Reddit reviews The Construction of Social Reality

A few that were hugely influential in the development of my thinking:

• Dennett's "Real Patterns"
  
  
• Searle's The Construction of Social Reality
  
  
• Ladyman & Ross' Every Thing Must Go
  
  
• David Albert's Time and Chance
  
  
• Sunny Auyang's Foundations of Complex Systems Theories
  
  
• Bar-Yam's "A Mathematical Theory of Strong Emergence Using Multiscale Variety"

For Kierkegaard, the ideality of being an individual is not a Platonic Idea, but something we strive to become. This does not logically presuppose or imply subjectivism or constructivism vis-à-vis the reality of that becoming.

Besides that, human “constructs” are already themselves a part of reality (a part of “social reality,” as Searle would put it). So if there is “not reason to think the world of the ‘ideal’ contains such a thing,” that may have more to do with your particular conceptions of reality, of ‘the ideal’, and of their relationship—and not with any defect in Kierkegaard’s conceptions.

Continued from the comment above...

> How come God is in an eternal war with Satan? How can an angel of God be mightier than the almighty? Can't God just zap him out of existence?

Yes, God can just zap Satan out of existence. The traditional answer to your question from both a Jewish and a Christian angle is that God has chosen to use Satan to accomplish God's purposes. Exactly how that all goes down is the subject of literally libraries worth of interpretation, discussion, and theological reflection. Let's bracket it for the time being for the sake of brevity since there's not as great a conflict here between the Christian and Jewish understandings on this point as is the case for the other points you mentioned.

> How do Christians view Jews?

There is no consensus. Many highly admire Jews; others hate Jews; still others are ambivalent. I would guess that most Christians respect the Jews but also completely misunderstand them. Most Christians don't know what most Jews believe or how most Jews act, and most Christians suffer from an anemic doctrine of Israel insofar as systematic theology is concerned. This is something that has only lately begun to recover from centuries of neglect; check out R. Kendal Soulen's The God of Israel and Christian Theology for a jump start.

> Are we lost?

Not all of us! Scripture teaches us that God has always preserved a "remnant," a righteous group of Jewish people who seek God's face according to God's ways. See Genesis 45:7, 2 Kings 19:30, Ezra 9:8, Isaiah 37:32, and Micah 5:8 for some Old Testament examples. Romans 9-11 shows how all of this works right up to a New Testament context, which should be a mission-critical text for you to consider.

> Are we wrong?

Both the average Jew and the average Christian are wrong because their respective theological loci have developed in opposition to each other rather than in harmony with the Bible.

> How do you understand our differences?

See above. Or please elaborate if you want more specific detail!

> This is a bigger question, but I'm curious to see the response. How does the Jewish bible work? How do you know it to be true? It would have to be true for your religion to be true, correct? How does the old testament flow into the new testament?

The Old Testament is most of the Bible, and it is the only Bible that both Jesus and the early church possessed when they spoke of the scriptures, the Law, the prophets, etc. Taking each part of this question in turn based on this first point:

• How does the Jewish Bible work? This is an ill formed question; please specify!
  
  
• How do you know it to be true? I understand the term "truth" primarily through a treatment John Searle developed in his text, The Construction of Social Reality, which basically emphasis the connotation of "trustworthiness." The Jewish Bibile is a rich text, composed and redacted by multiple different people over hundreds of years comprising several different genres of literature. The more historical portions are pretty substantially trustworthy. The more poetic portions, those describing the nature of humanity and our world, are also pretty trustworthy, but in a different way due to the difference in genre. There are multiple prophecies in the Jewish Bible that can be shown to have been delivered far before they came to pass--and not just those that refer to the Messiah. In other words, they were not written after the fact to merely appear prescriptive; they actually, legitimately were prescriptive. When something that diverse appears trustworthy from that many different angles upon inspection, then I conclude that my belief in its overall trustworthiness is well justified; hence, I am comfortable asserting that I know it is true.
  
  
• It would have to be true for your religion to be true, correct? Yes.
  
  
• How does the old testament flow into the new testament? It is impossible to properly understand any of the New Testament without the Old Testament and vice versa. For this reason, my personal reading plan includes a chapter from the Old Testament, a chapter specifically from the Psalms, a chapter from the New Testament gospels, and a chapter from the New Testament epistles so I can remain balanced. There are several passages in the Jewish Bible indicating that God would one day deliver a new covenant to repair the breach of relationship that resulted from the sins of our Jewish people, such as Jeremiah 31:31-34. This is precisely what Jesus came to accomplish through his own sacrifice, which he himself indicated right in the middle of sharing a Seder meal with his disciples during Passover according to Matthew 26:26-30. Multiple other New Testament texts go into the details of how this works, but you can find one quick summary in the first half of the book of Hebrews, especially Hebrews 8. Remember that the terms "covenant" and "testament" are interchangeable. In essence, the Old Testament is the collective witness of God's people about God's faithfulness hinging around God's first covenant delivered through Moses; the New Testament is the collective witness of God's people about God's faithfulness hinging around God's second covenant delivered through Jesus the Messiah.
  
  Woot. We're down to your last paragraph:
  
  > I look forward to the answers. All I ask is that you cite verses you use to answer the questions so I can follow along. I have a copy of the NIV bible along with a Hebrew/English translation of the 5 books of Moses. Also, don't be afraid to not be politically correct. I won't be offended if you call me a Jesus killer or tell me I'm going to hell for not accepting your beliefs today. Be blunt, be honest, be direct. I plan on responding back as soon as possible. And feel free to ask me questions back.
  
  I'll save my questions until I've first heard your feedback on my responses; in the mean time, I'll take care of getting offended at anybody who might call you a Jesus killer (since it is for all of our sins that he laid down his life) or that you're going to hell for not accepting somebody else's beliefs (since this is really sloppy theological language). In the mean time, shalom...

"Nonphysical" is just a term and it needs a context. Again, I think your question isn't clear enough to answer. Let me just recommend a book that I think will address much of what I think you're interested in.

The Construction of Social Reality by philosopher John Searle.

John Searle just wrote a book "The Construction of Social Reality" that looks at money in depth, and how we can give something value just by saying it has value. http://www.amazon.com/Construction-Social-Reality-John-Searle/dp/0684831791

You can also listen to the class he teaches on it at Berkley for free.

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2009-D-67309

You might get a lot out of John Searle's The Construction of Social Reality which deals more with ontology than ethics, but in that sense I think it's more interesting.

As far as I remember, most of his ideas are generally compatible with theistic and atheistic ideas of "reality."