating certain stories into the Comedia, such as the Siren, Minos, Charon, etc.. With this the gates are open- plenty of people will seek to draw these stories into the Christian mythos, look into Dante’s sources, etc.. It makes sense that, in incorporating this new tradition, Dante gets a little explicit, especially considering he’s writing to the common folk.
In all fairness to most atheist, they probably only know the "children version" of Christianity. Like you said, it's the best way to start to understand. But for a "big brain" person, you have to dig in a bit deeper before entering judgment mode.
Looking up to a higher authority figure is the essence of being human, it is the experience that every child has of his parents. Physically and mentally, and in complete dependence he has to look up to a wise provider until he reaches that hight himself.
A peculiar thing that, the higher up you go the less of an effect time has to the point that it has no effect at all I.E. the eternal.
The idea of a strategy given to a team by it's captain as opposed to the idea of team itself. Or perhaps, the "ideal me" as opposed to the "ideal human".
Carlo Rovelli states that we are time-making beings. Time as we moderns see it doesn’t exist, in fact. Clocks have mechanized us.
Why can't I see alternate dimensions through my telescope Sam
Alternate dimensions are fantasy in your mind, but you "see" them as they are real.
Why would Sam believe in your fantasy?
The earth is meant to be a foundation for your idea(specific situations) or spirit(existentially) to be exalted if tended to(practicing Christian ideology) being a Christian doesn’t mean believing a man died on a cross for your sins and that’s the only way you can get to heaven.. Christianity is following the Christian doctrine daily to purify your spirit through action and devotion to YOURSELF and the highest ideal (GOD) .. everything else is witchcraft and totalitarianism once you try to force people to believe what you believe
To expand on your team/captain analogy: Sometimes the players will kneel down or bow down in order that the captain coach may be the visible focus of the individual members of the team.
Thumbnail is genius. I can't stop myself from grinning
Interesting symbolic interpretation of Heaven Jonathan. Heaven is a real place, an actual living place. It is a suprasensible location, let's not forget this. As well as the fact that Jesus did literally ascend up into the sky in a great white cloud
And He will come the same way, and then every human shall see His Sign - Cross in the Heaven (first Heaven).
It is imposiible on globe.
his ascent took place on every level, as did his descent.
@@empcat1254 On what other level beside Heaven which is place, not level, did our Lord ascend in Jerusalem 40 days after resurection, before Theotokos, apostoles and other followers? Did two angels told them, after they lost Him in sight - He ascend also on other levels?
Heaven is immaterial, it cant be a place. Some people try to think of heaven or the spiritual realm as some sort of alternate dimension like in a marvel movie, Jonathan has specifically spoken against that view.
@@adrummingdog2782 Somer people never thought about fact that every creature can not exists without limits-borders. Angels are for example immaterial spiritual beings, but they have body, they as creatures can not be limitless, only God is limitless. Heaven & Earth are creatures, they also could not exists without borders. And yes, that also means they are different places and there is also for example the Firmament which is mentioned many times in the Bible.
Sam Harris represents the sophist of our time.
Dear Jonathan, this was a blessing.
Can you also explain the reverse in the same way for me/us? What is hell? And what is it not?
Peace be with you.
@7:19, rather than ladder (in the hymn), original texts use the term known at the time of writing; steps (stairs we would call them). :)
Sam Harris ''back off bro, I'm a scientist''
everyone else : LOL
My 6 year old son has been asking me this a lot lately, so thanks for posting this video 😂
He's 6 and he still watches him? It seems Harris' viewership has been maturing...
Hahaha, one wholesome comment and one provocatively funny one
I LOVE the analogy of the wind. I’ll definitely use that!
Vidéo super intéressante, Jonathan! C'est fascinant de finalement entendre une version plus sophistiquée des concepts religieux traditionnels. En tant que personne qui a grandit sans grande exposition à la religion, ça m'intéresse d'en entendre parler de manière si articulée. J'ai, cependant, le même problème qu'avant d'être exposé à cette information. Le problème est le suivant: Une énorme proportion des croyants croient en un interprétation littérale du paradis, de l'enfer et de Dieu. C'est certainement moins le cas aujourd'hui, mais des gens de la génération qui précèdent tout juste la mienne ont des souvenirs d'enfance de vivre une terreur très littérale de l'enfer et du jugement divin. Ça me semble être trop commun pour être une aberration. Je suis légitimement curieux d'entendre la réaction des gens plus religieux que moi à cette question. Est-ce, en effet, un aberration, le résultat que rien n'est parfait? La croyance littérale n'est pas si répandue qu'on le croit? L'inévitabilité que des concepts déployés à grande échelle perdent en nuance et les gens peut sophistiqués vont inévitablement avoir besoin d'une version simplifiée plus littérale? Merci!
i demanded a refund to his app and got it
And so you get captured by neurotic self-referential thoughts so unrelentingly and so often so as to make a comment such as this. That's your life, that is your mind untrained.
Proof of God
Sadly Sam Harris would consider himself too intelligent to give this the time of day.
True, that's his problem in a nutshell.
Hubristic "intellectual" vs humble (like someone more like Peterson).
You can smell his disdain for "stupid" people a mile away.
So, let’s say I’m trying to go somewhere that I haven’t been before and I need directions. Maybe it would be a good idea for me to consult something up in heaven like a GPS satellite that could put the multiplicity of the world into perspective and I can have a vision of how to reach my destination/purpose.
Well done as usual brother. Thank you & Godspeed
I think it was Richard Feynman who said that our brains did not evolve (or were created) to understand quantum mechanics. That's why, he thought, QM is so hard to understand intuitively and why we had to use words that we understand and know to describe QM phenomena. So, perhaps is the same with the concept of a Heaven.
I'm willing to bet Sam Harris hates Plato as much as he hates heaven.
Does what you relate about Dante’s Ascent mean that climbing Mount Everest is really a Sacred Journey?
My favorite interpretation of Heaven comes from the book Conversations with God. It says that if you define Heaven as "communion with God" and God as Omnipresent (everywhere and nowhere, all the time), if God is everywhere then God is not any "where" in particular, so Heaven is no where.
To understand in fullness what that means, you seperate "nowhere" between the w and h and you get now-here. Heaven is Now, Here.
We need to remember that any idea we have of what God is, is our creation, and our creation cannot be our Creator.
I understand your response. I had a similar one to Stephen Fry's questioning how 'God could allow such monstrous cruelty'. These are both men with what I consider to be great philosophical brain capacity but these statements both appear to me to be so incredibly naive. I changed how I think of intelligence. I consider myself a simple soul and yet can cope with quite complex thoughts and ideas. There was a lesson for me in this.
Yes, I’ve reached a similar conclusion
@@Somniator7 Interesting.
Is there anyone who takes Sam Harris seriously anymore?
What is the difference between heaven/earth and the platonic forms? Are they the same thing?
Come on guy’s
What about Jezus ascension? What happend to his body?
24:05???
This comment section is very interesting...
Jesus Christ rose from the dead, literally, and in a physical body. If you do not believe this I will sincerely pray for you. The salvation of your soul depends on it.
And physically ascend up to the Heaven.
It is in our Creed, and if we don't believe in that, if we "explain" that simbolically as those events didn't really occur, we are not orthodox.
You don’t see the fear-mongering in your comment?
@@LordJagd Let me clarify in that I'm addressing those who are calling themselves Christians. We don't worship allegory and metaphor. While, of course, no man has seen the Father, Jesus is God and all the miracles He performed are literally true. It's important that we all remember that.
@@novaxdjokovic9592 But Moses did see the Father.
@@emilbrusic6032 Something being symbolic, does not make it any less real.
Sam Harris is very intelligent and versed in biology. Unfortunately, his attempt to disprove God and heaven shows how profoundly he cannot understand it. His arguments are great leaps from physical understanding of the world to conclusions he wholly believes and therefore, duh, must be true. Not quite, Mr. Harris.
He is neither very inteligent nor well versed in biology. His mom (hollywood producer) bought him PHD in neuroscience. He is absolute midwid.
He is right, if modern science is true, then there is no Heaven.
Imagine that as J.Lennon.
Only solution is to reject religion of science.
that's a good assessment
Sam Harris is quite a brilliant man. He is just saying exactly what a Jonathan is saying. There are many people deadened by being trapped in a crazy ‘Christian’ view that Jonathan’s great aunt would never imagine. She is too busy taking care of herself and others.
Besides Sam needs to make a living. And one of his jobs is being an atheist. He is kind of stuck there.
Mr. Jonathan Pageau, you just gave me a beautiful and intoxicating experience of satori.
I have nothing to say.
God bless you!
does anybody know the name of the intro song ?
And I dont understand why Sam Harris bothers to try and point out all this. Everybody knows what he means. He is not the only one who made it to through high school, and his explanations are the easiest and most convenient to believe in. No thinking for your self, science has it all - and more is coming. Also, you have NO moral obligations at all, other than your own moral. There is no one that you have to answer to anyway, except the law if you are stupid enough to be caught. I wonder if Sam Harris has reflected over the fact that his world is extremly bleech and boring. Just painfully mundane and grey. Pointless and meaningless. It's just boring beyond beliefe with another set of theories about mathematical theorems and numbers bigger than the human brain can deal with anyway. Listen to some of the teachings of the Orthodox elders, or go to Mount Athos and be part of the liturgies and spend a few nights in a monestry there. That is way more interesting and mysterious than another book with breathtaking big numbers of lightyears and other stuff that no one can or will be able to experince with their own eyes in the next 1000 years anyway. Black holes and wormholes or expanding universes and radiations from space is just boring. Plain and utterly boring. True stories about Saints doing insane cool things is way better. And Christianity has the potential to make us and the world a better place. Thanks for listening.
Sam Harris's experience with Christianity consists entirely of talking to 8 year olds.
Like when Ben Shapiro is ”DESTROYING” random university liberals.
So my question for Jonathan (at the moment, I'd sure like to ask lots of them as I listen to various podcasts) is ... and I'm not being flip here, I truly want to know -- how do we know ... by what methods did we derive ... how the ancients thought about these things? Reason being, when I go to talk about this stuff to others, I don't have an answer to that question. And I need support for that.
UPDATE: Listening a bit further, he's providing examples. But I think a whole video on this topic would be helpful.
Asking someone where heaven is, to me, is like asking where truth is. Where are my dreams? Where is the number five?
The Flat Earth movement will shake da game to its very core... just wait. Up and down are real.
Strongly believe in that. Nobody can harmonize Bible with Globe, and those who try that escape in the fantasy land with "genius" idea - Heaven is not place, it is just idea or state of the someone mind.
You took something very foolish and turned it into something good!
It's interesting to review some Pageau videos and to hear that parts that I thought were useless and had no value to me whatsoever, have become more valuable to me than the parts I used to think the most valuable.
When he talks about the fractal nature of reality I always think of the Mandelbrot set and how we can recognize only a small piece of the glory of creation.
“After I tweeted I thought about it a little bit “
Twitter in a nutshell.
Ironically Sam is just as spiritual with his Buddhist / meditation content (which is changing my life btw). But he definitely should respect Christianity more that’s for sure. It is a legitimate spiritual path.
He isn't though. He only believes in the enlightened states as q practical/physical matter attainable through meditation. I don't think he buys into anything Meta that goes with it.
@@dragons_red spirituality isn’t just belief. You practice you live life.
It is indeed ironic considering Buddhism is a religion focused on seeing your true self, which doesn’t consist of material and cannot be detected by the senses (which are all not the self). Reaching the goal is not attainable by intellect but only intuited.
You talking with Sam is the most needed conversation
It would be a waste of time for everyone involved
The priest in my parish (I'm Catholic) describes heaven as more like a state of being rather than a place. He describes it as the soul being unified with God, which I think is similar to what Jonathan is saying in this video.
I mean Sam has a point. The Christian claim is the tomb is empty. That Jesus rose from the dead, physically. His body went somewhere. It may not be in outerspace etc. But He is physically somehwere
I think this is just to insist on the supremacy of the materialist story. The dogma that the story must be tellable from the materialist perspective. The reality is that nobody was ever trying to tell that story in the Bible.
Also, the impossibility of the event is part of the story.
Correct.
Where, excactly, are your thoughts located?
I also wanted to ask Jonathan about this --- from what I understand, the fact that this literally happened historically is important. Not a metaphor or psychological allegory: literal, physical, historical fact. Like in the way a materialist would understand it. Maybe one for a Q and A.
Why does he have to be physically somewhere? He has access to the forms, he has access to realms outside of time and space. Maybe he's at the end of history. Honestly these things aren't hard for me to believe at all, but in the end we don't know, it's a mystery. Only Satan and people embodying the form of Satan want an autonomous epistemology.
Much food for thought! Thank you!When Christ says to the thief on the cross, Today you will be with me in Paradise, where does this fit into the structure of heaven you describe?
Also, it seems the heaven you describe is universal to existence (could we say structuring the universe), so how would people be outside of that, ie end up in hell?
6:23 This is the concept of platonic forms.
This does help me understand Christ's ascension (and that of the saints), but is there anything that can be said about Resurrection using this language? Or must we remain as an uneducated aunt regarding it?
^^^^this please^^^^^
Wonderful exposition on this subject!!!
Great video, Jonathan. I have a question though. What you’re saying seems to undermine the literal ascension of Christ (Acts 1:9). Much Protestant theology says that Christ ascended in his bodily human form, and dwells at the right hand of the Father, in human form, in perfect glory. Do you dispute this?
Jesus’ body can’t have ascended to dwell in a non-place and a non-space. There must be some ineffable time-space component to the immaterial “place” we call Heaven. Something that is of course much different than the sky-daddy cliche.
Excellent detailed description! What about something as simple as Heaven is a state of consciousness, and like all consciousness, it is within us. “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21). This seems like the shorter path :)
Ok, by the end here I can see that Jonathan and I agree on the utility of simpler models of understanding these things. I do not look down upon people who only have this understanding, as he says, not everyone has the time or opportunity to think about these things deeply enough to grasp them at a higher level. I actually appreciate the perpetuating force it has, the inertia it carries - to lay the groundwork, especially in our young - to have these concepts laid at least in a simple but coherent way, for further exploration should the opportunity and means arise later in life for any individual. And ... it also provides a rich narrative space to derive ritual (and shared ritual -- which is of tantamount importance to any society) and symbols of wisdom to latch onto when they are troubled. Shared symbols are also important as it facilitates communication of some of these more elusive abstract ideas.